alignment balance

[elonin]

Maybe I'm missing something but 3.5 and maybe to a lesser extent PF have a slanted view as though all games are going to be geared toward good pcs, alternatively stating if you do this sort of action you are in danger of loosing your cherished good alignment and if you are neutral you are already on a sliding slope and can look forward to tumbling into the abyss. Cast a spell with the <evil> descriptor too many times and you'll earn that alignment. I'm not aware of any sort of restriction for evil people and in fact in the published material it has to be a conscious effort with any back sliding meaning the process begins again.

I'll admit that i'm not a big fan of using alignment at all in games and often consider it a hindrance to enjoyable play.

[ATHATH]

I'm sure that someone else can explain the whole "easier to fall than to redeem yourself" thing better than I can, so I'll leave it to them.

I do want to say, however, that there are PLENTY of Evil and Neutral Prc's. In fact, some of the best Prc's out there are non-good only. Ur-Priest, Thrallherd, and Mindbender (for a one-level dip) are just a few of them.

[OldTrees1]

Yes there is such a bias. Both 3.5 & PF have problems with the content written for the alignment system. However at some point this bias would still exist regardless. This is a result of how we often look at morality IRL. We see it as something to live up to. Something that can sometimes be choosing what is right over what is easy. As such we realize that there is a bias away from virtuous perfection. Perhaps if one goes deep enough into immorality disgust may be a bias away from malice in a similar way that ease is a bias away from virtue. However, as a result of our duty being towards good, we typically focus more on the biases away from our duty. This of course translates into a bias in RPGs.

[elonin]

I'm not knocking anyone who wants to play the exemplar of good. I'm just pointing out that while a lot of material has gone into what you have to do to maintain good, there is almost none devoted to things to avoid to maintain your evil gift (prc or feat etc). My number one point is just doing a number of good acts will not cause anyone to be threatened to loose their vile feats etc.

There was a scene description in empire strikes back where vader had his helmet off using his force abilities to keep breathing without life support. And they were failing him cause he found the beauty in what he was seeing. I'd be the last one to suggest that the force rules were consistent. That is more than we get from dnd.

[OldTrees1]

I'm not knocking anyone who wants to play the exemplar of good. I'm just pointing out that while a lot of material has gone into what you have to do to maintain good, there is almost none devoted to things to avoid to maintain your evil gift (prc or feat etc). My number one point is just doing a number of good acts will not cause anyone to be threatened to loose their vile feats etc.

There was a scene description in empire strikes back where vader had his helmet off using his force abilities to keep breathing without life support. And they were failing him cause he found the beauty in what he was seeing. I'd be the last one to suggest that the force rules were consistent. That is more than we get from dnd.

Again, 3.5 & PF are bad at written content for this alignment system.

However if we look at the philosophical reason for the bias, we would expect the cost of evil gifts* to be evil acts rather than the abstaining from good acts.

*Gifts would be things like a evil cleric's casting or the boons of a devil. I don't think Vader's electrically damaged suit cared about Vader's actions unless Lucas rewrote it to be a boon of the dark side.

[Sredni Vashtar]

In part, it's how good and evil are seen. Goodness is in good actions, evil is in intentions. A good man can't commit murder without losing at least some of his goodness, even if his intentions were good. On the other hand, an evil man can give his fortune to charity without losing a bit of his evil, so long as he continues to strive for evil ends.

[Troacctid]

If you drop a spoonful of wine into a barrel of sewage, you have a barrel of sewage. If you drop a spoonful of sewage into a barrel of wine, you also have a barrel of sewage.

It's the same with good and evil. A good or neutral character who does some evil stuff can shift to evil. An evil character who does some good stuff is still evil.

[elonin]

So far Troacctid has the most satisfying answer so far. I'd prefer to counter with the notion that the alignments are just dualities. Like the acid/base scale.

In my darth vader analogy he wasn't being judged by the suite. It's a tool that provides armor and a sealed system that gives him life support. My analogy was that to tap into his dark power he had to fill himself with hate, which made using the force to sustain himself more difficult. Also, I'm guessing those books were written after the movies so maybe not directly influenced by Lucas. Again not sure.

I'm just thinking that good is put to a test of at least some rigor while evil is just left to "whatever the user feels like". Maybe this is just me reacting to a number of threads on this forum I've lurked on where people were arguing over what the limits of good alignment are or should this paladin fall.

