Moral Concequences

[Dysturbed]

Ok I'm working on a article/something i started a while back and am coming back to. Basically I have some players who don't like to stay in their particular umm lets say alignment. Example a ranger who makes the suggestion "lets burn down the forest to kill the goblins" or the evil cleric who says "lets give this beggar some money he seems like a nice enough fellow he could use the help".(bad example)

Anyhow I am developing a chart that would allow the DM to keep track of these infractions. I will enable them to be able to take penance say by making offerings or sacrifices to their respective gods to appease them and get back into their graces (got most of this done). The problem is I need to come up with the consequences for them not following thru with this.

The best ideas I have had is that if a lawful good cleric has been so bad he has turned nutural (on the chart) he must either choose a new god to be a cleric too or he becomes a equal level fighter. Or All his spells no longer are able to do any radiant damage. IF he went over to the evil side of the chart the damage actually changes to necrotic.

This is just a idea. Anyone have any other ideas?

 

[S'mon]

This is how D&D alignment used to work. My suggestions:

1. If a PC is clearly not Lawful Good, it's ok to tell the player their Alignment has changed. But most PCs should be able to change alignment without penalty, and usually there's no particular reason a PC should be aware of their true Alignment - they may well think they're LG when they're really E.

2. Deities will usually accept Clerics within 1 step of their own Alignment, a G deity will accept a U Cleric, but not an E Cleric. You could tell the Evil Cleric his Good deity is withholding powers, but I think a better approach would be that an Evil power steps up to the plate and, initially unknown to the Cleric, becomes his new power source. The Cleric might slowly realise this over time - maybe their symbol of Pelor becomes progressively more tarnished, however often it's cleaned - but there are big advantages to Evil in having secret Evil agents within Good Clerical orders, so probably not right away.

I don't see why Evil = Necrotic. 'Radiant' = 'Divine', not 'Good'. Many Evil Powers have no association with (Un)death; priests of eg Bane should certainly be inflicting Radiant not Necrotic IMO. Being restricted to Necrotic works for Necromancers and for priests of non-deity entities like Orcus - Orcus priests can't do Radiant because he's not Divine.

 

[Nightson]

Here's what I suggest.

1. Let the players play their characters without interference.
2. Have the world react in a realistic way


What's probably the real root of the problem:

You want to run a game with consistent characterization. Possibly deep and wonderful characterization. Your players want to stab orcs and take their stuff. Feel free to talk over what you'd like out of the game, but be prepared to accept them not going for it and either just running with that or walking away. Trying to force them the way you want them to through in-game methods will probably destroy the campaign and possibly even ruin friendships.

 

[Ryujin]

In 4e, the consequences of alignment shifts have largely been mitigated by where a character's power comes from. In the past, a Cleric or Paladin received his power from his god. In 4e the power is granted, after which the granting entity loses 'editorial control' over it. Even a Warlock, who is supposed to obtain his power from some dark and mysterious source, can thumb his nose at his patron once he has 'signed in blood.'

Therefore, the consequences of alignment shifts are essentially social, rather than (meta)physical. The evil Cleric, who starts giving money to the poor, will be seen as weak by others of his faith. As the saying goes, "... and we all rise one step in rank. A Ranger, who burns down an entire forest to get at a few measly goblins, will both see his reputation fall and find himself the target of various Wardens, and Seekers.

If you purport to be good, but your actions show otherwise, then you'll find that people simply don't trust you. That guy, who had the magic book you wanted? Well he suddenly seems to always be busy, when you want to meet. The local duke, who was responsible for most of your adventuring jobs, now seems to be hiring someone else. The church, where they could always be counted on to help you when injured, pleads poverty and refuses aid.

 

[TerraDave]

I think you should decide what is bothering you.

If its a sort of simulation thing, where certain classes power seemed linked to certain kinds of behavoir, you can get into that, but if thats all it is, the key is to just make sure the charecter has the right god, or virtue, or vice or whatever. 4E is pretty flexible in that.

If the problem is that the behaviour has some in game ramifacations, ie the church turns on the charecters, or the forest treants come and beat them down, then let those ramifications manifest.

BUT, if the problem is that some things the pcs are doing you find icky and unfun (and this happens), deal with it out of charecter. The pc may be doing things that are creepy for other players, or maybe its just you, but either way its may be worth talking to them. (the best case is of course when the players police each other, but this doesn't always happen). If you do, you have to very clear what the "line" is that you don't want crossed, and don't be shy about it. You have to tolerate a lot from your players, but there is no point in DMing something that creeps you out.

 

[IanB]

I don't think there really needs to be any game rules type consequence beyond telling the player to cross unaligned off of their character sheet and write evil instead. Consequences in-game should follow naturally like they would for anyone.

 

[Dysturbed]

I understand what you guys are saying about just making the reactions of the general populous of the game react to them differently.

But I also think a chart and some rules about what the characters are doing wrong would be a good way to kinda keep track so you as the DM take note of it. It would also be useful for you as the DM to have a few roll-able charts to reference so the reaction of the general public/ group and the effect on the character is not totally up to you as the DM.

taking your examples.

For a GOOD Divine power based character (cleric, invoker, paladin) character going to Neutral.
Roll 1d6
1-2 The party takes note of the change in the characters attitude. You tell the other characters about it.
3-4 The characters prayers are not being heard by his chosen god for 1d4 days so his alignment can not go toward good.
5 The character has a change of faith and decides his current god is not for him and goes toward neutral.
6 i dunno what to use here.

anyhow it's more of a thing for the DM to use as you can see. And it's a way to manipulate the characters behind the scenes. It also I guess wouldn't have to be limited to 4th ed. But that is what we play as a group. The process is also not instantaneous. Infractions depend on how crazy they only take a point away (maybe 2 for something really out there) on a 10 point scale.

 

[TheClone]

First of all, I'd not use rules for this. I'd handle this by the reaction of the npcs towards the characters. If a good guy does evil things, he won't be hired to help the village. If an evil guy does something good, his evil friends will drop him. If the characters is doing a good thing sometimes and an evil thing another, people won't trust him to be responsible: "Saving my kids? No, it's okay. I'll come along. There was this druid guy who said he can help me. Thanks anyway."

If you still want rules: The base is to consider the alignment of the character when he is attempting to do something. The evil clerics will have difficulties talking nicely to the mayor. alignment may impose a penalty. If he is threatening the mayor, being evil helps. The second step is to keep track of the "out of alignment" actions of each character (5 times behaved good, 3 times chaotic evil). Those cause bonuses and penalties, too. The evil cleric has given coins to beggars twice and helped a kid getting his toy back from the mean neighbor kids? -3 to threatening the mayor. But +3 to talking him into sending some troops to help the next village defend itself against an orc raiding party. It not much more than the variant without rules, but you will have hard facts to rely on.

But if you have a group that isn't caring that much about alignments anyway and is not taking matters much seriously all that won't help but just cause trouble.

 

[Dysturbed]

So your thinking that it would kind of raise the DC for certain aspects of skill challenges or just checks during encounters that involve diplomacy with (government officials, clergy of the church you belong, the group you are in, ect?)
I like that idea.

 

[Ryujin]

The modifiers, in NPC receptiveness, can be handled by the attitude adjustments to interaction skills. Tracking character actions simply gives an easy way of determining what that NPC's reaction to the character in question will be.

But Bluff is the king of interaction skills