Alignment Issues

[Susano]

Re: Alignment Issues

 

The difference is' date=' at least as I understand, Moorcock's Law and Chaos were much more nuanced and complicated than D&D's alignment, and if Moorcock had written that section of D&D/AD&D, we'd never have heard the following phrase uttered by a gamer: "He wouldn't do that, he's Lawful Good!" [/quote']

 

True.

 

And to top it off just look at the hash Gygax made of the magic system.

[Susano]

Re: Alignment Issues

 

Tosh. That's not what alignment is for as far as I'm concerned. Its for deciding whether when you touch the Grail or the Black Sword' date=' you get burned.[/quote']

 

I always thought that was a matter of faith.

[David Johnston]

Re: Alignment Issues

 

Maybe it's just because I have a hard time accepting a systemized view of morality that reduces it to cartoonish Good vs Evil' date=' and the idea of almost anyone human being [i']that[/i] good, or that evil. Most people can't use either item. Good people do bad things, and bad people still sometimes do good things.

 

In fact if you read a current set of D&D rules, they say quite explicitly that Good people do bad things and Evil people do good things. But the reality is, in the fantasy genre there are loads of worlds which have some kind of alignment system.

[TheRavenIs]

Re: Alignment Issues

 

Kind of like the Masons, I imagine.

 

If we want to get all nostalgic, remember when your Race was your Class?

 

Yes I can actually. First C I ever did was a D&D Elf, in the old little brown books that existed before the hard-backed ones.

[TheRavenIs]

Re: Alignment Issues

 

Modern d20 got smart and dumped the idea of alignments. I am so happy they did that. One of the reason I only run HERO is that I can better judge a C's motivation by the limitations they take for the way they think/feel/act.

[Narratio]

Re: Alignment Issues

 

Ah, TRI and I used the same D&D booklets... (surrounded by babes in swadlling clothes only WE remember when all this was just open grassland...)

 

I never liked the alignments stuff. I always thought that was more a matter of Dave getting bored and gary starting to mainline sink cleaning powder. I saw the Lawful side as being "The Machine", filled with fantasy versions of grey men in grey suits. On the 'good' side were the IRS and OSHA, on the 'evil' side was the Totenkranse and the 'I'm only following orders' goons. On the other hand, I took Chaos to be about individuality and striving to make your own mark on the world. Here you had the Salvador Dali's and Iggy Pop's, the Richard Bransons and the Donald Trumps.

[David Johnston]

Re: Alignment Issues

 

Modern d20 got smart and dumped the idea of alignments. I am so happy they did that. One of the reason I only run HERO is that I can better judge a C's motivation by the limitations they take for the way they think/feel/act.

 

Hm. Why do you care about a character's motivation in the first place?

[David Johnston]

Re: Alignment Issues

 

'evil' side was the Totenkranse and the 'I'm only following orders' goons. On the other hand' date=' I took Chaos to be about individuality and striving to make your own mark on the world. Here you had the Salvador Dali's and Iggy Pop's, the Richard Bransons and the Donald Trumps.[/quote']

 

Not to mention the Charles Mansons who find their own approach to being individual and making a mark on the world.

[Kristopher]

Re: Alignment Issues

 

Hm. Why do you care about a character's motivation in the first place?

 

Um...rollplaying?

 

Not to sound harsh, but I suppose one need not care about characters' motivations if one views the RPG as simply advanced wargaming, and the characters as simply a set of stats to be used to one's advantage, a thin mask to be worn by the player.

[Kristopher]

Re: Alignment Issues

 

In fact if you read a current set of D&D rules' date=' they say quite explicitly that Good people do bad things and Evil people do good things. But the reality is, in the fantasy genre there are loads of worlds which have some kind of alignment system.[/quote']

 

But "alignment" as years of D&D presented it has been the cause, not the effect, of much of that within the fantasy genre. As I opined above, Moorcock's Chaos and Law were only superficially like D&D's system, and while other works I can think of that predate D&D might focus on good and evil, they aren't the Good and Evil constraints of D&D.

[Lucius]

Re: Alignment Issues

 

There’s a lot to be said against the D&D alignment system, and I’ve said a lot of it. But.

 

From the perspective of distance – I haven’t played in 10 or 15 years – I have noticed something.

 

From the beginning, alignment was the ONLY, or nearly the only, actual “role-playing mechanic” in the game. It was, in that sense, the only thing that saved it from being “nothing but an advanced war game.” It was similar to both Psychological Limitations and behavioral Limitations on Powers in Hero. Not just a “choose your color, pick your team, that determines your enemies” option, but something that (in theory at least) commits your character to certain kinds of motivations and the resulting behaviors.

