TRPG General Chat

BESW

12:00

The whole Book of Exalted Deeds suffers from that mentality, as most of its mechanical content is merely an inversion of mechanics from the Book of Vile Darkness. We see similar "symmetry for its own sake" design in the various non-aligned planes and entities as well, throughout the system's expansion material.

Dorian

Symmetry for its own sake is great when it gets you around meaningless alignment restrictions.

Oblivious Sage

@Dorian A better solution would be to not have alignment restrictions (meaningless being redundant in this case).

Dorian

Right, but they didn't feel like getting rid of that in the core book. Instead they created clones.

And since there's a bit of a majority of DM's that stick to the RAW, we have to find other means of playing what we want without the alignment restriction.

Oblivious Sage

They didn't feel like getting rid of it at all in 3.5, despite admitting in a published book that the law/chaos axis was complete BS.

Dorian

Hey I happen to like the Law/Chaos axis, and was displeased when they gutted it for 4e

Good/Evil/Law/Chaos, I like it all.

Oblivious Sage

12:09

It's not a true axis.

BESW

Or (setting aside the very attractive idea of not using alignment at all), they could have made classes based on the other alignments that weren't paladin clones but actually used mechanics which reflected the ethos of each alignment extreme.

Dorian

I just don't like playing Lawful Good

Oblivious Sage

It's very easy to make a realistic character who is both strongly Chaotic & strongly Lawful according to the descriptions of those alignments.

Law & Chaos are orthagonal, not opposites (as described).

Dorian

True, but then they'd be neutral.

The Neutral portion of that can mean either they balance Law and Chaos, or they simply choose not to worry about either. Or some other mixture.

Neutral doesn't mean that they're not inclined to Law or Chaos. It means that they're not MORE inclined one way or the other.

Magician

@Dorian Except it's the same act that can be interpreted as either. In which case it's not an absolute universal force, but a matter of perspective.

Dorian

12:12

@Magician True, but so is Good and Evil.

Magician

As in, is Batman Lawful or Chaotic? He's a vigilante, openly defying authority. But he has a strict code of behavior.

Oblivious Sage

@Dorian Which is why alignment is a poorly designed system in the first place.

Magician

@Dorian Ah, but some acts can be classified as always Evil: murder, for instance. What act is always Chaotic?

Oblivious Sage

Alignment is an attempt to file the entirety of human behavior into 9 distinct boxes.

Dorian

Most DMs/GMs I play with that use alignments like that generally view it on two scales. An inner and an outer.

Oblivious Sage

12:14

@Magician Murdering an evil despot is against the law, but it's hard to argue that it's evil.

Dorian

Murder isn't always evil. Is killing an evil dictator evil? No, it's a good act.

Similarly, saving someone's life isn't always good. Saving said evil dictator could be considered evil.

Nahyn Oklauq

Well in 3.5, a murder is always Evil (in RAW) : a good person should not kill the dictator but send him in jail

Oblivious Sage

The real problem with alignment is that it's tied to mechanics, and therefore dictates your fluff. Mechanics should never tell you how to play your character.

5

Magician

My internet connection is very spotty currently, so I may not be able to respond in a timely manner - just a heads up.

Dorian

Well it can be, but many DM's work around that to a certain extent.

Oblivious Sage

12:16

@NahynOklauq And if all law enforcement is loyal to the dictator?

Inbar Rose

There have been so many alignment discussions in this chat room.. wow...

Dorian

Alignment is as much a matter of belief as it is a matter of perception.

Inbar Rose

There should be bookmarks, and if not, there should be a question on the main site about it.

Magician

Anyways. Alignments are a source of so many arguments... I've not just removed them in my setting, I've destroyed them. There used to be Good and Evil in the world :D

Nahyn Oklauq

That is a problem show in Exalted Deed (if I remember well)

Inbar Rose

12:17

@BESW Do you have that great link to end the alignment discussions?

Dorian

Generally, Good/Evil/Law/Chaos is dictated on a local means. A DM who uses this to their advantage is a fun DM to play with. Say for example a LG hero is trapped in an evil society and must live and act as a normal citizen in there. Obeying the Law in this city would likely cause him to commit Evil acts, while breaking the Law could be perceived as Chaotic.

BESW

@InbarRose Umm. remind me?

Oblivious Sage

@Dorian That's not fun, that's a DM screwing out of your class abilities.

BESW

Making the Tough Decisions?

