I don't think Shoak is arguing for "you can't do that if you're LG". I think he's trying to argue that at his /her?) table, your character doesn't just change on a whim. Superman doesn't whimsically throw innocent people into burning towers and then carry on as normal. Heck, he can't let an innocent die in one if he can help it, because of his character. If you're playing Superman and you want him to throw an innocent into a burning tower...then you have some explaining to do to have it make sense.
He seems to use alignment as a shorthand for that. Lawful good trying to cast innocents into burning towers? I generally let my players play how they wish (right now a player is playing their character differently to their character sheet, but if they're having fun...whatever), but I'd question that. It's also useful for calculating conflict. Lawful and chaotic tend to clash. Evil and good don't always mean they're on the same side just because they have the same morality, but there is more likely to be a clash between LG and LE than between LG and LG.
Alignment isn't perfect, and it definitely could improved, but it's a reasonable short hand, and as a new DM...shorthands are very useful.
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There are tables where responding in your out of character voice at all is considered a no-no. So yeah, I think this is an example of differing styles. Shoak's table seems to be extremely light on the roleplay, at least to me.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
As an example of the use of alignment at my table, say a group of bugbears (CE) come up to a PC group of bugnears (LG). The alignments of our two groups will manifest in a lot of ways - mannerisms, gestures, topics of conversation, actions etc. Given time, there is likely to be some sort of conflict, though not necessarily combat. Do the PCs wish to hide their alignments and thus "pretend" to be CE? OK, make a Deception check. If Bob the paladin fails his check, he maybe reacts when the bugbears talk about that poor old woman they tortured.
shoak, I like having alignment present in the ruleset but it's really just putting a label on personality and character. A PC's actions, reactions and emotions don't go away because they don't have two capitalized letters on their character sheet reminding them about it. A PC can be a kind conformist without being labeled LG or a nasty piece of anti-authoritarian scum without it saying CE on their charsheet. If you like to apply such a label while DMing because it makes for a convenient and easy indicator of likely future behaviour that's perfectly ok, but "kind conformist" and "nasty piece of anti-authoritarian scum" arguably do that job just as well. Consistency and plausibility don't come from a label, consistency and plausibility come from a player roleplaying their character properly.
...I would suggest you ponder that perhaps it is the responsibility of both the DM and the players to create a plausible world - a world in which people act with some semblence of consistency on major scales like Good-Evil.
So, by no means do I want to tell you how to run your game or play your characters.
But, in terms of what matters to me, "people act with some semblence of consistency on major scales like Good-Evil" is the opposite of a plausible world. Good and evil are too broad, too relative, to me, to make for a realistic world or realistic behavior of compelling people.
(I mean, sure, good/evil is a classic fantasy trope, so if that's what you're going for, go for it.)
To reference your earlier example, "I am a poor urchin from a small town and I got beat up as a kid and I do what I need to do to survive, though I don't kill unless really necessary" is significantly/absolutely a better and more lively way to imagine a character's "likely mannerisms, gestures, little bits of conversation not played out in the game." The grid doesn't help me, it doesn't even operate as a crutch, it literally just reduces things to stale uselessness. I wouldn't even like it in a planescape game (I say, currently playing in a planescape-ish game).
I don't think Shoak is arguing for "you can't do that if you're LG".
Okay, I read the whole post, but this is the main point of the post, so I wanted to address it. Your post is basically saying "I'm not saying you're not allowed to do that because of your alignment, but you also cannot do that because of your alignment".
"People don't change on a whim", "Lawful Good people don't burn down orphanages", and "You wrote down Lawful Good as your alignment" all result in being the equivalent of saying "you can't do that because of your alignment".
If Lawful Good people don't purposefully burn down orphanages, if you can't change your alignment on a whim because that's not realistic, and if you are in some way enforced to act a certain way due to which alignment you chose for your character . . . that's all just a more complicated way of saying "you cannot perform that action due to your alignment". That's literally the same thing.
However, you did say "the player has some explaining to do", which does allude to another point, that the player has to justify why their character's actions fit their alignment (which is a huge rabbit hole that never ends if you ask every character to justify their actions through their alignment), but that doesn't get rid of the "your actions have to be based off of your alignment."
