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Anirikael
2017-08-18, 12:19 AM
Hello everyone, I'm a comic/forum lurker that's been around since before Roy got his starmetal, but only now do I have a question I can think of nowhere else I'd rather pose.

Alignment has been a pretty integral part of any roleplaying game for me, even outside of D&D itself-whether it's written on your character sheet or not, be you roleplaying in Faerun or an MMO, it's a great list for defining a two-dimensional spectrum of any character and what their preferences may be-and from there branching into much more about them.

I've found that I haven't come across a way to Distribute the system that I actually like yet. I've gamemastered a few games, but Alignment has always been something perpetually on the Experimental side in terms of deciding its fixture on any given Player.
Particularly this was difficult with some players that would be given an alignment shift and treat it as a severe punishment, even if their character had nothing to do with Divine Casting or anything related to alignment whatsoever.

To this I would like to hear Your ideas on a few things related to it:

1: When an alignment shift occurs, do we tell the players?
As I mentioned before, I have actually given a player an alignment shift towards Chaotic because even though the player himself practically Revered the Lawful alignment, he consistently acted in an unlawful manner (lashing out, stealing, or breaking barriers meant to uphold rules)
When told about the effects of his actions, his response was to internalize and stop roleplaying as himself. Metagaming brought him to divert away from the path his character was already on and instead choose No path at all. Is it best to tell players immediately what shifts their alignment, tell them at the end of the session, or perhaps keep it hidden until something in the game tells them otherwise?

2: What examples would you say Immediately shifts alignment versus Gradually shifting alignment? What does your chart look like for shifting alignment?
I've had a Paladin strangle a friendly but monstrous mother in front of her child based only on the grounds that it was a powerful creature and posed a threat to his current character level, and I've had a wizard trying to make amends for what he didn't realize he stole (via mischievous Djinni wish) by dumping a Tenth of what he stole into charity.

What I had originally was a sort of Step by Step system in which each alignment had 3 dots between them-and according to your actions you could make a step onto a dot closer to another alignment-where as more intense actions could move 2 or even 3 steps across these dots. What kind of systems do you guys use, and how have they transpired in your games, DMed or not?

3: What sort of ingame mechanics do you have to engage with this mechanic?
Obviously Alignment matters verymuch for Divine Casters such as Paladins and Clerics, it even matters for negotiations with magical beings that can examine alignments, or even magical items or barriers, rituals requiring purity of heart, or such. How have you guys used this to influence your players otherwise in a game? Do you incorporate willsaves to act out of alignment? Do you word things to particular players to play into their character's alignment? What else Could be done, and how do you feel it would affect a game to do it in such a way?

Alignment morality is always a hot topic in any discussion so I would appreciate cool heads and civility while addressing this.
Thank you for reading, and I anticipate your answers.

Cazero
2017-08-18, 12:53 AM
1: When an alignment shift occurs, do we tell the players?
Yes, tell them. Way beforehand. Breaking alignement is the result of a pattern, and they ought to be informed of your reading of their actions.
Asking "Your character is consistently acting in a very [X] way, are you sure you meant him/her to be [anti-X]?" to your players should happen before any alignement shift.


2: What examples would you say Immediately shifts alignment versus Gradually shifting alignment? What does your chart look like for shifting alignment?
Immediately shifting alignement doesn't make sense without a personnality rewrite. People have crisis. They can occasionaly act in ways that appears contrary to their character.
However, players can have the wrong idea of what their character alignement is and write something false on their sheet. That's ground for an immediate shift, but it's more of a retcon. See above.


3: What sort of ingame mechanics do you have to engage with this mechanic?
Meh. Whatever the game has for it, I guess.
For mortals, alignement isn't much more than a vague, poorly defined and often incoherent mess about the morality and ethicality of a character. For extraplanar creatures, it's polarities of an energy that for some strange reason is associated to a vague, poorly defined and often incoherent mess about morals and ethics. The fact Protection from [X] works on mortals always strained my suspension of disbelief. How worthy you are of a Holy Avenger cannot possibly be decided by alignement alone.

Bogwoppit
2017-08-18, 01:53 AM
Thread title is a little misleading, mate. That said, interesting questions, well put.

1. Tell players if you think their general trend of character behaviour is different from their written alignment. But tell them at the end of a session, not during play.

2. Alignment change is gradual - unless its magically or otherwise imposed on the character (drugs, spells, behaviour implant, whatever).
After telling a player they're being a bit X instead of Y, they can decide whether to embrace that. Other than that, I don't have chart.