Magician

@ObliviousSage Eeh, but doesn't a high Intelligence score tell you how to play your character?

Inbar Rose

12:19

@BESW No, there was a question on the main site about alignment.

You linked it a few times

It had a lot of great answers.

BESW

Oh. Did I answer it?

Dorian

@ObliviousSage Not true there. You see, a good DM would use this not only to test your convictions, but also in a way to see how you act.

BESW

26

Q: How can a GM justify changing a player's alignment?

Lately, in one of my campaigns, I've been having problems with a character who everyone agrees is acting out of alignment. Everyone, that is, but him. The problem, of course, is that he's playing a Monk, and his actions are clearly chaotic in nature. Not just on rare occasions, either, but contin...

Inbar Rose

Don't recall if you were one of the answerer's but it had good stuff.

Dorian

You can actually play that type of situation without screwing anything up.

Oblivious Sage

12:20

@Dorian I'm sure all DMs are good and would never screw their players over because that's what the RAW says to do. /sarcasm

Inbar Rose

No, no. It was a question on whether alignment is important or something

Or about why to use the alignment system..

I don't recall the question, just the answers.

Dorian

DM"s that deliberately fuck a character out of their class abilities will soon have no players.

That is a proven fact.

DM's that actually challenge the players on both a mechanical and a roleplaying standpoint are generally viewed with great respect and admiration.

Oblivious Sage

The problem is that the rules guide new DMs down the path to being bad DMs.

BESW

a) Let's use more moderate language when possible, as this site is for 13-year-olds and up.

Dorian

They don't. You see, every book deliberately makes clear that the rules are all guidelines.

BESW

12:22

b) We have plenty of questions on this site which show that many groups think that using the rules as a shield for bad behaviour is how the game should be played, and exempts the participant from guilt or consequences.

Dorian

A good DM and a bad DM are generally going to be good or bad before they even open a book.

BESW

@InbarRose This one?

26

Q: How can a GM justify changing a player's alignment?

Lately, in one of my campaigns, I've been having problems with a character who everyone agrees is acting out of alignment. Everyone, that is, but him. The problem, of course, is that he's playing a Monk, and his actions are clearly chaotic in nature. Not just on rare occasions, either, but contin...

pathfinder gm-techniques dungeons-and-dragons alignment

Oblivious Sage

@Dorian So basically, because they said it's OK to ignore a bad rule, the rule isn't bad?

BESW

Whoops, same link.

Nahyn Oklauq

Like this ?
http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/22757/games-with-a-granular-alignment-system

Dorian

12:24

Because it's all in the mindset. A DM who wants to help their players and wants everyone to enjoy the game will find ways to make that happen. A DM who doesn't want that will generally lose their players and wonder why.

Nahyn Oklauq

Whoops, how do we send a topic ? :o

BESW

@NahynOklauq Paste the link in its own line, with http://

Dorian

Like the Pirate's Code, they're all only guidelines. A newbie DM can learn to play and build by RAW, playing the intended game, and once they know the system they can make a game work better.

Oblivious Sage

@Dorian Again, the problem is not DMs who know what they're doing, the problem is people who are just learning how to play, and assume the rules were designed by someone trying to help them rather than by someone trying to sabotage them.

Dorian

Players give slack to newbie DM's. Players don't like experienced DM's who sabotage them.

The rules are designed as guidelines and are there to help. A newbie shouldn't be playing with every book in the game, but rather should learn from the three core books.

Oblivious Sage

12:26

@Dorian It's a question of building habits.

Inbar Rose

@BESW The whole "subjective vs objective alignment"

Oblivious Sage

Alignment is in the 3 core books.

Dorian

It teaches the BASICS

That's the point of the three core books.

Oblivious Sage

Paladins & the loss of class abilities based on alignment are part of the core books.

Inbar Rose

And "Roleplay vs mechanics" of alignment.

Dorian

12:27

Once you have a foundation you can adjust that.

I know what's in the core books.

Oblivious Sage

And if you teach people that that sort of thing is basic then they keep using it, even when it's wrong for them.

Dorian

The point is, if your powers are reliant on your set of codes then yes you should lose them.

But the alignment restriction should account for different types of codes.

Oblivious Sage

@Dorian Why should your powers be reliant on a set of codes someone else made up?

Dorian

Gods

Inbar Rose

There was that great quote of the paladin willing to give up his code to kill a bad guy, remember that? @BESW

Dorian

12:28

That's kind of the bloody point of Paladins...

