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"Never once has open communication led to anything good in this world"?? Pure lunacy. Without communication, no war in human history would ever have ended short of one side's complete annihilation. Without communication, no relationship would ever work. Without communication, no business venture, public works project, or scientific venture would ever get off the ground.
But sure, communication never leads to anything good lol. Spoken like a nihilistic anarchist.
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"Never once has open communication led to anything good in this world"?? Pure lunacy. Without communication, no war in human history would ever have ended short of one side's complete annihilation. Without communication, no relationship would ever work. Without communication, no business venture, public works project, or scientific venture would ever get off the ground.
But sure, communication never leads to anything good lol. Spoken like a nihilistic anarchist.
I can no longer tell if all of this is a joke or you really did not see that he was facetious
I can no longer tell if all of this is a joke or you really did not see that he was facetious"Never once has open communication led to anything good in this world"?? Pure lunacy. Without communication, no war in human history would ever have ended short of one side's complete annihilation. Without communication, no relationship would ever work. Without communication, no business venture, public works project, or scientific venture would ever get off the ground.
But sure, communication never leads to anything good lol. Spoken like a nihilistic anarchist.
The best kind of trolling is when you aren't even sure you are being trolled at all.
Oops, apologies guys my mistake!
Just want to mention that the Village of Sanford in Hot Fuzz is essentially a Lawful Evil settlement, or at least its leadership is. The example above of a healer who experiments on vagrants in order to practice is also evil, because for evil the ends can almost always justify the means. So an evil character played with nuance--not just as a dillweed who just loooooves torture and getting off on always killing everyone--can be an effective member of a party, because their goals are in line with the good characters. They are just more or entirely willing to do whatever it takes; I suspect that's something that would make some paladins think twice about Orthodox Blackguardianism.
I'm not sure if that's the case 100% of the time, but it seems like a good dividing line between good and evil is the willingness to do certain things in order to reach a goal. A good character, even a neutral character, would probably think long and hard about torturing someone for information. Going that extra step, where thinking twice doesn't enter the equation, could be the tipping point into evil.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the nuances of alignment can be fun, and can be good guides for what a character's morals would be, seeing as they're just an imaginary friend made of numbers and legalese. Personally, I do get tired of players/characters who just want to play GTA, or when one moment you could be a fine, upstanding Neutral Good member of society and the next minute decide to just execute a bandit that surrendered to you because he might screw you over, or be inconvenient as you haul him back to the local authorities. Or go straight to torture and skip entirely over bribery.
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The only thing players, the sneaky, degenerate, entitled children they are, understand is force. They need, no they crave, and the iron fist of DM tyranny!
I actually think that this what the doctor would order for many groups out there... (one day the softy GM shows up, says not a word, and knocks the cheetos off the table with a sneer of disgust, and says "Roll Initiative!") ;)
Just want to mention that the Village of Sanford in Hot Fuzz is essentially a Lawful Evil settlement, or at least its leadership is. The example above of a healer who experiments on vagrants in order to practice is also evil, because for evil the ends can almost always justify the means. So an evil character played with nuance--not just as a dillweed who just loooooves torture and getting off on always killing everyone--can be an effective member of a party, because their goals are in line with the good characters. They are just more or entirely willing to do whatever it takes; I suspect that's something that would make some paladins think twice about Orthodox Blackguardianism.
I'm not sure if that's the case 100% of the time, but it seems like a good dividing line between good and evil is the willingness to do certain things in order to reach a goal. A good character, even a neutral character, would probably think long and hard about torturing someone for information. Going that extra step, where thinking twice doesn't enter the equation, could be the tipping point into evil.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the nuances of alignment can be fun, and can be good guides for what a character's morals would be, seeing as they're just an imaginary friend made of numbers and legalese. Personally, I do get tired of players/characters who just want to play GTA, or when one moment you could be a fine, upstanding Neutral Good member of society and the next minute decide to just execute a bandit that surrendered to you because he might screw you over, or be inconvenient as you haul him back to the local authorities. Or go straight to torture and skip entirely over bribery.
meh, i think it's weird to think someone would go to hell even when they ultimately put more good into the world.
