Roleplaying/Alignment Dilemmas

[LennonCook]

Originally posted by Cerek: No, Lennon, in PnP your alignment does NOT change from game to game, nor is it the DM's decision (unless he/she specifically states that's the way they run their campaign).

Ah, but this is exactly my point: in P&P, isn't it the DM's right to change the rules for any given campaign? This makes all of what the Many Handbooks say to be merely suggestion, and more importantly open to interpretation. Thus, everything I say is simply my interpreation of what I know of them. Disclaimer: "what I know of them" isn't very much. [img]smile.gif[/img]

And in PnP, alignment WAS a definition of your character. Certain classes (such as Paladin, Ranger & Druid) had specific alignment restrictions defined in the Player's Handbook. If a player violated these alignment restrictions, then he/she WAS violating the very definition of the character class. When that happened, it was the DM's job to determine what happened to the character because of the alignment violation. Sometimes the character would have to do some sort of quest or penance in order to get their alignment back. Other times, they simply had to accept a permanent change of alignment - which meant they also had to change the way they played that character from now on.

Again, I see and agree with the fact that this can happen, but I disagree with the justification behind it. I don't see it so much as being so because it is in violation of the player's handbook, but rather because that character's attitudes and loyalties have changed (or atleast, may appear to have changed, and especially if the actions are many, rather than a one off). Thus, a Cleric for example, has ceased believing in their god, ceased doing as that god says, and this is immediately reflected in game in two ways:
1) The character's alignment changes to reflect the change in motivations.
2) The god takes action against this offense. They might simply stop fueling the character's spells; or in the case of a more vengeful god, or a more offensive change, more drastic action might be warranted. For a minor transgression, the god might forgive the Cleric if they can prove satisfactorily that they haven't completely disregarded the law. This to me explains the "penance quest".

You're partially right. Clerics are the Prime Material representatives of their chosen diety. Because of this, they have to follow thier diety's alignment exactly, so there are very few clerics that would be True Neutral. Paladins do follow the laws of their diety, but they are also the self-appointed protectors of the land, which is why they have to be Lawful Good. They are Lawful because they follow the dictates of their diety AND of the land they are in. They are Good because they put the needs and wellbeing of others ahead of their own desires and safety. Paladins were primarily patterned after the Knights of the Round Table. Worship and obediance to their diety IS important, but obediance to the laws of the land are equally important. So the paladin serves two different masters - their diety and the needs of their land.

But what happens if those contradict one another? Especially if they repeatedly contradict one another (say, a paladin in a generally oppressive land), this is not a good situation. They may have to break one or the other law in order to do anything at all - even stay out of it. I would call the Knights of the Round Table Lawful Neutral: they followed the laws of their worship, which involved protecting other followers from the enemies. To this end, we see that the founded a city where they might better protect the people, and created the laws of it as a model of the greater good they worshipped. It is a slightly different situation for a Forgotten Realms Paladin: they are subject to the law, rather than creators of it, and so it can contradict other laws they follow. And so I see a Paladin as favouring the laws of their God when a decision in this is necesary, which makes them Lawful Neutral with respect to their god's laws.

[Cerek]

Originally posted by LennonCook: Ah, but this is exactly my point: in P&P, isn't it the DM's right to change the rules for any given campaign? This makes all of what the Many Handbooks say to be merely suggestion, and more importantly open to interpretation. Thus, everything I say is simply my interpreation of what I know of them. Disclaimer: "what I know of them" isn't very much. [img]smile.gif[/img]

The answer to your question about DM's changing the rules in their games is basically "Yes AND No". A DM could run a "closed" campaign in which HE got to set all the rules. For instance, the guy that taught me to play the game had us play in a "closed" campaign and he did NOT allow weapon specialization - even though that was an "official rule" of the AD&D world. The other rule of a closed campaign is that the characters in that game could NOT be played in any other game. They were restricted to that DM's campaign alone. In this instance, MOST of the official rules were still followed, but the DM did have the discretion to modify or nullify any rules he/she didn't like.

The other type of games were "open" games - which meant you could play the same character under several different DM's. In an "open" game, the DM had less authority to play around with the rules because it was expected by the players that the same rules would apply to their character no matter WHO the DM was. Now DM's did have the right to disallow any items or abilities a character might have that they considered to be too powerful, but they still had to follow the "official" rules of AD&D more closely than if they were running a game set in their own world. The only rule I disallowed on a consistent basis was the use of psionics. It was just too difficult for me to figure out how they worked and how to intergrate them into the game, so I just told any character that had psionics that those powers did NOT work in my game. On the flip side of that, I never ran any monsters that had psionic abilities either, so I applied the restriction evenly.