If your actions are based off of your alignment, "you cannot perform that action because of your alignment" must follow. If it's "your actions inform your alignment, and what you do will influence your alignment", then "your alignment can undergo extreme change on a whim" must follow. Those are the two options. Restricting a player's agency due to what two words they chose when they wrote down their alignment, or having an unrealistic version of character arcs, where it's feasible for a character to go from Lawful Good to Chaotic Evil and then to Chaotic Neutral in the course of a few adventuring days.
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Now lets say Bob doesn't want to be bound by his LG and says he wants to be evil. I will tell him to come up with a plausible way of making that transition, and will ask if he wants my help in that endeavor (maybe he hears news of a human raid of lawful good pallys against his village). But he can't just flip a switch according to the whim of himself as a player, nor will I just let him do whatever he wants alignment-wise without doing the work of creating a story/plan for the transition.
Bob is okay with you telling him he can't take a course of action that he wants to, because it's against his alignment?
I would find myself un-DMed so fast it would leave a vapor trail if I tried something like that. Not that I'd want to -- as far as I'm concerned alignment shifts in response to player/PC choice. It doesn't constrain it.
hmmm.... I don't think you really read my post carefully. Maybe reread it and focus on the last sentence of what you quoted, plus the sentence that comes after it.
After doing that, I would suggest you ponder that perhaps it is the responsibility of both the DM and the players to create a plausible world - a world in which people act with some semblence of consistency on major scales like Good-Evil. If you and your players believe so strongly that players should be able to act any way they want, any time they want, and without any reason or explanation given, and that it not be reflected in how people judge them, then have fun. Noone is stopping you. At my table, we don't see alignment to be any more or less restrictive than dozens of other abstractions in the game such as speed, AC, hp, class, race, etc. They all regulate players ability to act, and just like alignment, there are always exceptions.
I understood what I read. I'm not sure I understood what you meant. When you use words like "won't allow" it sounds like you're describing a conflict. You can only "not allow" something if the other party wishes to do it and you don't want them to. If you and the other party agree from the get go, there's no "allowing" involved.
So when you say you won't allow something but then work with the player to come up with an explanation, it reads as though you're preventing the player from taking a course of action with his PC -- at least at first, until the player has worked out an explanation to your satisfaction. I asked if Bob was okay with that. My players would not let me tell them their PCs cannot do a thing (in the context of "make a choice"). I might remind them that making such a choice is counter to their stated alignment, but I have no power to prevent them from making it.
Regarding morality and consistency and all that, sure. I agree that it's worth it to build a plausible world. It's not plausible to me, or to my players, or really to most people IRL that I know, that morality is dictated externally. If a player wishes to do something against his PC's alignment, it's not like there's some metaphysical force that prevents it from happening. There's consequence for sure. But I don't know what would actually block the PC from doing that thing, aside from (what I would consider) the DM overstepping his bounds.
Yeah it is putting a label on something. And yes, its not a perfect label. But its much easier to digest and interpret than everyone creating their own labels and interpretations.
Is it though? Until alignment becomes something with a mechanical impact, so more than a label, I don't think it matters if people use different labels or have different interpretations of the same label. As long as it is just a label, what you think has no bearing on what I think. It doesn't change anything in practice.
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I don't think Shoak is arguing for "you can't do that if you're LG".
Okay, I read the whole post, but this is the main point of the post, so I wanted to address it. Your post is basically saying "I'm not saying you're not allowed to do that because of your alignment, but you also cannot do that because of your alignment".
"People don't change on a whim", "Lawful Good people don't burn down orphanages", and "You wrote down Lawful Good as your alignment" all result in being the equivalent of saying "you can't do that because of your alignment".
If Lawful Good people don't purposefully burn down orphanages, if you can't change your alignment on a whim because that's not realistic, and if you are in some way enforced to act a certain way due to which alignment you chose for your character . . . that's all just a more complicated way of saying "you cannot perform that action due to your alignment". That's literally the same thing.
However, you did say "the player has some explaining to do", which does allude to another point, that the player has to justify why their character's actions fit their alignment (which is a huge rabbit hole that never ends if you ask every character to justify their actions through their alignment), but that doesn't get rid of the "your actions have to be based off of your alignment."
