why alignment (for characters) needs to go

[Ckorik]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

It's really kind of jarring to me how people can read that section of Horror Adventures about consent and jump right to the conclusion that "the most upsetting thing that can happen to me in a game is being told 'no' or that the thing I did was not acceptable." Like that is what upsets you?

No - and in good faith I explain that consent isn't about being told no - it's about making a change to my character against my will. All the other parts of the game that affect my character are coded by rules - even domination effects. I can read the book and you can read the book and we both understand what the save is and how it affects my character.

However none of these rules (even death - honestly) changes a fundamental *core* concept of what my character is.

None of them - except alignment (but only for those classes that have actual restrictions - everyone else is just fine). A sense of self over your character is one of the most fundamental things you have control over - it shouldn't even be an option to take it away. Domination effects are contentious and they aren't even as horrible.

[Ckorik]

The Dandy Lion wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Ckorik wrote:

Party B is a LN Monk, a CN cleric of Desna, a Barbarian, and a CG inquisitor of Sarenrae. If this party busts down the door - it's chaotic - the monk is against this. If they try to steal the item, ditto. Using the law... that's against the cleric, and inquisitor, and barbarian. If these characters are on the cusp of (whatever *whim* the GM wants because it's not codified) changing alignments every one of them could loose powers. Because they adventure together. For no other reason than mechanics are forcing the players to step on each other toes.

... wat.

One might've thought the killing everyone in the museum part might be the more jarring issue for the good aligned players. Or the neutral ones, or the LE and NE ones...

Mind, I'm not sure I follow any of that example.

On might think that - but as morality is subjective all of that depends highly on the motivation behind the killing.

That does prove my point though, so thank you?

[Ckorik]

Kaladin_Stormblessed wrote:

Advanced details of moral philosophy are complex, yes. "Is it evil to torture, steal, and murder innocents when convenient" shouldn't be complex, and personally I don't feel like playing with people who consider these up for debate. And that's the vast majority of when it seems to come up.

EDIT: If people want to play without the alignment system, that's fine. Not saying playing without it is badwrongfun. I just don't agree on morality being way too complicated to represent in a game.

Again - I'm not arguing against it's use in the rest of the game - for all NPCs - I'm saying it shouldn't be the default for class mechanics.

[Ckorik]

Terquem wrote:

No one should get upset about alignment rules. I mean, if you are getting upset over any of the rules, you might be doing it wrong to begin with. Right?

So BADWRONGFUN? Got it.

[ChibiNyan]

Ckorik wrote:

The Dandy Lion wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Ckorik wrote:

Party B is a LN Monk, a CN cleric of Desna, a Barbarian, and a CG inquisitor of Sarenrae. If this party busts down the door - it's chaotic - the monk is against this. If they try to steal the item, ditto. Using the law... that's against the cleric, and inquisitor, and barbarian. If these characters are on the cusp of (whatever *whim* the GM wants because it's not codified) changing alignments every one of them could loose powers. Because they adventure together. For no other reason than mechanics are forcing the players to step on each other toes.

... wat.

One might've thought the killing everyone in the museum part might be the more jarring issue for the good aligned players. Or the neutral ones, or the LE and NE ones...

Mind, I'm not sure I follow any of that example.

On might think that - but as morality is subjective all of that depends highly on the motivation behind the killing.

That does prove my point though, so thank you?

Not subjective in Golarion, or Forgotten Realms or whatever. You can't bring your IRL conceptions into the fantasy world where things work on a specific way. This has been mentioned a few times already in this thread.

[Albatoonoe]

In most cases, the alignment in PF is presented on the grand scale. Hurting others for your own selfish gains is evil. Period. And I am fine with that. I don't think the alignment prevents nuanced ideas. In fact, I'd say it doesn't really enter into it. A good character wants to help others, a neutral character helps themself, and the evil character hurts others. I have absolutely no problem drawing a line in the sand.

And before you jump on my definition of evil, I'm pretty sure you all know what I mean. Defending yourself in a fight is something literally no one will call evil

[Saffron Marvelous]

How are good and evil not subjective in Pathfinder? Unless there's a concrete description of every possible action that can be taken by a thinking creature, they are very much open to interpretation. Like I could ask questions designed to deconstruct the idea that alignment is made up of any kind of absolutes, but I feel like the graveyards full of alignment threads sort of do that for me. And those are threads about incredibly simplistic moral questions that barely even have value as points of discussion outside the alignment system.

Alignment is never going to give you an unambiguous, mathematically correct answer to the trolley problem. Alignment can barely get TO the trolley problem without getting paralyzed over whether it's okay to kill orcs or not.

Edit: Like there's libraries full of books that try to lay out specific unambiguous terms for right and wrong, good and bad, order and chaos. And there isn't a single one that hasn't been challenged and deconstructed time after time. How is a two sentence blurb supposed to succeed here?

Albatoonoe wrote:

And before you jump on my definition of evil, I'm pretty sure you all know what I mean. Defending yourself in a fight is something literally no one will call evil

The notion of acceptable self defense is challenged constantly from many different angles.

[Terquem]

Ckorik wrote:

Terquem wrote:

No one should get upset about alignment rules. I mean, if you are getting upset over any of the rules, you might be doing it wrong to begin with. Right?

So BADWRONGFUN? Got it.

Yes! That's exactly correct. IF you are not having fun with the game as you want to play it, you are doing it wrong. And trying to argue that others who are not not having fun playing it they way they want to play it, but should play it differently is counter intuitive.

If you don't want to use alignment in your games, that's great, don't. If you want to use alignment in your games, that's also great, do that. What seems odd to me is to argue that, for some reasons I can't really follow, alignment rules should apply to the world the GM is trying to manage, but not to the player characters that players are trying to manage.

