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Old 01-03-2005, 05:23 PM   #31
Rikard T'Aranaxz
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Quote:
Originally posted by Q'alooaith:

Prot. from Evil works by the karma, undead have bad karma (violation the natural order of the world will do that to a person).. So rather than think of it as somone deciding to put a shield aganst who they think is evil, but as the caster opening a connection to some spritual plane..

Good and evil are subjective, you the DM are not.
I tend to disagree. By installing a karma based evil/good system or a good/evil system based on the DM-way of thinking, you basically say that were is an objective way of measuring morals. you say that one set of morals is better then every other set of morals and that those people who differ in opinion are to be considered evil. I refuse to implent such a rule in my world. I believe players should be able to chose their own set of morals, and though the ingame world may judge him for that, i dont think spells should. i think in all cases spells should lack any kind of morals and be indifferent to human ideas like good and evil.

Then again this is purely my opinion and any DM is free to set up their own world.
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Old 01-03-2005, 08:03 PM   #32
Q'alooaith
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Rikard, the alignment is not what the player think's of themselves.

Quote:
Alignment is central to a D&D character's personality. D&D uses two measures to determine a specific character's ethical and moral attitudes and behavior.

The moral axis has three positions: good, neutral and evil. Good characters generally care about the welfare of others. Neutral people generally care about their own welfare. Evil people generally seek to harm the others' welfare.

The ethical axis has three positions as well: lawful, neutral, and chaotic. Lawful people generally follow the social rules as they understand them. Neutral people follow those rules find convenient or obviously necessary. And chaotic people seek to upset the social order and either institute change, or simply create anarchy.
Now, this is talking about how somone behaves, you don't let the player pick their alignment, but you work it out from their actions..

A lord may see himself as good, for proteching his people from invaders, that he's raised taxes to do this and he's gotten into the habit of evicting people who fail to pay.


I'd rate the above lord as Lawful Neutral, while he might view himself Lawfull Good, he is looking after everyone on his land after all, and look he helped that commoner who got sick once..


Anyway, you back yourself into a corner.

You say you don't force morals on your players, and let them pick, and then go on to state that the gameworld might judge them for their actions..

You have to make a call as to what is a good action and what is an evil action, and instill this into the NPC's of your world. But still you've judged what is right and wrong.


Basicaly all you have to do is note if somones doing "evil" things, killing babies in their crib's would count as evil, big thing's like that..

Summoning a demon, that's evil.

Giving to the poor, that's good (little missguided but good)


I do agree, you should never force your players to stick to whatever alginment they picked, or have ended up, but you should not ignore alignment, which is what you do when you rule out spell's like protechion from evil and smite and so on.

Let them make their choices, hell if your forcing people to do things they don't want to then you should stop being a DM, no realy your just playing with yourself if you force somone down a path they don't want to take.
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Old 01-03-2005, 08:46 PM   #33
Rikard T'Aranaxz
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ok killing babies. You see it as evil. now theres a priest that can save an entire village by sacrificing a baby. I see that as evil. That priest might see it as good, because he saves an entire village. how is a spell to judge whether its good or evil? now what if you must turn in your party because they broke the law? an officer would see that as lawfull. the party sees it as chaotic (since rules were broken) how is a spell to jugde? A Druid joins the evil side because good is taking over the world. I see that as evil because he joins an evil side. The druid sees it as "true neutral" because its balanced. a neutral god might even see it as good because he is bringing balance. you could also judge it as lawfull because he is following druid codes, or you could see it as chaotic because he keeps switching sides.

My complaint about allignments isnt about players trying to follow allignments, or about what the gameworld might think, Its about a moralless essence called magical energy that is suppost to judge the deeds of moral beings. you claim that i talk myself in the corner with the statement:

"You say you don't force morals on your players, and let them pick, and then go on to state that the gameworld might judge them for their actions.."

however you confiniently left out the most important part of my entire post

" i dont think spells should."

in my opinion the gameworld and its morals do not reflect the way a moralless energy would judge. The gameworld is irrelavent for allignments because in the gameworld everybody has different opinions aswell. spells can judge which set of morals is best, and because of that spells cant judge evil/good chaotic/lawfull. spells cant sense the reasons behind the actions of people.

