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Based on the first half dozen posts, I think I can surmise the consensus is to not allow LE as an alignment. Based upon the short reading there is a budding consensus to restrict the worship of evil deities.
I think both are misguided and wrong.
There are no bad builds; there are bad players.
Tallow has GM'd for my "LE" Hellknight and can attest that one can play a Lawful Evil PC and not be a distraction to the other players nor be disruptive to the game. I have posted before and will likely post again that I would rather play with a LE PC than Chaotic "I'm just playing my character's alignment!" A#~+*%!.
As for the worship of "evil" deities, there is no reason on Asmodeus's green Golarion to tell a player that his/her awesome idea for a Chelish wizard can not worship Asmodeus. Even in game lore, if that is all that character has known, "My Gram worshipped Asmodeus, my Pa worshipped Asmodeus, and I worship Asmodeus, too!" then it can and should be allowed. What, is every Chelish Pathfinder suddenly going to be some freedom loving Milani worshipper? If so, why are YOU in the society? Isn't there some local hamlet that needs a revolution? Chop chop.
A worshipper of Zon Kuthon could be the best damn battlefield healer and surgeon the Society has ever known. "Who? Rusty over there? He may look a little weird and mutter some pretty odd things when he stitches you up or casts a healing spell, but that mofo knows how to keep you alive and WILL. I'll take that any day of the week instead of that Abadaran over there who wants to charge me for healing. Something about commerce, nothing is free, civilization advances through trade, blah blah blah. Rusty knows how to bring the pain in a fight as well, unlike that same Abadaran who does nothing but complain about how much gold he is spending every time he shoots his crossbow at something."
Once we start the process of telling players who their PC an or can not worship, we create a situation where someone (waves!) can and will start nit picking a player's choice; see the above examples.
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Tallow has GM'd for my "LE" Hellknight and can attest that one can play a Lawful Evil PC and not be a distraction to the other players nor be disruptive to the game.
That's because you are a team player Jon, and you can maturely and respectfully play such a character and still remain a member of a team.
You are an exception to the rule.
Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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Tallow has GM'd for my "LE" Hellknight and can attest that one can play a Lawful Evil PC and not be a distraction to the other players nor be disruptive to the game.That's because you are a team player Jon, and you can maturely and respectfully play such a character and still remain a member of a team.
You are an exception to the rule.
I met him recently, he is more of a shining example. And I trust that his Hellknight was very pleasant and very good at the cooperate part of the mission statement.
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Some of my reasons why I am not a fan of evil, are not the mature players, but the immature ones who feel that a big E in their alignment and following the right "monster" of a god gives them license to be terrible.
It boils down to the desire to avoid having that conversation with players, by giving everyone a certain expectation i.e. not too much evil stuff.
I really don't want to have to explain that there is an invisible line in the sand when it comes to what is acceptable at a public table and what isn't because that is how you might lose motivated new players.
Not having to deal with evil Gods would be a bonus, but Evil characters just change so many assumptions.
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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Based on the first half dozen posts, I think I can surmise the consensus is to not allow LE as an alignment. Based upon the short reading there is a budding consensus to restrict the worship of evil deities.
I think both are misguided and wrong.
There are no bad builds; there are bad players.
Tallow has GM'd for my "LE" Hellknight and can attest that one can play a Lawful Evil PC and not be a distraction to the other players nor be disruptive to the game. I have posted before and will likely post again that I would rather play with a LE PC than Chaotic "I'm just playing my character's alignment!" A#&#*#$.
As for the worship of "evil" deities, there is no reason on Asmodeus's green Golarion to tell a player that his/her awesome idea for a Chelish wizard can not worship Asmodeus. Even in game lore, if that is all that character has known, "My Gram worshipped Asmodeus, my Pa worshipped Asmodeus, and I worship Asmodeus, too!" then it can and should be allowed. What, is every Chelish Pathfinder suddenly going to be some freedom loving Milani worshipper? If so, why are YOU in the society? Isn't there some local hamlet that needs a revolution? Chop chop.
A worshipper of Zon Kuthon could be the best damn battlefield healer and surgeon the Society has ever known. "Who? Rusty over there? He may look a little weird and mutter some pretty odd things when he stitches you up or casts a healing spell, but that mofo knows how to keep you alive and WILL. I'll take that any day of the week instead of that Abadaran over there who wants to charge me for healing. Something about commerce, nothing is free, civilization advances through trade, blah blah blah. Rusty knows how to bring the pain in a fight as well, unlike that same Abadaran who does nothing but complain about how much gold he is spending every time he shoots his crossbow at something."
Once we start the process of telling players who their PC an or can not worship, we create a situation where someone (waves!) can and will start nit picking a...
I am not a prude, and I have a couple of darker characters where the ends very much justify the means, I just don't think, that the campaign as a whole would be served by allowing Evil characters.
The evil gods thing is just kinda weird, and it really not helps when the PCs are supposed to hunt down some cultist, while they worship demon lords and worse.
Frankly, I have a concept for an Urgathoa worshipping character, mostly going for her aspect of gluttony and the respect for a soul who demanded more from life.
I am pretty sure that I could make that character fun for the party and interesting to play (without touching evil), but I also realize that the character - or aspects of the character - might not be a good fit for some tables.
Unfortunately, public perception is kinda critical locally, my very best... large... public locations are either youth institutions or are financed by the Catholic church.
That is really not the place for some characters, and while most of my players are not a problem in that regard, I sometimes have to schedule conventions in those areas for players from all over Germany...
evil gods etc. might be fine (at least some of them), but having a firm line of "no EVIL" does have some advantages for me as the organizer.
That being said all these Good characters need to be kept in check. They really get in the way of my characters animating dead armies and such.Yep, we can leave dealing with your "army" of undead to the local militia and angry/frightened NPCs.
Sure. The local militia is really up to the task of fighting undead armies led by a high level Necromancer. ;)
As a player I think I would limit my animating to one so as to not unbalance the table and I would not parade it around town or bring it as a guest to a temple of Sarenrae.
I personally have never had a problem with a player playing a Cleric of any alignment. The most problematic characters IMO are typically twitchy CN characters that lack the patience for any type of planning or subtlety.
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The biggest problem with allowing or disallowing any particular alignment is that it seems many people do not understand the alignment system in general, and even fewer seem to actually understand the differences between moral norms and social norms. And it gets even worse when people try to add real world religious beliefs into the mix, to justify their definitions one way or the other.
As a reminder to all those neutral characters out there, if you are casting good spells and performing good acts “on-screen” during scenarios... what evil acts are you doing the rest of the time, to stay neutral?
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Balancing alignment using a tit-for-tat system is not something everyone agrees with so it’s not going to be universally effective for discussions on this topic. There are those of use that do not agree simply doing a good act balances an evil one, or vice versa. That is a philosophical debate however not specifically the topic of this thread so I won’t derail it any more than we already have.