Does that make sense?

[William Werminster]

Sharing my own experiences, a few facts involving AL issues, the biggest ones.

Two brothers stopped the game because they started arguing over an hour or so.

Almost had to change one of my characters AL from TN to NE because I supposedly did something 'clearly evil'. I was even told off for about TWO hours after the game ended. Of course I still think I did nothing wrong.

When I am the GM more times that I'd want to I have to draw the "I am the GM here", because I want to give the players a wider gray area involving their actions. I will never make a Paladin wall if he slays the evil guy that killed his daughter begging for mercy on his knees, because I consider that action 'Retribution'.

All of the rol games I've played so far have been with in real life friends.

Almost 18 years playing rol games, D&D was my first love, I was amazed by the AL system the first time I read about it. Nowadays I still like it, but it pains me to confess that the game will be better with AL being only guidelines, IMO.

[Ckorik]

ChibiNyan wrote:

Not subjective in Golarion, or Forgotten Realms or whatever. You can't bring your IRL conceptions into the fantasy world where things work on a specific way. This has been mentioned a few times already in this thread.

Is subjective - because the only one that decides what is 'good' or otherwise is a human with no hard rules text to follow.

Unless you can point to the 'list of actions good and evil - definitive' list that is in the rulebook it is subjective (the last time I looked up what the definition of that word means).

You can't use the 'fluff' of the world (that there a planes that define good and evil) as a way to change the reality of the game system (that the GM - a human - is the one that decides these things) - in other words - you can't *keep* your IRL conceptions out of the fantasy world because the rule is fuzzy, and subject to interpretation and the definition of table variance - exactly subjective.

[Ckorik]

Terquem wrote:

Ckorik wrote:

Terquem wrote:

No one should get upset about alignment rules. I mean, if you are getting upset over any of the rules, you might be doing it wrong to begin with. Right?

So BADWRONGFUN? Got it.

Yes! That's exactly correct. IF you are not having fun with the game as you want to play it, you are doing it wrong. And trying to argue that others who are not not having fun playing it they way they want to play it, but should play it differently is counter intuitive.

If you don't want to use alignment in your games, that's great, don't. If you want to use alignment in your games, that's also great, do that. What seems odd to me is to argue that, for some reasons I can't really follow, alignment rules should apply to the world the GM is trying to manage, but not to the player characters that players are trying to manage.

Does that make sense?

Yes - that is a perfect explanation as to why alignment *should be* an optional system and not part of the core. Because it's a subjective system it shouldn't be a mechanic that can break your character - every new version of the game has made changes that were designed to move away from arbitrary and capricious decisions due to vague rules text into a more concrete rules system.

If you don't love crunch - you can always play OSR right - except the reason people don't play OSR is because too much is left in the GM's hands and so rules change game to game because nothing has a rule. That's alignment in a nutshell.

[HWalsh]

Ckorik wrote:

In every such case that the restrictions were removed - we have had both no issues, and a better game for it. Pathfinder isn't 'less' because Druids can be any alignment. Pathfinder isn't 'less' because Rangers can be non-good.

I have had the opposite experience.

I ran an experimental game about a year and a half ago where I stripped out alignment from the game. People could be whatever they wanted to. I stripped out Paladin codes, the whole nine yards.

It was a complete disaster.

There was no verisimilitude within the world. One player played a Chaotic Neutral Paladin who used poison, lied, cheated, used underhanded tactics, was generally a complete (censored) because he could.

This was also when people started combining options that aren't meant to be combined. That became a mechanical nightmare as suddenly there were very specific options that were completely better than normal options.

Like, for example, did you know that Desna's Shooting Star, due to how it is worded, grants the benefits of more than one feat if used? If you want to TWF then Desna's Shooting Star blows anything else out of the water. Combined properly with certain classes that normally are incompatible with it this can get into stupid levels of effect.

The Alignment System helps keep a verisimilitude within the world by providing players with expectations for how characters they encounter should generally act. They also help by acting as roadblocks mechanically to stop certain combinations which, when combined, are very powerful and probably much more powerful than was ever intended.

[gustavo iglesias]

You keep talking about Desna's shooting star as a deterrant for Desna's paladins.

Maybe the lesson here is "do not publish broken feats"?

Or even better, if a player wants to play a Desna Paladin in your table, and you think Desna's shooting star is broken (hint: it is), ban the freaking feat and let the player play the character he wants to play?

[HWalsh]

Ckorik wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I mean, I sorta feel like I really appreciate alignment restrictions

I can appreciate that - outside of tradition or 'non-game fiction' - can you explain how those restrictions (not alignment in and of itself) made the game better.

Certainly - Alignment, and other, Restrictions help the game (amazingly so) when one has a GM and a group of players who have read the lore and who are knowledgeable about the mechanics setting.

How does this help:

The main way this helps is that it allows the players to have preconceived notions of how the world their characters exist in works. When one comes across a Monk, they know generally that Monks have to be lawful, they have a general understanding of what Lawful means, which means that they have expectations for how this NPC is going to act and react.

Now, this enhances the system rather than detracts from it because it allows for the GM to not only create a sense of verisimilitude by creating characters that act in accordance with the setting's established history/lore/etc, but also allows the GM to create legitimately shocking twists with NPC behavior.

I have done this many times in the past, the most recent time was with a Monk.

This was kind of a cloak and dagger adventure. In a city that I created that was near Tian Xia that had been created when a number of settlers moved near a Monk Temple for protection it had come to be tradition that the Monks were generally the rulers.

Namely the city lived under their laws because it would only have existed because of them.

