I Love Alignments

[OldTrees1]

I would definitely file this under "player agrees". And maybe that's the core of where I'm running into a brick wall.

Possibly a better way to put it is "player disagrees with ruling and doesn't accept the DM ruling because dagnab it it's THEIR CHARACTER and they get to decide how they roleplay."

There are definitely systems where it's not assumed the player controls how their character feels and how the player role players the characters. (Example: Exalted II, where you sometimes have to spend resources to decide your character feels or roleplay certain ways.) But usually D&D (because alignment) generally isn't considered one of them, especially in modern times, and instead it would be considered denying player agency.

It isn't, of course. Because the player can still do whatever they want with their character's roleplaying, unless there's an additional house rule like "evil characters become NPCs". But that prevalent attitude is why you're likely to end up at 2B.

Edit: On the other hand, if players are coming to the table accepting what you have in quotes in the first place, DM judged alignment becomes a lot less unstable, if not our right stable. They're implicitly going to agree no matter what, since they're ceding it to the DM as DM area of ruling in advance.

Oh, if that would be fined under "player agrees" due to the acceptance despite the technical & irrelevant disagreement, then I might know how to explain.

While I was creating my Mind Flayer character, here is my decision tree.
Can Tanarii's 2B exist for me playing this character?
1) No. Does 2 add anything for this character?
1A) Yes. Sign up for for DM described alignment (Use Tanarii's 2).
1B) No. Don't sign up for DM described alignment (Use Tanarii's 1 instead).
2) Yes. Don't sign up for DM described alignment (Use Tanarii's 1 instead).

If I can't accept the GM making rulings about a detail about my character, I don't grant them control over making rulings about that detail of my character. Therefore if I grant them control over making rulings about a detail of my character, I already accepted them making rulings about that detail of my character.

Generally only my amoral characters (Dun the Dungeon Tour Guide) don't use DM described alignment. However the magic is in knowing if I would accept the GM making rulings about that detail of my character.

Edit: Yeah, granting the GM control over things you accept the GM having control over tends to be stable. Luckily alignment works like that for me. I suspect that is the minority rather than the majority. I advise other GMs to avoid using DM described alignment if Tanarii's 2B can happen.

[Mechalich]

Possibly a better way to put it is "player disagrees with ruling and doesn't accept the DM ruling because dagnab it it's THEIR CHARACTER and they get to decide how they roleplay."

The player may believe that, but the nature of TTRPG play is that the player automatically loses any such argument with the GM, even if the GM is being manifestly unfair, and the player's only option beyond simple acceptance is to leave the game.

One of the reasons alignments specifically, and morality systems generally lead to conflict is that they are both very easy to use utilize in ways that are actually unfair - such as trap scenarios that seem to doom a paladin to fall no matter what - or they create the perception of unfairness because of a combination of poorly defined criteria and underlying OOC disagreements about the moral weight applied to various actions/intentions.

This leads into 'alignment is bad' arguments in the sense that it is the kind of mechanic that naturally lends itself to both deliberate unfairness and misunderstandings and can create conflicts between players and GMs where other, less emotionally loaded systems, would not. This is by no means unique to morality systems, basically any system that requires the GM to directly judge character actions and provide consequences wherein the criteria and meanings are vague is liable to do this. For example, in Vampire: the Masquerade, all vampires were capable of going into frenzy, an animalistic state in which the GM more or less took control of the character for a time. While actual entry into frenzy involved roles, the ability to need to call for a Frenzy role was based on very loose guidelines and in practice was almost completely at the GM's discretion. Good GMs quickly learned to avoid using Frenzy much at all and in many cases dropped it entirely except in specific cases such as blood loss that were unequivocal triggers, but GMs unfamiliar with the system could call for frenzy roles quite often and then watch their table collapse into infighting and resentment despite doing their best efforts to play the rules as written. Ultimately, alignment is the sort of mechanic that requires greater GM and player skill to handle properly.

[OldTrees1]

The player may believe that, but the nature of TTRPG play is that the player automatically loses any such argument with the GM, even if the GM is being manifestly unfair, and the player's only option beyond simple acceptance is to leave the game.

If there is a character detail the player can't accept the GM making rulings on, and the GM is making rulings on that character detail, then something has already gone wrong. Yes, if the GM has been granted the ability to make rulings on that character detail, then we players would lose any such argument. However we GMs also don't want to cause that conflict either. The point is not who would "lose" the argument. The point is, that conflict is a conflict to be avoided through finding compatible groups, playing compatible characters, and limiting your GM authority based on what fits best for each character.

When I GM I default to the players controlling their character's alignment (same as I default to the players controlling their character's dominant handedness). Then I turn on DM described alignment for the characters whose players opt in. Players that could have negative outcomes from me using DM described alignment for their characters, should stick to player controlled alignment for those characters. This model works well for my group and seems broadly applicable.

Edit:
Also there might be a relevant difference between the minimum acceptance (some form of begrudging acceptance can lead to a negative outcome), and full acceptance. In my case I am talking about full acceptance.

Ultimately, alignment is the sort of mechanic that requires greater GM and player skill to handle properly.

True.

[gbaji]

You can't have conflict with the GM, the person whose job it is to settle conflict.

A. That's patently false. if the GM says one thing, and the player thinks something different, that is a conflict.

B. This isn't "me". I'm presenting scenarios and discussing them. Period. Don't make this personal please.

This is not the fault of Alignment, someone is being confrontational or insane.

Sigh. I'm not talking about how rules are ruled, or how differenct opinions at a gaming table are resolved. Nor is it about being or not being confrontational. I'm actually assuming exactly what you are: That the GM is the final arbiter on alignment. I'm just following that to its logical conclusion as far as how that affects players and how they play characters in a game with an alignment system like D&D.

The players, as a means to "avoid confrontation" will tend towards playing character types that facilitate that, right? That's literally what I'm saying here. That, as a result, tends towards what I call "cardboard cutout" character types.

Get it? You can't have it both ways. Either the GM is the final arbiter, and the players will therefore have to comply (even if they might otherwise disagree), or the GM is not. if the GM is not, then you don't have "enforced alignment rules" (that's case number one I wrote earlier). If the GM is, then you either have the players avoiding confrontation over this issue by adjusting the kinds of characters they play (or how they play their characters, which is more or less the same thing) *or* you get what you just talked about "someone being confrontational or insane".

I'm just examining all the cases here and showing how one set of rules and actions impacts other people's actions and decisions.

If things are not clear, the GM decides what the rulings mean, they interpret the "law". Not only that, but he law gives them the power to override the law at will, in the name of "fun" or "gameplay" or "function", all vague terms.

So again, it cannot be the Alignment's fault, because even if Alignment was simpler or more complex or anything, the GM could always ignore it, read it "wrongly", or hate you for no reason.

This is still an issue about the player or the GM. If anything goes wrong, it's a living breathing person's fault, not the rules.

Sure. But in this case the rules are about how the GM arbitrates the very personality and decision making of the player characters. That's fundamentally different than say arbitrating how much damage a fall should cause. It moves us into an area that is very much at the heart of players actually roleplaying their characters.

The GM job is literally to enforce the rules, and to decide what they even are.

Yup. I'm not disputing this. Again though, the problem with the alignment system in D&D is that "the rules" are literally ones that empower the GM to force players to play specific types of characters, complete with punishments to those characters if they don't comply.

We would all agree that any GM who, when a player says "I'm going to have my character do X" told the player "No. Your character does Y instead" would be dismissed as a really terrible GM who is trying to railroad and/or defeat player agency. Yet, with an alignment system (especially D&Ds) we have more or less that exact thing happening. Even if the GM isn't stepping in and actually saying "Your character wouldn't do that, it's against his alignment", the player knows the rules too, and knows that there may be a consequence for some actions, and will therefore moderate their own character's actions. The GM doesn't have to punish the PC. Just the mere fact that he could acts as a deterrent.

Some may say that's a good thing. Others that it's bad. I'm not even placing a value judgement here (well I am, but not right at this very moment). I'm just trying to get some people to even acknowledge that those rules do exist and do have an effect on players decisions when running their characters. You seem to be wanting to simultaneously claim that alignment doesn't restrict the players in terms of how they play their characters (my point) *and* that the GM is always right and must be followed when it comes to rulings on alignment.

I'm just pointing out how incredibly contradictory that is. There are rules. They must be followed. You just (very clearly and strongly) made this case. I agree. You can't hold that position and also claim that alignment rules don't affect how players play their characters. Right?

