Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Geron Raveneye" data-source="post: 1916126" data-attributes="member: 2268">Then it becomes purely descriptive. Right now, it'sa) a bi-partite descriptor for the general behaviour of the character in question, in a long-term context, taking his motivations as well as his actions into accountb) a game mechanic that takes care of the interactions of Good, Evil, Law, Chaos and Neutrality as tangible manifstations with the rest of the game world.It is not proscriptive in it's implementation, as it doesn't command what a character has to do and has to avoid to do if he has a certain alignment, but descriptive, as it is derived from what the character did and did not. It's a cause/consequence thing. It's not "You're evil, so you have to kill mercilessly and for fun", it's "You kill mercilessly and for fun, so you're evil". Which is kinda important in this context.As a game mechanic, it does not limit a character's actions in a direct, forbidding way, but in an indirect way, by enforcing consequences. A nice example was already given through a comparison with an AD&D 2E rule, namely wizards and swords. A proscriptive rule is "Wizards are not allowed to use swords in combat." A consequential rule is the new "Wizards are not proficient with swords per se, so if they use them in combat, they suffer a -4 on their attack rolls. If they want to be proficient with swords, they have to take the Martial Weapon feat."Of course, it can always be viewed as a "limit" to a character's actions...if the character is played from the rules point of view, meaning if someone doesn't play the character himself, but the numbers and stats on the sheet, because then you can start arguing that "a character is forbidden to act in an evil way because he is a paladin and will lose his class features if he does." If you act from the character's point of view, you'll get something like "to act in an evil or chaotic manner is completely anathema to Cedric the Paladin, because he believes in the righteousness of good and order, and as such would never stoop to tactics that smack of evil, or anarchy. Should he ever willingly partake in an evil act, the base for his powers is corroded, and he'll lose them to self-loathing and despair." The one is a proscriptive way to handle alignment rules, the other a descriptive and consequential way.</blockquote>

Verification