Originally posted by LennonCook: Again, I see and agree with the fact that this can happen, but I disagree with the justification behind it. I don't see it so much as being so because it is in violation of the player's handbook, but rather because that character's attitudes and loyalties have changed (or atleast, may appear to have changed, and especially if the actions are many, rather than a one off). Thus, a Cleric for example, has ceased believing in their god, ceased doing as that god says, and this is immediately reflected in game in two ways: 1) The character's alignment changes to reflect the change in motivations. 2) The god takes action against this offense. They might simply stop fueling the character's spells; or in the case of a more vengeful god, or a more offensive change, more drastic action might be warranted. For a minor transgression, the god might forgive the Cleric if they can prove satisfactorily that they haven't completely disregarded the law. This to me explains the "penance quest".

OK, I can meet you halfway on this one. It wasn't necessarily because the player violated the Player's Handbook, but the PH DID give a definition of each alignment and a basic guideline of how a character of that alignment should act and what their motivations would be. Again, the player had access to this data BEFORE creating their character and then they presumably chose an alignment for thier character based on those official descriptions.

A good example of what happens when a character violates his/her alignment once too often is the ranger I mentioned earlier that had the evil steed. That was also in the "closed campaign" I mentioned above and I have to admit that the DM was very lenient with me. He took into consideration the fact that I was just learning the game, so I got away with a lot more then than I could now. For instance, if I had already played the game and knew the rules, then he probably would have punished my character the very FIRST time I ever dared mount an evil steed. When my luck finally ran out, I had jumped on the Nightmare to chase a genie that had attacked the party and then fled. We couldn't catch him on foot and the Nightmare was the ONLY chance we had of catching him at all before he escaped. But the horse had a different plan and - instead of chasing the genie - he took me straight down to one of the Planes of Hell where I was given an immediate audience with a major evil diety (can't remember which one). He basically gave me two choices - convert to evil and begin worshipping him on the spot OOORRRRRRRR get cast into the Lake of Fire we were standing next to and be tormented for eternity. It took me almost 3 full seconds to make my decision. Actually, it wasn't too bad. I got a new set of enchanted armor out of the deal and my character got to start doing nifty things like buying poison to coat his weapon. Our cleric caught me buying the poison and questioned me about it. I tried to lie to him and he didn't believe me, so I finally told him it was none of his business and let it go at that. The cleric considered his options and chose not to confront my character openly about it anymore.

Originally posted by LennonCook: But what happens if those contradict one another? Especially if they repeatedly contradict one another (say, a paladin in a generally oppressive land), this is not a good situation. They may have to break one or the other law in order to do anything at all - even stay out of it. I would call the Knights of the Round Table Lawful Neutral: they followed the laws of their worship, which involved protecting other followers from the enemies. To this end, we see that the founded a city where they might better protect the people, and created the laws of it as a model of the greater good they worshipped. It is a slightly different situation for a Forgotten Realms Paladin: they are subject to the law, rather than creators of it, and so it can contradict other laws they follow. And so I see a Paladin as favouring the laws of their God when a decision in this is necesary, which makes them Lawful Neutral with respect to their god's laws.

Yes, you're right that there would be times when the Laws of the Land would conflict with the Laws of Religion that the paladin followed, and in that case he/she would HAVE to follow his personal laws instead of the laws of the land (though he might suffer repurcussions for breaking the law). The Knights of the Round Table were either Lawful Good or Neutral Good (for the most part) in their official AD&D write-up (from the Dieties and Demigods handbook, 1st Edition). Most were paladins, though a few were just straight fighters. I don't believe ANY of them were Lawful Neutral because they ALL fought for the cause of "Good".

The bottom line is that the rules in AD&D were guidelines, so DM's could make exceptions to them occasionally. But in order for the games to be successful, the rules had to be followed more often than not so that there would be consistency for the players and they would know what to expect when they brought their character to a new game under a different DM. But if a DM set up his/her own world in which the characters were not allowed to be played anywhere else, then the DM could ignore a great many more rules and could establish more rules of their own.

[Q'alooaith]

You've muddled the Closed and open game terms..

