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I'd like to point out that there are probably more orphanages in this thread than there are in Golarion. :P
Perhaps there needs to be a policy change that will bring the number of orphanages in this thread more in line with the number in Golarion. I propose we utilize holy smite on them until we have an exact match in the number of properties being used for that purpose.
(Note: No, I am not saying we should burn orphans. I know someone will make that accusation, so I'm just nipping that in the bud right now. >_>)
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Mechanics support and foster roleplay to match; removing the mechanics to make something as far-reaching as alignment into "pure fluff" allows people to play things that couldn't even exist in the setting, shattering any pretense of immersion.
You know how devils are lawful and demons are chaotic? That actually means something. It means that the devil will honor the contract, so as long as I'm clever and know what I'm doing, then this is probably a good idea, right...? Welcome to Cheliax. The whole premise of that nation is built on the idea that devils are creatures of their word, and people know it (even though it's still dangerous to deal with them). Being lawful corresponds to a certain type of behavior.
When a monk claims to also be lawful, and registers as such under detection spells, and so forth, people will expect him to act that way. If said monk is an NPC, and the players determine he's lawful and make a deal with him, and he breaks said deal and otherwise acts unlawful, the players would be (rightly) enraged. If he's the sort to do things like make a deal/promise that he has no intention of keeping, then he shouldn't register as lawful under detection spells (without misdirecting magic, obviously).
You are confusing two different things here and muddling then matter badly. On one side you are using an alignment subtyped outsider as an example. Devils and Demons have the [Lawful] and [Chaotic] subtypes respectively as well as the [Evil] subtype. They are literally made of evil and law and or chaos so of course they are going to embody that.
To this you are equating a mortal monk from the material plane who does not have an alignment subtype. I do not subscribe to the alignment straitjacket school of roleplay. A lawful charcter can break a deal. It would probably take them longer to decide on that course of action than it would take a non-lawful character and they will probably feel worse about it afterwards. But it does not change their alignment or warrant a DM audit of someone's RP. A better example would be a paladin and everyone knows what a clusterf**$ they cause with discussing alignment. This is not a fight we need to exacerbate in any way.
If you want to play a morally-gray character, great! Go right ahead, just put your money where your mouth is and write an alignment on your sheet that actually matches your concept, and make your mechanical choices accordingly.
But why do they have to play that character according to your interpretation of whatever is written on their alignment sheet? Any change to the rules along the lines of what you are suggesting will make characters even less consistent since they will wind up having to be played to the DM's concept of an alignment, especially if the DM is vocal about this kind of thing.
"Is the additional internal consistency of the setting worth the additional jerk-GM risk?"
In the context of PFS where DM's and players don't have the meaningful meta-game interaction to hash out a mutual understanding of various alignments then this is absolutely one of those times when creating a smoother social environment is more important than keeping the house rules perfectly in line with RAW. As demonstrated numerous times in this thread changing the rules would open many metagame cans of worms and for that reason should be avoided.
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This thread has ballooned too much for me to follow it all the way through, but I wanted to put this idea out here. I'm sorry if it was already talked about.
The pathfinder society is a neutral organization. What would happen if, keeping all other rules about PvP and the ideas of explore report cooperate in place, we just allowed people to make evil characters? How big of a change would that be to society play as a whole? It wouldn't be my first choice of solution, but it does seem like a decent way to just cut through the gordian knot of a debate this always ends up being.
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The pathfinder society is a neutral organization. What would happen if, keeping all other rules about PvP and the ideas of explore report cooperate in place, we just allowed people to make evil characters? How big of a change would that be to society play as a whole?
Probably pretty big. As it is, you set the speed limit at 55 and you know everyone is going to drive 5-10 miles over the limit. If you move it up to 65 some people are going to try to drive 75.
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Honestly I think the worst aspects of doing something like that is it would overstrain the PvP relations even more. I'm not sure it would add anything (outside of for the individual that is Evil) but would really detract from most players experiences. In my opinion. Id rather just not use alignment at all than that, again my opinion.
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I rather hope the mention of PvP isn't pertaining to a PFS game, because that's quite a no-no, isn't it?
It happens all the time - as the definition of what is PvP changes from GM to GM.
In some games, the GMs won't let the alchemist splash his fellow Pathfinders with bomb damage without permission - and in others if you happen to be caught in the effect or spell you have to live with it. And still others have an issue with taking damage but catching you in a color spray is OK because you were not damaged by the other character.