They don't cause any conflict. You literally said over and over "The player and GM disagree", that is the conflict. They can disagree if the character is dead or not, they can disagree if "This is what my player would do" or not. They can disagree if the player can be a noble, or if they know someone, or any number of things.

Um. If there is literally no such thing as "Lawful Evil" in your game, then there can be no disagreement over whether a character is Lawful Evil, right? So yes. The very existence of alignments "create conflict". In precisely the same way that the moment I name my team "The patriots", and you name yours "The cowboys", we have created something we can disagree on and therefore have "conflict" over. This is pretty basic stuff here.

Maybe if I rephrase it? It doesn't actually create the conflict. It creates the thing that people can have conflict over. And, as I've said repeatedly, the nature of the D&D alignment system maximizes the odds that there will be conflict, due to it applying a "one size fits all" label to a host of different character aspects.

I can't recall who said this before, but earlier someone wiser and (Older?) than me suggested that your opposition to Alignment was not what was important. The inner truth was your seeming opposition to the GameMaster as a referee, to the very idea of someone being an referee.

Nope. Could not be further from the truth. I'm a firm believer in GM power and importance as a referee in a game. In fact, it's because of that firm position on this that I identify the alignment system in D&D to be such a source of disagreement and conflict. My argument stems from the assumption that the GM is final arbiter of such disagreements, and merely examines the effect on PC play as a result.

You railed against what was written, so you're not a Rules Lawyer. You railed against someone interpreting the rules, so you're not okay with a world without rules spelled out.

To me it sounds like you just want to make all the rules and decide everything, while also being a player somehow.

If not, you got to seriously prove that, because you've sure proved otherwise.

This is, again, not about me. It's my assessment of the effect of the alignment system in D&D on players. Period. How you got from that to examining whether I believe in following the rules, or whether GMs should be empowered to enforce rules, is baffling to me.

Again. My position assumes those things are in effect. Then it examines how this affects the player character personality choices over time in a game. And my conclusion is that it does, and that it tends to push players into playing cardboard cutout characters. I'm not sure how that's even in dispute. It literally says "write this alignment down on your character sheet", and then requires that you follow a set of personality standards based on what is written down there, complete with consequences if you don't.

What's weird is that, instead of examining that, we seem to be stuck in this odd circle going back and forth over the specifics of the methods by which alignment is enforced (or even, oddly, whether it actually is at all). Can't we just accept that, for any sane examination of the rules, we must assume that in some way, they are enforced? And can we then move past that to examine what the effect of that enforcement has? That's what I'm trying (apparently somewhat in vain) to do, but I keep getting caught up in circular arguments about GM power, or player attitudes, or whatever.

Good, now try doing it without replying to me. You had 3 options, you chose option 3. *plonk*

Wait? So you want me to reply to what you said, but not to you? That's... strange.

Given that several posters have questioned your position and asked for clarification on it, maybe just declaring "I already told you" over and over isn't the most helpful response. Now, when someone actually does bother to dig through your earlier posts to try to noodle out what you are talking about, you respond with "don't talk to me".

You're the one who kept insisting that you'd already made an argument against a position I have taken in this thread, and refused (despite several requests) to clarify or repeat said argument. You're the one with the burden to back that up in some way. If you now don't want to discuss it, then I'll take that as a retraction of your disagreement to my position (which I'm assuming isn't your intent).

Or you can simply clarify what you were saying regarding the case you spoke of, and we can have a reasonable conversation about it. Just saying "nuh uh" over and over isn't terribly useful. Cause I looked at your case, and I believe that it doesn't really refute what I've been saying about alignment. Now, that could be because I am not understanding what you said, or you are not understanding what I'm saying. But in either case, just refusing to clarify and talk is never going to accomplish anything.

This is the same person who kept trying to insist Elan was Lawful Good, or that Roy was not Lawful Good, or that if you are CG you have to be a moron like Elan.

Oh and they tried to insist that Robin Hood, the quintessential example of CG, was too organized to be CG.

Sigh. Again. I didn't "insist" anything. I'm literally not taking any position on who's alignment is what. I'm just presenting hypotheticals that violate the "rules" of the alignment system in D&D and showing how the resulting characters would be perfectly viable playable characters from a RPG perspective, but are not due purely to the existence of the specific alignment rules in D&D. Specifically, the idea that all characters have one and only one alignment, despite the fact that real people commonly exhibit diametrically different decisions and actions based on situations they are in (like Elan when following rules to the absurd letter in some cases, and then doing random other things "because it's fun" in others).

Those are just examples of a point, not me arguing that they *are* one way or another. I'm perfectly capable of examining what might happen if we all lived in a world with no shrimp, without actually arguing that this is the way the world actually is.

[Tevo77777]

The player may believe that, but the nature of TTRPG play is that the player automatically loses any such argument with the GM, even if the GM is being manifestly unfair, and the player's only option beyond simple acceptance is to leave the game.

One of the reasons alignments specifically, and morality systems generally lead to conflict is that they are both very easy to use utilize in ways that are actually unfair - such as trap scenarios that seem to doom a paladin to fall no matter what - or they create the perception of unfairness because of a combination of poorly defined criteria and underlying OOC disagreements about the moral weight applied to various actions/intentions.

I'm about to compare RPGs to Dating, but I'll read your third paragraph first.

This leads into 'alignment is bad' arguments in the sense that it is the kind of mechanic that naturally lends itself to both deliberate unfairness and misunderstandings and can create conflicts between players and GMs where other, less emotionally loaded systems, would not. This is by no means unique to morality systems, basically any system that requires the GM to directly judge character actions and provide consequences wherein the criteria and meanings are vague is liable to do this. For example, in Vampire: the Masquerade, all vampires were capable of going into frenzy, an animalistic state in which the GM more or less took control of the character for a time. While actual entry into frenzy involved roles, the ability to need to call for a Frenzy role was based on very loose guidelines and in practice was almost completely at the GM's discretion. Good GMs quickly learned to avoid using Frenzy much at all and in many cases dropped it entirely except in specific cases such as blood loss that were unequivocal triggers, but GMs unfamiliar with the system could call for frenzy roles quite often and then watch their table collapse into infighting and resentment despite doing their best efforts to play the rules as written. Ultimately, alignment is the sort of mechanic that requires greater GM and player skill to handle properly.

You are right, but I am still going to compare RPGs to Dating.

When I was dating, I used to on the second or third date "frontload" some of the more negative, private aspects of who I am. I would make it clear exactly what my religion was, and what my politics were not. If people were going to go into a frenzy and call me homophobic because I'm religious, or say I'm insane because I know about firearms, I wanted that to happen before.

The reason I bring this up, is because this kinds of behavior reveals personality flaws and conflicts early, so I don't date someone a week or a month or a year, and then everything catches on fire and they're screaming at me.

If the Alignment system is such a wrench in the system, that everything locks up and breaks, the system was going to lock down and break anyways.

Like dating, why be spending time in a campaign/relationship that is going to burst into flames, when you could be moving on to a better table, a better player, or a better relationship?

When you finally have good players/good partner, you wish you had skipped or speed-dated through all the other people to get where you are now.

If there is a character detail the player can't accept the GM making rulings on, and the GM is making rulings on that character detail, then something has already gone wrong. Yes, if the GM has been granted the ability to make rulings on that character detail, then we players would lose any such argument. However we GMs also don't want to cause that conflict either. The point is not who would "lose" the argument. The point is, that conflict is a conflict to be avoided through finding compatible groups, playing compatible characters, and limiting your GM authority based on what fits best for each character.

When I GM I default to the players controlling their character's alignment (same as I default to the players controlling their character's dominant handedness). Then I turn on DM described alignment for the characters whose players opt in. Players that could have negative outcomes from me using DM described alignment for their characters, should stick to player controlled alignment for those characters. This model works well for my group and seems broadly applicable.

Edit:
Also there might be a relevant difference between the minimum acceptance (some form of begrudging acceptance can lead to a negative outcome), and full acceptance. In my case I am talking about full acceptance.


True.

This person gets it.

A. That's patently false. if the GM says one thing, and the player thinks something different, that is a conflict.

You literally failed to read the next sentence, literally the next sentence.

"Either you are an absolute tool for starting conflict with the peacemaker, the soother of conflict... Or you're going to have to.." (Three paragraphs giving example where either you're a tool or the GM is a tool, thus making it very obvious that "can't" is a moral "can't".

As in you "can't" eat babies.)