An open game is one where all the rules are open to change the the rule one of D&D applys (the DM's word is law, or somthing like that)

A closed game, or rather closed set as they most commonly are, use a pre set definition of the rules, with normaly one lead DM (somtimes called a Games Master or GM, the G varys from place to place) who can make ruling's that don't quite fit in the game, or are causeing contention between players and DM's..


AD&D is a relic, but that's another topic entirly..

The "rules" for D&D are there to give a level playing field, the reason why D&D is still so popular is because it's a swords and sor. game, it's rules are easy to understand once learned, and you can use them to do pretty much anything you can imagine..

Originally posted by Cerek: I'm afraid your example would actually require a bit more information before we can determine if the thief's actions are good are evil.

Now your getting the idea.

You can't say he's good or evil from his actions.

The guard will probably see the actions as evil, the poor depending oh what the thief does will judge it good or evil and so on..

It's like the assasin who kill's the noble, the noble was evil yes, but the assasin didn't know that till a long time after the deed, does that make his actions good or evil..

Well if we go by what your saying Cerek he'd be good aligned, because his actions have a good effect..

But if we go on motivation, he'd be evil, even though he's done a "good" act he did it for the wrong reasons..

This is my point, it does not matter what you do, but why you do it.

[Cerek]

Originally posted by Q'alooaith: You've muddled the Closed and open game terms.. An open game is one where all the rules are open to change the the rule one of D&D applys (the DM's word is law, or somthing like that) A closed game, or rather closed set as they most commonly are, use a pre set definition of the rules, with normaly one lead DM (somtimes called a Games Master or GM, the G varys from place to place) who can make ruling's that don't quite fit in the game, or are causeing contention between players and DM's.. AD&D is a relic, but that's another topic entirly.. The "rules" for D&D are there to give a level playing field, the reason why D&D is still so popular is because it's a swords and sor. game, it's rules are easy to understand once learned, and you can use them to do pretty much anything you can imagine..

You're welcome to your opinion, Q, but I have not "muddled" the difference between closed and open games. I don't know how much actual PnP experience you have, but given your observation about AD&D, I imagine it is very little. I played PnP for several years - looong before CRPGs even existed. And the members I played with had several more years experience with the game. I am quite confident we understood the difference between a closed and open game.

If you ever played PnP, perhaps your group used different definitions for those terms, that's fine. But please don't be so arrogant as to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about regarding PnP rules and term definitions.

And AD&D may be a relic, but it is still the most popular RPG ever created and it is the entire basis for the Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Neverwinter series of games. And there are still plenty of people who play the PnP version as well. Not too bad a record for a "relic".

Originally posted by Cerek: Now your getting the idea. You can't say he's good or evil from his actions. The guard will probably see the actions as evil, the poor depending oh what the thief does will judge it good or evil and so on.. It's like the assasin who kill's the noble, the noble was evil yes, but the assasin didn't know that till a long time after the deed, does that make his actions good or evil.. Well if we go by what your saying Cerek he'd be good aligned, because his actions have a good effect.. But if we go on motivation, he'd be evil, even though he's done a "good" act he did it for the wrong reasons.. This is my point, it does not matter what you do, but why you do it.

"Now I'm getting the idea???" LOLOLOL - you are too funny. You say we can't tell if the thief is good or evil from his actions. I humbly disagree. Stealing is against the law, ergo it is "wrong" for a character to do it. Now it is expected that a thief character will steal, but if he claims to be of "good" alignment, then he is going to have to come up with a danged good explanation of why it is OK for him to steal - especially when he is stealing money from the poorbox of a church. It will be difficult at best to justify that action as NOT being evil.

As for your example of the assassin, there is absolutely no way his killing the noble could be considered anything BUT evil if he had no idea the noble was evil himself. IF he didn't know the noble was evil, then he killed him either because he wanted to or he was paid to. Either way, his motivations were entirely selfish and not for the greater good...so there would be no way to justify his actions as anything other than an evil act. Even if his action had the "good effect" you describe, the assassin had no idea and (more importantly) no intention of doing it to promote a greater good. His motivation was purely selfish greed, so it would definitely be considered an evil act.

