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Post by Scott on May 13, 2009 6:24:05 GMT -5
Continued from the discussion in the St. Cuthbert thread... By bandit, I mean the entry in the Monster Manual, roving bands of thugs robbing anybody that happens down the road they’re prowling. My interpretation of the good/evil alignment axis is based on the amount of value one holds for the life of others. If you have something a good character wants, he’s not going to do anything about it. If you have something a neutral character wants, he will threaten you first, giving you the chance to turn it over; he’s going to hold some value for your life, he’ll weigh the value of the desired item against that, his threshold for where gain outweighs your life determines where on the good/evil axis the individual falls. If you have something an evil character wants, he would kill you without hesitation to get it, regardless of its value. Your life holds no value to him. And even if he could get what he wanted without killing you, he’d not think twice about killing you anyways for other reasons, establishing an intimidating reputation, getting rid of witnesses, removing the possibility of revenge, etc.
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GT
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Post by GT on May 13, 2009 7:11:58 GMT -5
Well, I think that we're mostly in agreement, then... ^__^
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Post by geneweigel on May 13, 2009 8:59:34 GMT -5
Alignment is embraced too much. You've got to take a step back away from it and this means for everybody especially the DM. I see a lot of unnatural behavior in players that are trying to "D&D behave" rather than play their characters. Now I have quite a few "famous" characters of similar alignments and they all behave differently. It seems to me that alignment has to be an after thought to make it seem believable.
"We must not act like them." crops up and then it gets into looney land. "Torture as a pleasurable vice or act of evil" being the chief discussion for that, etc. What about trickery? Isn't that even more evil than torture? Without strategy and tactics then good always loses and its now dead. See? It doesn't make sense to be sensitive about behavior in a game of mostly violence.
Torture isn't the domain of evil. Torture and getting a thrill out of it is. Look at it from evil's POV: "Hey they didn't laugh at him! What kind of torture is this?" I can say that a religion might be against it but an alignment? Thats a little too much to swallow for me.
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Post by Scott on May 13, 2009 9:19:03 GMT -5
This is just discussion. Alignment doesn’t come up that much in game. There have been a few times it was a factor. The most notable involved a cleric of St. Cuthbert who, after a prolonged period of increasingly chaotic behavior, lost most of his cleric abilities until a period of atonement and a large sacrifice had been made.
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Post by GT on May 13, 2009 9:19:36 GMT -5
It can be "overdone" for sure, and over-emphasized; but I consider alignment a vital part of the game system overall. It always seemed to me that those that disdained "detect alignment" sorts of castings were those who had been thwarted by them at one or more junctures. ^__^
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Post by Scott on May 13, 2009 9:38:37 GMT -5
That's pretty much how I look at it. It's a core concept of the game, but it’s not a straightjacket for characters’ actions. If I notice a prolonged difference in the characters actions, maybe sooner with the classes that have alignment requirements, and his declared alignment I will say something. Explain my view of the alignment, and what was causing the conflict. The character can then decide to move to a new alignment (this one would be a freebie, unless I thought the player should have known better), or try to stay more faithful to the declared alignment.
Gary (Grash) has a tendency to always act lawful, regardless of his declared alignment.
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Post by amalric on May 13, 2009 10:04:09 GMT -5
"If you have something a good character wants, he’s not going to do anything about it."
Well, that would depend upon whether you are good/neutral/evil, would it not?
If you're neutral or evil, then surely a good character would do something about it? And even if you're good, would say a CG character judge it to be in the best interests of 'freedom and/or betterment of all' for him to take it from you?
On a similar theme, say for example you have a LG ruler who builds a dam, for the betterment of his country, even though a clan of gnomes will be forced out of their cave complex by the resultant lake that will be formed (and he's willing to pay for their transplantation elsewhere). What if a group of CG rangers strongly object to the displacement of the gnomes (and other residents of the valley), and run a campaign of sabotage against the dam-builders? All parties are good, and concerned for the well-being of all as they see it. This is a Law/Chaos divide, obviously, but each might see the other side as acting in an "evil" manner.
On the whole though, I do agree - how one values the lives of others dictates good/neutral/evil.