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The issue of "acting out of alignment" is the same as putting on the background of a character "he hates sausages", then the character goes buying an Hot Dog and the player gets annoyed when everyone notices he was supposed to hate sausages.
Alignment is demonized as a straightjacket when actually is the player that makes the character act in clash of the personality he decided to have.
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I sometimes wonder if the game would be better with just Good/Evil/Neutral...
Simpler anyway.
I always hated to hear the words "your characters cannot be of X alignment".
I don't really get it that much.
I get "The party must be able to work together" or "Tour character must be able to behave himself up to some decent human standards"It usually happens with Evil characters, which is sad by itself because sometimes you want to play someone evil, but lately I see it happening with Chaotic Neutral too.
Even Way of the Wicked that is supposed to be a campaign for Evil characters says "Ok, you can be evil, but not chaotic evil"
I get it that there are people that really take some alignment to become a character impossible to play in a group. But that is what a bad player does, not what a bad alignment does.
I feel many people started to evaluate alignments not for what they can potentially do, but for the wackiest stereotype they can think about it.
So whenever someone thinks Chaotic evil they think acting like a total psychopath without control instead of someone who is probably just selfish and rebellious with little respect for strict protocol.
While Chaotic neutral is not just a rebel and a free-thinker, but obviously someone who is raving mad and out of control.
Why do so many people let some bad actors define what alignment are allowed in their campaigns?
A GM who bans evil doesn't necessarily do it because of a belief that evil will be disruptive, but because they want to write a campaign for the "good guys", and not the well intentioned extremist "good guys", but people who actually want to do good. I know I'd never want to GM for an evil character, because the evil are, by their very nature, bad people. Granted, I don't use alignment anymore, but I have a game that focuses on specific factions, so the effect is similar. I don't really run things for adventurers anymore, I run them for government agents, and the way I portray things slants the whole game towards law and good somewhat. Don't really need an alignment system at all when the game itself is biased and law and good often get conflated. Easier to just tell the players to act like the government employed monster hunters (with authority to arrest dangerous mages and compell local law enforcement into giving access to necessary information or provide warm bodies for takedown operations) that they are.
Oddly enough though, the only player I've actually changed alignments for, was an Andoran "Neutral Good" Druid in PFS play. I gave him also a warning that he was threading the line on Neutral Evil, which would ban his character from play.
Given that he was Andoran though, I really should not have been surprised.
I once wrote up an Andoran Paladin who, while Lawful Good, had a very Andoran view on how the government should derive its legitimacy and how government officials should act. In essence, she believed very ferverently in the democratic system she grew up under, and felt that the reason people have a duty to obey the government is because they have the ability and responsibility to choose the government themselves. She also believed that being in the government carries a responsibility to the people, and those who shirk that responsibility need to be voted out of office. Government officials who commit crimes needed to be exposed, because the law must apply to everyone equally. She also ferverently believed that freedom of speech is vital to a functioning democracy, because a people must be free to criticize their elected officials and demand explanation or redress. She did not like monarchy much at all. Granted, she was more the "Be frank but as polite as possible, even while inwardly seething with rage" and "Know when it would hurt your mission to say something" type than the "REVOLUTION! VIVE LE GALT!" or "Say whatever I want and damn the consequences!" type, so her dislike of royalty and firm belief that criticizing rulers is a virtue wasn't something that constantly threatened her Lawful Good status or caused a whole bunch of drama that hurt the ability to do the task at hand. Very fun character. Too bad the campaign collapsed rather quickly, because I really liked RPing her.
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There's just one flaw in your argument, 137ben.
Those cultural heroes you're referring to? THEY ARE GOOD by the standards of the cultures they came from.
Why should they abide by modern standards, which our player characters are part of? That is, assuming the DM runs the game that way.
If you went to an ancient Sumerian / Babylonian / Mesopotamian and told that person that Gilgamesh is a villain or anti-hero, you'd be mocked at best or beaten up at worst.
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Good aligned protagonists really have no place in Traditional fantasy. Gilgamesh, Achilles, Odysseus, Theseus, Herakles, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Orpheus, Orestes, Aeneas...they'd all be anti-heroes by today's standards. For that matter, so would Zeus and Cronus in the stories in which they were the protagonists.