The "what" and "why" of your players actions are of equal importance - which is why I started this thread to begin with. There are numerous examples in both BG games of good-aligned players being able to walk into the homes of citizens and simply search through any containers they see and take what they find without any repercussions. The ONLY reason for a PC to do this in BG1 or 2 is for purely selfish reasons - therefore their actions could not be considered "good". Just because it might help the PC or the party does not justify walking into a house or church and helping yourself to whatever you find. Again, from what I've heard of the Virtue Mod, it was created to address these exact situations...and the PC's alignment is adjusted according to what they do rather than why they do it.

You and I have different views when it comes to judging and/or establishing alignment. Nothing wrong with that. But your posts keep implying that your interpretation is the correct one and that other interpretations are wrong. Nothing wrong with having a strong opinion, but in the end, that is all it is - an opinion. And other players will have different opinions and interpretations. Just because they may not agree with yours doesn't mean they are wrong nor does it necessarily mean they are right. THAT is the reason we have discussions on topics like this - so that we can share our different opinions and perhaps expand our knowledge by viewing situations from a different perspective.

[LennonCook]

Originally posted by shamrock_uk: @Lennon - Inititally I would agree with your assesment about true-neutral. But is desire a good benchmark to use for measuring alignment? For example, what about a golem created by an evil mage - he might have no desires or ambitions of any sort, but still would be classed as evil if he went round killing innocents.

I think a golem does have some minor ambition: to do as he is told. This makes a golem Lawful Neutral, in that it obeys its creator mindlessly. Another way to look at it is that the golem is under complete control, and will not disobey, making them the same alignment as their master. This is what I mean for it to be a matter of perspective: their actions are viewed in different ways by different people, and so their ambitions are seen in a different light, and so they might appear to be of a different alignment.

I have to completely disagree with what you said about "its how the world sees them" and not "how they see the world". Surely it's all about what you are and not what you appear.

As I have said before, I see alignment is a summation of actions and reasons. Your overall alignment, based on everything you have done and everything you think, is one thing. Your alignment based only on what another person knows you to have done, is quite another. Overall, a Cleric is lawful in that they willingly follow their god's laws, be they ordered to maim and kill or to invite everyone around for milk and cookies. Take the former laws: overall (and hence from the god's perspective, since it is natural to assume that a god watches over atleast their clerics all the time), they are Lawful Neutral unto their god. To society, they maim and kill, they torture the innocent, they bring anarchy. To most societies, they aren't being lawful. This is what I mean about it being a matter of perspective: what someone sees might not be the full story.

For example, Drizzt having freshly appeared on the surface is attacked for being evil, yet he is good.

Because as far a sthe surfacers can tell, he is evil. Overall his actions may be good, but they cannot tells that, and they probably won't give him time to explain. [/b]

Wasn't this the whole point of the virtue mod? To ensure that your alignment is affected by your actions, and not the actions that are witnessed by others?

I see it as being the other way around. It separates reputation into your overall morality (virtue), and what others see (reputation). To me, both of these can represent your alignment, but to different people: your reputation to the whole world, your virtue to those people who know you and to you yourself.

If its how the world sees you, then the issue of alignment becomes as relative as the morality of the place you are in at that time. Surely it must be more permanent than that?

Why must it be? If it is more permanant, if it is based on everything rather than on what other people see and think, then it cannot affect anything in the game world, except to those characters who are in direct cahootz with a god. Wouldn't this make it nearly pointless?

[Lemmy]

Originally posted by Cerek: You say we can't tell if the thief is good or evil from his actions. I humbly disagree. Stealing is against the law, ergo it is "wrong" for a character to do it. Now it is expected that a thief character will steal, but if he claims to be of "good" alignment, then he is going to have to come up with a danged good explanation of why it is OK for him to steal - especially when he is stealing money from the poorbox of a church. It will be difficult at best to justify that action as NOT being evil.

First of all, something being against the law does not equate it to being morally wrong. It's ethically wrong; a thieving character is untrustworthy. Secondly, just because something is not good does not mean that it is evil.

If a thief is caught stealing from the poorbox at a church, he'll probably be kept away from the poorbox. Not because he's evil, but because he's just not trustworthy. Certainly there's a taboo that comes along with stealing from a church, and that taboo may be why you're characterizing the action as evil.

Perhaps the thief is stealing from the poorbox at the church of Talos. He holds a grudge against them, because his wife went to them for counseling and she did something horrible on their advice. The thief now takes money from the Stormlords' collection plate at every opportunity and donates it to a church he trusts, such as the church of Illmater. The thief's actions are unethical, and perhaps even vindictive, but I'd not call him evil.

