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I'd like to see the alignment system disappear from Pathfinder. There are plenty of RPGs that deal with Good and Evil without the vagaries of an imposed ethics system like that which we have now (and how in the name of Gygax did he come up with this crap?).
The nice thing about getting rid of alignments: without Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil or whatever it would be easier to see which players are just being d$*&+eads in their roleplaying (i.e. paladins, "evil" characters). We already know they're being jerks but at least they wouldn't be able to justify their actions by basing them on "I'm just behaving according to my alignment."
Plus, there would be a helluva lot less paladin/alignment threads on these boards.
“The Most Important Rule
The rules in this book are here to help you breathe life into your characters and the world they explore. While they are designed to make your game easy and exciting, you might find that some of them do not suit the style of play that your gaming group enjoys. Remember that these rules are yours. You can change them to fit your needs. Most Game Mastershave a number of “house rules” that they use in their games. The Game Master and players should always discuss any rules changes to make sure that everyone understands how the game will be played. Although the Game Master is the final arbiter of the rules, the Pathfinder RPG is a shared experience, and all of the players should contribute their thoughts when the rules are in doubt.”
Page 9 of the core rule book
Some people like alignment, others don’t. I happen to like algnment because for me it is a quick and easy way to describe a characters’s general outlook on life and what his general tendencies are, with two quick letters…..LG CG NG etc.
For those who don’t like alignment, they can remove it. “The most Important Rule” expects GMs to adjust the game to their tastes.
Good luck with everything.
I think the alignment system is great. It allows a gradient of positions. But first and foremost it stands as a guidepost for your character so that it removes the chaotic neutralness that characters would devolve into. It keeps people from behaving in what I would consider completly incosistent ways. As mentioned by some alignement does not stop people from acting inconsistently with their alignment it creates a framework to base changing attitudes and mindsets.
I do not think you are going to find a system that handles and issue as complex as morality and ethics perfectly. Then to find one that works with as diverse a people as role players are who have completely divergent nueances to their own personal morality and ethics.
No alignment would be exploited.
I like moral dissonance, insanity, well intentioned bad guys, and so on, and the alignment system doesn't handle that well, so I don't use it.Actually all of those can be handled very well whilst using the alignment system.
No, it can't. You have to make a moral judgment about whether or not a well intentioned villain is or is not justified in order to assign an alignment. This eliminates any confusion about whether the villain is in fact justified.
As for moral dissonance, I used the wrong term. I wanted values dissonance. In the PF alignment system, alignments are a part of the universe and have specific definitions. Values dissonance is when different cultures have widely different views on what is and is not acceptable. An alignment system that categorizes everything handles that badly. For example, under alignment slavery is either evil or not evil. It can't be evil here and not evil there. This eliminates any confusion about what is right or wrong when dealing with foreign cultures.
As for insanity, I am in no way, shape, or form comfortable assigning an alignment to someone not completely responsible for their behavior. It makes me highly uncomfortable.
The entire ideal that nothing is really good or evil, are for and from the same people who argue that assburgers syndrome is real.
I don't know whether to be more impressed by the insane reactionary political tone, the holier-than-thou self-righteousness, or the flagrant violation of the English language to the point where it's been turned into a barely-recognizable Dogpatch variant.
I really should learn how to use the reply function.
There are three perspectives that occur when it comes to judging alignment or the "rightness of action".
One is the meta game. We look as players and GMs and can make "ideally" an objective conclusion of what that person's alignment is. We can say, they are good, they are evil or what have you.
Once this is done though, we then have to look at the other two perspectives which requires us to divorce the meta game perspective. The individual (NPC and PC) judges the rightness of actions (internal judgement). The other prespective is the external other people (PCs and NPCs that are not the individual) judge the rightness of actions.
For example, we have a Chaotic Evil individual who destroys anything his path to achieve an objective that he desires, not caring how he does it or who he hurts. On the meta-game perspective we can make an agreement that this person is CE. The NPCs and PCs that interact with this person would probably see him as CE. Those two groups may view being CE as being "wrong" or "bad". The individual that is CE may have a different view. He probably sees himself as "right". Those other individuals are hypocrits (good) because they say they don't hurt others or engage in self-ish acts when they do, plus they are tyrants (lawful) because they enforce their will on others.
This, of course is a thumbnail sketch and could be explored in more depth, but alas I am at work.
I think it comes down to what other people echo, that alignment, like every other rule in this game, requires a tact social agreement to all parties involved.
The entire ideal that nothing is really good or evil, are for and from the same people who argue that assburgers syndrome is real.
You mean Asperger's syndrome isn't real? So, my pediatrician was just pulling diagnoses out of his ass? Glad you were able to show me the light. I'll go tell him how worthless his medical degree is so he can shred it.
The entire ideal that nothing is really good or evil, are for and from the same people who argue that assburgers syndrome is real.I don't know whether to be more impressed by the insane reactionary political tone, the holier-than-thou self-righteousness, or the flagrant violation of the English language to the point where it's been turned into a barely-recognizable Dogpatch variant.
Bad mamma, dogface. Banana patch!
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Bad mamma, dogface. Banana patch!
