Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hriston" data-source="post: 8206929" data-attributes="member: 6787503">I just disagree with this. I think imagining a character and building a character on a character sheet are two separate activities. I think in most approaches the two things are mostly aligned, which is all fine and good, but that doesn't preclude or invalidate an approach in which what's on the sheet doesn't add up to what the player imagines. Maybe you could say there's a lack of system mastery in building a character that plays differently than what the player imagined, but that's about it. That's because what's on the sheet is not the character. It's just a reference for interacting with the game's mechanics. To go back to your analogy, I can build any house I want in my imagination because my building materials themselves are imaginary. The character sheet, on the other hand, is something in the real world, perhaps analogous to a deed or some other legal paperwork for an imaginary house.Okay, but what's to prevent the DM from changing the alignment on the sheet right then and there, assuming the DM thinks that's warranted, and then applying whatever the mechanical effect of that new alignment is (e.g. then having an NPC cast know alignment)? I think we're on the same page here except that if it has gotten to the point that the character's actions have consistently demonstrated a different alignment than what's on the sheet, I'm going to change what's on the sheet before any mechanics interact with the alignment that arises from those actions.I think in an RPG, which is a voluntary activity driven by players exercising their choice, mechanical incentives are a better way to align roleplaying with whatever has been established about the character rather than blocking certain action declarations.</blockquote>

Verification