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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9737606" data-attributes="member: 4937">[USER=6790260]@EzekielRaiden[/USER]: The important thing is what this does to table dynamics, not the impact it has mechanically on the game.  I have seen a lot what I think you are talking about where some players, usually playing in pawn stance, whose whole approach to the game is "win by whatever means necessary" and who think that there is no cost in having a reputation as murder hobos and liars, play PC's that lie, cheat, steal, murder, and whatever to get what they want, but who have on their character sheet something like Neutral Good.  And if the DM calls them out they are like, "Hey, none of this is evil because I'm playing for team good.  See I'm wearing the white hat."  And all that leads to is a table argument about what it means to be good and a lot of sophistry and sometimes hurt feelings.But, the bribe settles the question every time.  Because players that are really trying to play their character aren't motivated to get ahead by any means necessary, so they like turn down the bribe (and generally aren't a problem anyway, because they are being thoughtful about "is this right?" and "is this what my character would do?").  But, if the real motivation is to get ahead, once they realize they can get ahead with something else written on their character sheet, once "Lawful Good" doesn't feel like the winning selection on alignment and is just part of their "win at all costs strategy" they take the bribe and put something on their character sheet that is actually reflective of their attitude - "advance my own cause at all costs".   If you are playing your character like a lie is always the safer, better, thing than telling the truth, and as if killing all the prisoners is always the safer, better thing, then don't try to tell me you think good is stronger and better than evil.  It's annoying.  This approach reliably gets us on the same page without argument.UPDATE: The other thing I find I have to repeatedly deal with as a DM, is players trained by a DM with a "The GM is Satan" mindset who always go out of their way to punish any good deed and use fiat to just ruthless punish any act of mercy or honor.  Paroled prisoners always try to avenge themselves no matter how overmatched they were the first time.  Everyone lies to the party and betrays them at the first opportunity.  Trust is always punished.   Any act of honor is treated as foolish disregard of ones own interest.  The universe always conspires to punish the good like that twisted version of a morality tale by Mark Twain.  It's really hard to get players out of that mindset if they are used to that sort of adversarial GMing.</blockquote>

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