Alignment issues

[AndrewTall]

It's not bizarre in the least....others clerics have the power to turn undead (even the neutral ones) but to Handcuff the Druid is simply a leap in NON Logic.....like only using blunt weapons was in 1st & 2nd ed. I always ruled that bow related deities clerics could use bows... There is even a cleric artilcle in the Dragon that detailed some of the early clerics who evolved past the blunt!!

The point is that druids are singled out........and I see no reason to allow it in my game.

One could surely use the same logic to say that clerics were singled out by not having shapechange - both turn undead and shapechange are major granted powers for a god-botherer class per the complete priest and either could be used for a variant priest class whether druid or 'standard cleric'. AD&D may have set turn undead as the default major granted power, but that doesn't make it the only one, or one that must be ubiquitous amongst cleric variants.

I fail to see your argument here, should a priest of evil have access to the sphere of good because the priest of good does? Should clerics be able to use wizard spells because wizards can? After all they are both spellcasters, and surely the gods can give any spells they like? Are they singled out if they can't? I suggest that if you want a priest who can turn undead / shapechange / etc, etc then pick the class variant which lets you do so rather than picking one and then saying 'oh and I want that other class's power too'. Why would anyone play a priest of the god of nature/etc if they could play a druid and get all the nature priest powers plus shapechange?

The blunt weapons prohibition btw was partly due to the historic Christian restriction on shedding blood and partly again game balance - edged weapons tended to do better damage and so the restriction allowed fighters to have a slight edge in combat just as the larger hit die and different to hit tables did. Kits and other variants which permitted priests to use swords, bows, etc tended to try and balance this by restricting spell spheres available to the priest.

No the alignment is part of the PC and no you as DM don't have the right to tell the players about how to percieve good and evil (and by extension control their actions as DM). The players play the PC, and the DM paints the setting.

Alignment is a (minor) part of the PC, but actually I do have a right to tell my players what is considered good/evil in a game that I am running - indeed it is my absolute duty to do so.

Would you seriously suggest that if a PC uses know alignment and gets 'strongly lawful good' as a result, that the target can freely then poison and enslave the unwary PC's because the target firmly believes that the PC race is inferior and requires enslavement in order to gain grace?

What about if a player Paladin freed slaves thinking that such an action was LG, would you think it fair to strip them of their class for behaving in an evil manner by stealing the slavers property?

If the runaway princess begs for aid to escape a brutal marriage, would you say that a paladin should drag her back and if need be hold her down while her husband beats her bloody?

I doubt any of my players would have considered those fun or fair interpretations however accurate the philosophies in a medieval setting.

My view is firmly that the Players should know what the DM considers alignment means, how the DM will use alignment in the game, and be able to rely on the spells and powers of their characters accordingly. If they play a class with moral requirements they should know what those morals are - before they choose the class, not when the DM rules against them.

If you think the DM should simply have alignment mean what they want it to mean, whenever they happen to consider it, then your players are likely to be deeply confused and unhappy when their views as players over alignment differ to yours - by putting in place clear ground rules at the outset of the game the player can choose their alignment knowing the sort of actions that support or erode it, and that allows them to play their characters not the DM.

The Jihadi priest would be desinctly evil, and if the PC didn't live up to their alignment then their alignment (as DM you can do this) would begin to shift towards how they were acting.

Actually in several belief systems the priests actions would be good, indeed the clearest example of lawful good - the priest is encouraging the righteous to gain land and wealth by hard work and courage, and even better is bringing heathens into the faith. The hardship caused by the crusade against the heathens etc is barely relevant since the suffering is mostly by heathens who have shunned Avani's will, and in any event is justifiable by the 'greater good' (a gloriously flexible concept) under the priests moral system.

My point - which you seem to have overlooked - is that the DM needs to lay out clearly what they will consider alignment to be, is it to be absolute or relative, based on medieval or modern notions of morality, does chaos mean a focus on self or lack of consistency? Etc.