The adventure was a request for outside aid from the PCs because, recently, a faction among the people had begun rebelling against that tradition and had begun resorting to terrorist-like attacks to destabilize the city's structure. There were already parts of the city that were falling to complete anarchy.

I, as the GM, didn't have to lay out to my players where the stress points had formed. The Monks were strictly Lawful, the dissidents were generally Chaotic with a number of neutrals who were going along with the disruptions for personal gain.

When one of the Monks was caught seemingly aiding the rebellion's efforts the PCs rose to his defense. Why? He was a Monk, he was lawful, there was no way that he would ever be involved in something like what was going on. It goes against everything that he believed in at the core.

Yet, oddly, he confessed to the crime, appeared to be telling the truth that he indeed was a collaborator (indeed he was one of the higher ups, or so he claimed), and they were set to execute him.

One of my Players (correctly) determined that this felt all kinds of wrong. His in-game reasoning was that Monks believe in an orderly existence in general. Something here didn't seem to make sense. They used magic and determined that he was still lawful from the perspective of alignment.

This was making matters even worse because as this Monk was being accused of being party, if not the cause, of the chaos it was harming the people's trust in the order. This could have had the end result of destabilizing the city's situation further.

Well, long story short, the Monk was never involved, though through magical shenanigans he believed that he was. He had memories regarding it, the whole bit, if I had tossed alignment at the beginning of the game so much of that wouldn't have worked as well as it did.

Could it have still worked? Yes. I could have ham fisted things to make it clear to the players that the Monk was totally a true believer in order and would never do it... I didn't have to do that though... To my player(s) that was the logical situation. That was their preconceived understanding of the world and therefor the situation felt natural.

[HWalsh]

gustavo iglesias wrote:

You keep talking about Desna's shooting star as a deterrant for Desna's paladins.

Maybe the lesson here is "do not publish broken feats"?

Or even better, if a player wants to play a Desna Paladin in your table, and you think Desna's shooting star is broken (hint: it is), ban the freaking feat and let the player play the character he wants to play?

Because the feat isn't broken. It is only broken when combined with certain specific things that, surprise, normally can't be combined.

In normal games I run... Desna doesn't have Paladins. She's chaotic, by her nature she wouldn't impose a code of conduct on people. Thus she cannot have Paladins.

[the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh]

Kaladin_Stormblessed wrote:

Advanced details of moral philosophy are complex, yes. "Is it evil to torture, steal, and murder innocents when convenient" shouldn't be complex, and personally I don't feel like playing with people who consider these up for debate. And that's the vast majority of when it seems to come up.

I am entirely uninterested in players who consider those up for debate. Characters who consider them up for debate, on the other hand, have the potential to make a game deeper and richer. There are reasons to enjoy playing Macbeth other than actually wanting to commit murder for the sake of your ambitions.

[the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh]

Igwilly wrote:

Fighters may advance as high as 36th level.

Some of us still miss having 36 levels to the game.

[the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh]

Ckorik wrote:

A sense of self over your character is one of the most fundamental things you have control over - it shouldn't even be an option to take it away.

On the other hand, with the right players, that can feel like having a positive sense of jeopardy and narrative tension in ways mere character death does not generate.

[Terquem]

There is no "fun" in playing MacBeth, the outcome is fixed, morally, as a play, it teaches a lesson in how ambition when it is unguided by righteousness, is wrong.

Why would anyone "play" MacBeth?

It has been my experience that there are players who consider these kinds of actions as moral dilemmas that make games more interesting, while most of the time when I encounter a player who wants to eliminate alignment from the game, or play a chaotic neutral character, it is only because they do not want to have to consider if anything their character does is right or wrong, they just want to win.

[Tectorman]

Ckorik wrote:

ChibiNyan wrote:

Not subjective in Golarion, or Forgotten Realms or whatever. You can't bring your IRL conceptions into the fantasy world where things work on a specific way. This has been mentioned a few times already in this thread.

Is subjective - because the only one that decides what is 'good' or otherwise is a human with no hard rules text to follow.

Unless you can point to the 'list of actions good and evil - definitive' list that is in the rulebook it is subjective (the last time I looked up what the definition of that word means).

You can't use the 'fluff' of the world (that there a planes that define good and evil) as a way to change the reality of the game system (that the GM - a human - is the one that decides these things) - in other words - you can't *keep* your IRL conceptions out of the fantasy world because the rule is fuzzy, and subject to interpretation and the definition of table variance - exactly subjective.

Or to put it another way, when you have a book about a fictional universe where morality is an objective fact known to the denizens of that fictional universe, but the book is also able to make that objective morality indisputably known to the IRL players sitting around that table playing the game set in said fictional universe, then you don’t have a RPG game book, you have a copy of the Necronomicon.

Seriously, I want to see this book that can translate an objective morality from fiction to reality.

[KestrelZ]

I am in the camp of alignment as optional.

I have played many different game systems over many years. The D&D (and palladium) alignment systems can start knock down drag out fights between friends. My vote is on having it optional. D&D/PF had alignment hard coded in class mechanics, spells (detect, protection from), and magic items (holy, anarchic, etc. weapons); making alignment vital. It was just hard baked in the system. So - what are the pros and cons of an alignment system?

Pros - It gives a foundation of how a PC views the world. Great for beginning players to grasp the concept early on. This also lets the system create divine powers with actual mechanical effects. Holy weapons do added damage to evil beings, protection from good gives mechanical benefits that help an evil caster. Sometimes alignment becomes a storytelling tool; In the RPG "Vampire", a humanity rating was the closest thing to an alignment system. Most players did not care about "acting human" until they learned there was actual mechanical benefit to having a high humanity score (avoid becoming a mindless beast, and less weak during daylight hours if forced to defend themselves when attacked in their lair).