And Knights...

And Champions...

And every bloody class dedicated to a cause or purpose.

Oblivious Sage

It denies players the possibility to play a complex, three-dimensional character

Inbar Rose

Guys, hold up one second.

Dorian

Their powers and abilities come from the fact that they are dedicated.

And no it doesn't deny them that.

Inbar Rose

You are making this discussion an argument.

Oblivious Sage

It says if you try to play a character who's conflicted, who doesn't see the world in black & white, then you have to play a sidekick.

Dorian

12:29

Breaking your alignment once does not constitute a fallen paladin.

Breaking your alignment chronically does.

Oblivious Sage

The problem is that the rules lend themselves to the interpretation that it only takes once.

Dorian

You can play a Lawful Good paladin who is troubled and conflicted his entire life and he might NEVER lose his alignment.

Alignment is as much the effort you make as the result you produce.

If you TRY to be GOOD and LAWFUL that makes the difference.

Inbar Rose

Rules are guidelines. You don't need to follow the rules if they get int eh way of having fun. That being said, the rules include alignment as a mechanic and it is assumed you will also use it for roleplay - BUT! There is no definitive explanation of objective/vs/subjective alignment. Alignment is absolute.

Oblivious Sage

And, again, new players & DMs who don't realize how easy it is to ruin their game with alignment tend to pick the wrong interpretation.

BESW

Here's the thing: step back a moment. D&D is about characters with power. Characters without power are not built for fun in the D&D mode. In another kind of game it might be great. But in D&D, paladins and clerics come with in-built self-destruct buttons that remove them from the game's own established system of fun-having.

Dorian

12:31

Even if you fail, even if you must preform an evil act, the fact that you tried, and the fact that you regret it, that is what sets it up.

BESW

In order to have fun with them after that, the group needs to build an entirely different set of parameters beyond what D&D offers. Whether that's a story which is fun to tell, it's not a story which D&D supports.

Dorian

The rules don't say that you lose your alignment for preforming a singular evil act.

Or a singular chaotic act.

But, a good DM might still cause a player to suffer a house-ruled temporary penalty in penance if the player is the type to embrace that punishment. Had one that did it.

Inbar Rose

Do you have that quote with the paladin? @BESW

BESW

@InbarRose I don't have any firm recollection of what you're talking about, assuming you're still talking about the same thing.

Oblivious Sage

Dorian, again, good DMs are not the problem.

Dorian

12:33

Bad DMs will be bad with any rules backing them.

BESW

4

Q: How to impose consequences for breaking the Paladin's Code without coming off as a insensitive GM?

It all started when we were going through a premade adventure's flavor text and got to the bit when the party walked into the town of Night Falls. One PC, a paladin, used his class ability to detect evil before entering town. Well of course he was outside the gate so there was nothing. The party ...

dnd-3.5e gm-techniques paladin

Inbar Rose

@BESW I don't remember who, maybe @JonathanHobbs posted a quote of a paladin monologue about begging the bad guy to break him,.

Oblivious Sage

Again, bad DMs are not the problem.

Dorian

New DMs can become good DMs with patience, but a new DM with bad intentions will be a bad DM no matter what rules are in place.

BESW

This discussion has stopped being about alignment, and is instead about whether a system can objectively support or inhibit certain kinds of gameplay.

Oblivious Sage

12:34

DMs just learning how to DM are the problem, because they can be taught to be good or bad, and alignment tends to teach them to be bad.

Dorian

A new DM with good intentions will find ways around the established guidelines because that's what they are. GUIDELINES

Every book states that.

That is the point.

The golden rule is the DM decides every rule.

It is extremely rare for someone to play EVERYTHING by RAW.

Oblivious Sage

Yes, but DMs who are new and don't know what they're doing often play it safe & stick with the RAW.

BESW

Or at least, as close to the RAW as our understanding allows.

Oblivious Sage

Dorian, I'm beginning to think your experience with roleplaying has been way better than everyone else on the Internet's.

Dorian

They will stick to the RAW until a point where RAW causes problems with the group as a whole, and they will learn.

I've had some real scumbag DMs.

Magician

12:36

@Dorian Except... A new GM needs guidance. That's how people learn. And these books offer guidelines, as you stress, that are not necessarily good.

Dorian

I've had some complete newbie DMs.