But individual actions are not limited by DM input.......the players should be allowed to play their PC's....not the DM......

On this we agree, I am unclear where you have got any idea to the contrary.

[AndrewTall]

But do you stand by your quasi statement that it is in the province of the DM to control the alignment concerns of your PC's.....or do they retain free will to play alignment as they see it????

Later

Alignment must have an agreed meaning in a game or it is worthless as a concept.

If a paladin of Haelyn in my game decides to ride out one fine morning, slaughter peasants who fail to bow deeply enough as they pass, loots the temples of Ruornil at lunchtime to pay for some new statues in their honour, and exercises Droit de seigneur on the way home, then saying that they think the actions were lawful good won't get them very far with me even though all could be justified as such an alignment under various medieval systems of morality...

So no, I would not give players free will to decide what alignment means - to do so obliviates the usefulness of the concept - they can choose what their PC does and thinks, but whether the action is deemed good/evil, law/chaos will be determined by the agreed alignment system in play not simply their whim.

Apologies for not merging the responses - I did not see your second post when replying to the first.

[irdeggman]

Law and Chaos
Hmm, I clearly have a fundamental disagreement over the meaning of law and chaos to WOTC... When looking at human nature I fail to see the dichotomy in human nature and philosophy that they clearly do, to me the axis should be more community/self than law/chaos since that has a greater bearing on behaviour - although that may simply be a modern viewpoint. so to me communisim clocks in at Lawful evil (huge community focus, deeply oppressive methods to achieve it), classic liberalism aims for chaotic good (high emphasis on personal freedom, the state should serve the individual, lots of highfalutin talk about permissible methods) comes in as chaotic good. Classic labour movements might be lawful good (the state must cherish and protect the weak and aim to rebalance power throughout society) while various barbarian societies come in as chaotic evil (the state IS the individual, might makes right and victory proves righteousness morality)

Sounds a lot like the WotC article I linked to earlier.

To be lawful is to be in favor of conformity and consistency, to act in a systematic and uniform fashion, and to take responsibility. As a lawful person, you establish patterns and precedents and stick to them unless you can see a good reason to do otherwise. Methodical efficiency is your byword, and you believe in the concept of duty. You plan and organize your activities to achieve particular goals, not just to satisfy impulsive desires. You believe a proper way exists to accomplish any goal, though it may not always be the traditional, tried-and-true way. Likewise, you cultivate long-term relationships and endeavor to build trust between your associates and yourself. As a lawful person, you recognize that most laws have valid purposes that promote social order, but you are not necessarily bound to obey them to the letter. In particular, if you are both good and lawful, you have no respect for a law is unfair or capricious.

Being chaotic, on the other hand, doesn't necessarily mean you are incapable of adhering to the law. Though chaotic societies may seem disorderly, they exist in abundance. As a chaotic character, you are dedicated to personal and societal freedom. You pursue your dreams and don't try to put limits on your nature. You don't value consistency for its own sake; rather, you respond to every situation as you see fit without worrying about what you did before. The past is the past and the future is uncertain, so you prefer to live in the present. Each situation is new, so planning and procedures are pointless -- in fact, they restrain people from reacting quickly and decisively. You don't get tied up in exclusive relationships because they could hold you back from your destiny -- which might be right around the corner. You are always ready to try new techniques because you believe that experience is the best teacher, and you are always open to discovery.

In short, good and evil describe a character's ideals, and law and chaos describe the means she uses to work toward her goals. The law of the land in any given place is most likely designed to promote social order, so in general terms, lawful characters are more likely to respect it than chaotic characters are. However, the content of the law matters much more than its mere existence.

[AndrewTall]

Sounds a lot like the WotC article I linked to earlier.