Sigh. I'm not talking about how rules are ruled, or how differenct opinions at a gaming table are resolved. Nor is it about being or not being confrontational. I'm actually assuming exactly what you are: That the GM is the final arbiter on alignment. I'm just following that to its logical conclusion as far as how that affects players and how they play characters in a game with an alignment system like D&D.

How can you bring up the GM, and not be talking about arbitration or settling conflict? This is like bringing up the Supreme Court, and not talking about anything they do or have done.

The players, as a means to "avoid confrontation" will tend towards playing character types that facilitate that, right? That's literally what I'm saying here. That, as a result, tends towards what I call "cardboard cutout" character types.

Get it? You can't have it both ways. Either the GM is the final arbiter, and the players will therefore have to comply (even if they might otherwise disagree), or the GM is not. if the GM is not, then you don't have "enforced alignment rules" (that's case number one I wrote earlier). If the GM is, then you either have the players avoiding confrontation over this issue by adjusting the kinds of characters they play (or how they play their characters, which is more or less the same thing) *or* you get what you just talked about "someone being confrontational or insane".

I'm just examining all the cases here and showing how one set of rules and actions impacts other people's actions and decisions.

Based on our previous discussions, this is a ridiculous thing to bring up.

You claim or seem to be worried that "Oh, I'll do this one thing and lose all my powers" or "Oh, I'll do this one thing and suddenly the GM will tell me what my new alignment is".

But based on your previous arguments and disposition, that isn't going to happen.

What would actually happen, if you brought a character like Roy or Elan to a table, and played them exactly as they were presented... Not a single person (Out of how many people who've been on these forums) will think your characters (Roy and/or Elan) had any change in alignment ever.

What would actually happen, if you were playing these characters, is you would just erase Lawful or Chaotic and put something else down... and the whole table will think you're high or insane or joking.

Have we seen anyone insist that words on the alignment section should be erased and rewritten besides you? Have we seen anyone insist "Oh, that's where his alignment shifted" except you? Even I, when I bring up changes in alignment, based in Wrestling, it's typically cases where the wrestler and everyone else is on the same page about the new alignment.

The one exception (I ever gave involving alignment shift, where not everyone was on the same page) was a guy who dressed like Homelander and did Homelander things for months, and people kept thinking he was going to turn evil.

Sure. But in this case the rules are about how the GM arbitrates the very personality and decision making of the player characters. That's fundamentally different than say arbitrating how much damage a fall should cause. It moves us into an area that is very much at the heart of players actually roleplaying their characters.

No, because we once had D&D rules that were so vague and confusing that every single table was basically running a completely different mechanical version of how the game worked.

Which effectively meant whatever the group or referee decided the rules were, was the rules. People had to learn completely new rules when they changed GMs, and the rules that were different were seemingly random.

Yup. I'm not disputing this. Again though, the problem with the alignment system in D&D is that "the rules" are literally ones that empower the GM to force players to play specific types of characters, complete with punishments to those characters if they don't comply.

We would all agree that any GM who, when a player says "I'm going to have my character do X" told the player "No. Your character does Y instead" would be dismissed as a really terrible GM who is trying to railroad and/or defeat player agency.

No, because I've had and it was my duty to do this several times, and I did it, as was my obligation and job.

"My character kills the other player in their sleep" "My character does X which blows up the whole setting and makes the game unplayable." "My character does disgusting, horrible thing."

I retconned actions, I blocked actions, I banned actions, and I have banned people from the table on the spot for doing things.

And the other players did not question it, except this one guy, who basically all the other players were relieved to see also banned.

Often, Telling people no or blocking actions is not railroading or defeating player agency, it's keeping people from completely murdering all joy and fun. The GM is a player too. The other players are players as well. Anything a player does that makes me or two other players (Ones that have been playing longer or have played better) feel like this isn't fun anymore... That's basically suicide for the character. If the GM quits, the campaign dies.

Also, you're basically just "raging against the GM", like I said you were. Also, I thought it was odd you keep raging against the GM and thinking the GM can't be trusted, will use any rule they can to choke your character out, ect ect.... So I checked to see how old your account is.

Let's just say I'm making assuptions about you, and you are totally not helping dispel them.[/QUOTE]

Yet, with an alignment system (especially D&Ds) we have more or less that exact thing happening. Even if the GM isn't stepping in and actually saying "Your character wouldn't do that, it's against his alignment", the player knows the rules too, and knows that there may be a consequence for some actions, and will therefore moderate their own character's actions. The GM doesn't have to punish the PC. Just the mere fact that he could acts as a deterrent.

Some may say that's a good thing. Others that it's bad. I'm not even placing a value judgement here (well I am, but not right at this very moment). I'm just trying to get some people to even acknowledge that those rules do exist and do have an effect on players decisions when running their characters. You seem to be wanting to simultaneously claim that alignment doesn't restrict the players in terms of how they play their characters (my point) *and* that the GM is always right and must be followed when it comes to rulings on alignment.

I'm just pointing out how incredibly contradictory that is. There are rules. They must be followed. You just (very clearly and strongly) made this case. I agree. You can't hold that position and also claim that alignment rules don't affect how players play their characters. Right?

Spoiler: The Alignment Does Nothing

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No. I said no to this before, you are again, not listening, not even a little. Also, you are massively contradicting yourself.

You say the rules exist and must be followed. So you're a rules following guy right?

The rules say not to follow them, and the GM can override any rule at will. Edition after edition, you open it up, and it says this.

The alignment restricts absolutely ****ing nothing. It's the GM and the player that restrict things. I again, said this over and over. The alignment rules can say whatever the hell they want, and literally nothing will change, underneath all the fluff and things you think matter... but don't.

The GM is always right, or you are sitting at the wrong table.

You keep going "Oh I'm scared of the alignment rules, the GM will beat me or choke my character to death with them?" No. The GM will choke your character to death with his/her/their bare hands. The GM can open up the rule book and say the alignment rules read whatever the hell the GM wants or hallucinates or believes.

Either they are right, which has nothing to do with what the rules say, or they are wrong, which also has nothing to do with the rules say.

-

Spoiler: The Simplest Fable Possible

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Let me use some metaphor that you hopefully will understand, because I will make it very simple.

You are in front of a firing squad, you are about to be executed. For some reason (God, I have no idea why) you're saying the muskets or whatever are the reason you will die. "If only the muskets weren't there!" you cry out.

But no. The muskets are meaningless, they have no effect on anything.

"But they are going to kill me!"

No. Either the justice system is going to kill you, or you killed yourself.

Either the law is unjust or unfit and you're innocent, and being executed for unjust reasons.

Or, you are a serial killer and you deserve to be executed. This is justice.

Getting rid of the muskets will do nothing. You will be killed with swords, or an axe, or lethal injection, the chair, poison gas.

In other words, either you as a player are wrong, and the GM is right to make a ruling.... Or the GM is wrong and you need to just find another table.

And exactly like being executed by firing squad, the jury matters. If the jury/otherplayers says "Hey, this guy is innocent" you stage a revolt and remove the justice system/GM, or you change the law or ruling. Or The jury/otherplayers say "Your honor/GM, that person is guilty."

Um. If there is literally no such thing as "Lawful Evil" in your game, then there can be no disagreement over whether a character is Lawful Evil, right? So yes. The very existence of alignments "create conflict". In precisely the same way that the moment I name my team "The patriots", and you name yours "The cowboys", we have created something we can disagree on and therefore have "conflict" over. This is pretty basic stuff here.

Maybe if I rephrase it? It doesn't actually create the conflict. It creates the thing that people can have conflict over. And, as I've said repeatedly, the nature of the D&D alignment system maximizes the odds that there will be conflict, due to it applying a "one size fits all" label to a host of different character aspects.

Spoiler: Reality of Play

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You literally said we have separate teams, and brought up the names like it matters at all.

You are still insisting that removing the musket will keep the person from being executed. You are also ignoring....

If the entire table looks right at you one day and says "Rocks fall, your character is dead"... Congrats, your character is dead. "But the rules say!?!" The rules say what? No one cares about the rules, everyone yells at you (That you are wrong or you need to stop talking) or starts ignoring you.

It doesn't matter what you or the rules say, the table says your dead, you are dead. You walk up to NPCs and PCs, and no one replies to you. You swing your sword and it doesn't hit anything, because you are dead.

You are an invisible ghost unheard by the gods or the damned. The GM, and the players to a degree, decide what is reality and what is not. Either group can quote or ignore the rules at will. Consensus decides what is reality and what is not. Either the majority or whole group is with you, or they are not. Either you vote the GM out or the GM removes you and no one says anything (Voting yes).

