alignment restrictions

[PossibleCabbage]

To be honest, I would prefer to see different interpretations of what constitute "Lawful Good", "Lawful", or "Non-Lawful" than to see different interpretations of what Paladins, Monks, or Barbarians are.

[necromental]

Calybos1 wrote:

Key differences:

"I don't like alignment, so I don't use it in my games."

vs

"I don't like alignment, so nobody should use it in THEIR games."

vs

"Alignment is morally offensive to me, and smacks of slavery and fascism. No good person can approve of it. Paizo should quit publishing stuff that mentions it. And apologize for their moral turpitude. Attica! Attica!"

Nice strawman. Again, its about alignment restriction (which don't make sense especially in the light of other published classes, in cases other than paladin).

I use alignment in my games, but will probably be using "people are neutral" variant in future ones (paladins will still be affected).

[necromental]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

To be honest, I would prefer to see different interpretations of what constitute "Lawful Good", "Lawful", or "Non-Lawful" than to see different interpretations of what Paladins, Monks, or Barbarians are.

Better definitions of those alignment (and their chaotic counterparts9 would definitely be a welcome addition to the game.

[PossibleCabbage]

I think it's sufficient to let players re-imagine alignments on their own, as long as they can credibly explain how their moral philosophy fits in whatever bin is on their character sheet.

But in general I agree that they could do a better job underlining how there's not just one true way to play any given alignment; indeed "lawful good" is whatever you say it is, provided it's meaningfully "lawful" and "good" in some sense.

[Java Man]

137ben wrote:

Java Man wrote:

So what?

Is the kind of sniping in this thread helping anyone have a more enjoyable or richer gaming experience?

If you don't want to take part in a discussion on alignment, you don't have to post on this thread. Evidently, some people do enjoy posting on these threads, since they keep doing it.

Sniping =/= reasonable and useful discussion.

I don't post much in these threads as I typically find my points are being better made by others before I make them, or there does not seem to be much interest in my input. I am however interested in seeing how other folks work with and interpret the issue, so I do read them, hpoing to enrich my understanding and gaming experience.

Edit: feeling my point was missed: the "so what" is not dismissing the idea of a healthy discussion, but rather dismissive toward the offended/offensive tone that some posters take when others disagree or play the game differently.

[Calybos1]

necromental wrote:

Calybos1 wrote:

"Alignment is morally offensive to me, and smacks of slavery and fascism. No good person can approve of it. Paizo should quit publishing stuff that mentions it. And apologize for their moral turpitude. Attica! Attica!"

Nice strawman. Again, its about alignment restriction (which don't make sense especially in the light of other published classes, in cases other than paladin).

I use alignment in my games, but will probably be using "people are neutral" variant in future ones (paladins will still be affected).

Not a strawman. Again, check the previous thread.

[Kjeldorn]

Calybos1 wrote:

Key differences:

"I don't like alignment, so I don't use it in my games."

vs

"I don't like alignment, so nobody should use it in THEIR games."

vs

...

Sure, if you have to put people in categories this might make sense. I prefer to believe that, at least some people, have a slightly more nuanced approach to Alignment then this.

Calybos1 wrote:

"Alignment as a exclusion and gating mechanism is intellectually morally offensive to me, and smacks of poor game design slavery and fascism lazy world building. No good person Therefore I can't approve of it. Paizo would be nice if they should quit publish more stuff that mentions alternatives to it. And apologize for their moral turpitude that might net them a cookie from me!. Cookies! Cookies!"

FTFY...

Seriously though, no one is really trying to take anything away from anyone.
All people are asking for is options. Be that either playing the game with the Alignment dial set to normal, or to play the game with the Alignment dial set to minimal.
Sure such options could be made through home-brew rules, but for some at least, that's a band-aid solution. They would prefer, that their position would be validated, by some official rules supporting and acknowledging their position.
Now Unchained (and a bit in Ultimate campaign, if I remember correctly) did that to some extend, however an actual alternative, that could be slapped onto existing products fairly easily hasn't been made available yet.
So in short: An official alternative would be nice, as it would acknowledge a (minority?) group of gamers, that play the game a bit differently then the rest.

