D&D General Why do people like Alignment?

[nevin]

As was said by me, those deities are spread out by the millions of threads simultaneously across a huge number of settings. A bunch of clerics will be communing with him at any given time. Some shlub bothering him over and over and over in order to get a good draw from a deck of cards isn't going to be looked upon favorably. Because if the god allowed that sort of thing, he'd have thousands or even hundreds of thousands of shlubs doing it.

Wouldn't that depend on the deity. They aren't all the same are they?

 

[Maxperson]

I believe it was @pemerton who, some months back, actually engaged with the "well if the players aren't happy they should vote with their feet" answer by saying that he and his group did exactly that. He described the situation he went through, that he had spoken with the other players and they agreed they weren't having fun, and so they left the GM en masse, meaning there was no game.

The advocates for this approach...faulted him (or whomever it was that told the story) for failing to give the GM enough deference and opportunities to fix the problem.

Maybe some did, but most of us did not.

This, among other things, is a large part of why I simply cannot take the "vote with your feet" response seriously. When people actually describe doing so, they're told they're wrong--that the GM deserves even more lenience, even more deference, even more patience.

They are also told that they are right, and by more than tell them that they are wrong.

Don't lump us all into one negative bunch please. It's a mistake, and annoying to those of us who didn't do it.

It's take, only give. And I ain't about that.

Neither are most of us over here on this side saying you should walk away from abusive DMs like that.

 

[nevin]

Maybe some did, but most of us did not.

They are also told that they are right, and by more than tell them that they are wrong.

Don't lump us all into one negative bunch please. It's a mistake, and annoying to those of us who didn't do it.

Neither are most of us over here on this side saying you should walk away from abusive DMs like that.

Since it's an Internet thread and we are talking generalities it often goes both ways. It could be wrong to not talk to the GM and try to fix it first. It could also be right to simply go. The details matter. And discussions like this are at 100 miles up making many assumptions about what the details may be.. So yes your apple may be my orange and at this level we can both be right. Or both be wrong depending on the perspective your looking at. This is why things rarely ever get resolved by committee or internet forum.

 

[kermit4karate]

Evil is just one aspect of a person's personality and worldview. They may be LE but really love puppies or, even if they are a complete sociopath that can't feel emotions like love they could still value and treat them well. Outwardly it may look like kindness and empathy but really it's just a personality quirk. As you said alignment, or any other systemized personality description, will never encompass the complexity of an individual. It's just one aspect even if it can be an important one.

I don't see a better way to interpret it in a game intended to be played by regular people. I mean, if we can't figure ourselves out, why should we be expected to perfectly roleplay alignment in someone else?

Do we, the players and GMs, think of ourselves in restrictive alignment terms? Speaking for myself, I don't know whether I, myself, would be Chaotic Good, Neutral Good, Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral or Chaotic Neutral.

Pretty sure I'm not evil...although I wouldn't bet your life on it, badum-tss!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

As was said by me, those deities are spread out by the millions of threads simultaneously across a huge number of settings. A bunch of clerics will be communing with him at any given time. Some shlub bothering him over and over and over in order to get a good draw from a deck of cards isn't going to be looked upon favorably. Because if the god allowed that sort of thing, he'd have thousands or even hundreds of thousands of shlubs doing it.

I still do not understand why this is such a horrendous problem. The requests for this are going to be a drop in the bucket. It's not like the Deck of Many Things is appearing before millions of simultaneous worshipers. You're making this out to be something a bazillion people could do simultaneously. It isn't.

 

[Maxperson]

Wouldn't that depend on the deity. They aren't all the same are they?

Deities embody specific aspects of the world. They are not human and shouldn't be ascribed human behaviors. The god of agriculture isn't just focused on farming. He IS farming.

He will be watching over every farm in the world for potentially tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or potentially millions of settings. He will be simultaneously watching over every cleric in those settings, as well as watching non-cleric worshippers(many more than the clerics), and listening/watching those who don't worship, but mention or entreat him. Those last will involve almost everyone who needs food and is from a farming culture. They will periodically call upon him or talk about him.