If your actions are based off of your alignment, "you cannot perform that action because of your alignment" must follow. If it's "your actions inform your alignment, and what you do will influence your alignment", then "your alignment can undergo extreme change on a whim" must follow. Those are the two options. Restricting a player's agency due to what two words they chose when they wrote down their alignment, or having an unrealistic version of character arcs, where it's feasible for a character to go from Lawful Good to Chaotic Evil and then to Chaotic Neutral in the course of a few adventuring days.
If they released a new Captain America film and, without explanation, he just started ****** people and doing bad guy stuff...would you accept that and think it makes sense? If not, then you get how your personality influences and constrains your actions. Did you throw a hissy fit when (spoiler) Nebula switched sides? No? Then you get how your personality is malleable and can change...according to what you do and what you think. Those aren't contradictory concepts...that your personality shapes your actions, and that your personality can change. To put it in D&D terms, your alignment informs and constrains your actions, you don't just change from LG to CE for the day. On the other hand, you won't necessarily stay the same alignment either, they can change according to your choices.
To take an example, that ironically didn't involve a discussion of alignment, but it works. My wife is playing an NG dwarf. After several events in which what looked like to be an attack was always an attack, she jumped the gun when she saw what appeared to be creatures attacking an Inn, and launched a surprise attack killing them all..****y to find out that they were actually innocents. That caused her to re evaluate her attitude, and she decided that she was never going to be the first to attack. Her alignment shifted to LG. It would make no sense for her to not change in response to that trauma, or to not change her personality. On the other hand, it makes no sense that her personality has no influence on her decisions either. How she thinks, how she interprets things, how she reacts to things, are all shaped by her now more rigid and lawful behaviour. Her being lackadaisical would make no sense now, and if she were confronted with a similar situation to the Inn, it would be nonsensical for her to rush in and slaughter them without checking to make sure that they genuinely are enemies.
Alignment is a shorthand for those personality traits.
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Alignment is a shorthand for those personality traits.
It's just a really terrible shorthand. In general the minimal set of questions you need to know about NPCs or creatures you encounter are "What do they want" and "what are they willing to do to get what they want?" Alignment is at best semi-informative about the second and pretty useless for the first. I mean, "We want all your gold and we're willing to burn your settlement to the ground and slaughter everyone inside to get it" and "We're hungry and think humans would be really tasty" could both be chaotic evil, but they'll produce very different behaviors.
Yeah it is putting a label on something. And yes, its not a perfect label. But its much easier to digest and interpret than everyone creating their own labels and interpretations.
Is it though? Until alignment becomes something with a mechanical impact, so more than a label, I don't think it matters if people use different labels or have different interpretations of the same label. As long as it is just a label, what you think has no bearing on what I think. It doesn't change anything in practice.
I agree, there are not many times in which alignment MATTERS in a mechanical rules based way.
The only time in which I have seen it is regarding magic items which only function for or against certain alignment types. Other than that, players will play how they will and I don't keep stringent tabs on what their alignment is.
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But maybe you are fighting an imagined rather than a real opponent here. Perhaps you could give me an example of what you would like to do in a campaign that you *think* I wouldn't allow. Let's see if we actually disagree.
My original comment was in response to you saying you wouldn't allow a player to do something, in the context of making a decision. I guessed that to mean if I had set up my PC with a given alignment, and I wanted to do something that contradicted that alignment, you as my DM wouldn't let me do it until I came up with an explanation that satisfied you. Is that a misinterpretation?
I know you say "you and I would work out XYZ" but really that just means we need to work out something that meets your approval. I was already willing to take the action, otherwise I wouldn't have tried to do so. In the end it's the same as you simply not allowing it.
But maybe you are fighting an imagined rather than a real opponent here. Perhaps you could give me an example of what you would like to do in a campaign that you *think* I wouldn't allow. Let's see if we actually disagree.
My original comment was in response to you saying you wouldn't allow a player to do something, in the context of making a decision. I guessed that to mean if I had set up my PC with a given alignment, and I wanted to do something that contradicted that alignment, you as my DM wouldn't let me do it until I came up with an explanation that satisfied you. Is that a misinterpretation?
I know you say "you and I would work out XYZ" but really that just means we need to work out something that meets your approval. I was already willing to take the action, otherwise I wouldn't have tried to do so. In the end it's the same as you simply not allowing it.
Am I close?