 

Yes, it’s simplistic and crude - but it was the first example of what it is, an ancestor in a sense to Hero’s Psych Limits. It DID serve a purpose, even if it did not serve it so well as we like.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

I have a palindromedary to catch

[assault]

Re: Alignment Issues

 

The alignment stuff in DnD goes back to its wargaming roots. You have a big conflict, with two sides, and some folks who may join either.

 

Alignment began as "which side are you on"?

 

Putting constraints on "what Good/Lawful characters would do", while not obvious, probably became necessary as soon as PCs were let loose in the world... Evil/Chaotic PCs probably came along a little later.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Alignment Issues

 

The difference is' date=' at least as I understand, Moorcock's Law and Chaos were much more nuanced and complicated than D&D's alignment, and if Moorcock had written that section of D&D/AD&D, we'd never have heard the following phrase uttered by a gamer: "He wouldn't do that, he's Lawful Good!" [/quote']

 

First, the original alignment system had only Law, Neutrality and Chaos. As in Moorcock, good and evil did not enter the picture. I recall an article suggesting the two axis system pointing to Dr. Who as a Chaotic Good character, and Daleks as classic Lawful Evil. Grafting Moorcock alignments on Tolkein creatures basically resulted in the oversimplification of "Law = Good; Chaos = Evil".

 

Second, do you really think the statement you reference above somehow enjoys inherent superiority to "He wouldn't do that, he has a Code againts Killing"? The fact that Hero makes psychological issues more granular in no way changes the fact that people interpret them in different ways. The primary advantage enjoyed by Hero is that "Will not kill" is considerably less subjective than "Good". Many people on opposite sides of any given issue (eg. the death penalty; abortion) would not necessarily agree that one side is "good" and the other "evil", and none, I suspect, would agree that their view is "evil". They could certainly agree that one side possesses a psychological limitation the other does not.

[David Johnston]

Re: Alignment Issues

 

But "alignment" as years of D&D presented it has been the cause' date=' not the effect, of much of that within the fantasy genre. As I opined above, Moorcock's Chaos and Law were only superficially like D&D's system, and while other works I can think of that predate D&D might focus on [i']good[/i] and evil, they aren't the Good and Evil constraints of D&D.

 

What constraints would those be?

 

The fact is starting with any fantasy that had a Heaven and as Hell as objective elements of the universe, there were plenty of fantasies that had clear cut and opposed moral factions before D&D ever came along. In fact that was one of the things that defined swords and sorcery as a separate genre, a kind of fantasy noir in which there was evil but no good. Elric is an example of that. There's plenty of evil in Elric, most notably that black phallic substitute he carries around. There just doesn't happen to be any good.

 

 

Um...rollplaying?

 

Not to sound harsh, but I suppose one need not care about characters' motivations if one views the RPG as simply advanced wargaming, and the characters as simply a set of stats to be used to one's advantage, a thin mask to be worn by the player.

 

That's a reason for the player to care about his character's motivations but I've played in games that had no character disadvantages and my characters still had motivations. Is it a reason for the gm to care about them?

[Dale A. Ward]

Re: Alignment Issues

 

Second' date=' do you really think the statement you reference above somehow enjoys inherent superiority to "He wouldn't do that, he has a Code againts Killing"? The fact that Hero makes psychological issues more granular in no way changes the fact that people interpret them in different ways. The primary advantage enjoyed by Hero is that "Will not kill" is considerably less subjective than "Good". Many people on opposite sides of any given issue (eg. the death penalty; abortion) would not necessarily agree that one side is "good" and the other "evil", and none, I suspect, would agree that their view is "evil". They could certainly agree that one side possesses a psychological limitation the other does not.[/quote']

 

The difference between the two is that HERO allows you to decide the particulars of how you preceive your "alignment" rather than having a whole bill of goods foisted upon you whether you agree with them or not.

 

If you wish, you can have a terribly evil despot that, nevertheless, refuses to kill his subjects. His reasons for acting in this manner are his own... don't push it or you may find out what his alternative is.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Alignment Issues

 

The difference between the two is that HERO allows you to decide the particulars of how you preceive your "alignment" rather than having a whole bill of goods foisted upon you whether you agree with them or not.

 

If you wish, you can have a terribly evil despot that, nevertheless, refuses to kill his subjects. His reasons for acting in this manner are his own... don't push it or you may find out what his alternative is.

 

Unquestionably, you don't get the bundled aspect that comes with an alignment system. It doesn't make "Your characterwouldn't do that - he's Lawful Good" any more common than Your character wouldn't do that - he has Honorable" (or Code vs Killing, Aversion to Cheese Nachoes or whatever else). The alignment system also conveniently avoids any debates as to whether a given limitation is worth 10, 15 or 20 points.