[OldTrees1]

So far Troacctid has the most satisfying answer so far. I'd prefer to counter with the notion that the alignments are just dualities. Like the acid/base scale.

In my darth vader analogy he wasn't being judged by the suite. It's a tool that provides armor and a sealed system that gives him life support. My analogy was that to tap into his dark power he had to fill himself with hate, which made using the force to sustain himself more difficult. Also, I'm guessing those books were written after the movies so maybe not directly influenced by Lucas. Again not sure.

I'm just thinking that good is put to a test of at least some rigor while evil is just left to "whatever the user feels like". Maybe this is just me reacting to a number of threads on this forum I've lurked on where people were arguing over what the limits of good alignment are or should this paladin fall.

Oh, thanks for clearing that up (I was confused and misread). Yes, the Dark side being fueled by negative emotions(like hate) is a good system for representing bestowed power. This should answer all paladin counterpart questions (Paladins/Jedi have to refrain from evil/Dark side but Blackguards/Sith have to feed the evil/Dark side).

However I would like to highlight that the gifts a side offers are distinct and follow different rules than the alignment themselves (which is a continuum). This is where my 2 prior posts (mostly the dense 1st one) dealt with how we IRL think about morality inside philosophy and why there is a bias towards immoral action.

[SwordChucks]

I think D&D and RPGs in general reflect other character driven media. In books, movies, and most games the protaganist is good or at least on the side of good.

It's hard to root for Baron Evil McPuppykicker when you know that him winning would lead to your suffering if you lived in that world.

Even when a story has a villian as the protaganist it tends to make them sympathetic. Because RPGs tend to set the player as the protaganist, they assume that the players want to be good guys.

TL;DR Most protaganists are good, and RPG characters are protaganists. Therefore RPG characters are good.

Also, if handled consistently, I think alignment can be fun. If your players don't care very much about alignments and you don't want to make alignments the focus of the campaign, there might not be a reason to include them. If you play in Planescape it would be very difficult without exploring alignment.

[Andezzar]

I'm not knocking anyone who wants to play the exemplar of good. I'm just pointing out that while a lot of material has gone into what you have to do to maintain good, there is almost none devoted to things to avoid to maintain your evil gift (prc or feat etc). My number one point is just doing a number of good acts will not cause anyone to be threatened to loose their vile feats etc.You may want to read up on the Paladin of Slaughter (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#paladinofSlaughterClas sFeatures)/Tyranny (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#paladinofTyrannyClassF eatures). Vile feats also require the user to be evil.


I think D&D and RPGs in general reflect other character driven media. In books, movies, and most games the protaganist is good or at least on the side of good.

It's hard to root for Baron Evil McPuppykicker when you know that him winning would lead to your suffering if you lived in that world.

Even when a story has a villian as the protaganist it tends to make them sympathetic. Because RPGs tend to set the player as the protaganist, they assume that the players want to be good guys.

TL;DR Most protaganists are good, and RPG characters are protaganists. Therefore RPG characters are good.Good, nice and sympathetic are totally distinct concepts. While most protagonists in fiction are at least to some extent relatable, they are not necessarily good. While the Corleone family is mostly portrayed to garner sympathy, I would not call them good by any definition, much less the D&D one. At best they are the lesser of several evils. The same goes for pretty much any character in the Song of Ice and Fire (well except maybe Ned Stark, but look what that got him :smallamused:). I could go on and on


Also, if handled consistently, I think alignment can be fun. If your players don't care very much about alignments and you don't want to make alignments the focus of the campaign, there might not be a reason to include them. If you play in Planescape it would be very difficult without exploring alignment.I agree. Especially if you use alignment as a guideline for the character's character rather than a straight jacket for game mechanics.

Another thing to consider is that Alignment is neither a fixed thing that is written in stone (more likely on you character sheet) nor a property that determines a characters actions but something fluid. With very few exceptions (helm of opposite alignment, Lycanthropy) the sum of your previous actions make up your alignment. So if for whatever reason Baron Evil McPuppykicker starts helping old ladies over the street for no other reason than the warm fuzzy feeling he gets, he starts to become neutral and eventually good just as Paladin Goody Two-shoes becomes evil when he starts burning down orphanages.

That last point got me thinking about consistently using the alignment system. You have to decide whether intent matters and then apply that decision to all actions. Otherwise you will have problems deciding what alignment to associate with each action.