Honestly, it's best that you give specific examples. The problem with generic/generalised ones is that they leave a lot of grey area. Give him a specific example to work with. Shoak can then see better if you're actually disagreeing with him, and cab give how he'd actually approach that situation.
Earlier, I gave the example of Captain America ****** people - it's much easier to see the objection in that than "if your character is LG but tries to do something bad, I'll object to that". Give specific examples of what you think he would stop you from doing, and he can respond with how he'd react and what his reasoning would be.
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I’ve only DM’d once so far, but I like using celestials and fiends and the idea of contrasting them to humanoids, so alignment is bound to come up eventually. I’m more than okay with having its restrictions of classes removed, however.
I’ve only DM’d once so far, but I like using celestials and fiends and the idea of contrasting them to humanoids, so alignment is bound to come up eventually. I’m more than okay with having its restrictions of classes removed, however.
Are there any such class restrictions? I know some leab heavily towards some, but I don't know of any that require a certain alignment. A few subclasses and couple magic items do, though. In 5e, alignment is more for interpreting how characters might get on or clash.
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Honestly, it's best that you give specific examples. The problem with generic/generalised ones is that they leave a lot of grey area. Give him a specific example to work with. Shoak can then see better if you're actually disagreeing with him, and cab give how he'd actually approach that situation.
I suppose, but in my experience getting specific with the example tends to make everyone focus on those specifics and muddy the point.
What I'm curious about is if Shoak, as a DM, actually prohibits his players from taking actions if those actions deviate from established alignment. Prohibit in the "no you don't" sense. Shoak has said he expects a justification, which is fine, but what happens if that justification isn't forthcoming? Maybe it always happens because his players agree and wouldn't deviate without having such prepared ahead of time.
Contrasted with another DM (such as myself) that would let the player do whatever, alignment-wise, and be more concerned with adjusting the universe's reaction to the change. I also don't think one evil act makes a character become non-good -- at least not automatically. Alignment, in my assessment, is the moral trend or inclination of the character, not a hard barrier than cannot be crossed. So maybe that's also a difference.
In any event, I was curious if his Bob was okay with the DM saying "no you don't" without some narrative justification. My players would not be, nor would I as a player. It's not about consistency -- people aren't always consistent -- but about agency and who's really in charge of the PC.
The whole "Alignment is the only thing preventing a Hero of Justice from burning the women and graping the churches!" thing is A.) nonsensical and B.) idiotic. A player who jumps that far out of character is a troll, or someone so new to TTRPGs that they're mostly just testing to see how the game works. In neither situation is "ENFORCE ALIGNMENT HARDER" the answer.
A more reasonable example: Alice the Ell-Gee paladin has captured The Chuckler, a psychotic changling who enjoys causing chaos and upping their body count, for a third time. Both previous times, Alice brought her captured foe to justice and allowed the King's courts to imprison him, whereupon he promptly escaped and murdered more small towns. This time? As Alice is standing over the Chuckler, still chuckling about his antics? She takes his head off, on the spot.
The "Only Alignment Matters" DM: "Wow, no. You can't do that. You're Lawful Good, you can't just execute criminals on the spot. You have to remand them to the courts." Alice's Player: "Alice did that already, twice. Now a couple hundred more people are dead and two more towns are gone. The courts can't handle this guy, but she can. She'll take that stain on her conscious, if it means - " DM: "No no, you ain't scanning me. You. Can't. Do. That. Vigilante justice is chaotic, and probably not even good. Your character is physically and mentally incapable of any action other than bringing the Chuckler to the court." Alice: "...fine. Hey, Bill. Your rogue is CN, right? Can you - " DM: "Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. What part of 'Lawful Good' isn't meshing with you? Your alignment demands that you'd have to protect the Chuckler from Bill if Bill tried to kill him. Look Alice, I get that you don't like the guy, but you're not supposed to. He's a villain. Bring him to the courts, and let the King's Justice sort him out." Alice: "...so you're saying the only thing you'll let me do is take this guy to court? Let him get thrown in prison, from which he's escaped effortlessly twice already? Have you heard of the definition of insanity?" DM: "No, but I've heard of the definition of Lawful ******* Good, so there will be no murdering of helpless prisoners in this game session. Deal with it or leave my table."
