Changing player Alignment as a plot development

[whisperwind1]

Hey guys, I recently shook up my game in a major way, things got super real and quite different. Basically an immensely powerful artifact was used to drive every extraplanar outsider in the land completely mad and pandaemonium has erupted. Needless to say my PCs have a whole mess of problems to deal with.

One of the things I did however, was make them roll a will save, which all but one PC failed, but I haven't yet told them what has happened. Essentially what I did (or rather aim to do as nothing has been said) was cause every person who failed the save to have their respective alignment inverted. Now this is actually an evil campaign to clarify, so most of them would now be good aligned. But I need to ask before I eventually tell them (which may take a while), is such a thing good to do?

The effect would be the same as an infusion of Greater Change Alignment, so a wish or miracle would reverse the process. But I am afraid they would take it badly and that this is a lousy move on my part. So I'd like some advice on how to play out this development (if at all). How should I enact the realization of a changed alignment? Should I include the opportunity to change back sooner rather than later?

Most importantly, should I ask the players if they are ok with such a development in the first place (remember it hasn't been revealed yet)? If not, what other meaningful change could be wrought as a result of this will save?

Thanks in advance!

[icefractal]

I can't say what your players are like, but I personally wouldn't like it. If I'm having fun playing a character, do I really want to switch to a radically different personality? Especially since in this case, becoming good aligned means they might be overwhelmed by their past evil deeds - a bit of a heavy thing to spring unilaterally.

However (again, personally speaking), having the effect create a splinter personality (of the opposite alignment) that comes out under certain conditions would be pretty interesting. Sort of like being a werewolf, except you're a were-paladin (well, LG anyway).

[Sapreaver]

Rather than have the outsiders go crazy have the spell be a world wide invert alignment. So all those devils are now chaotic good and demons lawful good and so on. Their allies might now be different people. Play it as is. It sounds fun having everything being opposite and further have any true neutral monks or druids know what happened just intrinsically .

[Sapreaver]

I don't mean exclusively monks and druids but those of the big N alignment. Anyly clerics who made the save should be alerted too. Sorry for dbl post can't edit on my phone

[kyoryu]

Outright changing it is a jerk move, especially since it was something you'd decided would happen, and all that they got to do was roll a die to try to avoid.

What I'd do instead is something like this:

Give yourself a number of tokens. Each token can be used to give a penalty to a die roll, or to flat-out cause damage to the given PC when they don't act in a Good way. If they do some appropriately Good task, the tokens all disappear, and when they burn through all of the tokens, then the control is over.

Repeated contact can increase the number of tokens that you have for each PC.

This idea is stolen wholesale from how the Brainer works in Apocalypse World.

[Gildedragon]

Most importantly, should I ask the players if they are ok with such a development in the first place (remember it hasn't been revealed yet)? If not, what other meaningful change could be wrought as a result of this will save?
YES.
Ask first.

[whisperwind1]

Rather than have the outsiders go crazy have the spell be a world wide invert alignment. So all those devils are now chaotic good and demons lawful good and so on. Their allies might now be different people. Play it as is. It sounds fun having everything being opposite and further have any true neutral monks or druids know what happened just intrinsically .

Well the idea behind all the outsiders going insane is that no one can predict what will happen to the individual alignments of said outsiders. An example, a lillend the party was macking on went into a murderous frenzy and killed half the serving staff of the PCs manor. Also an immensely powerful demon bound under the city erupted up when its wards were disrupted by the event, and is now starting a zombie plague.

[whisperwind1]

Outright changing it is a jerk move, especially since it was something you'd decided would happen, and all that they got to do was roll a die to try to avoid.

That's entirely fair (although the effect I took inspiration from is ALSO a save or suck effect, and the DC was not Horrendous if one of them can make it. Most of them just rolled bad). But I definitely will ask them before implimenting anything definitive.

Really what I tried to do was create a situation where the villains are no longer the biggest threat to the realm. I wanted to see how my villainous PCs would take to suddenly being up the same creek as everyone else, and how that would play out. Its sort of in a world gone mad, maybe the "heroes" will come from entirely different places.

[Gildedragon]

Really what I tried to do was create a situation where the villains are no longer the biggest threat to the realm. I wanted to see how my villainous PCs would take to suddenly being up the same creek as everyone else... [It's a] world gone mad, maybe the "heroes" will come from entirely different [ie unlikely] places.No need to change their alignments for that. give them a threat big enough to compel them to save the world at no extra profit; after all, if things really go to hell (possibly liliterally) then they're boned too. They don't want to be heroes (and possibly might rather ally with the big bad (as it seems inevitable big-bad will curbstomp everyone else) but big-bad isn't hiring so the only way to not get screwed over is to make sbad doesn't doesn't win.
Now if their actions against big bad have them start doing random Good acts, helping people more than they need to, showing mercy and whatnot... Yeah alignment switch them then (to neutral and then good) their roleplay moved them by their actions.

[Venico]

I personally wouldn't do this because alignments in my group aren't as dire and rigid as some other groups. They're just a reflection of your actions and how the cosmos view you. It's a quick way to sum up how you interact with the world on average. Run it by the group as an idea, if they seem receptive, run with it.

[Florian]

@Whisperwind1:

It´s one thing to have your POV challenged in game and rethink your characters position. That´s a cool and eye-opener occurrence. What you describe doesn´t even come close to that, sorry.

[Dekion]

I agree with those who feel that an alignment change is wrong. It is difficult for players to accept and for you as the DM to control without a lot of problems. Telling someone that they have to play their alignment, and then giving them a completely different alignment than their character has had is a good way to have players "acting out" in character against the change. I would instead focus on the original intent behind the alignment change, if you wanted to incent the characters to do something outside of their alignment, then find a way to do that, as Kyoryu suggested. If it was just to frustrate the characters/players because you wanted things to feel messed up, then you are simply going to wind up having unhappy players, and there are a lot of ways to frustrate player/characters outside of forcing changes in their characters.

[whisperwind1]

Hey thanks for all the feedback guys, its true that an enforced alignment shift would be pretty dickish. That's why I took you guys' advice and just ran it by my players. Turns out most are ok with it, and those who aren't I agreed to contrive a reason as to why they are not affected.