Then there was Sigmund, Galahad, Tyr, Karna... all of which which would be considered goody-two-shoes by today's standards.
The goody-two-shoes 'Virtuous heroes' belong in the domain of the new-age anime fantasy like Lord of the Rings.
1. Lord of the Rings is 'new-age anime'? Really!?
2. Yes - because Boromir trying to take the ring was totally virtuous. As was Thorin being a dick to the men of Dale. And...
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I've always found alignment to be problematic, but I still see it as an essential part of the game. If you're looking to make alignment fun, interesting, and useful at the table, you might want to check out this book:
The Very Last Book About Alignment.
Full disclosure: I wrote it. It's done wonders for raising the level of role-play in my own games and I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from other folks who are using it.
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A GM who bans evil doesn't necessarily do it because of a belief that evil will be disruptive, but because they want to write a campaign for the "good guys", and not the well intentioned extremist "good guys", but people who actually want to do good. I know I'd never want to GM for an evil character, because the evil are, by their very nature, bad people. Granted, I don't use alignment anymore, but I have a game that focuses on specific factions, so the effect is similar. I don't really run things for adventurers anymore, I run them for government agents, and the way I portray things slants the whole game towards law and good somewhat. Don't really need an alignment system at all when the game...I always hated to hear the words "your characters cannot be of X alignment".
I don't really get it that much.
I get "The party must be able to work together" or "Tour character must be able to behave himself up to some decent human standards"It usually happens with Evil characters, which is sad by itself because sometimes you want to play someone evil, but lately I see it happening with Chaotic Neutral too.
Even Way of the Wicked that is supposed to be a campaign for Evil characters says "Ok, you can be evil, but not chaotic evil"
I get it that there are people that really take some alignment to become a character impossible to play in a group. But that is what a bad player does, not what a bad alignment does.
I feel many people started to evaluate alignments not for what they can potentially do, but for the wackiest stereotype they can think about it.
So whenever someone thinks Chaotic evil they think acting like a total psychopath without control instead of someone who is probably just selfish and rebellious with little respect for strict protocol.
While Chaotic neutral is not just a rebel and a free-thinker, but obviously someone who is raving mad and out of control.
Why do so many people let some bad actors define what alignment are allowed in their campaigns?
I know it's probably a niche case but for me, the biggest loss in not being able to play an evil character is foremost the loss of redemption. One of my favorite ways to play a character is someone who is initially a bad person but over the course of the campaign finds reasons not to be. NPCs they care about, friends in the party, the power to do good and realizing that if they don't others won't, etc.
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What alignment would Magneto have? I LOVE playing evil characters, they don't have to be BAD...
They can love children, support orphanages, rescue damsels...
then steal the kings treasury, raise an undead army, invade a neighboring kingdom...
have a donkey sanctuary (to care for all those abandoned donkeys, left outside of dungeons by adventurers who never returned).
fund a hospital... run for mayor... defraud the town.
Evil characters can do good things, they don't have to be evil all the time.
I had an evil character who was evil out of necessity. His daughter was being held captive by a powerful planar being, so he got blackmailed into doing all kinds of horrible things...
But in his 'free time' he gave back to the community, healed the sick, fed the starving... donated to the poor...
Lots of fun. :D (He adventured in a mask, so people didn't know it was HIM that was evil... though later he did start DETECTING as evil, even when feeding puppies and cuddling babies)...
Comic books Magneto has always seemed Neutral to me
Comic books Magneto has always seemed Neutral to me
I would actually argue he's a properly played chaotic neutral. He believes that there is something deeply wrong with the current status quo and works to change it, sometimes with means that others would find highly questionable.
But he kills people and disobeys the law... isn't he evil?
Meh, in any case, I don't ban alignments, I just allow only a select few. :P
What alignment would Magneto have? I LOVE playing evil characters, they don't have to be BAD...
Depends on the writer of course... Originally he was created as a standard villain type, then later on another would rebuild him as the Atoner, and yet another would put him back in the villain box.
