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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6052291" data-attributes="member: 42582">The scenario I described drew heavily on d20 resources: the Freeport trilogy for cultists in port towns; Monte Cook's Requium for a God for the dead god; Bastion of Broken Souls for karmic shenanigans; and also on AD&D sources, like the Fiend Folio Slaad Lords for statting up some of my voidal beings, and Oriental Adventures for statting up constables of hell; as well as a range of Rolemaster creature books.The actual game in question was run playing Rolemaster. It could have been run, in rougly similar terms, using any edition of D&D. All have the action resolution mechanics to resolve the combats I describe; neither Rolemaster nor any pre-4e edition of D&D really has good mechanics to resolve things like persuading an angel, via moral argument, to let herself be killed (though Rolemaster has good mechancis for building persuasive PCs), but I muddled through.Of course I didn't apply any alignment mechanics, and have not done so since the first AD&D campaign I GMed in the mid-80s. But that's my point: you don't need mechanical alignment, nor the idea that moral truths are imbedded in the gameworld, to run a game in which moral concerns are front-and-centre.The only mechanics that were disregarded in what I described are mechanical alignment rules (and related rules like those for ex-clerics and ex-paladins).Mechanical alignment is not essential to fantasy RPGing (it plays no role in Runequest, for example, and almost no role in Rolemaster as written). Nor is it essential to D&D - I dropped it from my game after reading an article in Dragon #101 called "For King and Country", which persuasively explained why my game would be better without it. I've since identified further reasons, not canvassed in that article, why I dislike mechanical alignment.Of course it's not a mechanical element! That was my point. You contended, upthread, thatIf you plan to make moral philosophy a part of your game, then it also becomes a part of your drama, which means that to remain fun, it must have the potential for conflict and tension, which means the potential MUST exist for the players to be wrong or just screw upand thatif moral philosophy is an element of your game, and not simply a topic discussed while playing, then it must be possible for a player's action to provably fail to live up to a moral standard imposed by the game.I've just provided a counterexample to your claims - that is, I've described a fantasy RPG campaign that actually happened, in which moral concerns were part of the game, part of the drama, and had the potential for conflict and tension, but in which it was not possible for a player's action to provably fail to live up to a moral standard imposed by the game.(You may ask, what was the source of the tension, then? I answered with my quote from Ron Edwards: "emotional feedback" between the participants, that is, the evolving aesthetic and evaluative judgments of those playing the game together.)That's fine. I'm not trying to persuade you to play in any particular fashion, or to drop mechanical alignment. I'm just pointing out why the claims you made upthread, that I've requoted above, are not true as such about fantasy RPGing.Nor even about D&D, given that it is not inherent to D&D that it have mechanical alignment rules (4e does not, for instance, and since the beginning of the game, well before Dragon #101, I would say that mechanical alignment has been one of the most contentious and ignored elements of the game rules).Just to reinterate - my entire point is that moral concerns can be front and centre in a game without the GM having to make the calls that you describe. As Ron Edwards says, all you have to do is "stop reinforcing Simulationist approaches to play" - which, in this case, means dropping mechanical alignment.Contrary to what you asserted upthread, that won't make the drama and tension any less. In fact, in my experience, it is almost guaranteed to increase it. (Because the player is now responsible for his/her choices for his/her PC, rather than having the cover of the ingame moral framework to hide behind.)</blockquote>

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