Roleplaying/Alignment Dilemmas

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Originally posted by Cerek: quote: 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.[/QUOTE]It's roleplaying to the bone, Cerek, at least as I see it. You cannot expect your character knowing all that is going on in the game, can you? If your character stumbles across a group of orcs and he kills them, it is only naturally that he finds out afterwards what the orcs were about. Not necesserily through someone outside (like the DM), but through a note or something. In my humble opinion there doesn't have to be any reason at all to know something beforehand. It's part of being human, or in case of fantasy roleplaying, demi-human. Your character isn't infallible, and thus would have to face the consequences of his actions, be it good or bad.

The problem is, though, that most games (or worlds, for that matter) don't elaborate on situations. Once it's done, it's done. You seldomly get a chance to explain your actions and try to set things right if you're a good character. While that isn't necessary, you're at least obliged to your character to make the situation understandable. Not only to yourself but also the inhabitants of the fantasy world you character dwells in.

Originally posted by Cerek: 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.

That's what's tricky about alignments. While it is a good system to keep classes in check if you're actually playing a class based RPG, it proposes problems when it comes to moral issues like the ones we're discussing here. The only valid solution, in which penalizing characters is done correctly, is by using beforehand knowledge (as you yourself have said as well, Cerek) to place the judgement upon. A DM should know what the motives of your characters are, should know if the motives are valid for that specific alignment, and should know what the consequences of that specific action should be.

The problem is causality really. What are the results of the actions on the longer term? No one [but the DM] can predict such a thing, but penalizing someone for his actions right away might seem unfair at that point, but understandable later on in the game and vice versa. This, basically, is the reason why I have problems with games that support reputation systems (even KotOR which has a very 'fluid' form of a reputation system IMHO) but I can't come up with a better system just yet.

Originally posted by Cerek: quote: 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. [/QUOTE]Good point. But how do you propose to penalize such an action? No one has seen it happening, so no one knows... Take the situation one step further though, and we have a solution (a possible one at least): the owner of the house finds out there are things missing and reports it to the local militia. The owner of the house remembers you entering the house at that specific time, so that makes you a suspect. The militia wants to find you, and may find you or not. Whenever you return to that town (or part of the city) they may arrest you. Consequences? Who knows? Maybe you've sold all the valuables you found in that house. Maybe you haven't, and you get prison sentence, or you have to pay a fine. Maybe someone comes across the stolen goods and the path leads directly to you so you cannot plead innocent at all. Who knows? It's all about cause and effect, but the situation is so darn complex that it is probably too hard to implement in a computer game in total.

Originally posted by Cerek: quote: 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] [/QUOTE]While inconvenient, it's not something that's faulty about the system, n'est-ce pas? It's causality as well alright (I think I'm starting to sound like the Matrix here... [img]graemlins/matrix.gif[/img] ), but with a pinch of human subjectivity added to it. Real-life causality, if I may call it that way. The consequences of someone disliking you, your character, both, or just blatantly because he felt like doing it.

EDIT: I did so many Preview Posts my eyes still twitch from checking the quotes and the HTML code. And still I didn't get it absolutely right [img]graemlins/crying.gif[/img]

[ 01-24-2005, 02:57 PM: Message edited by: Link ]

[Cerek]

Originally posted by Link: It's roleplaying to the bone, Cerek, at least as I see it. You cannot expect your character knowing all that is going on in the game, can you? If your character stumbles across a group of orcs and he kills them, it is only naturally that he finds out afterwards what the orcs were about. Not necesserily through someone outside (like the DM), but through a note or something. In my humble opinion there doesn't have to be any reason at all to know something beforehand. It's part of being human, or in case of fantasy roleplaying, demi-human. Your character isn't infallible, and thus would have to face the consequences of his actions, be it good or bad. The problem is, though, that most games (or worlds, for that matter) don't elaborate on situations. Once it's done, it's done. You seldomly get a chance to explain your actions and try to set things right if you're a good character. While that isn't necessary, you're at least obliged to your character to make the situation understandable. Not only to yourself but also the inhabitants of the fantasy world you character dwells in.

I agree you can't know everything beforehand. Otherwise, there really wouldn't be much point in roleplaying the game at all, since you would theoretically know what was going to happen. But for a "good" thief to claim stealing from the poorbox doesn't violate his chosen alignment, he would have to know the church was not distributing the money like they were supposed to, or that the church elders were skimming from the poorbox. Without that knowledge to justify his actions, he is simply filching money from the church without just cause. Even if he does give the money to his church or to the poor himself, that doesn't negate that he stole the money to begin with. Q had a good point in saying that it might have been a Temple of Talos or some other "evil" diety. Then again, evil churches aren't well known for sponsering charity donations.

