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How welcome would a wordy and somewhat philosophical treatment of alignment be here? [Thread resolved, thank you.]
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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 7866041" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>"You don't have to be mad to work here, but it helps!"</p><p></p><p>I mean, yes, you can have stupid philosophical arguments without alignments. Vampire and Mage certainly caused a few, though Mage was literally about stupid philosophical arguments so we should probably cut it a break on that front.</p><p></p><p>But early D&D (up to and including 3.XE, I would personally assert, though it was much worse in 2E), had some unfortunate design elements that made such arguments far more likely to occur than they were in equivalent pulpy fantasy games. I mean, this kind of thing didn't happen in Earthdawn - sure you got arguments, but they were in-character arguments about right and wrong, not player vs DM "this is what LG" means arguments.</p><p></p><p>So not to go on too long but I think AD&D accidentally facilitated this kind of thing. Particularly with LG which was commonly tied to magical powers (not just Paladins, but LG Specialty Priests too). And by having formalized alignments, at least for teenagers and young people it made calling out bad behaviour a little harder, because the "IM ROLEPLAYING!!!" defense rang at least a little true. I think we all stopped buying that by about 22 but...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Our opinion was that orcs were people - just usually bad people. The fact that their children were weeping and cowering rather than trying to gnaw our ankles off seemed to support this, in broad terms. We even challenged the DM to say they were demons or something, which he wouldn't.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>100%. He was a great Paladin. Honestly I don't think I've ever otherwise felt good about a campaign ending prematurely, but we all felt pretty okay about that. Said DM was a perfectly fine and harmless player, I note.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ah, interesting! That's slightly different to what I've usually seen go wrong with CN, which was more along the lines of "I'm CN so I should act completely randomly and point-blank refuse to go along with any plan, even if I agree with it and just randomly help the enemy or attack friendly NPCs or wander off", which I think it's fair to blame in part on the wording/description of CN in 2E in some sourcebooks. Also note "acting completely randomly" often does coincide with "acting in my own best interests in the extreme, extreme short term", so it's not entirely different! Whereas I've seen CE characters who were entirely reasonable and could play well with others, just heartless, utterly selfish monsters. I do think the fact that no-one played a non-monster CE PC until we were in our twenties factors in there, though.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 7866041, member: 18"] "You don't have to be mad to work here, but it helps!" I mean, yes, you can have stupid philosophical arguments without alignments. Vampire and Mage certainly caused a few, though Mage was literally about stupid philosophical arguments so we should probably cut it a break on that front. But early D&D (up to and including 3.XE, I would personally assert, though it was much worse in 2E), had some unfortunate design elements that made such arguments far more likely to occur than they were in equivalent pulpy fantasy games. I mean, this kind of thing didn't happen in Earthdawn - sure you got arguments, but they were in-character arguments about right and wrong, not player vs DM "this is what LG" means arguments. So not to go on too long but I think AD&D accidentally facilitated this kind of thing. Particularly with LG which was commonly tied to magical powers (not just Paladins, but LG Specialty Priests too). And by having formalized alignments, at least for teenagers and young people it made calling out bad behaviour a little harder, because the "IM ROLEPLAYING!!!" defense rang at least a little true. I think we all stopped buying that by about 22 but... Our opinion was that orcs were people - just usually bad people. The fact that their children were weeping and cowering rather than trying to gnaw our ankles off seemed to support this, in broad terms. We even challenged the DM to say they were demons or something, which he wouldn't. 100%. He was a great Paladin. Honestly I don't think I've ever otherwise felt good about a campaign ending prematurely, but we all felt pretty okay about that. Said DM was a perfectly fine and harmless player, I note. Ah, interesting! That's slightly different to what I've usually seen go wrong with CN, which was more along the lines of "I'm CN so I should act completely randomly and point-blank refuse to go along with any plan, even if I agree with it and just randomly help the enemy or attack friendly NPCs or wander off", which I think it's fair to blame in part on the wording/description of CN in 2E in some sourcebooks. Also note "acting completely randomly" often does coincide with "acting in my own best interests in the extreme, extreme short term", so it's not entirely different! Whereas I've seen CE characters who were entirely reasonable and could play well with others, just heartless, utterly selfish monsters. I do think the fact that no-one played a non-monster CE PC until we were in our twenties factors in there, though. [/QUOTE]
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How welcome would a wordy and somewhat philosophical treatment of alignment be here? [Thread resolved, thank you.]
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