I've had some great DMs who seem to love torturing their players. In fact, my favorite DM has a tendency to leave many dead PCs in his wake. Especially when he forgets his notes.

Or is hung over.

BESW

@Dorian In my personal experience as a GM, it took me years to start moving away from the D&Disms that were actively impeding my games. I wasn't running pure RAW, but I was still convinced that D&D's rulebooks had some innate authority beyond my own.

I'm still working to recognise the parts of my GMing style which are just leftover D&Disms.

Dorian

Funny, I figured out that they were guidelines the first time I GM'd.

BESW

You're working under a dichotomy that was false for me.

Oblivious Sage

What BESW said. The problem is that most new DMs assume the books were written by experts, and that it's better to take their word about how to play.

BESW

12:39

There is a big difference between "you can bend and break the rules when you want" and recognising that the fundamental philosophy underlying the rules is actively impeding my games.

Dorian

Funny thing, soo many books written by so called experts over the years have been proven wrong. In every field.

Every one of these experts is human, and thus fallible.

BESW

Again, you're oversimplifying the transaction and making it an all-or-nothing deal.

Oblivious Sage

And a group of 15-year-olds in their parents' basement reading a D&D manual for the first time are supposed to realize that?

Dorian

Understand that and everything you come across is suddenly much more understandable.

BESW

If I'm unsure about how to run something, I'm going to concede to the people who wrote the manual; they've got experience and were paid to write it, I'm just a guy using it.

Dorian

12:41

I'm not oversimplifying it at all. It is simple. If I'm unsure on how to run something the first thing I do is ask a person who has more experience with it.

Not consult a book.

BESW

That doesn't mean I take their word as infallible, but I will tend to assume they speak with experience and knowledge I don't have. I will not automatically assume I'm right and they're wrong.

Oblivious Sage

And if the only person with more experience that's available is the book's author?

Magician

@ObliviousSage Besides, presumably the book author has the most experience.

BESW

In what universe is the book's author not assumed to have experience with the book's subject until proven otherwise?

Oblivious Sage

Exactly.

Inbar Rose

12:42

@BESW Found it (Paladin falling)

Dorian

You see there's the difference.

You're not asking the book's author.

You're consulting a book.

A book which has already stated, within its own pages, that it might be wrong.

BESW

@InbarRose Ooh, right.

Oblivious Sage

@Dorian You're incredibly wise, and do everything the right way regardless of bad advice. We get that. The problem is that you are superhumanly awesome, and most other people aren't.

Dorian

Everyone makes mistakes, that's the point of being human.

Magician

Which does happen, but we shouldn't assume it always does, otherwise there's no point in reading rulebooks.

Er. If the book's author failed to communicate their actual thoughts on the matter in the book, they have failed.

Dorian

12:43

If you can't learn from them, you're doomed to repeat them.

Inbar Rose

@BESW That's a great story, the one with the Sir Peter.

BESW

@Dorian [squint] Even in the manuals which advise some form of "Rule 0" (and not all RPGs do, but most D&D books do so let's go with that since it's the context of the conversation), they don't say "we might be wrong." They say "you might want to modify things as appropriate," and often leave no guidance re: when "appropriate" might be.

Dorian

If you're not sure of something, don't consult a book about it. Instead, speak to a human being, preferably one who knows what you're talking about. Speak to someone who can think. Looking at a book will always create the same answer.

Oblivious Sage

Dorian, what if there is nobody else around.

Dorian

Appropriate is determined by the person there.

BESW

12:45

@ObliviousSage This was my situation.

Dorian

We live on a planet with something like 80 billion people.

You can find someone.

Oblivious Sage

What if you live in Podunk, Arkansas, population 50, and every other person in a 100-mile radius thinks roleplaying is functionally equivalent to worshipping Satan?

Dorian

Well look at that.... Guess what state I'm in?

Not Arkansas.

I wonder how you're talking to me.

Oh right.

THE INTERNET.

-_-

Oblivious Sage

And every 15-year-old will of course be able to find good advice on the Internet.

Dorian

If the problem is enough of a problem, you WILL find someone to discuss it with.

Oblivious Sage

12:47

Again, you are saying that the book should be written in such a way that a new player needs to go on the Internet to get advice about how to interpret it.

Dorian

I'm sorry my wisdom isn't a panacea to everything, but NEITHER ARE THE BOOKS. Everyone will make mistakes. EVERYONE.