Cons - It can lead to heated arguments due to player viewpoints. If you have a player that has a past history of questionable choices, that player is likely to take alignment debates VERY personally. It sometimes gives jerks a license to be a bigger jerk. There are numerous examples of GMs that love to see paladins fall, or PCs losing class abilities and will throw situations at the group to make it happen. There are jerk players that act out and hurt the group on a regular basis with the excuse of "just playing my alignment". It also breaks down at times when playing a complex PC, or forced into unusual circumstances with very moral implications.

The ugly - Changing alignments can be a rich and rewarding moment when a PC shifts an entire worldview, or it can be a crappy Gygaxian trap because of some plot made magical rehabilitation machine that forced a barbarian to play another class by stepping in the wrong magic circle. A Christmas Carol was clearly a redemption story even if Ebeneezer was evil in a way that didn't involve killing or torture (just was miserly and a jerk), nor did his transformation to good involve a matyring heroic (just became mildly generous and happy). The law/chaos axis is much less clear cut because our culture has a plethora of good/evil conflict tales, and very few epic law/chaos tales (The "odd couple" is about the only clear example I can think of). Seriously, a lot of monks in Shaw Brother films show us that "monkey king", chaotic monks can exist in a story. Barbarians with high regard for tradition also seems to work against the "no lawful barbarian" idea.

To sum it up - Alignment has its uses, good and bad. Making it optional allows a group to retain the good aspect of it (holy weapons, easy to teach beginning PCs about character viewpoint), while allowing other groups to disregard it if it actually interferes with another group's fun (Why can't I play a monk that tries to humble authority by being lovably mischievous?)

[gustavo iglesias]

HWalsh wrote:

gustavo iglesias wrote:

You keep talking about Desna's shooting star as a deterrant for Desna's paladins.

Maybe the lesson here is "do not publish broken feats"?

Or even better, if a player wants to play a Desna Paladin in your table, and you think Desna's shooting star is broken (hint: it is), ban the freaking feat and let the player play the character he wants to play?

Because the feat isn't broken. It is only broken when combined with certain specific things that, surprise, normally can't be combined.

That's not true. The feat is absolutely broken. For Bards, for combat Oracles, and for Dragon Disciples, for example.

Quote:

In normal games I run... Desna doesn't have Paladins. She's chaotic, by her nature she wouldn't impose a code of conduct on people. Thus she cannot have Paladins.

So Desna's shooting star has not anything to do with it? Is it because "it breaks the game to allow combos" or just because "as I'm the GM, I can dictate how other people have fun?"

Because if it's the last, then maybe you should just state it as is, instead of trying to rationalize stuff that make no sense. There's not going to be a Desna's Shooting Star feat that allows you to attack with Charisma in New PAthfinder, and we don't even know if there is going to be Divine Grace, or if it will work as it is now, so there is no need to worry about that combo yet. It's only a matter of some people telling others that their way of having fun is badwrongfun.

[the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh]

Terquem wrote:

There is no "fun" in playing MacBeth, the outcome is fixed, morally, as a play, it teaches a lesson in how ambition when it is unguided by righteousness, is wrong.

Why would anyone "play" MacBeth?

IME, because it is one of many subsets of "playing or acting as a character not like you is fun", which is the core appeal of RPGs for most of the players I know.

[Terquem]

This sort of, in my opinion, falls into a category of games and gamers I have know that basically reads like this

Player: "I really want to play Macbeth,"
Me (As DM): "Really? Cool, so like you want to see a game where Macbeth makes different choices, and some how avoids the tragic fate that is his destiny?"
Player: "Not at all, I want to do everything Macbeth does, and worse, but instead of losing, I want him to come out on top, become the King. You know, win."
Me: "Um, okay, uh, no?"

[the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh]

Terquem wrote:

This sort of, in my opinion, falls into a category of games and gamers I have know that basically reads like this

Player: "I really want to play Macbeth,"
Me (As DM): "Really? Cool, so like you want to see a game where Macbeth makes different choices, and some how avoids the tragic fate that is his destiny?"
Player: "Not at all, I want to do everything Macbeth does, and worse, but instead of losing, I want him to come out on top, become the King. You know, win."
Me: "Um, okay, uh, no?"

That too feels to me like it falls under the heading of being clear what everyone's expectations are and not playing with players where there are major incompatibilities. Avoiding tragic fates born of their own actions, or consequences of their actions generally, hasn't been a thing among players I have played with in the last couple of decades; playing someone who comes to a tragic end is fun.

[Terquem]

Oh, I agree, playing a tragic character can be fun, having a character come to a tragic fate, in a game I am running, could be fun (if the player wanted to go that direction).

I agree with you so much. Playing with people who want the same thing out of the game experience that you do is the best thing, in my opinion.

[Rhedyn]

This is worse argument I've ever seen as to why alignment should be gotten rid of.

It can cause hurt feelings? Are we being serious here? Everything can cause hurt feelings!

The alignment system doesn't make sense. It's a roleplaying tool. But it hurting feelings is no where near the top reason to not have it. Pffffff

[TolkienBard]

Terquem wrote:

seriously, to me, the OP's original argument is

"When the DM makes things happen to our characters that we don't want to have happen because of a rule we don't think we should have to follow it's not fair.

In campaigns that I have been a part of, we don't share with each other our alignments. In fact, we share very little of our character's stats or composition. All that meta stuff is left on the sheet and private between the DM and the PCs.