Steve Martin WIN!
I am writing this post having only read the OP and the first two responses.
Look... ultimately the alignment system is just a sugestion for balance and play. its not set in stone. as the GM your able to make what ever changes you see fit.
You want Goblins to be happy little trixters in the forest? go for it
you want paladins to be any alignment they want? do it
you want to say screw alignment and let the players play as they chose? do that too.
I can understand having problems with alignment. I recently did a large thread on the conduct of paladins. however the idea of tossing it entirely is a different question all together. on the one hand you believe its flawed, on the other you believe its not necessary.
Paladins restrictive alignment is a penalty for giving them all of their abilities... kind of like elves losing some stats and a bonus feat in order to get bonuses to other stats and resistance to some spells. the only difference is that the alignment restrictions like Paladins and monks requires that the players play along.
The way I deal with it is to allow characters to play how ever they want and inform them that their alignment is how THEY view themselves while the GODS (ie the GM) may see them a different way.
If they start to slip I will warn a class like paladins or monks with a dream or out of game comment. and other classes I will make them ping lightly evil on a detect evil and inform them that their actions have consequences. I may also make their actions influence the NPCs. If characters are known for being destructive or "bad" they may draw the attention of people they dont like or be restricted from things. In my mind this is not a punishment.
Gangsters and criminals do things that they know are bad because they feel justified in doing so but also realize that a civilized environment will attempt to prosecute them or other criminals may attempt to challenge or control them.
this is harder in a book campaign but not impossible.
IMO, there is no problem with the alignment system.
The alignment system makes full sense, if you apply it onto the actual world of Golarion/Faerun/Greyhawk/etc.
These are fantastic worlds where gods are real, everybody knows it and everybody knows that there is a real afterlife with tangible rewards for those who behave in a certain way.
Since individual gods of a particular alignment have different codes of conduct, there isn't even the problem that everybody of a shared alignment has to be the same.
The alignment system only doesn't make sense if you apply a real world perspective on it, which assumes that God is not real and why would people then follow arbitrary rules imposed by an uncaring priesthood?
If we on this world would know, without a doubt, that God and the afterlife is real and, yes, our behaviour in our current life would result in certain conditions in our eternal afterlife, then, yeah, I think the world would be quite a different place.
But we don't. As such, many people cannot understand why the alignment system would make perfect sense in a world where your personal behaviour has deep consequences for what happens after you die.
I know that you really dislike alignment, and it probably could be fixed. However, no matter what you try, you will not be able to convince the game developers to change it.
1) Too many people are just fine with the way it is.
2) It's just too difficult (or impossible) to change the views of people who commit to the philosophy of D&D's alignment.
3) It's rather easy to fix with house rules.
You could just ignore alignment, however that sometimes warps spells and classes.
There's also a way to technically remove it and keep it. Don't make "alignment" personality. Make it a "Team". Drop any instance of granularity, and just make it who you're working for. So instead of Good/Evil/Lawful/Chatoic, you'll have Heaven/Hell or even Heaven/Hell/Abyss. Don't make it the completely the player's choice, let it be whether Heaven/Hell/Abyss makes them part of their team. The players can act however they want, just as long as they keep their faction happy. In this case most people are just neutral and it doesn't mean you're not a good or bad person it just means that you aren't committed to serve them. Obviously, Paladins and Clerics, Demons and Devils should be committed.
No, it can't. You have to make a moral judgment about whether or not a well intentioned villain is or is not justified in order to assign an alignment. This eliminates any confusion about whether the villain is in fact justified.I like moral dissonance, insanity, well intentioned bad guys, and so on, and the alignment system doesn't handle that well, so I don't use it.Actually all of those can be handled very well whilst using the alignment system.No it doesn't - or at least it doesn't for anything that isn't extreme enough to be obvious about it being justified or not.
If somebody is neutral how does that give any details of whether his plans are justified or not?
not everybody with the same alignment will agree about everything.
Is it justified to accept help from a high priest of Asmodeous in order to stop a demon?
As soon as you apply a Neutral alignment, you have said that the BBEG is not evil. You have made a moral judgment. I do not want to make any moral judgment whatsoever.
As for moral dissonance, I used the wrong term. I wanted values dissonance. In the PF alignment system, alignments are a part of the universe and have specific definitions. Values dissonance is when different cultures have widely different views on what is and is not acceptable. An alignment system that categorizes everything handles that badly.Characters with the same alignment can disagree with what is actually right or wrong.
Depends on just what is in question. By the very nature of alignment, there is a cosmic, universal law saying what is and is not evil.
For example, under alignment slavery is either evil or not evil. It can't be evil here and not evil there. This eliminates any confusion about what is right or wrong when dealing with foreign cultures.That's not entirely true.
Slavery covers a very wide range of possibilities in terms of how slaves were treated, options to get free of slavery, rights of slaves to own property etcIt's possible that slavery as practiced in Athens could be acceptable in most societies while slavery as practiced in other areas would mark a country as evil.
Of course a CG country will probably be very anti-slavery but a LG country could well have slaves.