This still fits the execution example, it still fits the wrestling example (The fans boo you, you get fired), and it fits a sport example (You get banned from the NFL).

Nope. Could not be further from the truth. I'm a firm believer in GM power and importance as a referee in a game. In fact, it's because of that firm position on this that I identify the alignment system in D&D to be such a source of disagreement and conflict. My argument stems from the assumption that the GM is final arbiter of such disagreements, and merely examines the effect on PC play as a result.

If you are a firm believer in GM power, get down on your knees and do as they say. You say you follow the rules, the rules say to follow the GM. You say you are a firm believer in GM power, the GM says to follow the GM.

Again. My position assumes those things are in effect. Then it examines how this affects the player character personality choices over time in a game. And my conclusion is that it does, and that it tends to push players into playing cardboard cutout characters. I'm not sure how that's even in dispute. It literally says "write this alignment down on your character sheet", and then requires that you follow a set of personality standards based on what is written down there, complete with consequences if you don't.

What's weird is that, instead of examining that, we seem to be stuck in this odd circle going back and forth over the specifics of the methods by which alignment is enforced (or even, oddly, whether it actually is at all). Can't we just accept that, for any sane examination of the rules, we must assume that in some way, they are enforced? And can we then move past that to examine what the effect of that enforcement has? That's what I'm trying (apparently somewhat in vain) to do, but I keep getting caught up in circular arguments about GM power, or player attitudes, or whatever.

No, because the only person who I've ever seen argue that someone should play a cardboard cutout.... Is you. You insisted that two or three characters did things that were in a neat, pretty brown colored opening, and said their Alignment had to be changed.

You seem to be raging against the Alignment rules, but like that great song by Creed, you have made "My Own Prison". The very force that is telling you no, is literally you.

Sigh. Again. I didn't "insist" anything. I'm literally not taking any position on who's alignment is what. I'm just presenting hypotheticals that violate the "rules" of the alignment system in D&D and showing how the resulting characters would be perfectly viable playable characters from a RPG perspective, but are not due purely to the existence of the specific alignment rules in D&D. Specifically, the idea that all characters have one and only one alignment, despite the fact that real people commonly exhibit diametrically different decisions and actions based on situations they are in (like Elan when following rules to the absurd letter in some cases, and then doing random other things "because it's fun" in others).

Those are just examples of a point, not me arguing that they *are* one way or another. I'm perfectly capable of examining what might happen if we all lived in a world with no shrimp, without actually arguing that this is the way the world actually is.

You literally went on and on and on and on, listing "proof" and "evidence" that this character was this alignment or that character was that alignment.

Your hypotheticals were not violating any rules, because everyone but you said they were not violating any rules.

Also, in that very long, drawn out, nonsense "debate", you were told over and over that Roy was a perfect example that single actions meant very very little to what your alignment was. You kept saying "Roy did this, Roy did that" saying Roy's alignment should be changed, and people just ignored you or stared at you like you were crazy.

"Specifically, the idea that all characters have one and only one alignment, despite the fact that real people commonly exhibit diametrically different decisions and actions based on situations they are in"

Everyone but you said that Roy can exhibit ""diametrically"" different decisions and actions based on situations he was in....and keep the same alignment.

Blah blah, I said this twice before in this post you haven't read yet.

[Mechalich]

Like dating, why be spending time in a campaign/relationship that is going to burst into flames, when you could be moving on to a better table, a better player, or a better relationship?

This is an issue of relationship depth. There are lots of people out there who most people are perfectly capable of being long-term friends with but who would quickly reach toxic status if they attempted to date. A relationship can persist indefinitely if it remains sufficiently superficial that the disruptive issues are never raised. Related to gaming, we can talk about systems that are shallow or deep in terms of the level of compatibility and trust needed to avoid producing a conflict.

Purely mechanical systems are shallow. It is extremely rare for a table to break down over arguments about 2d10 vs. 3d6 vs. 1d20. By contrast morality systems are deep, and it is extremely common for a table to break down over arguments regarding moral issues, this is in fact quite common even in games that don't have moral systems or even a moral emphasis simply because one player has their character do something that another player finds fundamentally inexcusable - this is why it's a good design principle to avoid setting up 'squicky' fluff unless absolutely necessary.

Now, the thing about tabletop, especially modern tabletop with is heavily played online among relative strangers, is that a very large proportion of groups aren't capable of handling a system that requires a high level of trust or compatibility without generating conflicts. 'Find a better group' is good advice, but it isn't always possible an adjustment to games to make them playable by low-quality groups are equally important.

[Tevo77777]

This is an issue of relationship depth. There are lots of people out there who most people are perfectly capable of being long-term friends with but who would quickly reach toxic status if they attempted to date. A relationship can persist indefinitely if it remains sufficiently superficial that the disruptive issues are never raised.

But you are literally sitting together in a call, doing "fun stuff" together like you are "friends" for at least three hours a week, possibly for up to a 18 months.

Also, when things break down 18 months in, like dating, it's someone's fault. Someone said something racist, someone went rabid dog, someone was creepy and harassing someone else, someone is rage quitting, ect ect.

If things "don't work out" in the first month or so, that's just that they weren't meant to be. It's the same thing with RPGs. This is why I have an "Expectations" document that explains the tone, how deadly the game is, and so on.

That is there so I don't have people making a character, and/or playing one or two sessions and going "Oh, I realized the tone or that this game is too or not deadly enough, this is not for me".

Related to gaming, we can talk about systems that are shallow or deep in terms of the level of compatibility and trust needed to avoid producing a conflict.

Purely mechanical systems are shallow. It is extremely rare for a table to break down over arguments about 2d10 vs. 3d6 vs. 1d20. By contrast morality systems are deep, and it is extremely common for a table to break down over arguments regarding moral issues, this is in fact quite common even in games that don't have moral systems or even a moral emphasis simply because one player has their character do something that another player finds fundamentally inexcusable - this is why it's a good design principle to avoid setting up 'squicky' fluff unless absolutely necessary.

Now, the thing about tabletop, especially modern tabletop with is heavily played online among relative strangers, is that a very large proportion of groups aren't capable of handling a system that requires a high level of trust or compatibility without generating conflicts. 'Find a better group' is good advice, but it isn't always possible an adjustment to games to make them playable by low-quality groups are equally important.

The bold and underlined part is true, the underlined part is false, unless you are being very very specific.

"Now, the thing about tabletop, especially modern tabletop with is heavily played online among relative strangers, is that a very large proportion of groups aren't capable of handling a system that requires a high level of trust or compatibility without generating conflicts"

Congrats famalam, you just described basically any system I would consider worth playing.

I have run cyberpunk settings, I have run modern era mil-sim/merc settings, I have run space opera settings.... I have run Starwars. I have used D-20 Mechanics, I have used Cogent, a system with the bare acceptable number of rules, I have run 5e Starwars, CoC 5e, ect ect

I have been doing this for six years. Guess how many of these systems don't fit your definition of "doesn't require a high level of trust or compatibility". Almost none of these systems have Alignment systems. I have had so, many, fights or "debates" or discussions, about politics, or religion.

War Criminals (Murder Hobos? Evil Characters?)
It is extremely common for cyberpunk style campaigns to fill up with war criminals and serial killers. It was a running joke among all the veteran players that they had to keep them on leashes. The solution ended up being PVP, or expecting the edgy player to just get bored.

Political Radicals
I've literally played cyberpunk settings and somehow recruited players who worshipped Capitalism as their god. Every time we were trying to push against a megacorperation, they were blaming some nonexistent, collapsed "gov'ment". The other players had mixed feelings about having that person, and they didn't exactly fit the setting. It felt like any seconds they would sell the players down the river for being "communists" or something.

This was a much more common problem in Space Opera settings.

I have had to ban political discussion and bring up that it is banned so many times. I am tired of campaigns turning into Thanksgiving or whatever.

People From Other Nations

I've had players from South America and it's made it really tricky to set anything there. I've had players who lived through far-left or far-right terrorism, tyranny, ect ect... and that makes it really hard to have any specific type of ideology be good or bad.

Let's not forget how Ukraine players had to be kept away from the Russian ones, and how the Serbian ones had to never learn my dad was US Army.

TLDR

Blah blah blah, if there are any politics in the setting, or any factions being overthrown or installed, or the players are in charge of anything, or the players come into contact with any government or rebel group at all....

There is instantly conflict or everyone has to trust each other, or people have to just let things slide or ignore things.

I've had a few, maybe several groups pull guns on each other because of IC or OOC politics.

[Keltest]

I've had a few, maybe several groups pull guns on each other because of IC or OOC politics.