There are similarities of course which you highlighted - but the first para of the article is directly contradictory to my view for example - I see no problem with chaotic characters being methodical or consistent and no need for them to live in the present as the second para indicates. Similarly I have no issue with chaotic characters respecting the law - since laws are designed to support society and their society will make laws to protect individual freedoms supporting the law is to their advantage, I have had problems in the past with players assuming that lawful=law abiding and chaotic=random and ever-changing which is why I first started trying to move away from the system.

Indeed I would reverse the articles emphasis - to me the view of the purpose of society, government, etc is the key to the characters views, good and evil are then indicative of the methods they use to promote those ideals. A good person tries to avoid harming others, considers others before acting, tries to follow both letter and spirit of the law, etc. An evil person willingly takes advantage of others, is uncaring about harming others, takes advantage of the letter of the law to pervert the spirit, etc.

So a lawful character might aim to have a state that redistributes wealth, ensures that the 'worthy' in the society are supported by the remainder and so on - good and evil then determining the extent to which they permit dissent, degree of coercion, who is deemed in need of support, the rights of the state over the individual, etc.

Similarly a chaotic character would wish a government which simply acts to permit people to achieve their ends within various societal norms - a good society being one where the norms are generally those of fairness and co-operation with the people willingly supporting the society, an evil society being one where everyone is out for themselves, taking advantage where they may.

To me both lawful and chaotic characters should be able to value long term relationships, laws (although the laws will probably be fewer and act to protect the individual rather than empower the state in a chaotic realm) and so on.

If I could think of good names I'd rename the two alignment components as law and chaos are somewhat leading terms, in many cultures law is seen as intrinsically good and chaos as intrinsically evil. Communal and liberal can be easily misinterpreted, self and community overstates the position - both care about the state they just think it should do different things, etc.

[kgauck]

But do you stand by your quasi statement that it is in the province of the DM to control the alignment concerns of your PC's.....or do they retain free will to play alignment as they see it?

The existence of an alignment system, how it operates, and what it means are part of the DM's world building. When creating the world the DM can define any acts, thoughts, or situations as he or she pleases.

Once players are recruited, there is a contract between the players and the DM, and the DM's duty then is to be consistant. If the gheallie sidhe was evil under one set of circumstances, its also evil under the same circumstances when the players do it, or oppose it.

When a player wants to behave in a way that's inconsistant with the original design of the character, there are two choices. The DM can stand silent and impose natural consequences (raid the duke's treasury, the duke comes after his stolen money), or the DM can attempt to aid the player in playing a character that is closest to the player's goal, and most consistant with the setting.

Case 2 is best for new players and players new to the setting. Case 1 is best for players who know what they are doing. I had a player last week, new to D&D, but having played other games, young, and wanting to fight anything that moved. The party would enter an inn and he wanted to start a fight. The setting was northern Stjordvik, and he was set up as a druid by the other players. A druid does not go around in Stjordvik picking bar fights. Druids, as the servants of Erik are the protectors of the Rjurik people, not their opporessors. The next time we play, I will advise the player that a "barbarian with issues" is a better idea. Something along the lines that his tribe had many enemies, and now his tribe is wiped out, and so he can play an angry character who gets into fights easily and causes trouble, can rage easily, and doesn't disturb the setting the way an oppresive druid would.

My brother ran a Star Wars campaign about a year ago in which I was an advisor. The game was table top some full days drive from where I live. So I would come up with story ideas, villain plots, and extra DM stuff to lighten the load. He envisioned a kind of rogues with hearts of gold campaign where the players were Han Solo types working for the Hutt family on Tattooine during the early Republic when Jedi were still brand new. The players agreed to the campaign idea, but didn't play rogues with hearts of gold, they played psycopaths with a cruel streak. They stole from everyone, killed everyone, and created a trail of destruction wherever they went. My brother was troubled. They stole from the Hutts and fled. We put a shady ambassador in their path. Someone to act as a new patron and give them protection and work. They killed him and stole his ship (they shoved him out an airlock). Even when villianous folk would approach them and try to recruit them to evil organizations, they would either steal from them or kill them

