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View Full Version : Good, Evil, Metagaming, and Alignment-Restricted Classes



Callista
2011-02-08, 08:03 AM
Oddly enough I never really see this with Law and Chaos.

However, I've seen it often with Good and Evil.

This situation:
Player 1 has a Good-aligned character who must stay Good to keep advancing in his class. Usually it's a paladin, but it can also be a cleric or someone with an Exalted prestige class.

Player 2 has an Evil-aligned character. Chances are he made the character before he and Player 1 had a chance to touch base about who was going to play what. His character, in-character, at least occasionally does things that Player 1's character finds absolutely abhorrent.

However, Players 1 and 2 both want a good, friendly, fun game. They don't want to ruin things for each other. So they end up metagaming at least a little. Their characters are more tolerant of each other than they really should be; and rather than finding ways that their characters would logically be forced to work together, they just kind of fall into the same party because they're both wearing PC shirts. And neither character can really turn the other toward good or evil, because that would be tampering with another player's character concept and neither player wants to do that.

It really annoys me when it happens; but it's neither player's fault--they're actually both doing it because they don't want to ruin the other person's fun. But it does tend to damage suspension of disbelief, at least somewhat.

Has anybody found a solution to this problem--beyond getting together to make characters and preventing it from happening in the first place?

dsmiles
2011-02-08, 08:10 AM
Group character creation. I never let a player roll up a character without the group present, that way their alignments are all usually within one step of everybody else's. If you come to the first session of a new campaign with a ready-made character, you won't get to play that character. You'll have to roll a new one, to fit in with the party.

PersonMan
2011-02-08, 08:29 AM
Communication is the main way to avoid that. If you want to make a character that would effect other party members in a significant way, tell them.

A good technique for the classic good-and-evil situation is for the Good character to decide(or get a vision from their deity, whatever) to convert instead of kill-especially at higher levels. This can also be done with an Evil person, as well. Although these only work in certain situations, it can help.

Callista
2011-02-08, 08:35 AM
Yeah, changing one or the other's alignment does work, but one or the other has to be willing to change...

Most DMs wouldn't mind you rebuilding your paladin as a blackguard-ready character if you needed to fit into a non-Good party. I wouldn't, anyway. Better than having to dump the character and break in a whole new one.

Jay R
2011-02-08, 09:51 AM
Yeah, changing one or the other's alignment does work, but one or the other has to be willing to change...

Most DMs wouldn't mind you rebuilding your paladin as a blackguard-ready character if you needed to fit into a non-Good party. I wouldn't, anyway. Better than having to dump the character and break in a whole new one.

I think you missed the point. Throughout the adventures, each character tries, not to kill the other character, but to convince each other to change alignments. As long as the paladin continues to try to convert the rogue, and the rogue keeps trying to convince the paladin, they are playing their alignments correctly. This is a perfect approach to allow continuing adventures with these PCs, in character. Nobody ever changes alignment. Nonetheless, hilarity ensues when two characters from opposite ends of the alignment spectrum must work together in the feel-good comedy of the year (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0387.html).

Callista
2011-02-08, 10:10 AM
Mm, good point. You can really only stretch it for so long, but most campaigns do end up with a central threat to tie the party together eventually...

Jay R
2011-02-08, 04:38 PM
What's the limit to how long you can stretch it? To ask it in a different way, when will the paladin stop trying to save the soul of a friend who has saved his life?

Callista
2011-02-08, 04:42 PM
I would guess it depends on the people involved and the specific personalities and situations, doesn't it?

Being Lawful and most likely associated with a government or a church also gives them the option of bringing the party member to trial... at which point, of course, one or the other will leave the party--either the party breaks the evil guy out of jail and the paladin leaves the party, or the evil guy gets imprisoned/executed. But there's often the option of a Geas or Mark of Justice or similar punishment...

PPA
2011-02-08, 06:08 PM
Well, maybe not everything has to be so dramatic. Think of any time you've actually had a friend whose stance on some issues you found completely unacceptable. That doesn't mean you stopped being friends all of the sudden. And if the characters are not portrayed as Lawful/Chaotic Stupid or Stupid Good/Evil, things don't need to come to the point where they will actually try to klll each other or something like that.

Callista
2011-02-09, 09:58 AM
Think of any time you've actually had a friend whose stance on some issues you found completely unacceptable. That doesn't mean you stopped being friends all of the sudden. Actually....

It kind of has.

The friend in question was ridiculously homophobic, and I just couldn't hang out with them anymore... constantly having to listen to that crap just wasn't the kind of thing I want to do in my free time.

Now think of that, only with the guy in question not just being homophobic but actively willing to kill gay people... would you hang out with them?

Ruinix
2011-02-09, 11:57 AM
just make a plot to drive them BOTH to a "joker" situation, as the joker do to batman all the friking time, save A or take B, then sit back and enjoy XD