The Gaming Den

Credit where it's due: I believe this is actually Frank's idea.

I didn't get very far into it beyond the initial Maglubiet + Wee Jas example. The idea was that you'd give each god a set of values, and allow them to judge people who practiced and espoused those values. And then you'd try to arrange it so that people who ended up on the same plane had superficially compatible values and goals.

So Maglubiet values the esteem of your peers as achieved by success. Wee Jas values adherence to duty. Both judge souls and place them on Acheron. And there everyone marches around creating armies and empires, so both values: accolades and values: duty fit right in. And the plane has a gestalt of different viewpoints, but it still has its own Overton Window where slacking off is considered reprehensible and leading a charge to victory in battle is considered awesome.

-Username17

I'm dredging up this discussion instead bringing in another because it fits here. I've basically come to heads with not exactly alignment but "Codes of Conduct". Now I feel as though this relates directly to alignment because as I had mentioned earlier in this thread I believe alignment is just a way to control player's actions. Now I bring this up because I do have a class resembling a Cleric and upon discussing it with my very small and wonky group I have come to the discovery that while it chaffs hides people think "Codes of Conduct" should exist. Now question is are rp shackles such as this good or bad?

MGuy wrote:Ok a little change of topic. Alignment systems, character traits/flaws/nature, etc are essentially just ways to try to wrangle players into playing their [characters] in a certain fashion. Is making rules to attempt to keep player actions in any line at all even doable? Is it worth doing? Would it be better to just let different groups come with a gentleman's agreement to keep character actions consistent?

I tried to address this actually in the "MtG colors as alignment" thread over here and expanded on my reasoning a little here.

That said, I don't think that having rules that limit player agency in how their character acts is a good thing. The only thing a player has control of is how their character acts, and taking away that ability to decide what they do castrates a player completely and makes the game a lot less fun, since the character isn't "theirs" anymore to do with as they please. That said, if you have a douche player who ruins others' fun "because they're evil" or whatnot, it's probably better just to talk to them OOC rather than levy in-game penalties and telling them they have to act a certain way.

I don't really care about straitjacketing a player to being "good" or being "evil" as I typically allow any character to do as they wish during character creation. I tend to let the situations play out as naturally as I can muster. I'm more concerned about consistency than anything else. With no guidelines for character behavior I'm stuck with one of 3 ways to have players stay true to their characters and their character concept.

1: The fashion I like the least is taking over their character. Saying "That doesn't make sense for your character to do". I have had to use this form several times when I notice character vs character mentality (players at each others throats), character coddling (player treating another with undue respect and trust), and of course your general time wasting buffoonery. I'd like the "you can't do that" to come from the rules instead of from an MC or myself.

2: Incentives. Plot Points, Destiny Points, Fate points whatever, given out just because the MC says so. I'm more neutral about this one as on the one hand it tends to work out every now and again but on the other is largely subject to MC opinion and is rife with inconsistency. Another problem is that when these stack up for a particularly expressive player the other player's feel short in the pants or that they just don't want to be manipulated by the Mc\C's whims (felt this a lot myself). If they otherwise build up for the team challenges become incidents where everyone just piles on their extras and trivialize boss fights and anything else important that's going on.

3: Is my favorite but works less than the other two. This is having a Gentleman's Agreement with the players that when they make a character they stick to it, making decisions that are in line with the character's background, goals, and actions thus far. I've loved,as a player and as an MC when this actually works out though its hard to get a group that actually pulls it off.

I had a talk this morning with a friend who's MCing style I disagree with but, being a fan of games I'm don't like he brought something up that I hadn't considered. Character flaws and traits. Like the kinds that force a character to make this roll or that when faced with certain quirks or incidents come about. I don't know how well these kind of systems work out in actual play though.

Alignment is shallow, moody, subjective, and restricting. It's not even a reasonable thing, but a vague netting of "what makes us feel good/bad" with a steep slope leading from the upper-left to the lower-right direction. Every little slip from the Lawful Goods is something worth the threat of a penalization, a clear sign they've truly fallen, while compassionate gestures from the Chaotic or Evil are at worst ignored and at best draw responses along the lines of "would they really do that?"

The way I handled it last was as a mechanical label to otherwise be apathetic to, maybe akin to the Zodiac sign system that FFT used. Characters could be whatever alignment they wanted so long as the party got along with each other enough to still be an adventuring party, and I had no intention of changing their alignment against their consent regardless of what they were up to. Being Lawful Good meant you would be more susceptible to penalties in the Abyss or that Chaos Hammer would hit them a little harder than it (didn't) hit others, and it would just be a matter along the lines of who's allergic to peanuts and who isn't.

Once during that game I had a player consult me with concerns that his character might be slipping from LG to LN because his character happened to prioritize ethics over feelgood during a single particular point in the adventure. I had to repeatedly tell him I didn't care and he could stay the alignment he was trying to be.

However, it's good to see that a lot of people here want to make most/all mortals Neutral aligned to minimize the relevance of alignment, as that was precisely what I planned on doing the next time I MC'ed a 3.5 adventure.

I've pondered Light/Dark replacing Good/Evil so we can have our broody anti-heroes that use elder magic to save the day and smug religious cultists that are a threat to... whatever the party values, but it's not that satisfying. Likewise, I also wonder if alignments shouldn't belong exclusively to factions that PCs can align with, but that seems kind of off too.