Suppose an alternate situation. The Beholder Cult draws more followers day by day. Your adventuring party is keen on stopping it, but one of your number lies dead from an encounter in the sewers. Stealing money from a local church would give you just enough cash to raise your fallen comrade, and then you could continue in your quest to stop the Beholder Cult. Taking the ethical shortcut (theft) over finding money by other means (sidequests) is something a non-Lawful character might do. Or it's something a desperate Paladin might do, only to regret his actions later and make recompense.

It is imperfection and flaw that make a character. Steal for the party's good once, and the character might never do it again because he considered it a mistake. But perhaps the character justifies it again. The character might continue justifying it because he feels useful to the party by contributing in this way, because he's contributing to the greater good by nipping "a few coins here and there." If this sort of reasoning becomes a significant motivator for the character, an alignment change may be appropriate (most probably to moral Neutrality, since he's not bothering to consider harm caused by his actions).

In many cases, it's difficult to determine morality by action alone, and far more difficult to do so by a single action. The game itself is biased in that it presents dialogue options that seemingly only "evil" characters would make -- that is, actions that appear evil. For instance, picking an insulting dialogue option often gets you attacked, but an unwise and severely pissed off PC might mouth off without thinking about it. As a result, the game punishes him and he seems like a bad guy for being insulting and fighting back when attacked.

Action and motivation are both important. I believe, however, that motivation reveals more about moral alignment (Good-Neutral-Evil) than action alone.

There are numerous examples in both BG games of good-aligned players being able to walk into the homes of citizens and simply search through any containers they see and take what they find without any repercussions. The ONLY reason for a PC to do this in BG1 or 2 is for purely selfish reasons - therefore their actions could not be considered "good".

Only? I daresay you assume too much. A particularly charismatic PC might go door-to-door asking for donations to his adventuring cause.

PC: "Excuse me, sir, I'm trying to stop the Iron Shortage. I have some evidence that they're up to no good, if you'd like to see it, and if you have any money you might spare so I could buy more arrows, I'd be much obliged."

Homeowner: "Oh, sure, I have a Ruby Ring in my drawer over there. Take it."

This is purely ridiculous, of course, but why not? Just because this isn't among the dialogue options doesn't restrict you from writing it into your own story.

-Lem

[Hank Parsons]

Wow, some of you guys have played really different AD&D than I. I've never been in a campaign -- as DM or player -- where characters were used who had been played previously under a different DM.

Yeah, someone might make a new character with the same name, class, alignment, personality. But every DM I've played with used their own variations of the rules -- and their own sets of treasures. They wouldn't let you waltz in with a piece of paper claiming you got Defender +5 in the DM-down-the-street's campaign.

[Cerek]

Lemmy - You make several good points, but the fact is that - in each case - we're starting with a hypothetical situation and when that question is answered, others are coming back and saying "Ah, but what if THIS was the real circumstance". Well, in a game (whether it is PnP or BG), the "real circumstances" are already known.

People keep adding modifiers to the "thief stealing from the poorbox" example to show why his/her actions may not be considered evil and could possibly be even be considered good, but the point is that the DM would already KNOW those circumstances in the game and - therefore - he absolutely CAN judge the thief's actions based on his professed alignment.

I've agreed all along that the characters motivation is what should determine their chosen alignment, but when it comes to the DM (or the game) judging that alignment, the judgement will be based on the characters's actions as compared to their professed alignment.

Now I have known some DM's that deliberately withheld certain information in order to mess with a characte. One example that occurred with the guys I knew was a DM that wanted to mess with another players paladin. He ran a game where the paladin and his party encountered an encampment of orcs. Naturally, the paladin led the attack on the orcs, only to have the DM suddenly announce that THIS particular group of orcs were all Lawful Good and that the paladin had just committed a major alignment violation. Needless, to say the player with the paladin went through the roof. While the DM certainly has the right to make that kind of change, when a certain type of creature is known to be evil and a Lawful Good character encounters an entire group of them - it only makes sense that his first reaction would be to attack, since every other encounter he has ever had with that creature has shown them to be evil. If the DM is going to make THAT kind of change, then he has an obligation to provide some kind of clue or information beforehand that would give the paladin reason to pause and consider his actions first.

