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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 2636443" data-attributes="member: 22424">In my view, you've made a whole bunch of mistakes. The important things to do are to recognise the mistakes so you don't make them again, and decide on a course of actions going forward.There's nothing in the alignment system to preclude this. Still, if you want to ditch alignment, that's fair enough.Right. First two mistakes.1) If you're ditching alignment, then ditch alignment. Don't ditch alignment, and then talk the player into behaving according to the LG alignment. (What you should have done is defined a suitable code of conduct for each of the gods, effectively replacing the alignment restrictions for Clerics. In fact, you should do this whether you use alignment or not - none of the alignments are so monolithic as to fully define a religion.)2) Don't give out game-mechanical bonuses for role-playing 'penalties'. Either the PC will do what he's going to do anyway, and get something for nothing, or at some point you'll have to take away the benefit, and deal with complaints from the player.Yep, mistake 3. As soon as the new PC is on the scene, the old PC is retired, and is therefore an NPC. This prevents the issue even arising.Neat trick. Sadly, creatures affected by Zone of Truth are aware of the effect, and are not compelled to answer questions - only to speak the truth if they speak at all. So, this is unlikely. Still, it does get rid of the PC.Again, Speak with Dead allows a save, and since Will saves are good for Clerics, this is likely to not work.More fool them. At some point, their friend will implicate them, and they get to enjoy the 'justice' of their kingdom.From a good-play point of view, the PCs should have gone to rescue their friend, and co-conspirator. At the worst, they should have gone to make sure he couldn't inform on them. Either way, they really should have acted. The only one who can be excused, in fact, is the new PC, but even in his case, there are two good reasons he should have acted.However, and this is the important point, it's the player's choice.This is your most spectacular mistake. Alignments or no, the DM never has the right to "force" a PC to take a particular action (exception: domination-magic). You get to control everything else about the world - the players have free reign over their PCs.Now, the key question is where you go from here. I recommend the following:1) Write up proper codes of behaviour for the deities in your setting. These don't have to be long, but they should be sufficient for your task. One of the key benefits of not using alignments is that you should feel freer to build complex moral codes - a deity might institute all manner of codes of justice as they relate to one group, but then advocate that their followers commit all manner of atrocities against outsiders, for example. This is possible using alignments, but it is easier without. This solves your problem with pseudo-alignments.2) Take the ex-PC out of the campaign as soon as possible. It doesn't really matter how you do it, but get rid of him. Kill him off, have him rescued by others, have the PCs rescue him and then have him ride off into the sunset, whatever. The sooner he's gone, the better for your campaign.3) Don't do anything to take back the magic items from the PCs. You shouldn't have let them get them, but what's done is done. For a while, cut back on the treasure the PCs get, until they're back at the 'right' level.And that's about it. Forget about this situation and move on. Your campaign will benefit from it.</blockquote>

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