I hope youre being metaphorical here, because if thats literal than I feel comfortable in saying that somebody exercised some extremely poor judgement in allowing these people into their home or place of business. Like, I cant even imagine playing D&D with somebody who feels the need to take a gun to the table in the first place.

[Tevo77777]

I hope youre being metaphorical here, because if thats literal than I feel comfortable in saying that somebody exercised some extremely poor judgement in allowing these people into their home or place of business. Like, I cant even imagine playing D&D with somebody who feels the need to take a gun to the table in the first place.

I laughed when I read this.

In character, in the game, they pulled guns on each other.

I had one player who with two separate characters, completely ruined the process of the other players. The first time, it was the progress for two different campaigns. His first character also almost killed himself and two others, before all of that.

That player had extremely poor judgement, and judged things the worst way every single time.

[Bartmanhomer]

Ok, I've read most of the whole argument and I'm not going to get into that because that's not what this thread is about. So anyway I think many players don't like evil characters that much especially when they pull the stupid evil alignment move. I remember that I play a D&D 3.5 game that one of my adventure party members was a Bard and his alignment was Chaotic Evil. We were trying to get an NPC Cleric in our party to join but the bard kill the cleric in cold blood. The consequence was that the Bard went to prison and he died a short time in prison.

[Tevo77777]

Ok, I've read most of the whole argument and I'm not going to get into that because that's not what this thread is about. So anyway I think many players don't like evil characters that much especially when they pull the stupid evil alignment move. I remember that I play a D&D 3.5 game that one of my adventure party members was a Bard and his alignment was Chaotic Evil. We were trying to get an NPC Cleric in our party to join but the bard kill the cleric in cold blood. The consequence was that the Bard went to prison and he died a short time in prison.

Yep, this is very common for Evil characters. D&D or otherwise.

[Bartmanhomer]

Yep, this is very common for Evil characters. D&D or otherwise.

Yes. You're right about that. Good and evil don't mix very well.

[Quertus]

I encountered an idea (occupational hazard of philosophy) for a theoretical campaign setting where maximizing the most harm is moral. The idea is not fleshed out but helps nail home that separation of fiction from reality.

Philosophers have the strangest random encounter tables. Anti-Utilitarianism?

[Satinavian]

Yes. You're right about that. Good and evil don't mix very well.

That is not really correct.

It would be better to say that everyone likes Good characters more than Evil characters. And it would be even more accurate to say that no one likes people who habitually dish out harm to their surroundings and screw everyone over for pure egoism and everyone likes people who help their surroundings and look out for others.

Genuinely nice people tend to get liked. ******** tend to get disliked. But that has nothing to do at all about mixing good and evil.



Even taking your example : If your group had had other evil characters who wanted the help of the cleric for the party, do you think they would have had a better opinion of the bard than the non evil PCs ?

[OldTrees1]

Philosophers have the strangest random encounter tables. Anti-Utilitarianism?

Anti-Utilitarianism was already taken as meaning against utilitarianism, and Negative Utilitarianism was already taken as meaning minimizing suffering. I don't think "maximize suffering" has a name yet (it probably does not need a proper name since it conflicts with common IRL moral intuitions).

However, yes, philosophers do roll on some strange random encounter tables. "37: Take a foundational premise and invert it"

[Bartmanhomer]

That is not really correct.

It would be better to say that everyone likes Good characters more than Evil characters. And it would be even more accurate to say that no one likes people who habitually dish out harm to their surroundings and screw everyone over for pure egoism and everyone likes people who help their surroundings and look out for others.

Genuinely nice people tend to get liked. ******** tend to get disliked. But that has nothing to do at all about mixing good and evil.



Even taking your example : If your group had had other evil characters who wanted the help of the cleric for the party, do you think they would have had a better opinion of the bard than the non evil PCs ?

I'm not entirely sure but the game has died down shortly after the bard death. Most of the party was very good to neutral. Even if the party has other evil characters, they would have a better opinion to help the cleric for their own purpose than to have the bard kill the cleric for no reason whatsoever.

[gbaji]

Ok. Going to just focus on one bit here:

Have we seen anyone insist that words on the alignment section should be erased and rewritten besides you? Have we seen anyone insist "Oh, that's where his alignment shifted" except you?

Ok. Then how exactly are the alignment rules enforced? From where I sit there are only two methods to actually enforce the rules of alignment in D&D:

1. The GM does not allow the player to play their character in a way that violates the character's alignment as written on the character's sheet.

2. The GM allows the player to have their character do anything they want to do, but will impose an alignment change if an action (or series of actions) clearly indicate the character has a different alignment than the one written on the sheet.

Right? Is there a "3" here that I'm not aware of? I'm not joking here. If you think there's a third method to actually enforce alignment rules in D&D, please list it here. If not, and we assume that alignment rules are in effect and enforced (obviously, we can all just pretend it doesn't exist, and this entire conversation is irrelevant, so I suppose we could call that "option 0"), then that's exactly the point I'm making.

That leaves us with either the GM is reducing player agency (option 1), or imposing penalties (option 2). Option 2, btw, is exactly the "insist that words on the alignment section should be erased and rewritten" that you are now claiming no one but me is even talking about. But if you, as the GM, are not doing this, then what is the only other option? It's "1", right? I'm just saying "pick one", and arguing that either one is "bad".

No, because I've had and it was my duty to do this several times, and I did it, as was my obligation and job.

"My character kills the other player in their sleep" "My character does X which blows up the whole setting and makes the game unplayable." "My character does disgusting, horrible thing."

I retconned actions, I blocked actions, I banned actions, and I have banned people from the table on the spot for doing things.

And the other players did not question it, except this one guy, who basically all the other players were relieved to see also banned.

So you default to option 1 then? And you honestly don't see how this might just be the alignment system creating restrictions on players roleplaying their characters? I get that you are talking about extreme examples, but is that the only case you do this in? How about if we not fall back to silly extreme examples instead?

So if a player lists "lawful good" on his character sheet, but regularly flips a coin when deciding to do things, charges into battle without waiting for any sort of plan or coordination with the rest of the party, steals stuff from merchants instead of paying for them, and otherwise engages in behavior that we don't associate with "lawful good", but aren't so evil and disruptive that you'd feel the need to ban the player from your table, what do you do? Do you just allow it and move on (basically, no enforcement of the alignment on the character sheet, or option 0)? Or do you tell the player "You wouldn't steal that food from the merchant. You must pay for it" (option 1)? Or, do you allow the player to do this and then at some point tell him "your character is now chaotic neutral" or something (option 2, which you claim doesn't exist, well, except for the times when you've had to do it)?

Which is it?

Often, Telling people no or blocking actions is not railroading or defeating player agency, it's keeping people from completely murdering all joy and fun. The GM is a player too. The other players are players as well. Anything a player does that makes me or two other players (Ones that have been playing longer or have played better) feel like this isn't fun anymore... That's basically suicide for the character. If the GM quits, the campaign dies.

Regardless of what we think of a character's actions, can we agree that if your sole reason for "blocking actions" is because the character is wanting to do something that doesn't match that alignment, then that means that the existence of an alignment system is creating restrictions on how the player may play his/her character? What if the PC action is perfectly legitimate, isn't disruptive to the game, but merely isn't following the character's alignment? So it's an action that a CN rogue would do, and you'd have no problem with it, but because my character has LG written down, you'll tell me "no"? And you don't think that's restrictive?

It's strange because you literally just admitted that if a player does something outside their character's alignment, you will disallow that action. But my whole argument is that this is how alignment rules act as restrictions on PC roleplaying. How is that not restrictive?

Imagine if there was no alignment at all. I could play my character any way I want. If I want to say that my character is grieving because his best friend was killed (say another character on the last adventure), so he's fallen to drinking heavily, and lashing out at people and otherwise engaging in random acts of violence and destruction, which is normally out of character, but he's just going through a tough time, I can just do that, and everyone will roleplay along (including the GM, if my actions maybe land me in jail or something). But in D&D with you as the GM, you'd what? Tell me I can't do that if it's not in line with my alignment? Like at all? Or will you impose an alignment shift while this is going on (maybe the better D&D answer, despite it being something you claim no one would ever do)? Which is it?

The very existence of a D&D style alignment system leads us in a direction that requires restrictions on PC play. This is by design of the entire system. I'm frankly baffled how you don't see this. And yeah, I get it if we never want to roleplay characters that change behavior or personality over time, or react differently to different situations, or otherwise have more complex personality features than those that might fit into the simplistic alignment grid of D&D. But that's the "cardboard cutout" types of characters that I'm talking about.