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@BNW
It's funny really, but I never had any problems with these spells in my local PFS area and topics about Evil spells that are breaking immersion are fairly rare, even almost non-existant (at least I didn't see any).
My guess is that this alignment tracking is never gonna work. Telling players how to play their character's outweights fun at table and punishing players because they can't roleplay their alignment seems to much to me as both GM and player.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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What has anyone been doing that's so immersion breaking that we need to add MORE paperwork to the system?
Who exactly was suggesting adding more paperwork? De-sanitizing aligned spells certainly doesn't do that. The primary suggestion here is to keep the system exactly as-is, except that aligned spells are part of that existing system instead of being ignored. Zero additional paperwork.
None.
So it's not a matter of "so immersion breaking that we need to add more paperwork", it's a matter of "so immersion breaking that we need to do the exact same amount of paperwork but just stop having to remember which things don't count".
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It just seems like disallowing the evil alignment has created more arguments, discussion, and retreading of topics than just allowing it might. Okay, sure, pvp relations would be strained a bit more, maybe. But disallowing it has forces people who want to be that kind of dark sided character (and I'm not saying this is everyone who made a character like this, but I know it is some) to twist their character concept to the breaking point to make it fit in the PFS world. Instead of being a LN cleric of Asmodeus who is beuracratic and malicious to the point of evilness but still not evil guys, really! they could just be evil. The guy who wants to be a necromancer could just be a necromancer. Threads that are opened to ask "Hey, is casting this spell with the evil descriptor an evil act?" could just be answered with "Yup." and we could move on. In a game world sense, we'd get to see another side of the society that I think hasn't really been explored much, the society's darker elements. I've been in a lot of threads like these. People frequently point out that the society does some shady, if not outright evil things all the time, despite the people carrying out those missions being of neutral or good alignment. Also, another thing, if the society is made up of good and neutral aligned characters, shouldn't it be skewed more towards good? BNF, you said it yourself in a post I couldn't like hard enough. "That guy over there thats detecting as evil? Yeah, don't stick a sword in him. Thats the premiere expert on ancient thasalonian/native interactions in the inner sea. Your job is to get him to the dig-site, not re arrange his internal organs."
I know this is probably going to be the unpopular solution, and because of that I'm probably not going to push too hard on it, but I think it is worth discussing open-mindedly in the thread.
Edit: Additional thought. The game currently has a system in place for penalizing players for committing evil acts by dropping their alignment towards evil, but I feel like it is a toothless penalty, because no GM I've ever seen wants to be the guy that's like "Sorry, you kicked one too many orphans this game, I have to report you as dead and retire you character from PFS now." No one ever wants to be the guy who says you can't play now.
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It just seems like disallowing the evil alignment has created more arguments, discussion, and retreading of topics than just allowing it might.
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In a game world sense, we'd get to see another side of the society that I think hasn't really been explored much, the society's darker elements.
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I know this is probably going to be the unpopular solution, and because of that I'm probably not going to push too hard on it, but I think it is worth discussing open-mindedly in the thread.
IMO
I think any discussion of Pathfinder Society allowing people to play evil characters is going to be stomped on by the legal and marketing departments at Paizo. The potential negative PR on such a move to those outside the Pathfinder participant pool is significant and the litigation exposure of promoting evil by minors is probably out there considering how junk science is allowed in many court-rooms. Paizo is a business - they are not going to risk that much down-side for not much gain.|
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What has anyone been doing that's so immersion breaking that we need to add MORE paperwork to the system?Who exactly was suggesting adding more paperwork?
U could have it where only the spells that are the opposite of ur alignment are tracked. If ur CG, then u would only need to track ur lawful or evil spells. If ur NG then u would have to track ur evil, lawful, and choatic spells.
I wish you were the only one calling for this but you're not.
Also, unless the DM is going to just eyeball it someone would have to keep track of it, along with spells, wand charges, potion charges, hit points,
So it's not a matter of "so immersion breaking that we need to add more paperwork", it's a matter of "so immersion breaking that we need to do the exact same amount of paperwork but just stop having to remember which things don't count".
To the point of getting peoples characters killed ( effectively) because you know damn well that's what's going to happen. No matter what language you put in, some DM is going to read ANY evil spell use as excessive and either quit or start yammering to the higher ups. And yes, you do need to worry about people misusing or misreading things.
Even without the dm being a twit, you'd have to track (during the scenario) all of the characters aligned acts, assigning an alignment to them just in case they do something outside of it latter.