What he doesn't give a fig about is any card that isn't going to affect farming. He's not going to care if a cleric pulls good cards or bad ones, because even if the cleric pulls a very bad one and dies, that clerics soul goes to dwell with the god and permanently increase the god's power. He's probably answer once, because the cleric of 9th level or higher does have some favor, but being used over and over and over as a fortune teller for the cleric's greed isn't going to sit well.

There could always be exceptions. A cleric of a god of greed might just be able to get away with something like that. A trickster god? If I were the cleric of a trickster god, the last thing I'd do is ask him for advice on cards that could be both really good and really bad. The gods nature is trickery. At least for myself. If I were going to trick someone else drawing cards, the god would probably be very on board with that.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Maybe some did, but most of us did not.

Then I remember the thread rather differently. As in, essentially the opposite.

They are also told that they are right, and by more than tell them that they are wrong.

I have not seen this.

Don't lump us all into one negative bunch please. It's a mistake, and annoying to those of us who didn't do it.

I would appreciate the same in return, then. As that has, also, not been my experience.

Neither are most of us over here on this side saying you should walk away from abusive DMs like that.

Okay. It would be cool to talk about strategies for how to fix things, then, rather than presuming that all GMs fit into one of two maximum extreme buckets of "the worst ever" and "beyond reproach".

 

[pemerton]

I believe it was @pemerton who, some months back, actually engaged with the "well if the players aren't happy they should vote with their feet" answer by saying that he and his group did exactly that. He described the situation he went through, that he had spoken with the other players and they agreed they weren't having fun, and so they left the GM en masse, meaning there was no game.

The advocates for this approach...faulted him (or whomever it was that told the story) for failing to give the GM enough deference and opportunities to fix the problem.

I think you're thinking of this:

P

Post in thread 'Dungeons & Dragons Has Done Away With the Adventuring Day'

Oct 24, 2024

Realistic as in, thing that is likely to happen at an actual table in a way that matters to the people involved.

I've already given examples - at a certain level of abstraction, but can elaborate a bit if anyone cares for the detail of decades-old games.

If the players are working with an idea of the shared fiction - about who their PCs are, or what their background is, or what it is that gives meaning to what the PCs are doing - that differs from the GM's, then that does not make for an effective game. In fact, in my experience, it can make games collapse, if the GM tries to...

• pemerton

• 

800 posts later I still had posters - who were not present at an event that happened over 35 years ago now, and who know none of the participants, nor anything about what happened other than me posting that it was terrible - telling me that I (and my fellow players) were wrong to dump the GM: Dungeons & Dragons Has Done Away With the Adventuring Day

 

[Maxperson]

Since it's an Internet thread and we are talking generalities it often goes both ways. It could be wrong to not talk to the GM and try to fix it first. It could also be right to simply go. The details matter. And discussions like this are at 100 miles up making many assumptions about what the details may be.. So yes your apple may be my orange and at this level we can both be right. Or both be wrong depending on the perspective your looking at. This is why things rarely ever get resolved by committee or internet forum.

Sure. That's why it wouldn't be right to tell @pemerton he's wrong about what he did. He's the only one of us who was there. He knows the little cues and actions that clued him and the rest of the group into what the DM was doing. He knows the bigger things that were done. Add to that the time factor with him forgetting a lot of those details, but knowing that they were there and made the right decision, and the difficulty of putting it all into text and even accurately describing some things, and you have a situation where those of us 100 miles above and several decades removed, shouldn't be telling him that he was wrong.

It's okay to ask questions about the details, or even say that given those same details you would or would not have made that decision, but it's not okay to tell him that he was wrong for his decision. We don't know nearly enough to make that call.

 

[Maxperson]

I still do not understand why this is such a horrendous problem. The requests for this are going to be a drop in the bucket. It's not like the Deck of Many Things is appearing before millions of simultaneous worshipers. You're making this out to be something a bazillion people could do simultaneously. It isn't.

It is. Not specifically the deck of many things, but if a god doesn't shut down frivolous uses of commune, he's going to simultaneously get 3 guys asking over and over about decks of many things, 4365 clerics asking if they should go on a date with this person or that other one, 15352 if they should go to the casino tonight, and on and on and on. He's got farms to take care of and serious communing to do.