Some alignment banter related to my campaign

[Jon_Dahl]

I have an interesting situation in my game because the PCs' alignments are LN, CN and NG. What a combo! None of them have alignment-related class abilities etc. so I am free to fool around with the alignments. "Fooling around" is something along the lines of inviting the players to make choices that are alignment-wise ambiguous and difficult and would easily make a paladin fall. And we aren't allowed to do that with paladins, right? I would like to share this scenario with you for critique and to hear ideas for expansion.

The PCs recently heard that the adventurers' guild vice-president is offering a special mission which is reserved only those members who have unwavering loyalty towards the guild and are willing to do what is needed to help the guild. The PCs unanimously decided to take the mission. In a private consultation with the vice-president, the v-p told that there is an unauthorized adventurer organization (Seekers of the Arcana) that has been deemed to violate the guild's privileges which are granted by the king (a monopoly with a royal seal). Therefore the local lord has promised to ignore any harm brought upon the members of the unauthorized organization as long as public peace and safety are not compromised. The v-p has now tasked the PCs to break into the home of the organization's leader at midnight (two days from now) and "do what is necessary" and confiscate his gold. The PCs have promised to do that.

I have planned that the next session begins with a visit from the guild's chief librarian who has heard the PCs are tasked to arrest the organization's leader so that they can interrogate him and then exile him if he doesn't cooperate with the guild. She says that he is concerned that the arrest of the man might provoke retaliation from the organization and start a war. She thinks that this sort of move is too dangerous since no one knows how the man is connected with the organization.

[zlefin]

I'm not seeing an alignment threatening dilemma anywhere.

I wonder waht the normal recourse is when people violate the king's law. In most places I Can think of; even if there were some risk, the fact that the other adventuring org is violating the king's law is grounds enough to use force (unless that other adventuring org would submit to the court system, then it'd go through that). The only question would be who is authorized to use that force (in some places only the king's enforcers would be, not the aggrieved party).

[Particle_Man]

Be a little careful that character vs. character interaction and disagreement doesn't turn into player vs. player heated arguments. That is a possible danger when alignment looms larger in a game.

[Jon_Dahl]

The only question would be who is authorized to use that force (in some places only the king's enforcers would be, not the aggrieved party).

Exactly. In this case, as both the adventurers' guild (legitimate) and the adventurer organization (illegitimate) wield an insane amount of power and have access to high-level spells, the king and the local lord are happy to leave this issue to the guild. They (the king and the local lord) don't know anyone crazy enough to become involved in all this unless offered with a small fortune plus a royal title and maybe a high-born marriage arrangement to boot.

[Mars Ultor]

It depends where the LN's character's allegiances lie. Since he's agreed to uphold the king's law, that's good enough for me.

The possible retaliation would be an issue, I'd prefer we arrest the guy as peacefully as possible so there's no outright riot and to limit the guild from starting an insurrection. My preference would be to negotiate a truce, get the guy to come in without violence, and let the rest of the guild know that things are going to go badly for them if they rebel, we're all better off if things are discussed rationally.

[Jon_Dahl]

It depends where the LN's character's allegiances lie. Since he's agreed to uphold the king's law, that's good enough for me.

The possible retaliation would be an issue, I'd prefer we arrest the guy as peacefully as possible so there's no outright riot and to limit the guild from starting an insurrection. My preference would be to negotiate a truce, get the guy to come in without violence, and let the rest of the guild know that things are going to go badly for them if they rebel, we're all better off if things are discussed rationally.

The vice-president, who is a lot more powerful, influential and dangerous than the chief librarian, tasked you to "do what is necessary" with the old guy. The v-p is out of town and not reachable.

[Darth Ultron]

I'm not sure how the VP says ''rob the guy..and you must do it on this day at midnight" and then Larry the Librarian says "ok, the mission is to kidnap this guy".

But, ok, lets say the mission is to suddenly kidnap the guy. Well, the PC's can do that all sneaky. So guy just is ''taken", but no one knows why or where.

So....I don't really see a question or even anything about alignment.

I guess if any player(s) really feels the railroad plot violates their Player Characters alignment, they can just say "no" and "next plot hook DM".