The only sure, objective way to rack up brownie points for an alignment is to cast an aligned spell, which for most clerics is only a one way street. Between the rails the scenario is on and the subjectivity of the DM's call its probably you won't be able to wrack up any points going in the other direction.
Also once you hit evil you're dead, you don't have any opportunity to swing back: its a roach motel for characters. There is no redemption.
When your character mysteriously pops up in random locations, goes on the scenario regardless of character motivations, runs into people they've permanently killed, adventures with people named Hu Jas, isn't thrown in jail after the stuff they've pulled, isn't on every wanted poster from tien to opparra, sits next to captain andor, the incredible Bulk, and Pitair Parker the 8 limbed alchemist then complaining about the morally questionable necromancer not sliding all the way into evil because of the spells they cast is like complaining about the rain when you're swimming.
I touched on this upthread but it was overlooked.
From what I am understanding there wont be much GM variation because the GM will not be able to enforce things like coup de grace, but if someone cast an evil spell that would be something that can be enforced.
In short things that are evil by the rules of the game, and maybe things that 99% of us can say are evil such as murder would be watched for. A GM might not like coup de grace but he cant say that 99% of the people think it is evil.
In the end, if this is done I do think some guidlines would have to be in play because there is always that willfully obtuse GM who won't care about the rules.
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This is feeling less and less like an exchange of ideas and more and more like blind panic. I guess I can't actually think of anything new to say about my own position anyway, so I'll just go ahead and bow out now.
There is a following of younger people that want a D&D based edgier style of game. They want to be the rogues, the mis understand bad guy working for the moral side of good but by any cost. Whether its a side step from Warhammer; where there's a certain glory in chaos or just twilight moving in...the roleplayers want the dark cloak and evil persona. Seems like everyone wants at least one dhamphir or werewolf character to accent their devil worshiping cheliax toon.
I wonder what the faction break down is actually in PFS?
Just as a side...imagine a campaign where the PFS is truly neutral; it supports good or evil aspects.
Modules would still be run as normal, but battle interactives could have very diverse goals like in Siege of Diamond City...help or "oppose" the city defense...but that is a bit broad and brings along it's own table aspects.
If anything, after reading through the posts, I'd favor the opening of more alignment-diverse play, since it is being reviewed.
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Yeah, if a change needs to be made (still not convinced this is the case) than I don't see any other way to do it and keep it fair from table to table.I bet we could make it work without an exact number. Something like this:
"Casting spells with alignment descriptors are considered minor acts of that alignment, and their excessive use has the potential to result in an alignment shift unless measures are taken to the contrary (such as performing actions or casting spells of the opposite alignment, or seeking an atonement). The ends to which aligned spells are used must also be taken into account before enforcing an alignment shift."Anyone who can read that as "one and done" needs to be reported, but we still haven't had to pick an arbitrary number. How would that be?
Like I said in an earlier post, my character cast Infernal Healing fifteen times yesterday. Fifteen is a big number. Is that too many? But it prevented a TPK several times over, and allowed us to defeat an ancient evil. How many castings does that mitigate? How about my daily obeisance to Andoletta that I performed afterwards -- how many does that absolve me of?
Here's the thing. People treat things you can measure with numbers -- such as casting [Evil] spells -- as having more standing than things we can't -- like letting innocents die. So there's a real danger that we treat minor things we can track as larger alignment infractions than major ones that we can't -- just cause we don't know how many tick marks the big ones should be.
Andoletta (pronounced an-do-LET-ah)[1], also known as Grandmother Crow, is one of the powerful archons known as an empyreal lord. She treats her flock as any grandmother would, protecting the innocent, reprimanding the wayward, and punishing the sinful.[2][3] She is the ruler of the fourth tier of Heaven.[4]
Andoletta also has the Purity subdomain, strongly at odds with fiend-blood baptisms. There's other stuff about her in Chronicles of the Righteous, but suffice it to say, she would not be amused by a worshiper of hers casting infernal healing. Even purchasing such a wand should be enough for Grandmother Crow to shun you as a worshiper. Why not a wand of cure light wounds? If it's because some groups can't activate the wand, why not potions? Is it just to save money? Because using devil blood and evil magic as a shortcut to save you money is a good way to wind up in Erebus, the vault of Mammon dedicated to those who were tempted to Hell by greed and coin.
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Wow, this is a lot of responses. But the again, it is an alignment thread. Still I only had to read the first page to form an opinion.