Also, you're basically just "raging against the GM", like I said you were. Also, I thought it was odd you keep raging against the GM and thinking the GM can't be trusted, will use any rule they can to choke your character out, ect ect.... So I checked to see how old your account is.

Let's just say I'm making assuptions about you, and you are totally not helping dispel them.

I'm not sure how old my account on this forum is has anything to do with anything. I'm also confused how you equate this with "raging against the GM". It's not the GM that is the problem here. It's the alignment system, the rules surrounding them, and the fact that in order to actually use the alignment system as written, the GM absolutely has to apply one of the two methods I listed above (and likely some combination of both). I'm not blaming the GM for doing these things. I'm blaming the system for requiring the GM to have to do these things.

I've been very consistent with my argument. The alignment rules *require* one of the two options from the GM if they are to be enforced. And I find both of those options to be restrictive in terms of PC roleplaying. We can disagree on the degree of restriction, but I'm just not sure how one can argue that the things you are posting about what you do with players who don't follow alignment don't qualify as "restrictive". And no, strawman examples of players doing things to blow up the game don't count. There are lots of out of alignment actions that don't do this. What do you do in those cases?

If you are a firm believer in GM power, get down on your knees and do as they say. You say you follow the rules, the rules say to follow the GM. You say you are a firm believer in GM power, the GM says to follow the GM.

Yes. But it's a poor GM who tells the players how to play their own characters. A good GM has his world and NPCs react to the player's choices. He doesn't force them by fiat. And, as I've pointed out many times now, the mere existence of an alignment system (especially D&D's) forces GMs to apply some level of GM power to make players play their characters in specific ways.

No, because the only person who I've ever seen argue that someone should play a cardboard cutout.... Is you. You insisted that two or three characters did things that were in a neat, pretty brown colored opening, and said their Alignment had to be changed.

What do you think you are doing when you block/ban character actions because they aren't "in alignment"? Seriously. Think this through.

You seem to be raging against the Alignment rules, but like that great song by Creed, you have made "My Own Prison". The very force that is telling you no, is literally you.

Except that, by your own admission, you enforce the rules in the exact manner I said that they would be enforced. Actually, you seem to be predisposed towards the "worst" of the two options I outlined. And yes, playing a character that is *any* single alignment, with a GM who disallows actions that he feels are out of alignment, results in forcing the players to play "cardboard cutout" characters.

Everyone but you said that Roy can exhibit ""diametrically"" different decisions and actions based on situations he was in....and keep the same alignment.

So... option 0 then. No enforcement. I'm serious here. If a player were at your table, playing Roy, and proposed the actions he did (scamming the Inn for free stuff and tricking his party members into going on a personal quest for his own benefit), what would you do? Allow it? By your earlier statements, you would "voice of god" him into "doing the right thing". Heck. Maybe the whole "came back to save Elan after abandoning him" was the result of Roy's GM doing exactly that maybe? If his hypothetical Roy player did these things anyway, what would you do? Let him retain his LG alignment?

My point is that the existence of an alignment system requires that you must consider one of those options in each case. And that no matter what you do as a GM, it will result in less freedom for the player to play their character. None of those actions by Roy are "game destroying" actions by a character. A bit greedy in one bit (but he shared with some of the party), a bit self serving in another (heck, I've played characters that have tricked other PCs into going on adventures where I had my own benefit/motive for doing so, and never considered that "evil" at all).

Again. The only alternative to some sort of restrictive or punitive GM action is no action at all. At which point you are not "enforcing" the alignment system. Which I have always listed as an alternative (and a good one IMO). So which is it? This is not a rhetorical question. What would you do with this hypothetical player playing the LG fighter Roy in your game at your table?

Again. Let's recall that my entire argument is that *if* the D&D alignment system is enforced, it requires some combination of those two actions by the GM to actually enforce it. And both of those actions result in a reduction of Player RP flexibility IMO. You're free to disagree with me as to the degree of that reduction, but you seem to be arguing that it just doesn't exist at all. That's the bit I'm disagreeing with.

[Bartmanhomer]

I saw this different variation of the alignment system on another Discord server which is very complex because this version has 25 alignments instead of the traditional 9 alignments. https://goanimate.fandom.com/wiki/Alignment_System

[NichG]

Ok. Going to just focus on one bit here:



Ok. Then how exactly are the alignment rules enforced? From where I sit there are only two methods to actually enforce the rules of alignment in D&D:

1. The GM does not allow the player to play their character in a way that violates the character's alignment as written on the character's sheet.

2. The GM allows the player to have their character do anything they want to do, but will impose an alignment change if an action (or series of actions) clearly indicate the character has a different alignment than the one written on the sheet.

Right? Is there a "3" here that I'm not aware of? I'm not joking here. If you think there's a third method to actually enforce alignment rules in D&D, please list it here. If not, and we assume that alignment rules are in effect and enforced (obviously, we can all just pretend it doesn't exist, and this entire conversation is irrelevant, so I suppose we could call that "option 0"), then that's exactly the point I'm making.

That leaves us with either the GM is reducing player agency (option 1), or imposing penalties (option 2). Option 2, btw, is exactly the "insist that words on the alignment section should be erased and rewritten" that you are now claiming no one but me is even talking about. But if you, as the GM, are not doing this, then what is the only other option? It's "1", right? I'm just saying "pick one", and arguing that either one is "bad".

I'm not a fan of alignment by any means, but #2 is not necessarily 'imposing penalties'. It only becomes so when maintaining an alignment is important to a character's mechanics or other things the character is expecting to be able to rely on in-universe. If you really do take seriously that alignments are equal and balanced and ensure that no alignment is better than any other alignment to be, it need not be a penalty.

Also I would disagree that imposing penalties is strictly bad either - but they have to be natural penalties and not artificial OOC constructs. That's where alignment fails for me. If e.g. you were to have your character kill an NPC's friend and that NPC became hostile to your character upon finding out, that would be 'imposing a penalty' but it would be a natural one. So if your character worships a deity and drags their name through the mud, and the deity gets angry and withdraws favor its again imposing a penalty, but a natural one. Or if your character once killed a sentient being and the setting had a 'Detect Slayer' spell that now pinged them, that could also be a penalty but again a natural one. To the extent that alignment does that sort of thing, I think it can be still be okay. But that sort of thing is why I'd tend not to design nearly anything as having alignment prerequisites unless its really a direct grant of power from a specific sentient force that the characters could in principle go to and punch if they find themselves in disagreement.

Or, for things that are more intrinsic to the character, I would always leave it up to the player if they felt they violated those principles and the main point of the alignment (or oath or whatnot) would be to make us ask that question in the first place. If the player says 'no, killing orphans who were suffering is a good act in my book' and their power comes from their own fervent belief, then so be it, that's how that character is and what their paladinship represents. Which is a different matter than a character who doesn't actually need to think about whether its good to kill suffering orphans because nothing they do hinges on their philosophy like that. But anyhow, they keep their paladin powers, but they also ping on the Detect Evil cast by someone who worships a god who would firmly disagree.

[KorvinStarmast]

Well, put. If I was a D&D character My alignment will be Chaotic Good. I mean there's a D&D alignment test called easydamus.com

After taking it 5 times in the last 8 years and coming up NG each time, I stopped going there.

Good, now try doing it without replying to me. You had 3 options, you chose option 3. *plonk*

Spoiler: Only ever seen that once before

Show

Plumjam, is that you?

I saw this different variation of the alignment system on another Discord server which is very complex because this version has 25 alignments instead of the traditional 9 alignments. https://goanimate.fandom.com/wiki/Alignment_System

More is not better, in this case. Less is better. Try just doing L / N / C as the original game did it (much more room to work) and then take crack at 4e's LE, CE, LG, CG, N idea (which I find appealing).

[Tevo77777]

Or, for things that are more intrinsic to the character, I would always leave it up to the player if they felt they violated those principles and the main point of the alignment (or oath or whatnot) would be to make us ask that question in the first place. If the player says 'no, killing orphans who were suffering is a good act in my book' and their power comes from their own fervent belief, then so be it, that's how that character is and what their paladinship represents. Which is a different matter than a character who doesn't actually need to think about whether its good to kill suffering orphans because nothing they do hinges on their philosophy like that. But anyhow, they keep their paladin powers, but they also ping on the Detect Evil cast by someone who worships a god who would firmly disagree.

Do we really want the player to be controlling the very unknowable, fickle or overly rigid gods they should be worshipping and getting their powers from?