I’ve only DM’d once so far, but I like using celestials and fiends and the idea of contrasting them to humanoids, so alignment is bound to come up eventually. I’m more than okay with having its restrictions of classes removed, however.
Are there any such class restrictions? I know some leab heavily towards some, but I don't know of any that require a certain alignment. A few subclasses and couple magic items do, though. In 5e, alignment is more for interpreting how characters might get on or clash.
There aren’t, which is a change from previous editions I approve of despite not being overall against alignment as a concept. My apologies if I was unclear.
For that campaign I'm watching with no alignment system but, rather, reputations that can affect interactions (and it extends to NPCs, too—a key plot point for one of the party's nemeses), I'm curious to see how encountering Alignment-aligned objects and effects will work for them if it happens.
One of the party is ultraviolent, but that only happens with life-threatening enemies during combat and not murdering hobos. Another is arrogant to a fault but is always there to help people only because it makes him look good. Another never thinks ahead with his good intentions, and things keep going sideways to everyone's loss—NPCs included. Another just wants to go home but is dragged along due to peripheral circumstances from being involved with the rest of the party.
What Alignment are they? What Alignment should the general public consider of their actions? How would Alignment-specific objects and effects affect them?
Reading over this, I guess Alignment is important but not in a line-on-a-character-sheet-important kind of way but, rather, a highly situational, perception-based kind of way.
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Counterpoint: alignment is useful to certain players who either don't like to roleplay much and/or want guidelines for how to do so in a consistent manner.
There's a lot of heat on this thread and in D&D circles in general over how imprecise, prescriptive and restrictive alignment is, and I don't necessarily disagree. If you have an approach to roleplay that is more free-form and fully embraces inhabiting a character's personality and seeing where it goes, the alignment system can appear like it dictates how you "should" play your character. Yet not everyone is comfortable with RP, or even values it much at all. Having a box to fit a character's actions in makes playing the game more approachable for some people. It also helps some DMs anticipate roughly how a character might react to stimuli, which in turn helps to inform how certain parties might gel or not.
I've played in games where alignment was never discussed. I've also played in games where alignment was a big deal because of magic items and creature interactions. I've had characters that didn't fit into any alignment, and characters whose alignments gave me a language to conceive of and describe their actions. As a DM, I've both ignored alignments and imposed changes on characters who no longer fit what was on their character sheets. Is alignment a good, comprehensive tool to describe personality? No, but neither is personality theory itself. It is a tool, however, that can be useful in providing more insight and color to a character.
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I don't think Shoak is arguing for "you can't do that if you're LG". I think he's trying to argue that at his /her?) table, your character doesn't just change on a whim. Superman doesn't whimsically throw innocent people into burning towers and then carry on as normal. Heck, he can't let an innocent die in one if he can help it, because of his character. If you're playing Superman and you want him to throw an innocent into a burning tower...then you have some explaining to do to have it make sense.
He seems to use alignment as a shorthand for that. Lawful good trying to cast innocents into burning towers? I generally let my players play how they wish (right now a player is playing their character differently to their character sheet, but if they're having fun...whatever), but I'd question that. It's also useful for calculating conflict. Lawful and chaotic tend to clash. Evil and good don't always mean they're on the same side just because they have the same morality, but there is more likely to be a clash between LG and LE than between LG and LG.
Alignment isn't perfect, and it definitely could improved, but it's a reasonable short hand, and as a new DM...shorthands are very useful.
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There are tables where responding in your out of character voice at all is considered a no-no. So yeah, I think this is an example of differing styles. Shoak's table seems to be extremely light on the roleplay, at least to me.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
shoak, I like having alignment present in the ruleset but it's really just putting a label on personality and character. A PC's actions, reactions and emotions don't go away because they don't have two capitalized letters on their character sheet reminding them about it. A PC can be a kind conformist without being labeled LG or a nasty piece of anti-authoritarian scum without it saying CE on their charsheet. If you like to apply such a label while DMing because it makes for a convenient and easy indicator of likely future behaviour that's perfectly ok, but "kind conformist" and "nasty piece of anti-authoritarian scum" arguably do that job just as well. Consistency and plausibility don't come from a label, consistency and plausibility come from a player roleplaying their character properly.
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Why I think alignment is stupid, an example of personality.