Any ruling that would allow aligned spells to shift the alignment of the user would be deleterious to an organized play campaign that already allows the use of alignment based spells without restriction. In short, the headaches caused by any other ruling simply outweigh any benefits you may gain.
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Everyone is playing the character they want to play, not the character they should play.The "should" doesn't come from simply using the alignment system; it comes from picking your alignment first instead of letting your character determine what your alignment is.
No. Even when a player picks their alignment based on what they think their character concept is, many people (players and people like you) still think all of their actions should fit into that alignment. It makes for bad gaming.
Do you ever wonder why real people and even fictional characters (Batman, Dexter) can’t have alignments assigned to them? It’s because every action we take doesn’t always fit an alignment. I don’t want an alignment debate (that's not what the thread is about) so I’ll leave it at that.
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This is feeling less and less like an exchange of ideas and more and more like blind panic. I guess I can't actually think of anything new to say about my own position anyway, so I'll just go ahead and bow out now.There is a following of younger people that want a D&D based edgier style of game. They want to be the rogues, the mis understand bad guy working for the moral side of good but by any cost. Whether its a side step from Warhammer; where there's a certain glory in chaos or just twilight moving in...the roleplayers want the dark cloak and evil persona. Seems like everyone wants at least one dhamphir or werewolf character to accent their devil worshiping cheliax toon.
I wonder what the faction break down is actually in PFS?
Just as a side...imagine a campaign where the PFS is truly neutral; it supports good or evil aspects.
Modules would still be run as normal, but battle interactives could have very diverse goals like in Siege of Diamond City...help or "oppose" the city defense...but that is a bit broad and brings along it's own table aspects.
If anything, after reading through the posts, I'd favor the opening of more alignment-diverse play, since it is being reviewed.
At this point it isn't just the younger players. I got my start in D&D 2nd edition, and have been playing (usually) actively since I was a small child. For the most part, I've had the good alignment forced down my throat the entire time. Bearing that in mind, I can honestly say that I am perfectly fine with people being allowed to skirt the line in PFS. It's a refreshing change from all the home games that just go lololnoevil4u. Sad to say it seems as if Pathfinder Society play is slowly leaving that middle of the road stance that's made it so appealing to the masses. A reversal of the exempt status of evil spells will make it even harder to skirt the line, and for some character concepts may just outright remove the ability all together. I have zero desire to play in a setting that is as cut and dry; black and white as any old home game, and thus hope PFS never really goes black and white like some people keep pushing for.
Seriously, with all the restrictions on race and class as it is, now this whole alignment debacle, we're* about ready to jump ship and just start playing modules anyway. I mean, I'll probably still play with less interesting/personally invested, maybe even GM, once and a while, but the drive is waning a bit. We* kinda feel like PFS is a good place to start, like a beta test, now we're ready to pop of the training wheels and play a "big boy" game with whatever races, classes, and alignments we choose- as per RAW.
The point is, PFS seems like it's getting more and more unfriendly to the style of characters many of us enjoy, and needlessly so- hence all the opposition to the trend.
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Seriously, with all the restrictions on race and class as it is, now this whole alignment debacle, we're* about ready to jump ship and just start playing modules anyway. I mean, I'll probably still play with less interesting/personally invested, maybe even GM, once and a while, but the drive is waning a bit. We* kinda feel like PFS is a good place to start, like a beta test, now we're ready to pop of the training wheels and play a "big boy" game with whatever races, classes, and alignments we choose- as per RAW.
You say that like it is a bad thing. That is exactly what PFS should be doing, namely helping build communities which can become self-supporting running real campaigns. I would encourage you to try some homebrew adventures because while Paizo is great at writing adventures creativity is the main pillar of TTRPGs in general and more is always good in your games.
That is why the leadership's move to shift more focus to smaller more far flung PFS communities over the past year or so is so great. It helps PFS nucleate gaming groups in places which previously had no options for gaming which can play the game the way it was intended.
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There is a following of younger people that want a D&D based edgier style of game. They want to be the rogues, the mis understand bad guy working for the moral side of good but by any cost.
Your dad: Damn whippernappers. Whats with everyone wanting to be this wolverine fella? He's got anger issues, goes berzerk, doesn't act as part of the team.. why is he even on the team? What Kind of hero is this?
His dad: Whats with everyone trying to be this new fangled Spiderman? He's not a hero he's just a kid! What kind of hero has to get to school on time, or worry about bills? And he's downright RUDE to his boss...What kind of hero is this?