3. Mechanically, you could assign will power tests, or a points system (Star Wars RPGs all had Dark Side points). Personally, I steer away from mechanical alignment.

icefractal
2017-08-20, 08:54 PM
Alignment is tricky, because it's an area that at least theoretically maps to RL concepts of morality and ethics, and not only is the GM not an absolute authority on that, but nobody is! Like if the GM says "This cave has goblins in it", then that is simply a fact. If they say "Refusing to negotiate with the Pit Fiend is an evil act," (or the reverse), and the player disagrees, then the GM is effectively saying they are more of a moral authority than the player, and there's no way that's going to go over well.

Therefore, IMO, any kind of alignment dispute should first be treated as a case of failed communication / mental pictures not being in sync, before it's treated as an intentional alignment-changing action by the character. Like for instance, if the GM said "There is a Lich in the fountain", but he had an accent and the players heard "There is a leak in the fountain" (true story, apparently).

Now yes, sometimes it's obvious what alignment an action is. But in that case, there's no harm in confirming that, since it wouldn't be a surprise anyway.

So, TL;DR:
* Player, with a Lawful character, says they're going to do something notably chaotic. *
GM: That sounds like a pretty chaotic action.
Player: Yup, but I'm doing it anyway.
- or -
Player: Oh, yeah it is ... ok, I'm doing [other action] instead.
- or -
Player: I don't think it is, because [reasons]. (The GM doesn't have to agree, but at least it can be discussed properly).

Darth Ultron
2017-08-20, 09:51 PM
1: When an alignment shift occurs, do we tell the players?

Yes.



2: What examples would you say Immediately shifts alignment versus Gradually shifting alignment? What does your chart look like for shifting alignment?

I'm not a fan of the Big Immediate Alignment Change. And I hate the idea the Good and only Good must walk around on egg shells and tippy toes or BAM WHAM your not good no more. And I really hate the DM's that are like ''ok, the tidal wave will destroy the kingdom unless your character kills 13 innocent people, what does your character do?'' And when the player is like ''kill the 13 people'' the DM is all like ''haha, your character is not good any more..ahah!''

So I'm just about always going for gradual.

For a new player, or a player I don't know and for any new character, I treat their alignment as 'fluid' for at least the first couple games. They might say and think they are X, but act like Y. And this is very common as a lot of players don't ''get'' alignment or were just taught bad in other games.





3: What sort of ingame mechanics do you have to engage with this mechanic?


Lots of divine stuff like magic shields that block other alignments or items that zap other alignments. Even non divine folks use them. Like a Good Book, that does one point of damage if a non good person touches it...used at court, of course.

I like active gods, and the gods help and reward followers of the right alignment and philosophy. Some times it's a simple ''door opens to show the right way'', sometimes it is finding a potion of healing that was not there before. I also like the ''plausible deniability'' gods, like conjuration spells in my game can be miss cast and summon the wrong creatures. So a Cleric of Torm might mis cast summon monster and get some golden celestial lions (aka Torm's animal)...but maybe it was just a mis cast spell, right?

I do like summoned alignment creatures too. So like if a good character starts to turn evil they will find things like snakes or spiders in their bed; or if they turn good it will be dogs or lady bugs. Or things like golden celestial snakes or fiendish dogs and so on and so on.

In general, I don't try to force a player to have a character of an alignment. The Grove of Nase has animated thorns that attack all non-neutral folks that get close, and the characters need to get to the middle...but that is not ''forcing an alignment change''.

AMFV
2017-08-20, 10:05 PM
1: When an alignment shift occurs, do we tell the players?


Absolutely, both before and during. There are several mechanical effects tied into alignment, and the player should definitely know that their character's alignment is shifting before they get killed by their Cleric's Holy Word. Of course, depending on their roleplaying they might still decide to take the hit. Normally though if I feel like alignment is shifting, I discuss it with the player first and see how they want to handle it.



2: What examples would you say Immediately shifts alignment versus Gradually shifting alignment? What does your chart look like for shifting alignment?


It depends, alignment is in a sense a reflection of personal philosophy or personality. If that changes quickly, and it can, then alignment would do likewise. I would discuss with the player how they want to handle that.



3: What sort of ingame mechanics do you have to engage with this mechanic?


I typically add no additional rules beyond those which are present in the game itself.

oxybe
2017-08-20, 11:09 PM
I have problems with D&D's alignment. I could rant and rave like drunken sailor stuck at port for weeks, but i'll instead give my view on how I would treat the situation, should I for whatever reason do end up using alignment.

1: When an alignment shift occurs, do we tell the players?
Yes.