For this short explanation, I will use myself as an example (I could use anyone, but the point works best with people I know well)
I, being a person, am complicated, but I'll boil down my traits by alignment.
Good-I protect people and things I think are good and work towards points good towards others (Mostly spreading knowledge)
Evil- I'm wrathful, petty and (as you can probably tell by this essay) self-centered.
Lawful-I have a mostly strict code of action.
Chaotic- I'm overly creative, rebel against authority, and often act before I think.
Using this alignment system, all this nuance is summarized in two words "Chaotic Neutral", meaning I act how I feel parading around like a lunatic.
This is why the current alignment system is stupid.
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So, by no means do I want to tell you how to run your game or play your characters.
But, in terms of what matters to me, "people act with some semblence of consistency on major scales like Good-Evil" is the opposite of a plausible world. Good and evil are too broad, too relative, to me, to make for a realistic world or realistic behavior of compelling people.
(I mean, sure, good/evil is a classic fantasy trope, so if that's what you're going for, go for it.)
To reference your earlier example, "I am a poor urchin from a small town and I got beat up as a kid and I do what I need to do to survive, though I don't kill unless really necessary" is significantly/absolutely a better and more lively way to imagine a character's "likely mannerisms, gestures, little bits of conversation not played out in the game." The grid doesn't help me, it doesn't even operate as a crutch, it literally just reduces things to stale uselessness. I wouldn't even like it in a planescape game (I say, currently playing in a planescape-ish game).
Anyway, sorry to dive in just to critique.
Okay, I read the whole post, but this is the main point of the post, so I wanted to address it. Your post is basically saying "I'm not saying you're not allowed to do that because of your alignment, but you also cannot do that because of your alignment".
"People don't change on a whim", "Lawful Good people don't burn down orphanages", and "You wrote down Lawful Good as your alignment" all result in being the equivalent of saying "you can't do that because of your alignment".
If Lawful Good people don't purposefully burn down orphanages, if you can't change your alignment on a whim because that's not realistic, and if you are in some way enforced to act a certain way due to which alignment you chose for your character . . . that's all just a more complicated way of saying "you cannot perform that action due to your alignment". That's literally the same thing.
However, you did say "the player has some explaining to do", which does allude to another point, that the player has to justify why their character's actions fit their alignment (which is a huge rabbit hole that never ends if you ask every character to justify their actions through their alignment), but that doesn't get rid of the "your actions have to be based off of your alignment."
If your actions are based off of your alignment, "you cannot perform that action because of your alignment" must follow. If it's "your actions inform your alignment, and what you do will influence your alignment", then "your alignment can undergo extreme change on a whim" must follow. Those are the two options. Restricting a player's agency due to what two words they chose when they wrote down their alignment, or having an unrealistic version of character arcs, where it's feasible for a character to go from Lawful Good to Chaotic Evil and then to Chaotic Neutral in the course of a few adventuring days.
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I understood what I read. I'm not sure I understood what you meant. When you use words like "won't allow" it sounds like you're describing a conflict. You can only "not allow" something if the other party wishes to do it and you don't want them to. If you and the other party agree from the get go, there's no "allowing" involved.
So when you say you won't allow something but then work with the player to come up with an explanation, it reads as though you're preventing the player from taking a course of action with his PC -- at least at first, until the player has worked out an explanation to your satisfaction. I asked if Bob was okay with that. My players would not let me tell them their PCs cannot do a thing (in the context of "make a choice"). I might remind them that making such a choice is counter to their stated alignment, but I have no power to prevent them from making it.
Regarding morality and consistency and all that, sure. I agree that it's worth it to build a plausible world. It's not plausible to me, or to my players, or really to most people IRL that I know, that morality is dictated externally. If a player wishes to do something against his PC's alignment, it's not like there's some metaphysical force that prevents it from happening. There's consequence for sure. But I don't know what would actually block the PC from doing that thing, aside from (what I would consider) the DM overstepping his bounds.
Is it though? Until alignment becomes something with a mechanical impact, so more than a label, I don't think it matters if people use different labels or have different interpretations of the same label. As long as it is just a label, what you think has no bearing on what I think. It doesn't change anything in practice.