[Weirdo]

Brain_in_a_Jar wrote:

necromental wrote:

You miss my point. There is no mechanic that rewards/punishes characters other than having the alignment restriction itself. Alignment isn't tied to a d20 roll as Karma/drama dice are to the basic mechanics of the game. Alignment is pretty self-contained, comparing.

There are plenty of mechanics that affect (rewards/punishes) characters of certain alignments. Holy Word, Forbiddance, Chaos Hammer, Smite Evil, etc.

A character who maintains a Neutral alignment on an is rewarded when they take less effect from certain types of spells/abilities.

For example a group is entering an evil temple warded by a Forbiddance keyed to being Chaotic Evil. The Lawful Good character is taking 12d6 damage while the Chaotic Neutral character is taking 6d6 from the spell.

Or Spells such as Hallow/Unhallow that can be used to reward or punish characters of certain alignments, or Glyphs of Warding.

Then you have spells that actually get better if you match the Alignment like Righteous Blood.

Alignment is definitely more than just a scribble on your sheet. It also dictates mechanics.

Sure, there are plenty of effects that are tied to mechanics.

But while individual effects may reward one alignment over another, overall there isn't really a "most rewarded" alignment.

Holy Word, Blasphemy, Dictum, and Word of Chaos have slightly different but roughly balanced effects. Ditto Holy Smite, Unholy Blight, Order's Wrath, and Chaos Hammer.

Forbiddance and Glyphs of Warding can be keyed to any alignment; if a party runs into a LE Forbiddance then the LG character takes only 6d6 while the CN character takes 12d6.

Hallow and Unhallow are also balanced against each other, and have an equal chance of affecting Good/Evil characters regardless of position on the Law/Chaos axis. There don't seem to be Lawful or Chaotic versions of these spells, but while that means that a LN character isn't going to get a Hallow benefit like a LG character might, they also won't get an Unhallow penalty. So that's more or less balanced.

On a party level, if your whole party is Good then you can throw around Holy Smite without worrying about friendly fire - but then the group is extra susceptible to Unholy Blight. More tradeoffs.

I don't think the handful of other alignment-locked spells like Righteous Blood are significant enough to give one alignment an edge. You could maybe argue that [evil] has more of the better spells (Animate Dead, Infernal Healing) but that's only relevant to spellcasters with those spells on their lists. And giving Evil a better spell list is not really rewarding player behavior in a game that overall assumes a heroic (or at least non-villainous)

Also, alignment restrictions aren't a very good "reward" for playing a certain alignment because they're irrelevant to anyone who doesn't want to play one of the handful of classes with an alignment restriction attached. In contrast, the 7th Sea and Marvel Superheroes tie morality to advancement, which presumably matters to everyone.

[Tarik Blackhands]

Moderate nitpick regarding 7th (at least in regard to the old version). Drama Dice (DD), while convertible into XP at the end of any given chapter, represent an absolutely tiny chunk of any given player's total xp. A single session of gameplay is meant to give you 1-5 xp while ending a chapter goes more to the 10-20 range and spent DD convert to 1 xp a piece at the end of a chapter. Getting extra DD by heroic deeds is encouraged because DD are generally useful and extra xp is extra xp, but even a more amoral player will still get a basic pool at the start of every chapter (equal to his lowest stat) and won't really fall that far behind his more heroic brethren.

[Brain_in_a_Jar]

Weirdo wrote:

Sure, there are plenty of effects that are tied to mechanics.

But while individual effects may reward one alignment over another, overall there isn't really a "most rewarded" alignment.

I never said one was more rewarded or not. So I don't really know what your arguing about.

What I said was in response to this:

"You miss my point. There is no mechanic that rewards/punishes characters other than having the alignment restriction itself."

Which was not true since there is in fact many rules in the game that reward or punish a character based on alignment. Since Alignment is a mechanical aspect of the game...just as much as it is a role-playing aspect.

[Ryan Freire]

When random posters stumble into the umpteenth alignment restriction thread on accident

And when random posters START an alignment restriction thread

[Chris Lambertz]

Locking. Folks, we're in the thick of a major product launch and preparing for our biggest convention of the year, and do not currently have the bandwidth to accommodate a back and forth about alignment.