That has, in the past, led to a Paladin paling about with a LE wizard. She was not some sort of openly evil, kill fluffy bunnies and enslave all inferior species evil. She was, however, very selfish with knowledge and power and had very little compunction against violating the physical (and later mental) spaces of others. The ends (her becoming a magical force with no peer) justified the means, so long asd those means did not bring more trouble than could be easily handled. In other words, not Lawful Stupid. She was also incredibly charismatic and enjoyed using her wiles to get what she wanted. After a bit, this also included her having fun making the Paladin very self-conscious, as she made it quite clear time and again that she was up for finding out who could out-sex whom (not in the pornographic sense- gets your minds out of the gutter, LOL).

For his part, the Paladin was very true to class when the party left the hamlet and began its adventure. When they settled in the city a bit later, the party had grown to be something of a family (sort of). They continued to have plenty of adventures, and the Paladin was a for many in the world, was essentially the face of this adventuring party. They began to gain a reputation as problem solvers - and his reputation grew as a force which truly evil people feared.

This was all fine and dandy until he had what became his "Sturm Brightblade moment" and he was called to task by another Paladin who had (through previous actions of the party) been wronged by the wizard's actions. Then it slowly came out through a pretty involved, intense, and utterly enjoyable RP session that the Paladin, through his actions working with the group, had been assisting an evil power become more powerful.

This evolved into a crisis of personal belief and had the Paladin begin questioning everything he "thought" he stood for. How could he have been a beacon of god and justice and not noticed the evil under his nose (and potentially other places). It also created a new conflict by giving him a chance to see the wizard in a new light and letting him reassess his relationship with her.

While he never became a "fallen" Paladin, he did find that his convictions did not serve him as well as they once did until after the party reached the next milestone moment in the campaign. At that point, he put his best Paladin foot forward in some pretty epic fashion that was further augmented by some great dice rolls. After that, he was able to continue to party with the wizard because he was able to make a strong case that it was his presence and influence that was keeping her from becoming an out-and-out exemplar of evil incarnate. He made it clear that he was set on keeping her from going entirely dark by helping her to learn to be good by example. He would be there to teach her and guide her to being a good person. He would also be there to end her should she slip.

This was all great RP, and it was largely dictated by the alignment mechanics with regards to Paladins paling around with evil characters. Removing the restriction on Paladins needing to be LG, or removing their prohibition to assisting evil characters would have probably eliminated this storyline.

Alignment as guidelines with SOME mechanical restrictions has always made sense to me. I do think that alignment became far too attached to too many mechanics at some point, likely late in the development of D&D 2E. It also has not helped that the systems over the years have gone out of their way to define what is and is not good and evil, instead of letting the PCs and DMs decide it.

Necromancy come to mind in this manner. At this point, necromancy is, by almost any measure, evil. Go back to AD&D though, and healing spells were from the necromancy school of magic, not the conjuration. Creating numerous subtypes of magic with alignment descriptors didn't help either. Had they just left the spells as being identified with a school, but nothing more, the alignment issues go away in terms of mechanics. The PCs and DMs then dictate how these spells interact and who can or cannot use them.

Alignment does need re-evaluation, but it absolutely should be here to stay.

[Steelfiredragon]

ditch the lawful and chaotic alignments from PCs..

[TolkienBard]

the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:

Igwilly wrote:

Fighters may advance as high as 36th level.

Some of us still miss having 36 levels to the game.

As someone who has played in multiple long-running campaigns, I am heartily in this boat. After playing the same PC with a regular group for almost six years, uber epicness was inevitable.

That said, with two of the three PCs that I played that lasted for great lengths of time in an open setting, alignment came into play more than once as a mechanic that added loads of flavour and conflict. The alignment issues became driving motivators to great sub-plots that I would be sad to have seen eliminated.

[TolkienBard]

Ckorik wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

It's really kind of jarring to me how people can read that section of Horror Adventures about consent and jump right to the conclusion that "the most upsetting thing that can happen to me in a game is being told 'no' or that the thing I did was not acceptable." Like that is what upsets you?

No - and in good faith I explain that consent isn't about being told no - it's about making a change to my character against my will. All the other parts of the game that affect my character are coded by rules - even domination effects. I can read the book and you can read the book and we both understand what the save is and how it affects my character.

However none of these rules (even death - honestly) changes a fundamental *core* concept of what my character is.

None of them - except alignment (but only for those classes that have actual restrictions - everyone else is just fine). A sense of self over your character is one of the most fundamental things you have control over - it shouldn't even be an option to take it away. Domination effects are contentious and they aren't even as horrible.

To me, this comes down WAY MORE to an understanding between the PC and DM as to what is and is not going on. Instantly invalidating a PC's build based on anything, including alignment is just plain wrong IMHO. That said, a mild build-up, including a number of RP warnings that result in a change seems entirely acceptable to me. If the DM is giving the PC plenty of opportunities to amend their ways, I just don't see a problem with consequences.

Example:

If someone is playing a Paladin, there is a reasonable expectation that they will, to the best of their ability, uphold and support the causes of being LG. The reward/payoff for doing so is a specific set of benefits and abilities. If the Paladin is unable, or more seriously, actively chooses NOT to pursue the LG path, if he wantonly pals around with morally disreputable sorts, then it makes total sense to claim that the PC is no longer receiving the cosmic blessings of being an exemplar of the LG path. The blessings, such as LoH were the direct result of the adherence to the LG path. That's the benefit from choosing to so rigidly follow the path. It makes no sense that a CG or CN fighter would receive the same blessing. Where's the cost?Now they are nothing more than fighters being given blessings and abilities without the need to pay for them through discipline and restrictions.

There are SOME alignment restrictions I never understood. I always was a bit fuzzy on why Rangers being good was ever a thing beyond the fact that the original game made the pretty basic assumption that PCs were going to be the "good guys" and should be striving to embody that. I also was a bit sketchy about the requisite that assassins be evil. James Bond is the classic example of a non-evil assassin.