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If they released a new Captain America film and, without explanation, he just started ****** people and doing bad guy stuff...would you accept that and think it makes sense? If not, then you get how your personality influences and constrains your actions. Did you throw a hissy fit when (spoiler) Nebula switched sides? No? Then you get how your personality is malleable and can change...according to what you do and what you think. Those aren't contradictory concepts...that your personality shapes your actions, and that your personality can change. To put it in D&D terms, your alignment informs and constrains your actions, you don't just change from LG to CE for the day. On the other hand, you won't necessarily stay the same alignment either, they can change according to your choices.
To take an example, that ironically didn't involve a discussion of alignment, but it works. My wife is playing an NG dwarf. After several events in which what looked like to be an attack was always an attack, she jumped the gun when she saw what appeared to be creatures attacking an Inn, and launched a surprise attack killing them all..****y to find out that they were actually innocents. That caused her to re evaluate her attitude, and she decided that she was never going to be the first to attack. Her alignment shifted to LG. It would make no sense for her to not change in response to that trauma, or to not change her personality. On the other hand, it makes no sense that her personality has no influence on her decisions either. How she thinks, how she interprets things, how she reacts to things, are all shaped by her now more rigid and lawful behaviour. Her being lackadaisical would make no sense now, and if she were confronted with a similar situation to the Inn, it would be nonsensical for her to rush in and slaughter them without checking to make sure that they genuinely are enemies.
Alignment is a shorthand for those personality traits.
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It's just a really terrible shorthand. In general the minimal set of questions you need to know about NPCs or creatures you encounter are "What do they want" and "what are they willing to do to get what they want?" Alignment is at best semi-informative about the second and pretty useless for the first. I mean, "We want all your gold and we're willing to burn your settlement to the ground and slaughter everyone inside to get it" and "We're hungry and think humans would be really tasty" could both be chaotic evil, but they'll produce very different behaviors.
I agree, there are not many times in which alignment MATTERS in a mechanical rules based way.
The only time in which I have seen it is regarding magic items which only function for or against certain alignment types. Other than that, players will play how they will and I don't keep stringent tabs on what their alignment is.
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First off, DnDBeyond, get some new forum software. This is the worst quote mechanism I've ever seen.
My original comment was in response to you saying you wouldn't allow a player to do something, in the context of making a decision. I guessed that to mean if I had set up my PC with a given alignment, and I wanted to do something that contradicted that alignment, you as my DM wouldn't let me do it until I came up with an explanation that satisfied you. Is that a misinterpretation?
I know you say "you and I would work out XYZ" but really that just means we need to work out something that meets your approval. I was already willing to take the action, otherwise I wouldn't have tried to do so. In the end it's the same as you simply not allowing it.
Am I close?
Honestly, it's best that you give specific examples. The problem with generic/generalised ones is that they leave a lot of grey area. Give him a specific example to work with. Shoak can then see better if you're actually disagreeing with him, and cab give how he'd actually approach that situation.
Earlier, I gave the example of Captain America ****** people - it's much easier to see the objection in that than "if your character is LG but tries to do something bad, I'll object to that". Give specific examples of what you think he would stop you from doing, and he can respond with how he'd react and what his reasoning would be.
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I’ve only DM’d once so far, but I like using celestials and fiends and the idea of contrasting them to humanoids, so alignment is bound to come up eventually. I’m more than okay with having its restrictions of classes removed, however.
Are there any such class restrictions? I know some leab heavily towards some, but I don't know of any that require a certain alignment. A few subclasses and couple magic items do, though. In 5e, alignment is more for interpreting how characters might get on or clash.
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I suppose, but in my experience getting specific with the example tends to make everyone focus on those specifics and muddy the point.
What I'm curious about is if Shoak, as a DM, actually prohibits his players from taking actions if those actions deviate from established alignment. Prohibit in the "no you don't" sense. Shoak has said he expects a justification, which is fine, but what happens if that justification isn't forthcoming? Maybe it always happens because his players agree and wouldn't deviate without having such prepared ahead of time.
Contrasted with another DM (such as myself) that would let the player do whatever, alignment-wise, and be more concerned with adjusting the universe's reaction to the change. I also don't think one evil act makes a character become non-good -- at least not automatically. Alignment, in my assessment, is the moral trend or inclination of the character, not a hard barrier than cannot be crossed. So maybe that's also a difference.
