Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="pming" data-source="post: 8327311" data-attributes="member: 45197">Hiya!Alignment is very useful.The problem is... most people don't use it &quot;correctly&quot;.Most people I've had conversations with are ones that think your Alignment determines your Actions, and that when your Actions DO NOT coincide with your Alignment on your character sheet, the Alignment 'system' is some how broken.Alignment is NOT static and your Actions determine your Alignment...not the other way around. I can't tell you how many times I've had a Player (or other DM) describe a character, NPC, monster, religious group, governmental system, culture, tradition, etc, and then say &quot;Yeah. They're Lawful Neutral&quot; (for example). When, in fact, they are actually describing Lawful Evil (again, for example). Just because a PERSON or a GROUP of people (religion, government, culture, etc) think that doing XYZ is &quot;the right thing to do&quot;, doesn't mean that is the &quot;right thing to do&quot;.Alignment is NOT &quot;based on a point of view&quot;. For example, killing intelligent, sentient, generally non-aggressive life is seen as Evil in the game. Period. It doesn't matter if some culture thinks &quot;Capturing enemies, then sacrificing them to our god so that our god is happy and that enemy goes to our god to get reincarnated on our side&quot; is a &quot;good thing to do&quot;...it's EVIL. Full stop.Same with Good. &quot;We are forcing you and your family to work the fields for the next 10 years because we had a famine and everyone needs to pitch in to plant and harvest all the food&quot;. No, that is NOT &quot;Good&quot;...at best it's Neutral, worst, Evil. Bottom line: What you do determines your Alignment. HOWEVER... for a DM, having &quot;CE&quot; or &quot;NG&quot; written down on a character or monster sheet gives the DM a staring point for base-line personality motivations (just like having &quot;Str 19&quot;, &quot;GP's: 98,884&quot;, or &quot;Assassin&quot;). A PC's Alignment can and is very likely to change over time. It's why it's why I don't &quot;enforce&quot; any Alignment change penalties until the PC hit's level 4 in my games; the Player is getting used to the PC and the PC is being thrust into a 'new world of adventure'.... and being the sole survivor of a 7 person adventuring group, or saving an entire village from destruction tends to change one's outlook a bit. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />^_^Paul L. Ming</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pming, post: 8327311, member: 45197"] Hiya! Alignment is very useful. The problem is... most people don't use it "correctly". Most people I've had conversations with are ones that think your Alignment determines your Actions, and that when your Actions DO NOT coincide with your Alignment on your character sheet, the Alignment 'system' is some how broken. Alignment is NOT static and your Actions determine your Alignment...not the other way around. I can't tell you how many times I've had a Player (or other DM) describe a character, NPC, monster, religious group, governmental system, culture, tradition, etc, and then say "Yeah. They're Lawful Neutral" (for example). When, in fact, they are actually describing Lawful Evil (again, for example). Just because a PERSON or a GROUP of people (religion, government, culture, etc) think that doing XYZ is "the right thing to do", doesn't mean that is the "right thing to do". Alignment is NOT "based on a point of view". For example, killing intelligent, sentient, generally non-aggressive life is seen as Evil in the game. Period. It doesn't matter if some culture thinks "Capturing enemies, then sacrificing them to our god so that our god is happy and that enemy goes to our god to get reincarnated on our side" is a "good thing to do"...it's EVIL. Full stop. Same with Good. "We are forcing you and your family to work the fields for the next 10 years because we had a famine and everyone needs to pitch in to plant and harvest all the food". No, that is NOT "Good"...at best it's Neutral, worst, Evil. [B]Bottom line[/B]: What you do determines your Alignment. HOWEVER... for a DM, having "CE" or "NG" written down on a character or monster sheet gives the DM a staring point for base-line personality motivations (just like having "Str 19", "GP's: 98,884", or "Assassin"). A PC's Alignment [I]can[/I] and is very likely to change over time. It's why it's why I don't "enforce" any Alignment change penalties until the PC hit's level 4 in my games; the Player is getting used to the PC and the PC is being thrust into a 'new world of adventure'.... and being the sole survivor of a 7 person adventuring group, or saving an entire village from destruction tends to change one's outlook a bit. ;) ^_^ Paul L. Ming [/QUOTE]

Verification