On the other hand, Druids sticking to the five alignments on the neutrality axis makes total sense to me. A Druid straying too far to one of the four corners is not embracing the balance that is at the heart of the Druid's nature.

[Ckorik]

the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:

Ckorik wrote:

A sense of self over your character is one of the most fundamental things you have control over - it shouldn't even be an option to take it away.

On the other hand, with the right players, that can feel like having a positive sense of jeopardy and narrative tension in ways mere character death does not generate.

You make a great case why this system should be optional.

[Ckorik]

Terquem wrote:

There is no "fun" in playing MacBeth, the outcome is fixed, morally, as a play, it teaches a lesson in how ambition when it is unguided by righteousness, is wrong.

Why would anyone "play" MacBeth?

It has been my experience that there are players who consider these kinds of actions as moral dilemmas that make games more interesting, while most of the time when I encounter a player who wants to eliminate alignment from the game, or play a chaotic neutral character, it is only because they do not want to have to consider if anything their character does is right or wrong, they just want to win.

Both kinds of people can make good games - it's easier to take someone interested in a story and give them options than it is to force everyone into those options first - then figure out how to ignore them because people didn't want them. Especially when you use the word most.

This is also a good argument why the alignment rules should be optional.

[Ckorik]

Tectorman wrote:

Ckorik wrote:

ChibiNyan wrote:

Not subjective in Golarion, or Forgotten Realms or whatever. You can't bring your IRL conceptions into the fantasy world where things work on a specific way. This has been mentioned a few times already in this thread.

Is subjective - because the only one that decides what is 'good' or otherwise is a human with no hard rules text to follow.

Unless you can point to the 'list of actions good and evil - definitive' list that is in the rulebook it is subjective (the last time I looked up what the definition of that word means).

You can't use the 'fluff' of the world (that there a planes that define good and evil) as a way to change the reality of the game system (that the GM - a human - is the one that decides these things) - in other words - you can't *keep* your IRL conceptions out of the fantasy world because the rule is fuzzy, and subject to interpretation and the definition of table variance - exactly subjective.

Or to put it another way, when you have a book about a fictional universe where morality is an objective fact known to the denizens of that fictional universe, but the book is also able to make that objective morality indisputably known to the IRL players sitting around that table playing the game set in said fictional universe, then you don’t have a RPG game book, you have a copy of the Necronomicon.

Seriously, I want to see this book that can translate an objective morality from fiction to reality.

Please point to the pathfinder rulebook that explains why and what is an evil act - so we can close every 'will a paladin fall' thread with a rulebook answer.

[Ckorik]

KestrelZ wrote:

I am in the camp of alignment as optional.

I didn't quote your entire post - but (just go with me for a moment) what if we still made alignment a thing - for all NPC's - and still made players pick an alignment - but had no mechanical ties to the alignment.

Like - we could have 'a paladin falls' events where they don't junk their class (becoming a fighter with no feats? I can't say anything about this that doesn't violate the code of conduct on this forum).

Seriously - the I understand why many people *like* alignment - I just think it needs to get away from *mechanics* people disagree too much over silly things. Even over what spell is considered 'evil' (hot tip: there are spells that RAW create undead and arn't evil - the people who argue about it will just brush this off as an error - but they *exist* and thus are legal and how the game works - lets move to a system where it doesn't matter).

[Ckorik]

TolkienBard wrote:

If someone is playing a Paladin, there is a reasonable expectation that they will, to the best of their ability, uphold and support the causes of being LG. The reward/payoff for doing so is a specific set of benefits and abilities. If the Paladin is unable, or more seriously, actively chooses NOT to pursue the LG path, if he wantonly pals around with morally disreputable sorts, then it makes...

You are ascribing more to the class than is in the rulebook there.

*edit* I meant to say more - sorry for the quick edit.

This isn't about *just* paladins. This is about clerics, assassins, monks. druids, barbarians, or any other class that has a alignment restriction.

I *am* fine with saying on a barbarian 'this class is not allowed to multiclass with the following: blah blah blah' The fact that they have an alignment restriction is silly. Ditto for monks - for whom there is an entire genre of modern fiction devoted to the chaotic monk (mind you this is a trope that existed prior to western civilization so it's a bit of a white wash to even have - but that's a bit beside the point).

[Niztael]

Leave it in, take it out. All the rules are ultimately optional. I've taken it out of my game and we're having a great time without it, maybe the same wouldn't hold true for everyone. I'm sure I could accomplish the same thing with PF2 with very little effort. Paladins have to pay more attention to their "code" than any alignment restrictions and devils are still "evil". Steal souls and people will think you're evil and your characters soul is still going to the bad place.

[Fuzzypaws]

This is why I like the allegiance system. A character can have allegiances to their god, their nation, etc rather than to an abstract moral or ethical concept. And for those characters for whom it does make sense to take "Good" as an allegiance, sure, that works too, as long as they define it well enough.

[Tectorman]

Rhedyn wrote:

This is worse argument I've ever seen as to why alignment should be gotten rid of.

It can cause hurt feelings? Are we being serious here? Everything can cause hurt feelings!

The alignment system doesn't make sense. It's a roleplaying tool. But it hurting feelings is no where near the top reason to not have it. Pffffff

Avoiding hurt feelings is why Horror Adventures has that section about consent. There are themes that can potentially take a player to one of their darkest most personal places, making them feel endangered or attacked by having those things brutally forced in their faces with no regard for their feelings.