HIS dad: Batman is no role model for kids! He's half a criminal himself! He's hiding in the shadows like some thief and instead of turning them over to the police he beats the living daylights out of the thugs! What kind of hero is this!
Eh sonny?: Who's this lord Byron guy and why's he always moping about whinin about how bad things are? What kind of hero is that?
This brief history of the anti hero is brought to you by: Flanks of meat. Flanks of meat, don't go into the woods without them.
So... If good spells start turning me good, can I end the session by shouting that I go to burn down an orphanage? I don't want to be too good, and I made my character to stay CN.
I guess I could buy a wand of summon monster 1 with 2 PP and buy out my atonement that way instead. How many eagles do I need to summon to turn back to the alignment I wanted to be?
You say that like it is a bad thing. That is exactly what PFS should be doing, namely helping build communities which can become self-supporting running real campaigns. I would encourage you to try some homebrew adventures because while Paizo is great at writing adventures creativity is the main pillar of TTRPGs in general and more is always good in your games.
That is why the leadership's move to shift more focus to smaller more far flung PFS communities over the past year or so is so great. It helps PFS nucleate gaming groups in places which previously had no options for gaming which can play the game the way it was intended.
I very much see that as a valid point, I just hate thinking that people will be "pushed out of the nest" by dissatisfaction more than curiosity. THAT can't be the desired effect.
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Instead of figuring out how to allow exceptions for evil spells in PFS play, why not just ban evil spells in PFS play?
Had they done this from the get go, it would be fine. But having already allowed it, there are people whose character concepts/build would become near useless without access to spells with the evil descriptor. Necromancers, for example, would be hit hard by this. Once the genie has been let out of the bottle it's not always worth the effort to put it back in.
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Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator
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John and I chatted about this topic yesterday in our weekly meeting. We've decided that the extra paperwork it would take to implement a system where alignment shifts truly work and are consistent from table to table simply isn't worth the harm it could do to the campaign overall. In my home games, and I'm sure in John's, we both take character alignments and shifts very seriously. However, it is just something that can't be done very well in an organized play setting because some people here hit the nail on the head. If you track evil, you also have to track good, lawful and chaotic. The extra paperwork and added stress on a GM simply isn't worth it.
The system we have in place is pretty good now, and implementing any additional changes at this time wouldn't make it better. We don't want to make global, campaign sweeping changes for no gain, and possible greater loss.
We trust our GMs to adjudicate the rules fairly and intelligently, especially when an alignment shift could drastically affect a character, such as a paladin. If a GM makes a mistake, we expect them to talk with the player(s) to come up with an fair resolution.
Thanks for all the feedback in this thread. It does help John and I to evaluate the environment of the campaign on tough topics to keep it the best organized play out there.
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John and I chatted about this topic yesterday in our weekly meeting. We've decided that the extra paperwork it would take to implement a system where alignment shifts truly work and are consistent from table to table simply isn't worth the harm it could do to the campaign overall. In my home games, and I'm sure in John's, we both take character alignments and shifts very seriously. However, it is just something that can't be done very well in an organized play setting because some people here hit the nail on the head. If you track evil, you also have to track good, lawful and chaotic. The extra paperwork and added stress on a GM simply isn't worth it.
The system we have in place is pretty good now, and implementing any additional changes at this time wouldn't make it better. We don't want to make global, campaign sweeping changes for no gain, and possible greater loss.
We trust our GMs to adjudicate the rules fairly and intelligently, especially when an alignment shift could drastically affect a character, such as a paladin. If a GM makes a mistake, we expect them to talk with the player(s) to come up with an fair resolution.
Thanks for all the feedback in this thread. It does help John and I to evaluate the environment of the campaign on tough topics to keep it the best organized play out there.
I'd say that pretty much hit the nail right on the head. All that extra paperwork... eugh. x.x Much obliged for getting an answer to us in a timely manner. I was honestly expecting it to take a lot longer.
An argument is being made that because the Guide 5.0 took out the language about committing evil acts for the purposes of completing faction missions, the more general clarification is being overridden.
Since this is a fairly important point, and very easily addressed by campaign staff, I have one question: Does the clarification from Aug 6 still apply, or are spells with the "evil" descriptor evil once more?
The real problem is that you include alignment change in pathfinder society where alignment change is penalized in every scenario. Yes, a home game is more flexible but I think to include the evil alignment in PFS play would make for more entertaining play. Maybe including an evil conversion to adventure paths.