Now, before people start trying to make all sorts of justifications for the orcs being Lawful Good, it was the consensus between ALL of the players that the DM had overstepped his bounds and had done this JUST to screw over the paladin (who the DM had a grudge against from an entirely different game). In THAT case, the players told the DM that if he wanted them to play in any more of his games, then he had better cut that type of crap out.

This also goes back to the post I made about "open games". In an open game, it is expected that the DM will follow the official rules of AD&D more closely because that is what the players are used to. If a DM is going to change certain rules - or disallow certain classes - then he needs to let the players know that BEFORE the game begins. Just like I never allowed psionics in my game, but I always told the players that ahead of time, so that they wouldn't bring a character with psionics into the game then get upset when those powers didn't work.

Hank - The group I played with were all close with each other and it was usually the same group of people playing every time. So each of them knew what the others did or did not allow as a DM. Therefore, you wouldn't have one of them given out an uber-powerful item to a character that he knew another DM wouldn't allow. They agreed as a group on what type and power level of items were allowed.

Now they certainly had the right to disallow individual items or abilities if they wished. My PnP barbarian gained an uber-powerful ability shortly before I retired him. I got it legitimately enough, but I also know that NONE of the OTHER DM's in our group would actually allow me to use that ability if THEY were the DM. So I accepted that the only time I would be able to use that particular ability was under the DM that gave it to me in the first place.

That is how they were able to play the same characters under different DM's. Because they were usually all involved in the same games. IF a DM decided he wasn't going to allow a particular item or was going to mess with an individual character (like the example above), then he also had to realize that the same thing might happen to HIM when HE was a player and the guy he messed with was the DM. Also, if a person got too out of line as a DM, then the other members would simply refuse to play under his games anymore. So there was good reason NOT to pull such shenanigans.

[Lemmy]

Originally posted by Cerek: People keep adding modifiers to the "thief stealing from the poorbox" example to show why his/her actions may not be considered evil and could possibly be even be considered good, but the point is that the DM would already KNOW those circumstances in the game and - therefore - he absolutely CAN judge the thief's actions based on his professed alignment.

I don't see that this invalidates the scenarios outlined above. They still seem plausible to me, given the assumed circumstances.

Where the DM is a computer, the DM does not necessarily know what circumstances exist if the player thinks "outside the box." As such a computer, judging by action alone, must make certain assumptions. To cite a previous example: taking things from peoples' houses is "stealing" because the computer never considered the possibility of medieval door-to-door soliciting.

I've agreed all along that the characters motivation is what should determine their chosen alignment, but when it comes to the DM (or the game) judging that alignment, the judgement will be based on the characters's actions as compared to their professed alignment.

It would still seem prudent, to me, to ask why a character took a particular action before deciding the action was inconsistent with their alignment. Though personally, I consider alignment a blunt little tool. If the given action is consistent with the character, it's good roleplaying. After all, roleplaying isn't about playing alignments, excepting those that desire to become the physical embodiment of a moral.

He ran a game where the paladin and his party encountered an encampment of orcs. Naturally, the paladin led the attack on the orcs, only to have the DM suddenly announce that THIS particular group of orcs were all Lawful Good and that the paladin had just committed a major alignment violation. Needless, to say the player with the paladin went through the roof. ... If the DM is going to make THAT kind of change, then he has an obligation to provide some kind of clue or information beforehand that would give the paladin reason to pause and consider his actions first.

I fail to see how killing someone who's Lawful Good is more immoral than killing someone who's Chaotic Evil. Actions are not justified based on your foes' moral alignments.

That being said, I believe the Paladin acted chaotically. He didn't determine whether the orcs were foes before attacking. He seemed to think he was eliminating a threat to something. Morally, his head was thinking "For the greater good!" I assume? He gets credit for that, at least. Then the DM can ridicule him for "racial profiling."

Hmm. So, was it the DM's duty to provide clues to the orc's intentions if the Paladin himself showed no interest? Possibly. Just as the DM can call players on inconsistent roleplaying, too much gameworld inconsistency and players should call "Fie!" on the DM.

-Lem

[Cerek]

Originally posted by Lemmy: I don't see that this invalidates the scenarios outlined above. They still seem plausible to me, given the assumed circumstances.

It doesn't necessarily invalidate the examples, but it DOES change the entire scenario. It basically makes the hypothetical question more of a "trick" question. Just like the example of the paladin and the orcs. The player was given NO REASON AT ALL to believe these orcs were any different than every other orc he had encountered. So it was natural for him to assume they were a threat. Then - all of a sudden - the DM says "OH...BTW, this one group of orcs were actually Lawful Good and were trying to set up a base so that they could work WITH the local townspeople rather than attack them.