In any event, I was curious if his Bob was okay with the DM saying "no you don't" without some narrative justification. My players would not be, nor would I as a player. It's not about consistency -- people aren't always consistent -- but about agency and who's really in charge of the PC.
The whole "Alignment is the only thing preventing a Hero of Justice from burning the women and graping the churches!" thing is A.) nonsensical and B.) idiotic. A player who jumps that far out of character is a troll, or someone so new to TTRPGs that they're mostly just testing to see how the game works. In neither situation is "ENFORCE ALIGNMENT HARDER" the answer.
A more reasonable example: Alice the Ell-Gee paladin has captured The Chuckler, a psychotic changling who enjoys causing chaos and upping their body count, for a third time. Both previous times, Alice brought her captured foe to justice and allowed the King's courts to imprison him, whereupon he promptly escaped and murdered more small towns. This time? As Alice is standing over the Chuckler, still chuckling about his antics? She takes his head off, on the spot.
The "Only Alignment Matters" DM: "Wow, no. You can't do that. You're Lawful Good, you can't just execute criminals on the spot. You have to remand them to the courts."
Alice's Player: "Alice did that already, twice. Now a couple hundred more people are dead and two more towns are gone. The courts can't handle this guy, but she can. She'll take that stain on her conscious, if it means - "
DM: "No no, you ain't scanning me. You. Can't. Do. That. Vigilante justice is chaotic, and probably not even good. Your character is physically and mentally incapable of any action other than bringing the Chuckler to the court."
Alice: "...fine. Hey, Bill. Your rogue is CN, right? Can you - "
DM: "Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. What part of 'Lawful Good' isn't meshing with you? Your alignment demands that you'd have to protect the Chuckler from Bill if Bill tried to kill him. Look Alice, I get that you don't like the guy, but you're not supposed to. He's a villain. Bring him to the courts, and let the King's Justice sort him out."
Alice: "...so you're saying the only thing you'll let me do is take this guy to court? Let him get thrown in prison, from which he's escaped effortlessly twice already? Have you heard of the definition of insanity?"
DM: "No, but I've heard of the definition of Lawful ******* Good, so there will be no murdering of helpless prisoners in this game session. Deal with it or leave my table."
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...are we seeing where the problem is yet?
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There aren’t, which is a change from previous editions I approve of despite not being overall against alignment as a concept. My apologies if I was unclear.
For that campaign I'm watching with no alignment system but, rather, reputations that can affect interactions (and it extends to NPCs, too—a key plot point for one of the party's nemeses), I'm curious to see how encountering Alignment-aligned objects and effects will work for them if it happens.
One of the party is ultraviolent, but that only happens with life-threatening enemies during combat and not murdering hobos. Another is arrogant to a fault but is always there to help people only because it makes him look good. Another never thinks ahead with his good intentions, and things keep going sideways to everyone's loss—NPCs included. Another just wants to go home but is dragged along due to peripheral circumstances from being involved with the rest of the party.
What Alignment are they? What Alignment should the general public consider of their actions? How would Alignment-specific objects and effects affect them?
Reading over this, I guess Alignment is important but not in a line-on-a-character-sheet-important kind of way but, rather, a highly situational, perception-based kind of way.
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Counterpoint: alignment is useful to certain players who either don't like to roleplay much and/or want guidelines for how to do so in a consistent manner.
There's a lot of heat on this thread and in D&D circles in general over how imprecise, prescriptive and restrictive alignment is, and I don't necessarily disagree. If you have an approach to roleplay that is more free-form and fully embraces inhabiting a character's personality and seeing where it goes, the alignment system can appear like it dictates how you "should" play your character. Yet not everyone is comfortable with RP, or even values it much at all. Having a box to fit a character's actions in makes playing the game more approachable for some people. It also helps some DMs anticipate roughly how a character might react to stimuli, which in turn helps to inform how certain parties might gel or not.
I've played in games where alignment was never discussed. I've also played in games where alignment was a big deal because of magic items and creature interactions. I've had characters that didn't fit into any alignment, and characters whose alignments gave me a language to conceive of and describe their actions. As a DM, I've both ignored alignments and imposed changes on characters who no longer fit what was on their character sheets. Is alignment a good, comprehensive tool to describe personality? No, but neither is personality theory itself. It is a tool, however, that can be useful in providing more insight and color to a character.