Pathfinder 2e makes it very obvious what the hierarchy is for Paladins/Champions and what order their obligations and oaths are in. It has specific dos and don't as well. What the dos and don't for Good are included in the description of the Champion.

I saw this different variation of the alignment system on another Discord server which is very complex because this version has 25 alignments instead of the traditional 9 alignments. https://goanimate.fandom.com/wiki/Alignment_System

In the old days, and perhaps still now, we had "Neutral, favoring Good" and "Neutral Good, favoring Chaotic". This was a more flexible system and it allowed people to be like Roy, and do Roy stuff, and stay within their previous alignment.

Having 9 alignments makes it way too easy to have those of these things seem too similar and get into arguments..... Or to not be sure how many actions or behavior is enough to consider an alignment shift.

Looking at this chart, does give me ideas for NPCs, however.

[Satinavian]

Do we really want the player to be controlling the very unknowable, fickle or overly rigid gods they should be worshipping and getting their powers from?

If you want gods as acting NPCs, probably not. If you want gods as removed, transcendend entities and targets of worship, sure, why not ?

But that whole was more about alignment, not gods. Alignment is not an acting character. It can be handled by the player without much problem. They put it on the sheet in the first place, why not have them also decide about whether character development changes it ?

[KorvinStarmast]

They put it on the sheet in the first place, why not have them also decide about whether character development changes it ?

Depends on what kind of player you are talking about. There is more than one kind. Our fellow playgrounder Talakeal offers some insights on that with various posts and laments.

[NichG]

Do we really want the player to be controlling the very unknowable, fickle or overly rigid gods they should be worshipping and getting their powers from?

The specific case I gave was for when the powers came from the character's own zeal or faith, rather than being granted by a specific entity in the setting. Since you can have 'paladins of no particular deity' in some settings, it would apply there.

But perhaps for a less contentious example, someone being Lawful in order to be a Monk. Or someone being non-Lawful in order to be a Bard. No one other than the character themselves is granting those powers, so it makes sense for the character to be the final arbiter of whether they qualify.

And in the middle of the road are things like PrCs with organizational alignment or code prerequisites. To me it makes sense that you could cheat those things so long as the organization itself was prevented from knowing that you did so. And furthermore, if you did get discovered (or if your alignment changed), you should keep innate abilities that are the result of training or gained knowledge, and only lose those things which are based on on-going institutional support.

[Tanarii]

More is not better, in this case. Less is better. Try just doing L / N / C as the original game did it (much more room to work) and then take crack at 4e's LE, CE, LG, CG, N idea (which I find appealing).

Clearly the best system is four alignments, LG / CG / LE / CE. Everyone knows you're either Good or Evil, and by extension if Law and Chaos exist you must be one or the other. None of this Ethically and Morally Grey stuff!

[OldTrees1]

Spoiler: Only ever seen that once before

Show

Plumjam, is that you?

Sorry, no. It is just old slang that I learned from lurking on giantitp.

More is not better, in this case. Less is better. Try just doing L / N / C as the original game did it (much more room to work) and then take crack at 4e's LE, CE, LG, CG, N idea (which I find appealing).

Whether more is better or less is better can shift dramatically even mid sentence, because it depends on the usage.

When not going into detail, it is easy to summarize my Mind Flayer character as Orderly Evil on a 2 axis system (4 or 9 sections).
When going into detail, then breaking out more adjectives (25, 36, or 49 sectors) can help describe radius and angle without resorting to radius and angle. When 45 degree increments are good enough, then you don't bother the the increased adjectives.

Sidenote: I you are misremembering 4E's alignment. It was LG, G, Unaligned, E, CE (no CG or LE). I think your version is an improvement.

Clearly the best system is four alignments, LG / CG / LE / CE. Everyone knows you're either Good or Evil, and by extension if Law and Chaos exist you must be one or the other. None of this Ethically and Morally Grey stuff!

This, but acknowledging magnitudes vary and small deviations from the origin are small deviations, is one of the easy working systems.

[Tevo77777]

Finally Reading What Was Said

steals stuff from merchants instead of paying for them, and otherwise engages in behavior that we don't associate with "lawful good", but aren't so evil and disruptive that you'd feel the need to ban the player from your table

No, because this behavior sounds incredibly disruptive and annoying. This kind of behavior would likely get the character killed, arrested, or get the player banned by the other players.

Roy is Lawful Good, because he is trying and because he spends the bulk of his time being Good and the bulk of his time being Lawful, and for every non lawful thing he does, he does two or three lawful things.

In other words, the GM and other players at the table wouldn't question him being Lawful Good. Again, only you have done this.

You keep acting like everyone and/or the GM is constantly changing your alignment based on your every action, but the only person skeptical of anyone's listed alignment is you.

Regardless of what we think of a character's actions, can we agree that if your sole reason for "blocking actions" is because the character is wanting to do something that doesn't match that alignment, then that means that the existence of an alignment system is creating restrictions on how the player may play his/her character? What if the PC action is perfectly legitimate, isn't disruptive to the game, but merely isn't following the character's alignment? So it's an action that a CN rogue would do, and you'd have no problem with it, but because my character has LG written down, you'll tell me "no"? And you don't think that's restrictive?

It's strange because you literally just admitted that if a player does something outside their character's alignment, you will disallow that action. But my whole argument is that this is how alignment rules act as restrictions on PC roleplaying. How is that not restrictive?

No, because any GM that blocks your actions for any reason besides "this would **** over the party, and/or **** up my setting" is a bad GM. There are nuances and exceptions, but generally, actions should be blocked because they're dumb, cringe, they ruin the tone, they mess with the setting, ect ect. This is literally what MCDM says.

Imagine if there was no alignment at all. I could play my character any way I want. If I want to say that my character is grieving because his best friend was killed (say another character on the last adventure), so he's fallen to drinking heavily, and lashing out at people and otherwise engaging in random acts of violence and destruction, which is normally out of character, but he's just going through a tough time, I can just do that, and everyone will roleplay along (including the GM, if my actions maybe land me in jail or something). But in D&D with you as the GM, you'd what? Tell me I can't do that if it's not in line with my alignment? Like at all? Or will you impose an alignment shift while this is going on (maybe the better D&D answer, despite it being something you claim no one would ever do)? Which is it?

Then the other players at the table would feed your character sleeping pills or equivalent, and then move a huge distance with no warning. They would IC try to get you the player unable to play, because you're annoying.

If the majority and the GM say you had an alignment shift, you had an alignment shift.

The very existence of a D&D style alignment system leads us in a direction that requires restrictions on PC play. This is by design of the entire system. I'm frankly baffled how you don't see this. And yeah, I get it if we never want to roleplay characters that change behavior or personality over time, or react differently to different situations, or otherwise have more complex personality features than those that might fit into the simplistic alignment grid of D&D. But that's the "cardboard cutout" types of characters that I'm talking about.

Most of your examples of people stepping outside this "cardboard cutout" involve them being insanely annoying, enough that the other players characters would want to kill them on the spot.

You have never proved that anyone can't have their personality shift over time or be complex. We have all told you what feels like a hundred times, that Roy is proof you can be extremely complex and still be Lawful Good.

Again, the only person who says you can't be insanely complex and keep the same alignment, is you.

You have literally made your own prison, it's in your mind.

I'm not sure how old my account on this forum is has anything to do with anything. I'm also confused how you equate this with "raging against the GM". It's not the GM that is the problem here. It's the alignment system, the rules surrounding them, and the fact that in order to actually use the alignment system as written, the GM absolutely has to apply one of the two methods I listed above (and likely some combination of both). I'm not blaming the GM for doing these things. I'm blaming the system for requiring the GM to have to do these things.

I've been very consistent with my argument. The alignment rules *require* one of the two options from the GM if they are to be enforced. And I find both of those options to be restrictive in terms of PC roleplaying. We can disagree on the degree of restriction, but I'm just not sure how one can argue that the things you are posting about what you do with players who don't follow alignment don't qualify as "restrictive". And no, strawman examples of players doing things to blow up the game don't count. There are lots of out of alignment actions that don't do this. What do you do in those cases?

Your arguments depend on you insisting that people will do things that no one will do, and include arguing that characters would have their alignment changed, when no one else thinks that.

Yes. But it's a poor GM who tells the players how to play their own characters. A good GM has his world and NPCs react to the player's choices. He doesn't force them by fiat. And, as I've pointed out many times now, the mere existence of an alignment system (especially D&D's) forces GMs to apply some level of GM power to make players play their characters in specific ways.