This was a problem. What do you do? I read this as being a Bonny and Clyde, Dillinger, or James Gang scenario. I'll use Bonnie and Clyde as my template, but any of these outlaws works just as well with a slightly different set of details and the same basic arc. Villains start small, robbing five and dimes and other small retailers. They encounter civilains and their encounters are mostly with local law. Clyde Barrow started off with a great idea for crime. Drive a Ford V8. He could outrun all police vehicles. Then they moved up to banks and armored cars. After police stumbled on their hideout in Joplin Mo as the result of a tip, a serious firefight ensued and the local police ended up dead. Afterward, Clyde was concerned that they lacked fire power. However, things had already begun to turn. Killing a whole group of police in Joplin seriously raised the stakes. No longer were they just dealing with local law, now where ever they would go, state police would be eager to get them. To solve his firepower problem, Clyde took his gang to a National Armory and they attacked it, taking Browning automatic rifles (BAR's). Again the stakes are raised, because attacking a federal arsenal is a big federal crime. Now Federal agents are on their trail. Next, Clyde decides he needs to break a trusted gang member out of a Texas prison. With BAR's the prison guards can't repell Clyde and the gang, and during a work detail outside the prison, Clyde guns down the prison guards and grabs their friend and escapes. An assult on a prison and a prison break with the BAR's was the last straw. Texas and the Feds cooperate by assigning a Federal officer who used to be a Texas ranger to track Bonnie and Clyde down and kill them. This expert man-hunter decides that if Clyde has BAR's, he needs them too. Of the five men this agent recruits, four carry BAR's and the other guy carries another super-weapon that he's a'lready an expert in (if I recall it was a very high caliber pistol for big game hunting). They set up a trap by approaching the father of a gang member promising a pardon for his boy (in prison) if he cooperated and they got Bonnie and Clyde. They set up an ambush with the old main as bait, he identified them, and they gunned down Bonnie and Clyde with armor piercing rounds in their BAR's and automatic shotguns.

This is my model for dealing with players who want to play natural born killers. If I set up a normal campaign, and the players suddenly started killing everyone and creating a trail of mayhem, I would let them until they killed the wrong people. There are three critical events, each one raises the stakes about who comes after them in terms of power and level and being able to achieve a total party kill. After the third critical incident, its over. They are permenantly stalked by a team like Harmer's with levels and class abilities capable of tracking them and killing them. I would be happy to let the party go out in a blaze of glory (no announcement that ninja's poisened them a week a ago and they died in their sleep, no assasins who get an always successful death blow), but once they cross a critical threshold, there is no going back. Like the James Gang, you can go into hiding and wait for the heat to die down, or fake your own death, but these are delaying tactics. If you resume your activities, you re-activate the critical state you are in.

[kgauck]

To me the view of the purpose of society, government, etc is the key to the characters views, good and evil are then indicative of the methods they use to promote those ideals.

This is the crux of the alignment dilema. Andrew is someone I respect, his game postings are great, and I agree with him on a lot of things, but my take on alignment is the opposite of his. Good and evil are the ends of things, and the other alignment axis is about means and methods. Law and Chaos are about cosmological forces with spells and powers advancing order or randomness. So chaotic good knights of Cuiraecen immitate what they see as the Stormlords unpredictability. So they are impulsive and act quickly without the need for plans and preperations, relying on surprise and quickness.

If I were playing in Andrew's game, he's the DM, I play his way. And I imagine if he were in mine, he would as well, but both of us would have to make a mental effort to think in terms of the DM's ideas, and not our own.

[ryancaveney]

Alignment must have an agreed meaning in a game or it is worthless as a concept. I would not give players free will to decide what alignment means - to do so obliviates the usefulness of the concept - they can choose what their PC does and thinks, but whether the action is deemed good/evil, law/chaos will be determined by the agreed alignment system in play not simply their whim.