Hurt feelings are why you don’t just start an adventure with all the characters in a dungeon having been brutally tortured/raped without getting the players’ explicit consent ahead of time.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

It's really kind of jarring to me how people can read that section of Horror Adventures about consent and jump right to the conclusion that "the most upsetting thing that can happen to me in a game is being told 'no' or that the thing I did was not acceptable." Like that is what upsets you?

That section in Horror Adventures is there because the themes that that section has all those warnings about are the sort can potentially be very traumatic and deeply personal. A person’s views about what good and evil are and how they fundamentally work are not at the same level of traumatization, but they are just as personal and just as sacrosanct. A player shouldn’t have to expect that he or she might have child rape sprung on them in the game. Okay, so why is taking their sense of morality and expecting them to just abandon it any better? That’s why “alignment (or at absolute minimum, any mechanics associated with it) stays out of the game by default unless and until everyone at the table explicitly gives their okay” should have been in the CRB.

[Quantum Steve]

Ckorik wrote:

the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:

Ckorik wrote:

A sense of self over your character is one of the most fundamental things you have control over - it shouldn't even be an option to take it away.

On the other hand, with the right players, that can feel like having a positive sense of jeopardy and narrative tension in ways mere character death does not generate.

You make a great case why this system should be optional.

All rules are optional.

[Threeshades]

Alignment is my number 1 item on the list of things i'd like to see expunged from Pathfinder and D&D.

Having it in the cosmology is one thing. Having to tether your character to it is another. Characters also don't have to choose an element, energy polarity, or shadow or fey.

Pharasma judges a character when they die, not while they are alive. That's the time when they forge their own fate, not have it frontloaded onto them.

Quantum Steve wrote:

Ckorik wrote:

the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:

Ckorik wrote:

A sense of self over your character is one of the most fundamental things you have control over - it shouldn't even be an option to take it away.

On the other hand, with the right players, that can feel like having a positive sense of jeopardy and narrative tension in ways mere character death does not generate.

You make a great case why this system should be optional.

All rules are optional.

But unless they are deliberately and explicitly denoted as such, they WILL be used by most gaming groups, and especially when someone plays with groups of strangers or in organized play, it can be anywhere from a headache to completely impossible to opt out of any rules.

[Nyarlathotep]

I'm fine with alignment. It's sounds like it's a sacred cow that will live on in the 2nd edition.

I would like to see spells like Unholy Blight and others that affect only certain alignments disappear (or be reworked) though. Last 3 campaigns I've run, the majority of players are playing neutral characters to avoid being affected by spells and effects like this.

[Ckorik]

Nyarlathotep wrote:

I'm fine with alignment. It's sounds like it's a sacred cow that will live on in the 2nd edition.

I would like to see spells like Unholy Blight and others that affect only certain alignments disappear (or be reworked) though. Last 3 campaigns I've run, the majority of players are playing neutral characters to avoid being affected by spells and effects like this.

The fact that your players are 'gamifying' morality to avoid in game mechanics sounds like it has added depth and nuance to your game that help you plumb the depths of the moral fiber.

Or the opposite - and it's yet another example of why alignment tied to mechanics should go.

[Ckorik]

Quantum Steve wrote:

All rules are optional.

One vote for 'I don't care.'

Noted.

[the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh]

Tectorman wrote:

A player shouldn’t have to expect that he or she might have child rape sprung on them in the game. Okay, so why is taking their sense of morality and expecting them to just abandon it any better?

Why are you treating "player's sense of morality" and "character's moral outlook" as if they were the same thing?

[the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh]

Ckorik wrote:

the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:

Ckorik wrote:

A sense of self over your character is one of the most fundamental things you have control over - it shouldn't even be an option to take it away.

On the other hand, with the right players, that can feel like having a positive sense of jeopardy and narrative tension in ways mere character death does not generate.

You make a great case why this system should be optional.

Well, thanks for going from "it shouldn't even be an option to take it away" to "this should be optional". I don't have a problem with advocating for the game being able to support my favoured playstyle.

[Kaladin_Stormblessed]

Tectorman wrote:

Rhedyn wrote:

This is worse argument I've ever seen as to why alignment should be gotten rid of.

It can cause hurt feelings? Are we being serious here? Everything can cause hurt feelings!

The alignment system doesn't make sense. It's a roleplaying tool. But it hurting feelings is no where near the top reason to not have it. Pffffff

Avoiding hurt feelings is why Horror Adventures has that section about consent. There are themes that can potentially take a player to one of their darkest most personal places, making them feel endangered or attacked by having those things brutally forced in their faces with no regard for their feelings.

Hurt feelings are why you don’t just start an adventure with all the characters in a dungeon having been brutally tortured/raped without getting the players’ explicit consent ahead of time.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

It's really kind of jarring to me how people can read that section of Horror Adventures about consent and jump right to the conclusion that "the most upsetting thing that can happen to me in a game is being told 'no' or that the thing I did was not acceptable." Like that is what upsets you?

That section in Horror Adventures is there because the themes that that section has all those warnings about are the sort can potentially be very traumatic and deeply personal. A person’s views about what good and evil are and how they fundamentally work are not at the same level of traumatization, but they are just as personal and just as sacrosanct. A player shouldn’t have to expect that he or she might have child rape sprung on them in the game. Okay, so why is taking their sense of morality and expecting them to just abandon it any better? That’s why “alignment (or at absolute minimum, any mechanics associated with it) stays out of the game by default unless and until everyone at the table explicitly gives their okay” should have been in the CRB.

Okay so, I think the thing here we probably all agree on is... potential hurt feelings should be a consideration. Based on how likely it is. We can probably all agree that something near-universally upsetting should be left out, and something one can only vaguely imagine anyone being hurt by shouldn't be. Where the precise line is could be debated, but that's all.