A good GM has you lose your powers the instant you drive a sword through your master, because you disagree with everyone breathing about what Good and Lawful mean.

A good GM has everyone else kill you for what you've done.

Oh wait, Order of the Stick showed that too.

The Alignment forces nothing upon us, it's again, all in your head.

What do you think you are doing when you block/ban character actions because they aren't "in alignment"? Seriously. Think this through.

I block and ban actions because they are annoying, you literally just read me say that over and over.

Except that, by your own admission, you enforce the rules in the exact manner I said that they would be enforced. Actually, you seem to be predisposed towards the "worst" of the two options I outlined. And yes, playing a character that is *any* single alignment, with a GM who disallows actions that he feels are out of alignment, results in forcing the players to play "cardboard cutout" characters.

Except that none of my examples were D&D and none of my examples involved alignment.

I haven't GMed D&D in years, I've been a player for years. I play D-20 Modern, which doesn't have an alignment system. I can't be the worst of the two options, because your options involve alignment.

All of the rules about Alignment say nothing about banning a character from doing things that change their alignment, it merely says stuff like "doing tons of evil stuff means you're evil now".

So... option 0 then. No enforcement. I'm serious here. If a player were at your table, playing Roy, and proposed the actions he did (scamming the Inn for free stuff and tricking his party members into going on a personal quest for his own benefit), what would you do? Allow it? By your earlier statements, you would "voice of god" him into "doing the right thing". Heck. Maybe the whole "came back to save Elan after abandoning him" was the result of Roy's GM doing exactly that maybe? If his hypothetical Roy player did these things anyway, what would you do? Let him retain his LG alignment?

So before you were complaining that non-existent people are breathing down the players neck and insisting they play in a little box.

Now you're complaining that the box is too big and people are only checking up on you every week or so.

I said what feels like a hundred times.... Everyone but you thinks Roy is Lawful Good, Roy shouldn't get an alignment change because like 30-40% of his actions, during a tiny bit of time, were not perfectly Lawful and perfectly Good.

Also, my earlier statements say nothing of that sort. My earlier statements say that if Roy was hyper annoying or his player was annoying, I would nuke the character from orbit and ban the player on the spot. Same if Roy got in the way of all the other players.

My point is that the existence of an alignment system requires that you must consider one of those options in each case. And that no matter what you do as a GM, it will result in less freedom for the player to play their character. None of those actions by Roy are "game destroying" actions by a character. A bit greedy in one bit (but he shared with some of the party), a bit self serving in another (heck, I've played characters that have tricked other PCs into going on adventures where I had my own benefit/motive for doing so, and never considered that "evil" at all).

Again. The only alternative to some sort of restrictive or punitive GM action is no action at all. At which point you are not "enforcing" the alignment system. Which I have always listed as an alternative (and a good one IMO). So which is it? This is not a rhetorical question. What would you do with this hypothetical player playing the LG fighter Roy in your game at your table?

Again. Let's recall that my entire argument is that *if* the D&D alignment system is enforced, it requires some combination of those two actions by the GM to actually enforce it. And both of those actions result in a reduction of Player RP flexibility IMO. You're free to disagree with me as to the degree of that reduction, but you seem to be arguing that it just doesn't exist at all. That's the bit I'm disagreeing with.

No, this is nonsense and you should know this.

The world is not black and white. You complain that the alignment system forces people to act like it is, but it doesn't, that's just you.

The alternative to a totalitarian, oppressive police state that constantly micromanages your every action is.......

Literally anything else, like a million different things, possibly a billion.

The options aren't hyper oppressive, you breathe and your alignment shifts.... or total anarchy and no enforcement.

The options are any number between 100% and 0%, including every single decimal of a percent along the way.

I said something like 4 to 6 times, everyone but you thinks Roy is Lawful Good and only you ever seriously question this.

Spoiler: Third Party Opinion

Show

Edit: Can someone else who is a third party explain to me something?

I have straight up been hammering home the most basic points I think I can make, over and over and over.

Even when GBAJI is replying to specific text, they reply in such a way that reads like they imagined whatever it is that I said.

They keep asking the same questions, some of which I answered a week or two ago.

Whoever this person is, they have the most selective literacy I've seen in a long time. They are always arguing against things I've never said, or insisting other people will do things that no one else said they will do.

For example, I said, twice or three times, in lots of text, that I ban people for being hyper annoying and crashing the campaign into the ground, and somehow this is read as "He blocks people from doing out of alignment actions".

Am I being messed with, or is this person "reading between the lines" so aggressively the ratio of words they see to the words actually there is 2 to 1?

Earlier they were moving the goal posts so much I thought that I was answered different questions each time.... but for the last awhile...... It's just been like they're not even replying to me....Like they're talking to someone who isn't there.

Considering this as my last reply to them?

[Lord Raziere]

Spoiler: Third Party Opinion

Show

Edit: Can someone else who is a third party explain to me something?

I have straight up been hammering home the most basic points I think I can make, over and over and over.

Even when GBAJI is replying to specific text, they reply in such a way that reads like they imagined whatever it is that I said.

They keep asking the same questions, some of which I answered a week or two ago.

Whoever this person is, they have the most selective literacy I've seen in a long time. They are always arguing against things I've never said, or insisting other people will do things that no one else said they will do.

For example, I said, twice or three times, in lots of text, that I ban people for being hyper annoying and crashing the campaign into the ground, and somehow this is read as "He blocks people from doing out of alignment actions".

Am I being messed with, or is this person "reading between the lines" so aggressively the ratio of words they see to the words actually there is 2 to 1?

Earlier they were moving the goal posts so much I thought that I was answered different questions each time.... but for the last awhile...... It's just been like they're not even replying to me....Like they're talking to someone who isn't there.

Considering this as my last reply to them?

Third party opinion:
This is just the giantitp forum when it gets talking about alignment. for some reason everyone gets selective about they reply to, selective about what the other person said, all the while pretending that they're the reasonable one and do so to the end of time because they want to direct the flow of the conversation around their talking points and not others, thus everyone gets stonewalled repeating the same arguments over and over because no one budges because no one wants to cede ground to the person they're trying to convince.

this is why I don't like and don't use alignment myself because even if you can demonstrate alignment can work, the online discourse around alignment quite frankly sucks, leads down nonsensical rabbit holes of morality that aren't relevant, and so on and so forth that even if it can work, I don't want to MAKE it work. I don't want to put in the effort, it just distracts from the real issues that are occurring in a game, and its just not particularly relevant to any game I'm interested in.

[Tevo77777]

Third party opinion:
This is just the giantitp forum when it gets talking about alignment. for some reason everyone gets selective about they reply to, selective about what the other person said, all the while pretending that they're the reasonable one and do so to the end of time because they want to direct the flow of the conversation around their talking points and not others, thus everyone gets stonewalled repeating the same arguments over and over because no one budges because no one wants to cede ground to the person they're trying to convince.

this is why I don't like and don't use alignment myself because even if you can demonstrate alignment can work, the online discourse around alignment quite frankly sucks, leads down nonsensical rabbit holes of morality that aren't relevant, and so on and so forth that even if it can work, I don't want to MAKE it work. I don't want to put in the effort, it just distracts from the real issues that are occurring in a game, and its just not particularly relevant to any game I'm interested in.

I don't know, I've basically felt I've understood and agreed with basically almost everything else that everyone else has said but this one person.

I don't even like Alignment that much, I just think that most of the flaws associated with it either don't exist, or are caused by GM or player issues.

I usually play Paladins and no one has ever challenged the alignment of my characters.

EDIT: How do you have less than 38 internets?

[Lord Raziere]

I don't know, I've basically felt I've understood and agreed with basically almost everything else that everyone else has said but this one person.

I don't even like Alignment that much, I just think that most of the flaws associated with it either don't exist, or are caused by GM or player issues.

I usually play Paladins and no one has ever challenged the alignment of my characters.

EDIT: How do you have less than 38 internets?

Huh? I checked just now, I have 1407.

Anyways, thats also the nature of online discourse about this: we are currently living in two different worlds. your living in Alignment Works Land. I'm living in Alignment Doesn't Work Land. All the stuff that sounds reasonable AWL doesn't sound reasonable to ADWL and vice versa. these worlds both exist alongside each other and can never agree about whether or not these worlds existing is even a valid perception of this, because AWL doesn't live in the same mindset, opinions, social whatevers and so on that ADWL does. since this is giantitp, AWL dominates as its a DnD forum and will default to making DnD work. So when an ADWL perceiving individual shows up, they look unreasonable to anyone living in AWL.