Comic characters are very different from novel characters, they tend to be scrapped and rebuilt every 5 years or so.
Good thing there are no penalties for switching alignments so often, I doubt he was a Cleric/Paladin/Monk etc... ;)
Sorcerer maybe?
Comic books Magneto has always seemed Neutral to meI would actually argue he's a properly played chaotic neutral. He believes that there is something deeply wrong with the current status quo and works to change it, sometimes with means that others would find highly questionable.
Yes, I was referring to the good-evil axis, abstaining from the chaos-law one
And I find rather ironic mentioning the word "Axis" while speaking about Magneto and Alignments (anyone who reads current comic books should understand)
But he kills people and disobeys the law... isn't he evil?
Meh, in any case, I don't ban alignments, I just allow only a select few. :P
Comic Books Magneto, unlike the Movies one, doesn't actively go after humans, but only kills people he considers a menace to the mutants.
So he's not Good because he's rather "pragmatic" in his methods, but he's not Evil either because he genuinely does so in order to protect the mutants.
Unlike the one from the movies that in the third one basically became Reverse Hitler
What alignment would Magneto have? I LOVE playing evil characters, they don't have to be BAD...Depends on the writer of course... Originally he was created as a standard villain type, then later on another would rebuild him as the Atoner, and yet another would put him back in the villain box.
Comic characters are very different from novel characters, they tend to be scrapped and rebuilt every 5 years or so.
Yes Comic Books characters can drastically change personality from one series to another, but stuff rom the Batman Charte are mostly jokes. I'd say that Batman had always been a step within LG, worst case CG
What alignment would Magneto have? I LOVE playing evil characters, they don't have to be BAD...
Depends on the writer of course... Originally he was created as a standard villain type, then later on another would rebuild him as the Atoner, and yet another would put him back in the villain box.
Comic characters are very different from novel characters, they tend to be scrapped and rebuilt every 5 years or so.
Good thing there are no penalties for switching alignments so often, I doubt he was a Cleric/Paladin/Monk etc... ;)
Sorcerer maybe?
Given his powerset and its nature in Pathfinder the Sorcerer is close enough, but I'd say that some variation of Kineticist might be the closest.
New age sure.....Anime (the term related to Japanese cartoons) not so much.
2. Yes - because Boromir trying to take the ring was totally virtuous. As was Thorin being a dick to the men of Dale. And...
The Hobbit is not meant to be a story of heroes—it's a story of some very flawed Neutral dwarves* taking on a Token Good Teammate, Bilbo, to help them in a fairly selfish quest. The dwarves are, in Tolkien's own words, neither heroes nor villains. The only heroic act they commit is at the end, where Thorin realizes his mistake and helps lead in the Battle of Five Armies.
The Hobbit is not part of LOTR, no matter how badly Peter Jackson wants it to be. Lord of the Rings is a tale of heroes. Boromir, the sole flawed hero on the team, gets killed very early on as a direct consequence of his weak will. He's not a main character, he's a side character who goes between antagonist and tragic hero right up until his death.
Name me one other morally gray hero, though. Faramir? He resists the ring (even in the movies, eventually). Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas? No contest (counting orcs doesn't count when all orcs are evil). Frodo's and Sam's part of the tale is admittedly much less heroic—they're hobbits, and it's not their place to lead epic battles. They are, however, fully sympathetic, and Frodo's evil is purely an external force. Same with Boromir, actually.
*Maaaaybe Good, but definitely not courageously so.
Simpler yes. Better, no.
Can you elaborate on why you think having the alignment ruleset makes the game better? It doesn't really contribute much the way you've phrased it.
Yes, I was referring to the good-evil axis, abstaining from the chaos-law one.Comic books Magneto has always seemed Neutral to meI would actually argue he's a properly played chaotic neutral. He believes that there is something deeply wrong with the current status quo and works to change it, sometimes with means that others would find highly questionable.
I got ya.
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What are these means Magneto uses?