As an example. If I go around wearing a T-shirt bearing egregious insults toward people of some political stance, I can reasonably expect that to hurt feelings. Thus, I should avoid doing it. If I wear a T-shirt bearing sexist or racist comments, I can reasonably expect it to hurt feelings. Etc.

But then there's that person who had a traumatic experience of being locked in a room painted all in blue as a kid, and the color blue now gives them flashbacks. But unless I know this person personally, I cannot reasonably expect wearing a blue T-shirt to hurt feelings, because at that point I'd have to avoid just about everything.

I don't think most people find alignment that offensive. "You failed a Will save, your character is now insane and secretly evil" is predictably going to bother more people than "you murdered an elderly woman for asking too many questions, and considering you've also been doing stuff like stealing from people casually, I'm gonna say this is a shift to NE."

(and, just as a note... I think alignment is easier to have as a "can opt in or out" if it's included as a default. I'm fine with it being made easier to opt out of. I'm not fine with everything alignment-based being a note in the CRB of "you can pick an alignment if you want, it has no meaning" and then it getting the standard optional-ruleset treatment of a few spells and feats in Ultimate Morality that are never again added to.)

[Ckorik]

the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:

Ckorik wrote:

the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:

Ckorik wrote:

A sense of self over your character is one of the most fundamental things you have control over - it shouldn't even be an option to take it away.

On the other hand, with the right players, that can feel like having a positive sense of jeopardy and narrative tension in ways mere character death does not generate.

You make a great case why this system should be optional.

Well, thanks for going from "it shouldn't even be an option to take it away" to "this should be optional". I don't have a problem with advocating for the game being able to support my favoured playstyle.

I am pretty sure my point wasn't to remove alignment entirely from the game - my point was to remove it as a mechanic on player classes.

What we are talking about here is a switch from a default assumption 'alignment restricted' to a default assumption 'no ties to alignment on characters powers - but here is how you can do so if you want'. I'll admit - it's not a huge change - but it would make a large difference for a great many people - mostly because an *optional* rule begs the GM to speak up if they plan to use alignment as a focus of the story.

When the rule is default - everyone goes in and just picks alignment or works with the restrictions - some even meta-game neutral so they avoid some spells - but if the GM wants a morality play - well they don't *have* to say anything because alignment is the default assumption. Change that and like any other houserule if the GM wants to use alignment as a focus point - they have to speak up - they have to talk to the players and not assume.

This gives the players and GM the chance to talk - you might say 'well they should do that anyway' - yes - they should - but it doesn't always happen. Much like any mechanic sometimes a table will get stale and the GM (looking for ways to keep things interesting) might decide to change the core assumption and pick on alignment - again because it's 'in the rules' - and a default rule means that 'hey the players should be ready for alignment stuff at any time' - change the rule to optional and the conversation has to happen so that everyone can consent.

Some people in this thread have made odd remarks about consent - asking for - or talking to people about what they want or expect out of a game shouldn't be seen as a chore or adversarial. When touching on subjects that might be sensitive for some people - or where people in real life tend to not agree (historically) - consent is just a polite way of ensuring that everyone is comfortable with the framework or story being told - it is ok that not everyone has the same level of comfort about things. Changing the default rule means that using alignment would require consent from the entire table - if a player wanted to focus on it - or the GM - it would mean the discussion *has* to occur before 'does the paladin fall' thread is ever written.

And that's important.

[Tectorman]

the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:

Tectorman wrote:

A player shouldn’t have to expect that he or she might have child rape sprung on them in the game. Okay, so why is taking their sense of morality and expecting them to just abandon it any better?

Why are you treating "player's sense of morality" and "character's moral outlook" as if they were the same thing?

Because when the player assigns a moral outlook for his character, he is saying “I think this manner of behavior/ these values/ these goals are this or that alignment”. If the game requires that that outlook be assigned something else, that equates to judgment passed on the player himself. For example, casting Infernal Healing on a child is only evil because the spell happens to utilize evil energy to do do. That will never be sufficient reason for me. To abide by that, I would have to abandon that part of my sense of morality. I’m not playing this game to have that forced on me.

[the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh]

Tectorman wrote:

the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:

Tectorman wrote:

A player shouldn’t have to expect that he or she might have child rape sprung on them in the game. Okay, so why is taking their sense of morality and expecting them to just abandon it any better?

Why are you treating "player's sense of morality" and "character's moral outlook" as if they were the same thing?

Because when the player assigns a moral outlook for his character, he is saying “I think this manner of behavior/ these values/ these goals are this or that alignment”. If the game requires that that outlook be assigned something else, that equates to judgment passed on the player himself.

I think you're skipping a step here. I can create and play numerous characters who think they are Lawful Good without them having to agree with each other, and whether the game universe agrees with them or whether they agree with my personal morality seem equally irrelevant; that some of them will be supported by the moral rules of the universe they live in and some of them will be in rebellion against it is part of the variety of what makes them interesting to play.

Quote:

For example, casting Infernal Healing on a child is only evil because the spell happens to utilize evil energy to do do. That will never be sufficient reason for me. To abide by that, I would have to abandon that part of my sense of morality. I’m not playing this game to have that forced on me.

Can you not envision playing a character who sincerely believed using Infernal Healing on a child was evil? As a matter completely separate from your morality as a player? A character that you as a player thought was wrong?

If not, that feels limiting enough for players, and completely crippling to DMing any campaign where you are running characters of different perspectives. I mean, if as a DM you are running someone who is a villain by your own personal moral standards, how do you get inside their heads enough to make them plausible characters if you're not willing to RP someone with a different moral perspective?