I agree completely. This is in fact a large part of why I don't use the alignment system at all. Even if I say up front, "This is what Chaotic Good means when I use the term", my players will generally not remember it properly, because they come to the table with their own preconceived notions and old definitions from previous campaigns which color their interpretations and get mixed-up in their memories. Therefore, I find that reference to the alignment system just gets in the way of roleplaying -- too many people have too many deep-seated and disagreeing notions about what the words mean. I still sometimes use them in my own notes as a shorthand, because I know what the terms mean to me, but I never share them with the players because of the very high likelihood that my use of the terms will be misunderstood. The continued existence of passionate debates on the "true meaning" of the terms after thirty years of constant use constitutes experimental proof that the definitions which have appeared in print are nowhere near as obvious in their interpretation as many people claim. Even when I use the ideas, I don't use the names because their inclusion starts, rather than resolves, arguments -- I have found that the baggage of all the old discussions means the standard terminology does more harm than good.


Ryan

[ryancaveney]

I see no problem with chaotic characters being methodical or consistent and no need for them to live in the present as the second para indicates. Similarly I have no issue with chaotic characters respecting the law - since laws are designed to support society and their society will make laws to protect individual freedoms supporting the law is to their advantage

I feel exactly the same way. While the article quoted is one of the less horrible explications of law and chaos I have seen from TSR/WotC, it has also made clear one of my nagging abjections to it: this system conflates what I consider to be (at least) three independent characteristics. That is, in Myers-Briggs personality theory terms, that article claims Law = STJ and Chaos = NFP, but I want all six other combinations to exist just as often and just as consistently (especially since I myself am an NT, so there has never been any place for my worldview in Gygax's system).

'yes the merchant is good, but he's not stupid, you flashed your cash and said whatever it takes, so he decided it would cost everything... it's his job to make money by charging what the market, i.e. you, will bear

This is an argument I have made many times before in this context -- the descriptions tend to be written from the POV of a person with about Int 5. All complexity of thought is prohibited, or at least actively avoided. For example, discouraging Chaotics from planning ahead requires them to be stupid. It is this aspect to which I object most strenuously.

With respect to Kenneth and Andrew's discussion of which axis represents goals and which represents means, I will simply say that I think it varies from person to person. Some people aim for Chaos using Good means, while others aim for Good using Chaotic means.

in many cultures law is seen as intrinsically good and chaos as intrinsically evil

IMO, the 3e PHB is actually the best official description of alignment which has appeared, in part because it makes a concerted effort to see the good and the bad of both sides: "Law implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability. On the downside, lawfulness can include closed-mindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, judgementalness, and lack of adaptability. Chaos implies freedom, adaptability and flexibility. On the downside, chaos can include recklessness, resentment to legitimate authority, arbitrary actions and irresponsibility." Given that description, it is very clear to me personally that law is far closer to intrinsic evil than chaos is.

I think of the way any author describes their characters, what they say about themselves, what others say about them, and leave what the author says to any post-game commentary. Players can regard them as good, bad, or ugly as they please. Once the world gets described in some detail, after many game sessions, then its easy for players to predict what goes on here.

And in the end, this is clearly the best answer: just never talk about alignments at all.


Ryan

[AndrewTall]

And in the end, this is clearly the best answer: just never talk about alignments at all.

Ryan

That would probably have been a far better idea

The problem being spells like know alignment, axiomic weapons etc - I think it may be better to scrag them all, and replace for example know alignment with a mild form of empathy 'the approaching men feel predatory', 'the merchant feels very generous today'

For classes like cleric and paladin an honour code like the old Cavalier could be more useful than alignment.

[ryancaveney]

The problem being spells like know alignment, axiomic weapons etc - I think it may be better to scrag them all

This is precisely what I do. It is particularly necessary in Birthright campaigns, given the prominence of political intrigue.


Ryan