 

I'm not arguing the alignment system is in any way superior, however the assertion that the alignment system causes disputes between GM's and players which would not be present under Hero's psychological limitation system is absurd.

 

BTW, what prevents a despot in D&D following a personal code that he won't kill his subjects? The biggest failing of the alignment system is players and GM's who interpret "there are 9 allignments" as meaning "there are 9 personalities".

[David Johnston]

Re: Alignment Issues

 

 

If you wish, you can have a terribly evil despot that, nevertheless, refuses to kill his subjects. His reasons for acting in this manner are his own... don't push it or you may find out what his alternative is.

 

You do realise, don't you, that such a character is probably entirely consistent with D&D's Evil? Evil does not require you to kill.

[Lucius]

Re: Alignment Issues

 

I'm not arguing the alignment system is in any way superior, however the assertion that the alignment system causes disputes between GM's and players which would not be present under Hero's psychological limitation system is absurd.

 

 

It's not absurd at all. True, there can be disputes in Hero about the meaning of psychological limitations, or the details of whatever codes a character may have, or whether a character's behavior is justifiable to their liege lord or their Deity or even their own conscience; but such disputes are less likely to arise than within a D&D style alignment system with its unweildy "bundles" of moral attitudes and cosmological assumptions and its far more subjective labels. If "Code Against Killing" is interpreted to mean "no killing people" (and it usually doesn't seem to be interpeted to mean, for example, vegetarianism) then a dispute may arise over slaying a Dragon - is a Dragon a "person?" But of the arguments over what constitutes "good" and "evil" there is no end.

 

Can we agree that there are going to be misunderstandings and disagreements in any case (which may be all you were trying to say) but that they are likely to be more prevelant under a system like D&D's alignments, than under a more nuanced and expressive and concrete system like Hero's Psychological Limitations?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary resents being characterized as chaotic evil, but that's another story...

[Kristopher]

Re: Alignment Issues

 

What constraints would those be?

 

The fact is starting with any fantasy that had a Heaven and as Hell as objective elements of the universe, there were plenty of fantasies that had clear cut and opposed moral factions before D&D ever came along. In fact that was one of the things that defined swords and sorcery as a separate genre, a kind of fantasy noir in which there was evil but no good. Elric is an example of that. There's plenty of evil in Elric, most notably that black phallic substitute he carries around. There just doesn't happen to be any good.

 

No good in Elric himself, or no good in the setting?

 

Um...rollplaying?

 

Not to sound harsh, but I suppose one need not care about characters' motivations if one views the RPG as simply advanced wargaming, and the characters as simply a set of stats to be used to one's advantage, a thin mask to be worn by the player.

 

That's a reason for the player to care about his character's motivations but I've played in games that had no character disadvantages and my characters still had motivations. Is it a reason for the gm to care about them?

 

The GM should care about the PCs motivations for many of the same reasons as the players should care about them.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Alignment Issues

 

No good in Elric himself, or no good in the setting?

 

I was wondering that myself.

It's been a decade or more since my last rereading of the Elric books, but by the midpoint of the series wasn't he shagging a priestess of law and beginning to rid the world of various Lords of Chaos?

 

Granted he still was toting around the personification of evil, but hey... he's an eternal champion. They do that.

[Teflon Billy]

Re: D&D3e to HERO System Conversion Update

 

I really don't see what the big deal is about Alignments.

 

At least in Fantasy, and in any world where Metaphysics have demonstrable effects on reality and those Metaphysics have as an option being based on some sort of moral code, why having alignments is so big a deal?

 

You don't even have to live by those codes, if you stop being one alignment and drift into another one so be it. The key thing is, as part of the fundemental workings of the Universe/Multiverse, everyone has the Spiritual Disadvantage (Not sure whether to tie it to Social or Physical) of X/Y Alignment. So switching alignments has in game aspects that you might suffer, you can have magic that effects those alignments, etc...

 

It just makes it an aspect of the world that morality/ethics has an effect on you physically as well as spiritually.

 

As to the issue of "You can't do that, you're L/G" the problem was more usually "You can't do that, I as the GM don't think that's L/G and I don't care if your character and every description of how your god works would consider it L/G, it doesn't matter it's an alignment violation." Those are the problems I run into, such as the GM that ruled a character would lose his powers as a Paladin because he killed a child rapist in the act of raping a child because he didn't take the rapist before a judge.

