D&D General Why do people like Alignment?

[Micah Sweet]

No matter how many times anyone says, "Well if you want to play something, run it!", it never becomes even the tiniest bit more relevant.

Running a game isn't playing in a game. It never will be. It is literally the very core of your argument that running a game is radically different from playing in one, isn't it? So by your own lights, how can it be even remotely useful to tell someone "well if you want to play something, run that thing"? You're literally telling them to NOT play the thing they want to play!

What I'm saying is, if their GM doesn't want to run their game, they can't force them. So your other options are find another GM, be another GM, or drop it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Then perhaps you should consider the hypothetical when several other people are telling you that your experience is not as universal as you believe it to be. That having a player host, rather than the GM, can in fact be an established pattern.

In other words...considering that the question is actually worth answering on its own merits, rather than doing, for what would be a third time, "I don't believe that happens, so I reject the hypothetical and will not consider it." Which is what you've done here, again.


I'm willing to run things I hadn't considered and to be sold on things I had not originally planned.


You're refusing to respond to my hypothetical. Again. Because that is now an established pattern. Three out of three.

I responded to your hypothetical by taking it seriously. I then gave you one of my own. It would be cool to actually take seriously the things I've proposed.


You've misconstrued what I said. I was saying anyone specific player, and that that is simply "entirely possible"--not even remotely guaranteed. But it's much easier to defeat a position I never took, that goes for ridiculous extremes, rather than responding to what I've said, isn't it? I swear there's a term for that. Haybloking? Silagepersoning? I swear, it's on the tip of my tongue!


And for those three players, they're now just F'd. They literally don't get to play.

Because that? That is my experience. And if you can argue that your experience is an absolute universal, so the hell can I.

They choose not to play because their GM doesn't want to run the game they want to play, and they're unwilling to look into alternatives (or in your case I suppose, they're just very unlucky). Everyone, GMs and players alike, get to decide what they're willing to play or run.

 

[AlViking]

They choose not to play because their GM doesn't want to run the game they want to play, and they're unwilling to look into alternatives (or in your case I suppose, they're just very unlucky). Everyone, GMs and players alike, get to decide what they're willing to play or run.

There's also no real solution. Millions of people are happy playing D&D or a variation but you can't please everyone. It sucks if you can't find a group playing a game you enjoy but that's one of the reason there are so many options. It sucks that I don't want to gather round, drink beer and watch "the big game". Life would have been a lot easier if I were. But I'm not going to change, other people aren't going to change so I don't go on forums dedicated to those activities and complain about it I'm just going to accept I don't fit in and find things I do enjoy. I get venting now and then, but after a while it's healthier to move on.

*It's really just that I don't drink much any more.

 

[Kichwas]

When the alignment system came about the games were just moving from wargame to roleplaying game and what that meant was still a little fuzzy.

Alignment makes sense when you think of the characters as 'units' in a simulation. These guys are the Mayans, those guys are the Aztecs, those guys are the Nahuatl, and this unit here is the Spaniards. Plant markers on them to figure out sides and help a player figure out their tactics / play style.

It starts to get deeply flawed once you're portraying people who are in more than just a wargame simulation. But it's lingered around as a relic from the early days and been increasingly rationalized into having more meaning here, less impact there, and assorted attempts to keep it from looking 'ancestry/species-centric'.

At this point it's just the old sofa that's always been in the side room and even though it's moldy and full of bugs some folks can't imagine the place without that sofa over there.

 

[Lanefan]

I wonder about this. I mean, by that logic, you couldn't use divinations on anything with a random effect, be it a Bag of Beans to a Wand of Wonder or jumping in a weird magical pool.

Correct. Divinations would not work on these things other than to maybe tell you their effects are or may be random and unpredictable...which, with a Deck, is probably already known info anyway.

Identify will tell you it's a Wand of Wonder with 20-25 charges remaining, its command word is "caralat", and that the wand can be used by anyone; but will not tell you any specifics about any of the possible effects or even what those effects might be. Ditto for a Bag of Beans - it'll tell you to plant one in order to trigger its effect but won't give any clue as to what that effect might be.

Augury on using one of these things would come back with an almost useless result, which a caster would probably interpret as meaning what happens next is highly unpredictable. Commune might get you a bit further but still can't tell you which effect will happen next as that's not determined until the point of no return when the item is actually used.

There's already limitations placed on many such effects (augury has a failure chance, for one) that I'd be reluctant to narrow their focus even more.

Augury is one of those spells that has, over the years in our games, slowly become player-side pushed into being far too powerful. It's one I'd like to rein in somehow but probably can't as the players have come to rely on it so much.

Divinations in general are also anathema to mystery set-ups and whodunnit scenarios.

 

[Lanefan]

They don't have to predict the future. They can know which card is on top, which is second, third, etc.

At the moment, perhaps; but if you allow that and then don't force an immediate card draw you're opening the door to abuse: they keep shuffling and casting divinations until they know a good card is on top, then draw before the Deck gets shuffled again.

The solution, of course, is that while you might learn that a good card is on top right now, the Deck shuffles as part of the drawing process meaning it's back to being completely random.

 

[Lanefan]

No matter how many times anyone says, "Well if you want to play something, run it!", it never becomes even the tiniest bit more relevant.

Running a game isn't playing in a game. It never will be. It is literally the very core of your argument that running a game is radically different from playing in one, isn't it? So by your own lights, how can it be even remotely useful to tell someone "well if you want to play something, run that thing"? You're literally telling them to NOT play the thing they want to play!

If no-one else is willing to run what you want to play there's only two remaining options: either you run it, or it doesn't get run at all.

The potential long-term advantage if you run it is that maybe one or more of the players take to the game and decide to try running it themselves, which means in theory you now have a place to play.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If no-one else is willing to run what you want to play there's only two remaining options: either you run it, or it doesn't get run at all.

Again: Are you not claiming--as the very core of your argument--that running games is a radically different experience from playing them?

Is that not literally one of the most important parts of your claim?

The potential long-term advantage if you run it is that maybe one or more of the players take to the game and decide to try running it themselves, which means in theory you now have a place to play.

No "potential". It is 100% imaginary--in my experience. This advantage never happens.

 

[DavyGreenwind]

I always use alignment not as a prescription for PC behavior, but rather as a description. My characters are chaotic because they do chaotic things, not vice versa. That way, alignment is more of a way to track your actions for cosmic purposes, like determining your afterlife destination, angel/fiend attitude towards you, and the effects of certain magic items.

 

[Maxperson]

At the moment, perhaps; but if you allow that and then don't force an immediate card draw you're opening the door to abuse: they keep shuffling and casting divinations until they know a good card is on top, then draw before the Deck gets shuffled again.

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.