If the players do the plot, then you can just have the War happen no matter what the PCs do.

[Jon_Dahl]

I guess I could present the situation less ambiguously:

You are a member of an official organization. You must rob and murder an unknown person, whose only known crime is to run an unofficial organization. You must do this, since you have promised it to the second highest leader of your organization. Everything has been arranged and you don't have any possibilities to renegotiate the situation.

The organization has a chief librarian who says that of course you won't just murder this guy, but rather hold him captive. After all, the guy is enemy that you just murder in his home.

[zlefin]

I guess I could present the situation less ambiguously:

You are a member of an official organization. You must rob and murder an unknown person, whose only known crime is to run an unofficial organization. You must do this, since you have promised it to the second highest leader of your organization. Everything has been arranged and you don't have any possibilities to renegotiate the situation.

The organization has a chief librarian who says that of course you won't just murder this guy, but rather hold him captive. After all, the guy is enemy that you just murder in his home.

it's not murder. Legally speaking, you've been authorized by the king and the local lord to punish someone who broke the local laws. It might not be nice (depending on the details of what the other org is doing), but it's quite legal.
It's not robbery either; since again, you have the express sanction of the local legal authority; and asset forfeiture is a pretty standard punishment.

You haven't included much detail on the actual activities of that other guild, which makes it hard to assess their good/evilness; but the fact that the king doesn't want to mess with them establishes that they can't be that good and/or lawful; such orgs would handle things through the normal legal processes.
the way you wrote the description, it could basically be an illuminati-esque group, in which case doing such things to them wouldn't be a problem at all.

Also, your instructions were to handle the situation; you weren't ordered to kill the person. You were ordered to collect the money (which is recompense/damages for their violation of the law) and do what is necessary. That means what is necessary is up to your judgment based on the response of that person; it could mean killing, holding captive, or admonishing sufficiently.

as to the librarian: they have an opinion on how you should carry out the mission. You can consider the merits of their opinion and act accordingly. but it's just an advisory opinion, nothing more.

[Mars Ultor]

I play a LN character who's part of an official organization in a campaign right now. If we were told to go kill someone and someone else said it might lead to bad things, I'd still do it. I (my character) views it as his job to carry out the lord's orders. I'll use my judgement when it's necessary, but I assume the lord knows what he's doing. If I haven't had any reason in the past to doubt the VP, there's no reason to question him now.

If the chief librarian has concerns I'd advise her to discuss it with the VP. Even if I trust her, she's outranked and I'm getting a direct order. I'll lend my support if she requests it, but the VP is in charge.

My feeling is that I'm LAWFUL neutral. My job is to uphold the law, if I have to veer into evil sometimes that's fine, if I can do a nice thing I'll that too, but more than anything it's to uphold and enforce the law. If you let everyone do what they want, it's anarchy and everyone suffers. If the VP, the president, or the lord of land goes a little to one side or the other in their desire to keep society functioning, that's okay with me.

For Neutral Good or other alignments this might be a moral quandary, but my LN character wouldn't have an issue with it.

[Darth Ultron]

I guess I could present the situation less ambiguously:

You are a member of an official organization. You must rob and murder an unknown person, whose only known crime is to run an unofficial organization. You must do this, since you have promised it to the second highest leader of your organization. Everything has been arranged and you don't have any possibilities to renegotiate the situation.

The organization has a chief librarian who says that of course you won't just murder this guy, but rather hold him captive. After all, the guy is enemy that you just murder in his home.

It's still too ambiguous.

The leader of your group tells you to do something, and you have no choice (other then to just not play the game?).

So the task is to kill some one.

So sure the type of Lawful person that is a mind less sheep that follows the law won't like the killing part....assuming there is even a law against killing.

The other lawful types don't really have a problem with killing, as long as order maintained.

Good does not really overly want to kill anyone ever, unless it's ''needed".

Really LN, CN and NG are all just fine ''in the middle", so it's not much of a problem. Though they might REALLY want to think hard on if they even want to be part of this murderhobo group in the first place.

I guess I'd ask the DM what the plan is here:

1.Be a jerk and ''fool" the players just so the DM can hop up and say ''gottaha! You all violated your alignments! I rule!"

2.Have the players just walk out of the game