Noble goals do not shield your moral alignment if the means you're using are evil. They make you sympathetic, tragic, or even arguably justified, but they don't stop you from being Evil. There's no reason "evil" and "likeable" have to be mutually exclusive, guys. :P
Traditional literature describes various types of folklore, so, actually, those are traditional fantasy. Just because a different type of fantasy is currently more common doesn't make that type traditional—by that logic, Imagine Dragons is playing "traditional music". ;D
The issue of "acting out of alignment" is the same as putting on the background of a character "he hates sausages", then the character goes buying an Hot Dog and the player gets annoyed when everyone notices he was supposed to hate sausages.
Alignment is demonized as a straightjacket when actually is the player that makes the character act in clash of the personality he decided to have.
There are two parts of alignment that sometimes get termed as the same thing, which unfortunately makes both parts get demonized when only one aspect actually deserves it.
Part of alignment is how it's a descriptor for the character in question. In this aspect, acting against your stated alignment is very much the same thing as eating a hot dog when you selected "hates pork" as a part of your character.
Here's the other aspect: to my knowledge, there exists no class, no spell, no feat, no nothing that has the requirement "must hate pork".
Alignment's other aspect is its role as an arbitrary restrictor on certain character concepts. I.e., when I picked Monk for my class, I did so because I wanted to play an unarmed, unarmored warrior who uses Ki. At no point does any of that equate to "I totally want to play a Lawful character". Not the first hint to that effect did I give. So when I demonize alignment as a straitjacket, I'm specifically demonizing "alignment as an arbitrary restrictor" as a straitjacket.
I suspect that that's the case for a lot of other players, and they're simply not articulating it the same way I am.
"Well, it's part of the game you agreed to play." But why?
I'm reading through Ultimate Campaign right now, and I got to one part giving advice to the GM on the judicious use of alignment-changing items in a campaign. As a temporary measure, they can serve to spice things up and change the pace for a while, but the GM is advised not to make it a permanent change to the player's character. After all, the book says, if the player had wanted to play a CN Fighter as opposed to an LG Fighter for the bulk of the campaign, he would have picked it in the first place.
How?! How does a game able to make that leap in logic fail to extend it just a mite further. "If a player wanted to play an LN Monk, he would have picked it from the getgo. If he doesn't want his Ki-using Monk to be Lawful, if he doesn't see the Lawful alignment as necessary or even desired in order for a Ki-using Monk to exist (possibly because he read a novel describing such a character, say, Radovan the Tiefling Monk in the Pathfinder Tales novel Master of Devils), then he should not have to select Lawful as part of his alignment."
Making alignment solely a descriptor, not a restrictor, would eliminate a good bit of the demonizing it gets for being a straitjacket.
What are these means Magneto uses?
Noble goals do not shield your moral alignment if the means you're using are evil. They make you sympathetic, tragic, or even arguably justified, but they don't stop you from being Evil. There's no reason "evil" and "likeable" have to be mutually exclusive, guys. :P
If we've gotten to the point where someone's actions can be described as both "likeable" and justified and still be considered evil, then we need to take a step back and figure out how to fix the alignment system because it would be seriously broken.
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If we've gotten to the point where someone's actions can be described as both "likeable" and justified and still be considered evil, then we need to take a step back and figure out how to fix the alignment system because it would be seriously broken.
Says who? Jack the Ripper is Evil. If the Joker finds him "likeable" and justified, that doesn't mean the alignment system is broken.
It depends entirely on *who* finds evil likeable and justified.
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If we've gotten to the point where someone's actions can be described as both "likeable" and justified and still be considered evil, then we need to take a step back and figure out how to fix the alignment system because it would be seriously broken.
Okay, let me clarify here.
We are not talking about someone's actions. Nobody said the actions were likeable. A mostly well-intentioned guy who tortures his enemies can be considered likeable, but his actions—his "I torture the misguided bartender to find out where his no-good brother's gone" actions—will not be.
Magneto is the textbook definition of a Well-Intentioned Extremist, from what I've heard. Those guys can be Good or Neutral, but they're generally evil. If I'm willing to blow up Evil McVillain's house even though N. Ocent McShopkeep and his family live right next door, I'm evil. But I can still be likeable a lot of the time. Hell, plenty of outright villains are likeable. Mayor Wilkins from Buffy, for instance, or a couple ATLA/Legend of Korra villains.
