D&D General Why do people like Alignment?

[James Gasik]

Commune is with your god. If a cleric in my game kept playing telephone with their god just to get good draws, drawing a bad card would be the least of their problems. The god isn't there to serve you as a card magician.

Commune once, okay. Reshuffling and communing some more would be bad juju, and the cleric would know that.

I think that depends on the God. A Trickster deity might be highly amused by watching their servant exploit the system!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think that depends on the God. A Trickster deity might be highly amused by watching their servant exploit the system!

And on the relationship the cleric and deity have. If, for example, this cleric has been routinely very good at carrying out this deity's described doctrine, and doing so with subtlety and wisdom rather than as a blunt object, why would that lead to such horrible wrathful deific behavior?

The only reason I can see is "GM wants to punish the player, exploiting a convenient excuse which allows them to do whatever they want scot-free".

Which I was--extremely recently--told by this very poster, Maxperson, is apparently not a thing.

So, @Maxperson, which is it? Are deities (and patrons etc.) used as cudgels to control player behavior? Or are they included genuinely for flavorful, story-promoting reasons, and negative consequences only arise because of genuinely warranted circumstances?

Because it would, 100%, look like a punitive GM vindictively punishing a player for a behavior the GM simply finds distasteful, but not in any way actually wrong or bad, to bring down divine wrath for such a petty reason. Especially if the possibility that this kind of thing could occur were not explicitly spelled out, right out the gate, before character creation is finished.

 

[Lanefan]

A Cleric to a trickste

I think that depends on the God. A Trickster deity might be highly amused by watching their servant exploit the system!

A Cleric to a trickster deity would embrace the chaos and randomness and just draw!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

A Cleric to a trickster deity would embrace the chaos and randomness and just draw!

Really? I should think that the cleric of a trickster deity would embrace gaming the system. Chaos is the domain of destructive deities. Twisting things so you win even though you shouldn't, however, is very much what tricksters love--they bait-and-switch, they deceive, they weasel out of deals, etc., etc. After all, Loki isn't a being of chaos, he's a being of deceit and manipulation. Manipulating the rules so that you get great results sounds like exactly the kind of thing that would please Loki. And Odin, for that matter, since he was also a trickster in many cases--and he was big on acquiring wisdom even through underhanded means. (Consider, he sacrificed himself to himself on Yggdrasil to gain wisdom.)

 

[Maxperson]

And on the relationship the cleric and deity have. If, for example, this cleric has been routinely very good at carrying out this deity's described doctrine, and doing so with subtlety and wisdom rather than as a blunt object, why would that lead to such horrible wrathful deific behavior?

The only reason I can see is "GM wants to punish the player, exploiting a convenient excuse which allows them to do whatever they want scot-free".

Which I was--extremely recently--told by this very poster, Maxperson, is apparently not a thing.

So, @Maxperson, which is it? Are deities (and patrons etc.) used as cudgels to control player behavior? Or are they included genuinely for flavorful, story-promoting reasons, and negative consequences only arise because of genuinely warranted circumstances?

Because it would, 100%, look like a punitive GM vindictively punishing a player for a behavior the GM simply finds distasteful, but not in any way actually wrong or bad, to bring down divine wrath for such a petty reason. Especially if the possibility that this kind of thing could occur were not explicitly spelled out, right out the gate, before character creation is finished.

None of the above. I'd let the player know that it was a bad idea. It would never get to the point of the cleric treating their god like a servant.

 

[Maxperson]

A Cleric to a trickste

A Cleric to a trickster deity would embrace the chaos and randomness and just draw!

Not to mention even a trickster god isn't going to be happy at being treated like a servant and having what he's doing constantly be interrupted.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

None of the above. I'd let the player know that it was a bad idea. It would never get to the point of the cleric treating their god like a servant.

How is this being "treated like a servant"?

Like what in the actual hell is wrong with this? They're spells. That's like saying the Cleric casting cure wounds is making a "servant" out of their deity. For God's (or should that be "gods'"?) sake, it's literally the thing the deity asks the cleric to do!

And now you see PRECISELY why I don't trust "social contract" to solve anything, a n y t h i n g, when it comes to gameplay elements. You see this as some absolutely horrendous affront, the character treating their god as a "servant", and I literally cannot fathom how that could possibly be anyone's interpretation.

 

[Maxperson]

How is this being "treated like a servant"?

Being at the beck and call of one of your clerics for a bunch of trivial(to a god) questions? Once for something so petty I can see. Repeatedly being used like some carnival fortune teller? No god is going to appreciate being used like that.

Like what in the actual hell is wrong with this? They're spells. That's like saying the Cleric casting cure wounds is making a "servant" out of their deity. For God's (or should that be "gods'"?) sake, it's literally the thing the deity asks the cleric to do!

Riiiiiiiiiight, because cure wounds is the same as calling your god up and questioning him directly. Heck, they build irritation at being used that way into the spell.

And now you see PRECISELY why I don't trust "social contract" to solve anything, a n y t h i n g, when it comes to gameplay elements. You see this as some absolutely horrendous affront, the character treating their god as a "servant", and I literally cannot fathom how that could possibly be anyone's interpretation.

This has nothing to do with the social contract.