2: What examples would you say Immediately shifts alignment versus Gradually shifting alignment? What does your chart look like for shifting alignment?
Immediate shifts almost never occur due to one action, unless that action is one of such gravity that it would irreparably or forcefully change the very nature of the characters' being. Gradual shifting is something I would discuss with the player out of the game and let them know that what their doing doesn't fit my game's descriptor of [alignment] and if they continue they'll change

3: What sort of ingame mechanics do you have to engage with this mechanic?
Only the ones currently in place. I generally want as little to do with D&D alignments as possible.

Satinavian
2017-08-21, 01:56 AM
1: When an alignment shift occurs, do we tell the players?
Obviously yes.

Why would i ever want to keep it secret. Alignment has some mechanichal interactions and those would reveal it anyway or leeding to a mismatch between the situation the player imagines and the situation the GM imagines. And that would be not good. And if the mechanical alignment implications don't come up ... the secret alignment is does nor contribute to the game either.


2: What examples would you say Immediately shifts alignment versus Gradually shifting alignment? What does your chart look like for shifting alignment?I prefer gradual but leave room for immediate.

A situation warranting an immediate shift must be one that changes how the whole table sees the character. Everything else should never result in an immediate shift. And not all even of those character defining moments warrant a shift at all.

3: What sort of ingame mechanics do you have to engage with this mechanic?Honestly ? I rarely interact with it at all. Way too much hassle for way to little beneft. I prefer games without alignment anyway. But if i play D&D there will be alignment. But the underlining conflicts of my games will be about something else. I don't add any more rules to track alignment more gradually or something.

I do consider alignment change in those character defining moments which will it be obvious anyway.

If someones characters smaller actions don't match with the characters alignment so much that it grates me, i have a talk with the player about alignment which until now has always resultet in a voluntary shift, a change of character behavior or me accepting the players rationale for the alignment.


Obviously Alignment matters verymuch for Divine Casters such as Paladins and Clerics, it even matters for negotiations with magical beings that can examine alignments, or even magical items or barriers, rituals requiring purity of heart, or such. How have you guys used this to influence your players otherwise in a game? Do you incorporate willsaves to act out of alignment? Do you word things to particular players to play into their character's alignment? What else Could be done, and how do you feel it would affect a game to do it in such a way?NPCs use it and will game it. People don't cast protection of alignment opposite of own, they cast protection of alignment i guess is most prevalent among my enemies. Same with barriers and stuff. People don't ever assume that "same alignment" means "same side". If they want use restrictions, they are unlikely to use someting as fickle as alignment. The only thing where alignment based spells/powers really see a lot of use is in dealing with planar stuff and beings basically guaranteed to fit a certain alignment.

Geddy2112
2017-08-21, 10:22 AM
1. Always tell players if their alignment has shifted, or is shifting. I go as far as to tell players whenever they commit a very strongly aligned act that is different than their alignment. I will say that barring a majorly drastic event, alignments shift gradually. Most of the time, the player just put the wrong alignment on their character sheet, and they were playing the character as a different alignment from the get go. However, I like that in a game a character's alignment and worldview can evolve and change, but again, this rarely happens overnight.

2. An immediate change has to be big, and I mean BIG. Killing one person probably won't make a character evil if they were good, but destroying an entire city and killing every living thing within 100 miles, all the while cackling with glee, will. Likewise, an evil character performing a single act of altruism is by no means good, but giving up money, risking life and limb, or taking an act that saves many(with no secret evil intent) might. If a character has taken an action that is majorly aligned, then I generally let them know. If they do it more than a couple times I inform them that they are going down a darker/brighter/chaotic/lawful path, and continuing to do so will shift their alignment. I don't have a hard and fast mechanic or threshold as to when one shifts to another, it varies from case to case.

3. I only use alignment in my games because 3.X has objective good, evil, law, and chaos. Likewise, a lot of magic mechanics function on objective alignments. Some spells only target evil, others good, etc. I let characters put whatever the heck they want on their sheets, but if a mechanic would affect evil, and they are evil based on action(even if they say otherwise) they get hit by it. Of all my years of being a DM and a player, I could count on one hand the times I saw this catch somebody off guard.

KarlMarx
2017-08-23, 08:44 AM
Alignment is...complicated. Some players literally won't care what their alignment is, and will basically do whatever--the type who, despite the 'NG' slapped on their character sheets, will start murdering the whole town for whatever. Others will do anything to keep that 'LG' right where it belongs, and will be distraught if their oh-so-perfect paladin suffers anything resembling a shift away from their alignment. So, as always, the answers to the three questions will by necessity change from table to table:

1. Yes, almost always. If it doesn't matter too much, you can just announce it during a slow point in the session. If a PC shifts in a particularly dramatic manner--a paladin/cleric/druid falling from grace, a barbarian losing the chaotic anger within, a monk forgetting their once-strong discipline--you can try telling the player aside, if they might want to roleplay the shift. Nonetheless, always tell the player(s). Make sure that they are aware, however, that their alignment changing shouldn't necessarily change how they play the character--the former is dependent on the latter, not vice versa.