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Post by GT on May 13, 2009 10:14:57 GMT -5
Well, some of our hypothetical examples don't really come into play so much as the straightforward. To wit: A detect evil is thrown on a band of gnolls approaching the party under an illusion of being elves. DING! Evil! A dour band of dwarves approach the party in a dungeon. Are they duergar perhaps? DING! No evil, so apparently not! This is the type of situation where alignment tends to arise, outside of PC's behvior, and it's usually pretty cut and dried... ^__^
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Post by geneweigel on May 13, 2009 10:20:25 GMT -5
I recall when Gary immediately and robustly agreed with the notion that I made to him that people overbake alignment drama and started his spiel about repute it was then that I knew that alignment in the game was something that is only workable if its "fresh" and somewhat misunderstood. Once you start balancing everything it goes nuts. So distance has to be maintained. That is why my world is about "You took my land you son of a bitch" and gods be damned.
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Post by GT on May 13, 2009 10:38:06 GMT -5
That's very Conan-esque... ^__^
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Post by geneweigel on May 13, 2009 10:49:57 GMT -5
Yeah, thats kind of the way that I've played it and have only the clergy argue over their beliefs but also I make their beliefs sometimes not about alignment too. So only for special special clerics will you get a standard alignment spiel.
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Post by GT on May 13, 2009 10:57:35 GMT -5
I still contend that certain parameters are useful for the likes of paladins, cavaliers and druids, too. If a paladin tortures an unassuming peasant for some information, there's no way he stays a paladin--no matter how important the information. If he holds a holy avenger to the neck of an EHP on the other hand, well the EHP is already doomed in his eyes anyhow... a Druid who sets fire to a forest simply to drive forth some character who angered him? Blatant overstep on several fronts (chaotic act and an affront on Nature)... no amount of argument will gain that PC forgiveness!
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Post by geneweigel on May 13, 2009 11:12:53 GMT -5
Except if they are the "paladins of torture" but I haven't seen that one yet. How about evil torture by extremely evil individuals on extremely evil individuals? "NO!!! NOO!!! DON'T LET THE LITTLE GIRLS WITH THE BONNETS ARRANGE THE FLOWERS!!!! AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"
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Post by GT on May 13, 2009 11:13:56 GMT -5
HAR!!! ;D
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GT
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Post by GT on May 13, 2009 11:15:47 GMT -5
geneweigel "Except if they are the "paladins of torture" but I haven't seen that one yet."
I hear that's coming in an upcoming 4E handbook--where TSR has discovered that a hardbound "splat book" makes even more money than a trade paper does!! ^__^
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Post by Scott on May 13, 2009 11:21:06 GMT -5
"If you have something a good character wants, he’s not going to do anything about it." Well, that would depend upon whether you are good/neutral/evil, would it not? If you're neutral or evil, then surely a good character would do something about it? And even if you're good, would say a CG character judge it to be in the best interests of 'freedom and/or betterment of all' for him to take it from you? On a similar theme, say for example you have a LG ruler who builds a dam, for the betterment of his country, even though a clan of gnomes will be forced out of their cave complex by the resultant lake that will be formed (and he's willing to pay for their transplantation elsewhere). What if a group of CG rangers strongly object to the displacement of the gnomes (and other residents of the valley), and run a campaign of sabotage against the dam-builders? All parties are good, and concerned for the well-being of all as they see it. This is a Law/Chaos divide, obviously, but each might see the other side as acting in an "evil" manner. On the whole though, I do agree - how one values the lives of others dictates good/neutral/evil. Oh, come on, Im generalizing benchmarks.
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Post by GT on May 13, 2009 11:23:43 GMT -5
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Post by geneweigel on May 13, 2009 11:55:11 GMT -5
then theres the new alignments like:
Peanut Butter/Jelly/PBandJ
Pure Strain Human/Human/Half-Human/Quarter-Human/Distantly-Human/Demi-human/Humanoid/Non-human/Inhuman
cafeteria/regular/laymen/clergy/zealot/al-kaboom
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Post by GT on May 13, 2009 11:57:37 GMT -5
That's it, Mister! To the noted artifact, The Throne of Time-Out for you!!
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Post by amalric on May 13, 2009 14:07:52 GMT -5
Oh, come on, Im generalizing benchmarks. And I agree with your parameters! Sorry, I was rambling a little - I put my back out (again) last Sunday, and I'm a little high on painkillers and anti-inflammatories. I could use a cleric right now!
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