An antihero fighter who practices evil means to accomplish good goals is, say, Neutral Evil ("I'll do whatever it takes to get what I want, and what I want is to protect my village!"), but, as previously discussed, he can still be a good teammate, a good friend, a good husband, a good father, and a really friendly upstanding guy. He's just willing to resort to evil measures to get things done.
That's still evil. I'm not condemning it within the context of a story—evil characters can be really fun to play, and to roleplay off of—but it's just what he is. Why deny it? Why act like there's anything wrong with playing a character among the "morally-challenged"?
An antihero ranger who travels with his buddies and plays nice and saves people but doesn't give a damn about half-orcs ("Yeah, I think we rescued all the hostages. There was a half-orc family, but...I wasn't able to save them before the building went up.") is, say, Chaotic Evil, but he only commits his atrocities in specialized circumstances. He's not going to shove them in the party's face—if they're going to save some half-orcs, he'll reluctantly follow just to keep his friends alive—but he doesn't believe orcs and half-orcs deserve to live.
Plenty of bad people are quite likeable, just like plenty of Good people are unlikeable. Bad people can be good teammates, just like Good people can be truly dreadful ones. This is because all people, even ones who have an "E" on their alignment bar, are people, and they are complicated, and they show different faces to different people.
I know a guy. To me and most people I know, he's a nice, friendly guy, if a little politically fervent. But get him on the subject of LGBT people and it's like he's another person entirely. Now, I don't know if I'd call him flat-out Evil, but that's an example of how people can act very different in different situations.
But a person who consistently uses evil means to get what he wants—even for a "greater good"—is Evil. Now, I don't know X-Men. Maybe that's not what Magneto does in the comics. But if it is, he's probably Lawful Evil: He has a strong cause and possibly a firm code, but he'll do whatever it takes to protect his own. Even if it means committing heinous atrocities, if it keeps "his kind" safe, he'll do it.
Now, we're getting dangerously close to just repeating subjects we've already been over—you're protesting assumptions this thread was created to analyze. If you want to continue the conversation, you may first want to go back and read up on what's come before. Otherwise, you'll just be stuck continuing to ask answered questions.
If we've gotten to the point where someone's actions can be described as both "likeable" and justified and still be considered evil, then we need to take a step back and figure out how to fix the alignment system because it would be seriously broken.Okay, let me clarify here.
We are not talking about someone's actions. Nobody said the actions were likeable. A mostly well-intentioned guy who tortures his enemies can be considered likeable, but his actions—his "I torture the misguided bartender to find out where his no-good brother's gone" actions—will not be.
Magneto is the textbook definition of a Well-Intentioned Extremist, from what I've heard. Those guys can be Good or Neutral, but they're generally evil. If I'm willing to blow up Evil McVillain's house even though N. Ocent McShopkeep and his family live right next door, I'm evil. But I can still be likeable a lot of the time. Hell, plenty of outright villains are likeable. Mayor Wilkins from Buffy, for instance, or a couple ATLA/Legend of Korra villains.
Ya this is falling into the "Only Evil people do Evil acts" way of thinking which is not correct. You can genocide an entire (admittedly mostly Evil, but with non-Evil collateral damage) species after killing your daughter's mother, which will lead to a lot of people under the control of that Evil species being killed by other people and be completely 100% Chaotic Good. One Good act does not a Good alignment make anymore than one Evil act does not an Evil alignment make.
Shooting through a Neutral person's home to kill a Villain is an Evil act, but the person doing it can be Neutral or even Good. I bet most Drone operators fall into this later category.
Many good things
I won't continue the conversation because I'm sure everything has been rehashed before like you point out. I disagree about Magneto being evil (but I'm biased) and I'll leave it at that.
Many good thingsI won't continue the conversation because I'm sure everything has been rehashed before like you point out. I disagree about Magneto being evil and I'll leave it at that.
Can we all agree that Magneto is all over the alignment spectrum depending on both series and writer?
Plenty of bad people are quite likeableIn fact psychopaths are among the most charismatic people.
Cue the Antipaladin