I originally posted this in a response, but I thought I'd cross-post it here for input. Basically, when I started the build-up for CoT my wife we thought "Hey, this is a great time to play to the moral gray areas of Chelaxian society" and she built her PC's accordingly. On multiple read-throughs of the source, I completely missed the "Robin Hood" flavour somehow. (Probably overjoyed at the awesomeness of everything else) And thus, we come to the below situation.
As regards the overall flavor of the AP:
To my perception, a good-aligned group would better integrate with the NPC organization. The "we don't want to kill people" bit has caused some consternation with my Chaotic Neutral with a tinge of Good PC's.
My Beloved Spouse (Kobold chorus: "We love you!") is running four PC's. One is Neutral, one is Neutral Good, one is Chaotic Good and one was Neutral something or other then went Chaotic Evil at a plot twist before dying horribly in the sewers. (That's a different story, though)
During the NPC meet-and-greet, it was presented "We don't want to kill people" but I didn't properly pitch this and make it clear that the NPC organization is full of very traditional Stand Up Do Gooders and Lawful types. So when it came time to spring Arael, lots of people died badly. And at the end, the Chaotic Good fighter proposed "sending a message" to the Hellknights. And was basically told "We're not terrorists!" This broke the game flow pretty hard for me and my player and we paused for the night to rethink the character's approach.
There was talk of the PC's splintering. There was talk (I think) of one of the PC's selling out the NPC's. It was a fascinating study of psychology. And at the end of the day, we reached an agreement that the PC's would continue to work with the NPC's more out of a sense of "Hey, they might roll over on us to the Hellknights" than a moral obligation to doing the right thing.
My wife's take on this was, and I'm paraphrasing here: "A bunch of hippy idealist peaceniks won't survive very long at all in Cheliax." Cheliax is very appealing BECAUSE of its crunchy evil center. Seriously, an entire diabolical country is not one that will change by the actions of a group of idealists who are not willing to spill blood. It's not like the Hellknights would stop just because of a stern talking to. Her Infernal Majestrix Abrogail II is not going to show her soft white underbelly because of a scolding. They're EVIL! And worse yet, they're BORED and evil.
I, the GM, like the idea of such a bunch of NPC's. And as a player, I'd be totally down with running a group of Lawful types through this and having a ball. But at the end of the day, it sticks out a bit from the crop of 'dark and gritty' products that I'm used to seeing from the Pathfinder crew. And you don't get much more dark and gritty than Westcrown.
In summation, Good guys make more sense in this adventure than Neutral and definitely more sense than Evil. At least, as the adventure is written. As I've tweaked it, it's a perfect framework for morally gray and gritty types. The structure allows for the latter, but painting in the lines is (to my perception) designed for the former.
Wow. And I thought I had troubles.
My input in a nutshell though is that there's still some confusion about alignment going on, the way I see it. None of her (living) PCs are evil. She therefore shouldn't be playing an "evil campaign". She's got some chaotic, which is just fine for CoT, if not essential. Breaking Arael out is inherently unlawful and your paladin types should have a real moral quandary over that.
The thing is, if the police have taken a friend of yours prisoner and you want to spring him, you're still going to be careful about causing as little collateral damage as possible. Indiscriminate killing is evil, period. Sure, an attempt to break someone free has its risks and is likely to turn lethal at some point, and that's something that non-lawfuls can accept. But relish?
The goals of the Children are (in my humble opinion) Chaotic Good. They want to do good things for the citizens, and they're willing to break the rules to get it done. Your wife's party should get along with them just fine unless one side or the other isn't working quite right.
Even lawful can fit in here as well. It's possible to view the House of Thrune as new-comer interlopers and hold the old laws to be true. Same as a paladin holding his principles regardless of the law of the land (unless he has some weird principle that makes him want to obey alien laws). You don't send a paladin to Hell and watch him start doing ritual sacrifice because "that's what they DO here! It's the law!"
In closing, I've always viewed the lawful/chaotic axis as a modifier to the good/evil axis. Your goals are good, the way you go about achieving them is chaotic. Your goals are evil, the way you go about it is lawful. Maybe something here helps. Maybe.
In closing, I've always viewed the lawful/chaotic axis as a modifier to the good/evil axis. Your goals are good, the way you go about achieving them is chaotic. Your goals are evil, the way you go about it is lawful. Maybe something here helps. Maybe.
Very well said, and the input is greatly appreciated. In all honesty, I think we've got a good arrangement worked out now and the party's going to be taking an interesting turn due to the addition of the new cleric of pharasma.
The CE character became CE through a single action. During a side-quest-ish thing, the characters did a bit of home invasion on a couple moderate ranking clerics of asmodeus. Said clerics had a very high CR devil bound as a gift. The PC in question saw his opportunity to kill his father (one of the aforementioned clerics) and take his dad's portion of an infernal contract. QED, Chaotic M.F. Evil. (Not Lawful in the slightest, IMO)
He then died horribly. Soul is forfeit, do not pass go, do not queue for long in the Boneyard.