[ 01-03-2005, 08:49 PM: Message edited by: Rikard T'Aranaxz ]
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Old 01-03-2005, 08:55 PM   #34
Rikard T'Aranaxz
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let me elaborate on that btw

I dont think one world can have one set of morals that are always considered best. morals change with time even in a DM's campaign world, and because of that, Morals can NEVER be objective. Something that can NEVER be objective, cannot be objectively be decided by a brainless, moralless substance that knows nothing of the time place or surroundings in which it is contexted. Therefor spells can NEVER stop someone based upon morals.

This is my opinion. and i leave it at that. if you dont understand something then please ask. if you disagree with me, feel free to disagree. if thats the case then we have a different opinion about the basis of spells and DM-ing and thats a discussion that will never be won by either.
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Old 01-03-2005, 08:59 PM   #35
Variol (Farseer) Elmwood
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I think if there were no alignments things would just be too easy. You do what's right for the moment because it's easier. Our entire party is some type of good. I wouldn't play it any other way. You gotta think more, strategize more play more etc.
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Old 01-03-2005, 09:08 PM   #36
Rikard T'Aranaxz
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i disagree. without allignment based spellds, the gameworld will still jugde your actions, and politics will still have to be quite subtile. Also think about your own life. dont you do what you consider right for the moment? i know i do. I dont think about the possible effects on my own morals when i do something.
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Old 01-03-2005, 09:11 PM   #37
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Only if the party's full of powergamers. Roleplayers will stick to the character, and a good character is a good character with or without a number saying so.
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Old 01-03-2005, 10:42 PM   #38
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I like the alignment system I found in the back of the 1st ed. Greyhawk hardback, where it gives a scale of 1-20 for law-chaos and one for good-evil. I'm not omniscient so obviously I'd have to make judgement calls based on my beliefs, but that's about the only way I could pull it off. At least I play with like-minded people so conflicts should be uncommon occurances. This sytem turns 9 alignments into over 400 shades of gray, and unless you're in the 0-5 or 15-20 range you're basically still considered "neutral". The good have to be really good, evil really evil, etc.

I'd only change the scale to 0-20, so 10 would be true neutral, instead of 10.5 being true neutral. ([1+20]/2=10.5; the rules always round to a whole number). I'd use this only because my last DM said that torture is flat out evil and forced automatic alignment change to evil if you engaged in it. At least with this system it might not be automatic, but it would have a heavy influence on the good-evil scale. Same deal for slaughtering innocents/helpless. Adds a new element to a coup de grace attempt, too. "So you're really going to chop off the head of the guy laying helpless at your feet? Okay then...heheheh."

Using this system you should probably *not* tell players their current alignment, but when divine casters lose their spells, barbarians can't rage, bards can't use their special song effects... they should get the hint. If you're a mascicist you could always go with a 0-100 scale. (0-25 and 75-100 being extremes.)

For philip (and everyone else) I find Unearthed Arcana rules for prestige paladins/rangers/bards fun. Makes the classes that much more special, plus they end up with better spell casting, and the PCs have to "prove themselves" if they really want to get into the paladinhood, especially if implementing the 0-20 alignment scale. I'm undecided on the alternate AC based on classes and levels (p136 UA, if you have it), maybe if I used a firearms heavy campaign where armor is socially unacceptable. Anyway, UA and Libris Mortis are my two favorite add-ons to 3e, and Frostburn if you're partial to cold environment campaigns (I am, because I live in cold places and really understand the perils of it).

The post is a bit long, sorry. I'm a DnD super-geek. (Why can I remember reams of charts and stats from the game but not my home phone number?!)
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Old 01-04-2005, 03:18 PM   #39
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I agree with you, Rikard T'Aranaxz, about the whole issue of what constitues "evil". One idea about this is "faith based" spells (priest spells) would already have its set belief in that the beliefs set down by the power would dictate that. However, since the morality/diety issue wouldn't necessarily affect the Magicuser spell, this could (and for the sake of "realism" in said fantasy world, should) change the way the spell works.

Here's an interesting idea that would come from that: say the characters are in a heated battle with some enemy and they cast said spell and NOTHING HAPPENS!!!
Now they have a new puzzle to mess with (is enemy evil? did I tick off my diety? is there some kind of problem with magic?) and one of my favorite things to do is give new puzzles to deal with. They have an answer, tho, so as not to frustrate my players too much...

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Old 01-04-2005, 07:21 PM   #40
Variol (Farseer) Elmwood
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The other thing is that it's not "you" it's a character! Now, if you went without alignment you would be the same thing all the time with different equipment; boring!
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