There are situations where you just have to make your best guess, but in that case, the character should still base his action on his chosen alignment. Here is an example from the very first game I ever played.

I was playing a CG Ranger and we were sitting in a bar. A drunk stumbled into my character and spilled his drink on me, then he got belligerent and said some crude remarks. I had no idea what to do so I asked my buddies. All of them were learning the game too, but one had supposedly played before. He told me I should punch the drunk - so I did, and managed to knock him out. Then he said "Search him and see if he has any gold". OK, I did and took the money I found. The DM was very lenient since this was my very first game. He said "OK, you take his money....and you notice that everybody in the bar is staring at you because they're not used to seeing this type of behavior from a ranger."

Now that I'm more experienced, I would never have a ranger punch out a commoner just for being rude and I would never attack him at all unless he drew a weapon and attacked me first. On the other hand, I also played a CN Barbarian in several games. HE would have NO problem with knocking the drunk out on general principle.

The player is supposed to determine the personality and motivations of his character when he creates them. Then he chooses an alignment appropriate for that class and personality. During the game, his actions need to follow that chosen alignment, or the DM may penalize him. In some cases, the character may just have to do some kind of penance. In other situatons, they may be forced to accept a permanent change of alignment that more closely matches the actions they took. This is also the principle the Virtue Mod operates on. It looks at the characters chosen alignment, then compares it to their in-game actions. Then it decides if those actions "fit" the alignment, or if the character is violating their chosen alignment. If the latter is the case, then the Virtue Mod adjusts their alignment according to the actions they have taken.

I decided not to respond to the rest of your post because it was getting to be very long. I also agreed with most of what you said in the rest of your statements, so I didn't see any need to add an extra perspective to them.

[Luvian]

Originally posted by Cerek: There have been many discussions about specific encounters and how there are some situations where a player must either go against their chosen roleplaying personality/alignment or forfeit a huge amount of experience. Naturally, these discussions prompt others to either find a way to justify the action or to condemn it as being contrary to the chosen alignment. This thread is designed exclusively for such discussions. If you have a particular encounter that is causing a dilemma with your chosen class or alignment, list it here and discuss why it presents a conflict. Then we can discuss whether there is a way around the conflict or if the player may just be forced to "suspend" their roleplaying for that particular encounter. A couple of encounters that have been discussed recently are: 1) A Neutral Good Swashbuckler being told to kill Gethras by Edwin. The player has so far found no real way to justify killing him and when he DID kill Gethras, his alignment was shifted to True Neutral (thanks to the installation of the Virtue Mod). So is there a way a Neutral Good character can justify breaking into a mage's house and killing him based solely on the behest of another character that the PC knows is evil? 2) The execution of Viconia. Could a Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral PC justify intervening in an execution which - as far as they know - is being conducted in accordance to the Law? Since both alignments put a heavy emphasis on obeying Law (even if the individual disagrees with a particular law), is there anyway to justify them preventing an execution that may be perfectly legal under Athkala's Law? 3) What about the "fee" required by the Cowled Wizards to allow the party members to cast spells? Can a lawful PC justify NOT paying that fee in order to save their gold? Can they justify killing the Cowled Wizards when they attack the party for violating the rule and casting magic in public without a "license"? 4) On the other side of the coin, can an evil PC justify allowing Keldorn, Anomen or Aerie to even join their party in the first place? I have one game I am playing with a Neutral Evil Assassin. He did allow Anomen to join the party, but only so that he could make sure that Anomen failed his test and became a regular fighter. As soon as he destroyed Anomen's lifelong goal, he kicked him out of the party. (yes, it can be fun to be evil [img]graemlins/firedevil.gif[/img] )

Aligments are the bane of roleplaying, it's an arbitrary system that restrict players and oversimplify everyting. No one follow such a strict code in real life. You define someone by his personality, his interests, dreams and and agendas, not some moral code.

That's an horrible system. It first started as a simple good, neutral and evil. In the next edition they added the lawfull, neutral and chaotic axis to try to make something less stupid with it. It's not a deep system, just a dumb way to label characters.

Most D&D players I've seen just tell themselves "My character is good so he must help people, he's lawfull so he follow laws."

