D&D General Why do people like Alignment?

[nevin]

It's probably more like a "floodgates" argument than a slippery slope one.

Personally, it seems to me that if a deity can cope with all the clerical prayers for spells every morning, a little bit of Communing hardly seems like it will bother them.

Or to come at it another way: if a GM wants to veto the use of divination to assist in draws from a DoMT, then I guess that's their prerogative. They can even lampshade it if they want to - "Sorry, your god makes it a point of principle not to answer those frivolous questions." But trying to argue that fictional coherence strongly suggests, or even entails, that those questions can't be answered seems hopeless to me: gods have exactly as much capacity for attention and cognition, when it comes to noticing and responding to prayers, as the GM deems them to have.

I don't remember anything in any version of the Augury spell that says that the GM can use it to provide the player with false information on a success.

In the AD&D PHB it refers to "The base chance for correctly divining the augury". In 5e D&D, it says that the DM choose the omen based on what the results of the action will be. I don't have the 2nd ed AD&D or 3E wordings, but I'd be surprised if they said that the GM can just decide to give a false answer while presenting it as a true answer. I mean, in that case what would even be the point of the spell?

It also assumes the diety doesnt have people for that stuff. I personally like the old 1ed way of it. 1 to 3rd are prayer books. Any cleric can memorize from prayer books. 4 to 7th lower level to higher level followers of the dirty , administrative Angels etc. 8th and 9th level the diety has to grant directly.

 

[Maxperson]

THats one interpretation. It could also be they are just Greek style really powerful beings who aside from their power aren't much different than the humans who worship them. No one size fits all answers on this one.

That's true. I am approaching this from the core D&D assumption that the gods embody their portfolios and aren't just super humans who claim to.

 

[Maxperson]

It also assumes the diety doesnt have people for that stuff. I personally like the old 1ed way of it. 1 to 3rd are prayer books. Any cleric can memorize from prayer books. 4 to 7th lower level to higher level followers of the dirty , administrative Angels etc. 8th and 9th level the diety has to grant directly.

That's a bit off. First, it was first and second levels could be achieved purely by faith and dedication to his god. Third to fifth level were administered by servants of the god. Sixth and seventh level were granted by direct communication with the god. There were no 8th and 9th level cleric spells in 1e or 2e. Those levels were for magic users only. It wasn't until 3e that other spellcasters received 8th and 9th level spells.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's a bit off. First, it was first and second levels could be achieved purely by faith and dedication to his god. Third to fifth level were administered by servants of the god. Sixth and seventh level were granted by direct communication with the god. There were no 8th and 9th level cleric spells in 1e or 2e. Those levels were for magic users only. It wasn't until 3e that other spellcasters received 8th and 9th level spells.

I assume they were translating it to 3e+ terms.

 

[SkidAce]

As was already said by Umbran: Your deities are rather...small...if they're incapable of handling more than one thread of thought simultaneously and always located spatially and temporally in a single spot.

Like...if you're having a deity that's supposed to be multidimensional and/or managing numerous worlds, they'd better be able to split their consciousness between numerous different simultaneous tasks, or they're literally not going to be able to function.

I have about 5 or 6 deities like that, the rest are like Immortals from Basic, or like the Greek Pantheon.

 

[SkidAce]

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.

I think that is a perfectly fine campaign specific view.

My gods are a lot smaller than that.

 

[SkidAce]

How the deity handled a cleric in Faerun isn't going to be obvious to another cleric in Greyhawk. So, how does this word get around for there to be a deterrent effect to keep the shlubs from doing it? Is there like, a multi-planar deific social media account for clerics where the gods post, "Smote Jacob the Pedantic for playing 20 Questions with Commune," or something?

Adds concept to campaign prospectus.

 

[AlViking]

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!

You're assuming there is a "right" way. I don't. If alignment is a useful descriptor for an individual it can be an aid. While I discuss alignment with my players if they ask, it doesn't matter if we're in 100% agreement. It's nice if we're in the same ballpark for discussion purposes but as I said long ago I don't care what my player's character's alignments are because I'm not the one running the character.

 

[kermit4karate]

Your argument is, "If we allow X, then that will mean people ask about Y, and then Z, and then W, and then P, and then Q, and then R (etc.), so we cannot allow X."

That is a slippery slope. It's one of the most classic examples thereof: "Well if we allow kids to dance, then they'll start doing things purely for the fun of it, and playing hooky, and using drugs, and getting pregnant, and playing pool, so clearly we can't ever let the kids dance."* The slippery slope is "because we allowed X, now we have to allow everything", and you haven't actually shown that. That's precisely the problem: you are asserting a chain of--allegedly--required consequences, without actually showing that those required consequences are...required. Because I don't buy that. I don't buy that this cleric asking about the draws of a deck actually leads to an epidemic of clerics asking about their love lives or where to eat this evening. Not least because it's a 5th level spell!

*This is a reference to Footloose, and this kind of argument is quite literally part of the plot. Reverend Moore even gets the final push to fix the mess he's made of things when some of his congregants begin burning books they claim are unsafe for teens to read.

Thumbs up earned for the Footloose reference.

 

[Umbran]

Greek-style "human" gods are even less likely to be in a position to alter fate IMO.

Other than The Fates, of course....
And a goddess of luck in Tyche...
And a goddess of chaos in Eris...
And a god of prophecy in Apollo...