Now it is quite possible for a thief to steal from a poorbox without violating his professed alignment - but when other factors are added to the scenario after the fact (the church was not distributing the wealth to the poor or the thief was acting with altruistic motives), then that completely changes the original scenario. As I said at the beginning, we need more information to determine if the alignment was followed or not.

Originally posted by Lemmy: Where the DM is a computer, the DM does not necessarily know what circumstances exist if the player thinks "outside the box." As such a computer, judging by action alone, must make certain assumptions. To cite a previous example: taking things from peoples' houses is "stealing" because the computer never considered the possibility of medieval door-to-door soliciting.

That's true. But in BG1 especially, there are several examples where the homeowner explicitly tells the PC and his/her group to get out of their house, then turns away. The PC can leave, or they can try to "sneak" around the house and search the drawers and chests they find. As long as they don't get "seen", there is no punishment for their action. But the resident of the house has made it clear they are NOT willing to "donate" to the PC's cause. So that is stealing, pure and simple. Now the PC's alignment may allow that, or it may not. But I don't see anyway you can say it is actually a "good" or justifiable act on the PC's part.

Originally posted by Lemmy: It would still seem prudent, to me, to ask why a character took a particular action before deciding the action was inconsistent with their alignment. Though personally, I consider alignment a blunt little tool. If the given action is consistent with the character, it's good roleplaying. After all, roleplaying isn't about playing alignments, excepting those that desire to become the physical embodiment of a moral.

I wasn't in the game with the paladin and the orcs, so my info is secondhand at best. But from what I understand, the orcs DID take some kind of action that could have been considered "threatening" under normal conditions. In other words, the DM outright provoked the paladin to attack, then slammed him for violating his alignment. The player in question was a very experienced gamer. He also had worked VERY HARD to get his paladin's charisma score as high as possible in order to attract the largest number of followers AND to secure their loyalty. He would NOT have just charged into the orc encampment without any provocation. According to everyone I talked to, it was just a blantant "screw job" by the DM and nothing else.

I had a similar incident happen to one of MY characters in a game. I was playing a thief and had joined with a group of travelers I didn't know that well (but they had traveled together for a long time so they knew each other very well). Early in the campaign, the DM decided to mess with my character. This unusual character showed up to confront the group and was immediately attacked by one of the members (even though the character had not made any hostile actions yet). The character pretended to be an innocent victim and said "You attack me when I don't even have a weapon?" The party member insisted on continuing with the attack, so my thief decided to let the newcomer use his short sword. When the battle was over, the character returned my sword and had somehow bestowed an enchantment on it, making it a +2 sword. Well, my character was happy with that. What I did NOT know was that this was an "age old" nemesis of this particular group and he had done a LOT of stuff to these adventurers in the past. So they did not look favorably on my actions. Still, all that was well and good until a couple of sessions later. In that game, another party member kept making rude comments and implied threats to my thief over his earlier actions. I was getting pretty fed up with it, but kept letting it slide. Then the DM took the player into another room. When they came back, the player pointed straight at me and said "YOU are in BIG TROUBLE!" The next thing I knew, my thief came under attack from several party members. The DM had taken the player aside and had actually told him a bald-faced lie about what my character had done with their nemesis. This was NOT "in game" info. This was the DM telling the player a flat out lie in order to make him attack my character. The next day, I went to the DM at his work and I gave him an earful. I told him I was NOT going to let him screw over one of my characters just so HE could get a chuckle out of it and I told him I was removing my character from his game immediately. I also told him if he pulled any more crap like that, I would quit gaming under him completely. He agreed he had been out of line and allowed me to bring in a different character. When the campaign was finally over, one of the other players said "See, man, you shouldn't have had your thief leave the party. Now he's trapped in this gameworld forever." I said "No he isn't. I took him out of the gameworld the day after the DM screwed him over". All the other players got really hacked off, but I told them I was NOT going to let ANY DM screw over a character just for the fun of it. Had I done something deliberately to screw the party, then yeah, I would have just had to take my lumps. But when the DM actually altered the game so that the party attacked my character...nope, sorry - ain't gonna happen. [img]graemlins/nono.gif[/img]