That right there is the problem. You argue an LG character can tolerate some forms of slavery. I would drop such a character to LN regardless of what form of slavery was practiced. That is the problem with alignment and values dissonance. Alignment isn't just a guideline, it is a measurable part of the universe with clear definitions. Yet, we cannot even agree on what those definitions are.
As for insanity, I am not comfortable making the required moral judgment to assign an alignment. The idea of judging the mentally ill makes me very, very queasy.
Alignment isn't just a guideline,To you. To the rules, they are.
You don't perform Evil acts because you're Evil, you're Evil because your outlook is Evil.
We could argue about that point for days and not agree, TOZ. Which is kind of my point.
What, that you can interpret things multiple ways? Of course we can!
Exactly.
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So, yeah, modifying the game people actually know might go better than suggesting a new game.
Or, you know, the people who don't like something can do what every gamer has done since the beginning of time: house rule it.
Why should Paizo or WotC change the game for a vocal minority?
Hiya!
I don't know about anybody else, but I'm a fan of Pathfinder in large part because I wanted to play D&D. About ten pages into the 4e book, I didn't know if it was a good game or not, but I knew it wasn't D&D. When you change a great many iconic characteristics of the game system, it ceases to be what it once was, and becomes something else. The Alignment system is a huge part of that. I can understand that not everyone likes it, and that's fine. Why do you want to ruin it for everyone else?
As for the post that states that all characters devolve into Chaotic Neutral.... There are thousands, if not tens of thousands of people playing this game. How do you justify this conclusion? I have never seen this occur in a game. I have seen some interesting alignment issues crop up, but I have never observed every single character turn CN. I think you need to ask yourself why this is happening when you play. Or not; just drop alignment.
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Or, you know, the people who don't like something can do what every gamer has done since the beginning of time: house rule it.
Coming from you and I, is that like the ocean saying we could use a little rain?
I don't agree if your talking about Christianity or another monotheistic religion then yes having a god can make it possible to have a clear and simple definition but DnD isn't monotheistic. What do you when you have 2 lawful god gods with different rules on what constitutes good. If you obey and worshuip one your good by your religion and go to heaven, but if you obey one and worship the other you've strayed from the path and spend a thousand years in torment before you finish atoning and are admitted to heaven. Which assumes that the god in question doesn't have a heaven for their good worshipers, a hell for their evil ones and a Neutral plain that's neither heaven no hell for the rest which is you. No torment but no eternal reward either just day after day of get up, go to work, go home, sleep, get up, go to work,...
Uh, no. That assumes that two gods of the Lawful Good persuasion would have dogmas that stray from another so much, that doing something which would incur the other gods favor would incur the one gods wrath.
And you are assuming somehow that a follower of a certain god would rather do things which are pleasant to the other god? Why? If he would rather follow said other god, why doesn't he do so?
Sorry, your complaints make little sense as you expressed them.
Uh, the Wall of Faithlessness is from the Forgotten Realms and doesn't work the way you described it, anyway. ^^
And since gods normally don't meddle in the portfolios of other gods ( to avoid outright conflict with each other ) it is highly likely that they won't outright punish other gods followers for not following their own taboos.
So, still not seeing how your arguments don't jibe with the points I brought up... they don't even seem to be adressing them, to be honest.
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As soon as you apply a Neutral alignment, you have said that the BBEG is not evil. You have made a moral judgment. I do not want to make any moral judgment whatsoever.
Why not? Are your games nothing BUT shades of grey? Is it all moral ambiguity?
I think the problem is NOT with Pathfinder/D&D/the aligment system. It is with your expectation that the one game system can handle any and all stories.
The whole point of rule 1 is that you can change things to fit your view in your game.
The problem is that you don't want to just rule 1 your game. You want to rule 1 EVERYONE'S game. Sorry no.
The people who publish the game get to publish the game they want to make. They put in the effort, the time, the work. Don't like it? Then Rule 0 is there to let you change it to what you DO want.
Think the OGL game system should be what YOU want it to be? Fine. Do what Paizo did. Publish.
Or perhaps look into the White Wolf games, which are perhaps more suited to the stories you want to tell without the trappings of a different heroic concpet, that Pathfinder has definately inherited from it's ancestor games.
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Cool down, folks. There's nothing new here; is it worth losing your temper at a screen?
Sorry, Lincoln. I was mad because that wasn't what I said in my first post in this thread. My words are getting twisted into me saying that alignment should be taken out of the game completely, and I didn't say that. I said I don't use it, I said why, I said how, and I said that you should use it if it works for you.
Your split personality thing is getting a bit out of hand. ^^
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I approve of every line of dialogue I just read. Thank you for making my day that much better. :)
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Sorry, Lincoln. I was mad because that wasn't what I said in my first post in this thread. My words are getting twisted into me saying that alignment should be taken out of the game completely, and I didn't say that. I said I don't use it, I said why, I said how, and I said that you should use it if it works for you.
Sometimes, when you post a lot in a short span of time, you end up seeing opposition where there is none. When you find yourself interpreting an opinion as a direct attack on your person, it's always good to ask yourself "Am I just looking for something to post?"
I've been there.
Could we all, perhaps, discuss something less controversial? Like politics, maybe?