Wow! What a complex character!

Just look at spells like detect evil/good, protection from, and smite... Just because someone is selfish, he represent evil? Someone that help his neighboor represent good? And here I thougt only angels/deamons were made of that stuff...

What about the misguided guy that kill criminal in the name of Tyr, is he evil? He believe his cause to be righteous... Who decide what is evil and is not? Is it because he's killing people? Adventurers do that all the time...

You can't describe someone with 2 words...

No one is "good" or "evil"...

[ 01-24-2005, 05:27 PM: Message edited by: Luvian ]

[Q'alooaith]

Originally posted by Luvian: No one is "good" or "evil"...

But a quick shot in the dark here..

Everyone is "good" and/or "evil"


Alignments have become the bane of roleplaying, due to people taking them as rules for actions, or taking them to mean more than they do..

I like to take alignments as how somone is generaly motivated, or how they see the events in the world..

Alignments are intended to help decide what somone who's personality might be radicaly diffrent from your own would do when faced with a situation, but is should never force actions.


-=][=-
Cerek, my D&D P'np experience in years, zero.. But that means about this much *puts fingers so there's no gap between them*
Asking how long somone's played a system is like pointing to a post count..
-=][=-

[Dace De'Briago]

Originally posted by Luvian: No one is "good" or "evil"...

I am pretty evil getting out of bed in the mornings let me tell you...

[Jerr Conner]

I thought of a way o justify my NG Swashbuckler killing Gethras. He originally took the Mae'var quest not because of the stronghold, because that wasn't offered, but to help Yoshimi not get killed for being a freelancer who doesn't pay his 'debts'. My Character holds some morals higher than others, one being help a friend in need no matter what the consequences (Baring it doesn't hurt other friends).

So in order to pay Yoshimo's debt, I have to expose Mae'var. But I can't do that if I don't prove myself.

Also I can factor in that I was attacked first by Gethras's minions when I really only went there to talk to him, and possibly find a way to get him to lay off of Edwin. Also, I am a thief. I went in his house to steal, and sometimes in order for me and friends not to die we have to defend ourselves, which may result in the mage's death.

Also, though this may be grasping at straws, if a LG character feels that they must always follow duty first, then as their duty set out by Edwin to kill the mage they may feel it's wrong but are only following orders, and their duty.

However, I agree with Luvian. Alignments aren't too good.

[Lemmy]

Cerek: 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.

If the hypothetical seems like a "trick," it's because the question is too general to provide an answer that applies to all cases.

As I said at the beginning, we need more information to determine if the alignment was followed or not.

Ding. But, as I mentioned previously, it'd be better to determine whether the action was consistent with the established character. The alignment describes the character, nothing more.

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.

You're not following me in "thinking outside the box." The computer is an efficient but uncreative DM: it only knows one story, and it plays the same one all the time. You're not given the option of soliciting money door-to-door from the townspeople. This is where the player can be creative since the computer cannot be. He can choose to imagine that his party requested (and was granted) donations from townspeople, such as items sitting around in their desk drawers. As such, what is justified depends not on what is hardcoded, but rather on whether your character and story are consistent.

Luvian: Aligments are the bane of roleplaying, it's an arbitrary system that restrict players and oversimplify everyting. No one follow such a strict code in real life. You define someone by his personality, his interests, dreams and and agendas, not some moral code.

I agree. Playing a consistent character should be the point of roleplaying. Unfortunately, the alignment system comes across in such a way that players end up doing just what you indicate:

Most D&D players I've seen just tell themselves "My character is good so he must help people, he's lawfull so he follow laws."

When, if anything, it's closer to the reverse. "My character blahblahblah, so I will describe him as Lawful Good." But even then there are some characters that, to my mind, seem to defy classification.

Do you think you can dissect me with this blunt little tool? --Hannibal Lecter, "The Silence of the Lambs"

None of the alignments could give you a feel for what Hannibal's really like. The strength of his character makes it seem inappropriate to even attempt it.

The problem with RPing in CRPGs, I find, is that it's difficult to get a good feel for a character. It's easy to fall into the trap of "My character is Good, so I do this quest" since there's so much gameplay and very little roleplay required. But writing about the character, I've found, gives me a glimpse into the character, his motivations, his prejudices, his intellect, and all manner of other things. As tedious as writing can be, it's also fun -- and it's the best aid I've found to roleplaying CRPGs.

-Lem