I've always felt that alignment was meant to keep characters consistent, or at least that is the only capacity I ever made a judgment call in when MCing. That's what I really would like is to keep player's consistent.

Alignment is there to be a launchpad for roleplaying. So, instead of saying "My character is basically Han Solo" a player can say "My character is CG", which is doubleplus good better because it (1) doesn't suggest that the character is a ripoff (he probably is, though) and (2) allows for inclusion in commercial material without Lucas' lawyers knocking at your door.

Despite the fact that we have no good definition of alignments, if you file the serials off, most alignment-using players would classify, say, Dak'kon as LN and Annah as CN. So the archetypes, however poorly formally defined, work. It's only when people are being douches (your barbarian loses his rage ability because he hasn't expressed his liek of mudkips this session) that problems start.

MGuy wrote:anyone who has had conflict at their gaming table knows that DnD alignments are nonfunctional.

Not true.

So what DO you use to determine alignment?

Alignments

See here is where people need to learn some history first. Law and Chaos were, as i think someone mentioned, the first alignment axis. This was because you were playing the "good" guys and the bad/"evil" guys are the ones you were fighting.

There is no problem with this axis. If you are following a set of laws, you are lawful. Basically, the opposite of chaos is order, so you should think of it that way. Be it your laws from where you came, or the current laws or where you are, or just that order must be observed and "laws" are the construct that facilitates that order, then you are lawful.

If you feel that too militaristic, and think everyone should not be bound by the status quo, but rather have their own say in their own lives to do as you see fit, then you are following chaos. "Each to his own."

Where you cannot decide, you are in the middle or Neutral.

With that axis explained, the problem then comes later...

There should have never been the crossing of one axis with the other to create a grid. It work for plotting location and refernce, but is not needed for the function.

When developing more interesting "character" for characters, Good and Evil was introduced, in part to help create more tailored NPCs than just having monsters to fight. Everyone wasnt a monster to kill for XP.

So why did this fail?

It locked in 9/10 alignments, rather than 2 individual axis upon which to look at.

Rather than look at them as a combination, you should observe each for each action. Leave both separate, and only combined on the character sheet.

Paladin kills someone is the action.

-Check was this action Lawful (following order/status quo) or chaotic?
-Move a marker down the line one way or the other towards the direction the action falls under.
-If this action causes the marker to move to a different section of Law, Neutral, or Chaos, then alignment has changed.
-Record new alignment for this axis if change occurs.

-Check was this action for good, or evil?
-Move a marker down the line one way or the other towards the direction the action falls under.
-If this action causes the marker to move to a different section of Good, Neutral, or Evil, then alignment has changed.
-Record new alignment for this axis if change occurs.

-After both axis have been checked, check alignment for changes and alter things that need to be altered based on specific alignment requirements, etc.

Don't try to think in the 9 alignments, just view the 2 axis to collect the data on each of them, and record their results individually as a combined "alignment".

I use alignment. It would break down if ever thoroughly questioned by the players, but as they don't, it allows me to use spells based on it, which can lead to interesting stuff mechanically.

Roughly speaking:
Good/Evil:
Pretty much what people expect. Helping Orphans=Good, killing bystanders=evil.

Chaos/Lawful
Giant Frog/Modron

Neutral:
Nature, Druids

World of Darkness got pretty far with having a set of character motivations that gave you tangible rewards for doing stuff. That works a lot better than the idea of punishing people for acting against their alignment. First of all, it encourages the player to think and talk about their character's goals. But even more importantly, it encourages players to take actions. After all, if the MC doesn't think you're doing your character properly, all that happens is nothing - which is precisely what would have happened if you did nothing at all.

Any time you use incentives, you should take care that the incentives actually incentivize the behaviors you are trying to encourage.

-Username17

I have a good system for alignments; it came from an issue of the Dragon. I know I've never had a problem with it.

Good places the needs of others above the needs of self: Gandalf was good because in order to save the fellowship he basically risked (and lost) his life trying to defeat the balrog.

Evil places the needs of the self before the needs of others: The Evil Gandalf would throw the fellowship into the arms of the balrog and run away while the balrog was dealing with the fellowship.

Now you do have a interesting problem on the matter of when good corsses into the neutral line but normally I never get into that level of detail. If you do 7 selflish acts and 3 selfish acts you are "good" enough. (or vice versa)

Law and chaos is even simplier. Law is simply the notion of placing order/discipline/structure as your highest priority. Chaos places order/discipline/structure out of the window entirely.

These two ideas actually mesh together quite well. The totally lawful evil person is completely into himself and doesn't give a darn about anyone else. His sole motive is self power. BUT, he also believes that the only way to sure ultimate power is through order/discipline/structure. He supports the heirarchy in as much as his superiors will grant him more power and that he can in turn get power from those under him, even though he hates those above and below him with a passion.

Would that mean that your champions of Law would be going around ebating up homeless people? They're pretty unorganized.

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Would that mean that your champions of Law would be going around ebating up homeless people? They're pretty unorganized.

Isn't that what Tome of Fiends says about Chaos? That if "Chaos" is "disorganization" then the good guys are essentially beating up hobos?

tzor wrote:Evil places the needs of the self before the needs of others: The Evil Gandalf would throw the fellowship into the arms of the balrog and run away while the balrog was dealing with the fellowship.

O.o
That's essentially a ban on evil PCs. No way this Lucas-style cop-out is going to work. Why can't a character be a reliable friend and rip civilians apart in his spare time?