Tracking Alignment

[Markn]

You missed my point...

D+1, you missed my point. I don't track alignment to micromanage, penalize or control the players. I also believe that the system I use actually minimizes the subjectiveness a great deal. Actions on a continual basis are used to adjust alignment one way or the other and most acts balance themselves out. It is when you see a large amount one way or the other that alignments change. Because there is a great deal of actions required for an alignment change it becomes less and less subjective and most players can logically follow your points. There may be a point or two that they disagree on but the majority of the points obviously support the conclusion of an alignment change.

You and I both agree that alignment is a descriptor and exists to help players play their character. However, a character is not an alignment because he states that he is but rather he has an alignment that his character quantifies through playing his character. It is easy for a cleric or paladin to maintain his alignment because he is actively trying to maintiain it. Other classes are not so simple. It is easy to play something other than what you have stated on your character sheet. Thus, the system I use actually quantifies it in actions throughout the long term. I do not use it to punish the player but there are in game consequences of actions that your character does. Our campaingns contain a lot of in depth roleplaying. If a character originally states that he is LG but has been robbing people and doing other seemingly non good acts then this does not represent who he is. NPC's who have learned accounts of the PC through rumor, legend, information gathering, cohorts and so on then react to that PC in the approrpiate manner. This actually leads to an in game resolution of alignment rather than out of game discussion between player and dm. Afterall, the captain of the town guard who has heard that your character has robbed a townsmen will confront the character and question him. In addition, IF the character is blind to their own action this can serve as a self correcting course as he now sees that NPC's are noticing his actions and are treating him different, be it for good or for ill. Players can become blind to their own actions and see them in a different light than what other players and DM's see. So although you as a player are not obliged in any way, shape or form to follow an alignment there are still consequences to an imbalance of actions. If they are balanced then there will never be an alignment change or then it denotes that the character does not feel strongly one way or the other and voila - TN.

There are also other in game consequences of alignment, like it or not. Spell like pro good/evil/law/chaos become an important aspect of the game and the same goes for higher level spells. Spells with an evil or good descriptor now make a player think before he casts it. Atonement now has a use in the game. If a player discovers he hasn't been following who he was lately, then atonement can be used. All in all, alignment change can be just as beneficial as detrimental to a character. The charts I use are just a simple way to quantify who the character is.

Some groups may believe that they need to warn a player about to change alignment but our group has chosen not to. The simple fact is, alignment is not something you stick to but is something you strive to be. You don't wake up one morning and decide to be CG instead of LG today. It is portrayed by actions and if you are going off in a different direction that what you originally decided your character was then maybe the character is growing. Your day to day actions are who you are and since there is no penalty or bonus to one alignment or another then for the most part it doesn't matter if in the DM's mind you have switched alignment, except of course the in game things I have mentioned above which are hardly earth shattering things to the character.

All in all, the system we use works well for us. IMHO it works great and I think more people should look at alignment in this light and use it as an in game tool for roleplaying rather than have degenerate discussions of 'Your character wouldn't do' and 'Yes he would...'.

Anyway, for those waiting for my chart here it is. Enjoy.

 

[Aesmael]

Markn has the right of it.

My intentions with this were not to try to control the players but to better determine when and if their actions have changed their alignment. I simply do not feel comfortable with handling such a matter by fiat - to me that seems more likely to degenerate into the kind of problems you seem to fear. Naturally I will have to hash out the particulars for each character with the players but I do not think they are concerned with alignment in any case. And I personally do not care what they choose to play so long as we all have fun.

Back to the topic at hand, to elaborate on what I flagged as a 'problem' (and now, as then, I use the apostrophes to indicate to indicate that it is not in fact a problem but could cause difficulties in play), the impression you gave was that your evaluation of whether something was an alignment 'violation' (and the apostrophes here indicate that the term violation is acting as a substitute for the phrase 'behaving in such a manner as to contribute to a possible change in alignment') depends in part on the characters own stated ideals/beliefs. Hence the suggestion that if a character's beliefs are not adequately described beforehand this can be difficult to apply, a problem that does not arise these matters are judged independant of a character's beliefs.
For the record, I would prefer to evaluate alignment in the context of the character's beliefs rather than purely on an external framework. I suppose that makes it an observation more than a criticism.

A second observation would then be that your system seems to have limit to how far a character can progress along an alignment, although that is both an artifact of the necessity of having a chart of finite size and personal preference - but as you play it (if I understand correctly) there is a limit to how much inertia a character can acquire.

 

[Markn]

To each their own...

Aesmal, I'm not sure if the last paragraph of your post is referring to my system or the person in the quote. If it does apply to me then your right that there is certain limits to progressing your alignment and you are correct that it is due to practicality and personal preference. To me it seems that if someones actions are constant within a specific behaviour such as LG there is not much point in tracking it to its infinite number beyond 10. No matter how good you become it still only takes a certain amount of behaviour to begin to change who you are. Once a negative pattern develops then no matter how good you were at one point matters little. In addition, if someones behaviour is so thoroughly good then slight acts that go against the grain so to speak will always be outwieghed by the significant acts of goodness that are done thus ruling out the need to continue to track the good or lawful componants beyond 10 points.

BTW, I have enjoyed that conversation in this thread. It has altered my look at alignment to some degree and in explaining my point has reinforced certain ideas that I've had as well. In the beginning I looked at actions as transgressions of who the character is. Now I realize its through the playing of the character that determines the alignment and not vice versa. I guess I always new that but could never express it in words before. I hope others have found this just as insightful.

 

[Aesmael]

I have certainly found this discussion useful as well. In fact, reading your post just now has made me realise that the reason I perceived a use for potentially infinite tracking of a character's alignment was because I was looking at it from the perspective of redeeming an evil character, rather than maintaining goodness. In that sense it would be useful for someone to have a long road to travel before attaining goodness, if they ever can, but it would be less useful for someone to acumulate enough good karma to still detect as good after indulging in the occasional village obliteration.