2. Immediate shifts are dramatic, and extremely rare. Things like mass murder, enslavement, etc. by a player are the only things that should result in them falling towards evil in such a manner, or similar in terms of other alignments. Note that, especially when falling towards evil, such sudden changes can also be disruptive of gameplay, and often should be resolved by an outside-the-game conversation. Otherwise, the only time a character's alignment should change in a single session is that character's first session, as the player fleshes out how they are going to play the character, which may not be in accordance with their printed alignment.

3. I almost never imagine mechanics to change alignment. Unless something egregious--see above--occurs, I generally examine PC behavior as a whole every few sessions, and try to label each with an alignment based solely on their actions. I then will either a) ask the player if they wish to voluntarily change their alignment, b) inform them that their alignment is shifting, c) note that their alignment is shifting without informing them, or d) decide to shift their alignment fully next session.

Alignment should be a dynamic, not static thing. It should reflect the actions of the PCs, not inform them, in most of my campaigns. While angels are 'lawful good' and demons 'chaotic evil', characters in the game don't think of them--and by extension alignment generally--in terms of such labels (certainly not in terms of lawful vs. chaotic), but rather should apply them outside the game to reflect their actions. They may use them to inform future actions in an attempt to guarantee consistency, but ultimately think in terms of what the characters want to do, be it follow a code of honor or achieve absolute freedom. Alignment should largely reflect these actions, especially as the game progresses.

Anymage
2017-08-23, 01:58 PM
Before answering that, the big question is how good of a person do you have to be in order to qualify as Good aligned? Ditto for the other alignments. Would your average internet troll ping Detect Evil, or is that reserved for people who go above and beyond in making the world a crappy place?

Anyways, so long as the player isn't blatantly metagaming (by, say, having a change of heart to whatever most conveniently deals with local magical effects at any given moment), I'm inclined to let what's on their character sheet stand. If the character happens to be a paladin or belong to some other group with an alignment restriction, it's better to discuss more clearly what you two see the code of behavior entailing than to leave it up to a couple of hopelessly vague letters. Otherwise, while characters do grow and change over time, having the GM police player alignment runs the risk of undermining the player's vision, and/or making them feel like they can't just be random adventurers. Not to mention it being extra work that you don't need to make yourself do.

The main exception I can think of, where alignment change should be immediately invoked by the DM, is really something that can't be resolved by changing one letter on a character sheet. If the player goes past kicking a dog to vivisecting it and mailing bits to the owners over a course of weeks, instant Evil. Also, unless everybody signed on for a sick campaign from the word go (seriously, WTF), instant "what the **** are you doing" and "get away from my table".

Mastikator
2017-08-23, 03:03 PM
As for question number two I would just add to the conversation that I think the player's desire to change alignment should matter a lot here. If he wants to change alignment then it should happen faster, provided that he sticks to it. If he doesn't want to then the fact that he's trying to roleplay differently should count for something.
Basically the intended alignment should be a major component, not just the outcome.

Tinkerer
2017-08-23, 04:31 PM
There are a couple of things which should be taken into account with alignment which rarely are. A) Alignment in D&D and some other systems is not an abstract philosophical question but a real physical law of nature like gravity or thermodynamics. B) The GM is the absolute authority on what constitutes a breach of alignment due to the fact that the alignment system functions based on the whims of the gods, not what's going on in the heart of the players. If it differs from reality then so be it (like how pi = 3 in D&D).

As for your questions: 1) Yes but I'm guessing from the example you meant When do you tell the player. I generally wait to discuss it with the player after the session unless it's such a major action that it immediately shifts them.

2) I normally don't have a system for tracking it aside from a section that I have in characters notes where I jot down some of the most defining actions that each character took. An old character of mine had a grid type system though with 10x10 in each alignment. It works out alright but I'm not overly fond of it. Considering these are some of the most defining parts of a character it's usually simpler to just remember them.

3) I don't really have many mechanics which interact with alignment outside of divine communication, planar travel in D&D, requirements, and magic item usage. I've often thought of using some more but the campaign would need to have a very specific focus for me to actually do it. For instance a campaign set entirely in Ravenloft...