 

TB

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Alignment Issues

 

It's not absurd at all. True, there can be disputes in Hero about the meaning of psychological limitations, or the details of whatever codes a character may have, or whether a character's behavior is justifiable to their liege lord or their Deity or even their own conscience; but such disputes are less likely to arise than within a D&D style alignment system with its unweildy "bundles" of moral attitudes and cosmological assumptions and its far more subjective labels. If "Code Against Killing" is interpreted to mean "no killing people" (and it usually doesn't seem to be interpeted to mean, for example, vegetarianism) then a dispute may arise over slaying a Dragon - is a Dragon a "person?" But of the arguments over what constitutes "good" and "evil" there is no end.

 

Can we agree that there are going to be misunderstandings and disagreements in any case (which may be all you were trying to say) but that they are likely to be more prevelant under a system like D&D's alignments, than under a more nuanced and expressive and concrete system like Hero's Psychological Limitations?

 

How many characters with a 20 point Code vs Killing have you seen actually restrain themselves - ie use less than full attack power - against an unknown in a costume for fear they might kill/injure the target? How many that think "It's OK because my 15d6 EB isn't a Killing Attack"?

 

How many Overconfident characters become conveniently less confident when presented with a foe who is their superior, compared to the number that say "No matter how bad it looks, he'll never beat me" [while the player looks up OOC and says "I am SO dead"?

 

[A player in my game challenged Firewing to single combat. He knew the character had no hope. But he designed a character with Overconfident at a high level, and that's what he played. He voluntarily made an Ego roll to decide whether his character could bring himself to dodge in Ph 12 to get himself a recovery and maybe last a few more phases. That battle lost is remembered far better today than many hard-fought heroic victories.]

 

Some alignment deviations or psychological limitation deviations are poor role playing. The limitations cease to apply when they reach some level of inconvenience. No system with any mechanic governing behaviour in any way is any more or less prone to this isue.

 

Others are disagreements between two individuals (most commonly GM and player) over what the definitions actually are. Both are best addressed by discussing, up front, what the terms mean and finding the common ground. Hero has one advantage in that the GM is effectively forced to confront these issues up front. When the player writes "Overconfident - 20 points" on his sheet, that's a tip the GM should discuss exactly HOW overconfident he expects that to be in practice, and give the player the opportunity to downgrade it to 15 points if that better matches his concept.

[Curufea]

Re: D&D3e to HERO System Conversion Update

 

I really don't see what the big deal is about Alignments.

 

At least in Fantasy, and in any world where Metaphysics have demonstrable effects on reality and those Metaphysics have as an option being based on some sort of moral code, why having alignments is so big a deal?

 

You don't even have to live by those codes, if you stop being one alignment and drift into another one so be it. The key thing is, as part of the fundemental workings of the Universe/Multiverse, everyone has the Spiritual Disadvantage (Not sure whether to tie it to Social or Physical) of X/Y Alignment. So switching alignments has in game aspects that you might suffer, you can have magic that effects those alignments, etc...

 

It just makes it an aspect of the world that morality/ethics has an effect on you physically as well as spiritually.

 

If that is the setting you want. It is often the case in fantasy literature that morality expresses as physical changes as well. But not in all fantasy. It very much depends on the type of story being told - whether it is a morality based story or not.

 

However - this kind of fantastical creation, alignments, may just be the straw that broke the camel's back

 

What I mean is - the more believable the setting is (and usually this means the more like real life) - the easier it is for players to both empathise with their characters and the setting itself.

 

If you throw in too many weird things, they'll dissociate - usually ending up with characters that are sociopathic (ie they don't care about the consequences, hence have no problem with their characters performing mindless slaughter etc).

 

Players already have to deal with fantasy races, fantasy magic and usually fantasy deities - putting in too much fantasy may tip them over the edge into "this ain't real!" and they lose empathy.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Alignment Issues

 

Its Baskin Robbins guys. Some people like Alignment flavor, others like other flavors, still others try a different flavor every time.

 

Its just a preference, so why argue about it?

[David Johnston]

Re: D&D3e to HERO System Conversion Update

 

 

If you throw in too many weird things, they'll dissociate - usually ending up with characters that are sociopathic (ie they don't care about the consequences, hence have no problem with their characters performing mindless slaughter etc).

 

 

I don't buy it. I've seen too many players go sociopathic with far less exotic environments that have no alignments to take seriously the premise that the existence of objective forces of good and evil encourages that. Now, some players are just inclined that way. They think that's what's fun. But the players who in other circumstances wouldn't, seem most likely to go that way when there's no real side to join that's any different from any other side. Left to their own devices in a world made up of scum and nonentities, the only thing to fight for is your own advantage and let anyone who stands in your way go to the devil. In short, the typical cyberpunk campaign.