Oblivious Sage

Why not just write the book better?

Magician

It's hard to establish authority in rpgs, though. Once again, who would you trust, a guy who wrote the game, or an anon?

Dorian

I am saying the book was written in the way the author thought would be best.

The fallacies of the author are their own problem.

BESW

I've lost track of the topic of the conversation.

Dorian

12:48

If you want to write the book better, why don't you do it?

Oblivious Sage

And I'm saying that the author was an idiot who has done untold harm to the roleplaying genre, and that it is now possible to do better.

Dorian

Just like GTA is causing violence and drugs everywhere -_-

Oblivious Sage

...what?

Dorian

The author wrote something they thought was useful and entertaining. How the players take it is in their own hands.

BESW

[blink] I need a Shirley Temple. ttfn

Dorian

12:50

Most of us wouldn't be here if it weren't for those guidelines.

The vast majority of people who PLAY D&D and any other roleplaying game, WOULDN'T BE HERE if these books didn't exist.

Oblivious Sage

It is. The problem is that people often go in the direction they're pointed for a while before figuring out that it's the wrong direction for them.

And sometimes they get to a cliff before they figure it out.

Dorian

Then let the blind, witless, sheep who can't think for itself die I say. Someone trying to be a DM who can't think on their own doesn't deserve to be a DM.

In essence you're justifying the entire younger generation who is lost in peer pressure.

BESW

Gee, thanks.

Dorian

Know where I'd be if I followed peer pressure? Six feet under.

And of that I'm not kidding.

Oblivious Sage

I'm pretty sure there are people in the world right now who think that roleplaying in its entirety is stupid and people who play it are stupid and/or crazy solely because of a bad experience with alignment mechanics.

Wouldn't it be nice if there were more people roleplaying? Books would sell better, which means more resources put into them, which means better books.

There would be more room for smaller niche sub-markets.

Dorian

12:53

We live in a world of sheep. The only lesson anyone needs to learn is that they can think. That their brain is the singular most useful tool they can ever use. If they neglect that, they have no place in the world, let alone storytelling.

Alot of people have had bad experiences with mechanics other than D&D you know.

In fact, some have never even played D&D.

How do you explain those people hmm?

doppelgreener

@InbarRose definitely wasn't me; was it that KRyan post after all?

Dorian

Those that have never been exposed to this alignment system you so hate, these poor writers you so despise. How do you justify the fact that they too had bad experiences?

Because obviously D&D is the antichrist of tabletop roleplaying.

Oblivious Sage

D&D is great.

Magician

No one has claimed alignments are the only possible source of bad experiences in roleplaying.

Oblivious Sage

I've had good experiences with 2e, with 3e, with 3.5, with 4e, and with a lot of variants.

Inbar Rose

12:56

@JonathanHobbs Yes.

Dorian

I need a smoke and all I have is my pipe and this fatty hopz cigar... Hmm...

Oblivious Sage

But D&D is also the genre's flagship. It's the only roleplaying a lot of people know. And therefore flaws in D&D that harm the hobby are much more of a problem than equivalent flaws in other systems.

Dorian

mental note: after I get paid from unemployment again, go buy another corncob pipe...

Guess where I learned to tell stories? In school first, then I grew to forums. I tried to get into D&D at a young age but I could never find a group to play with. I had HeroQuest as a kid but eventually it got lame playing with my little bro and noone else. So I wrote stories on my own. Most of my stories were about people who broke the molds expected of their station. I liked that type of theme...

Inbar Rose

World of Darkness.

Dorian

Once I started getting better access of the internet, I joined a few roleplaying forums. Had some fun times.

Oblivious Sage

12:59

Again, you are a much better human being than a lot of other people who try out roleplaying. And maybe those other people deserve their fates, but I get more & better games out of them sticking with the hobby.

Dorian

I've been writing stories and roleplaying since late elementary school. I didn't start playing D&D until I dropped out of highschool around 16-17.

@InbarRose Played a bit of NWoD myself, not much though. Most of my tabletop was D&D3.5.

And a few home-made systems too ;)

doppelgreener

Wow.

@Dorian Whatever frame of reference for how it is being a DM, you have a pretty pleasant frame of reference a lot of people have not benefited from.

Dorian

I designed a system around using MTG cards once... Worked out pretty well.

doppelgreener

Including the bit where you took things as guidelines.

Dorian

Well, I've yet to become a "good DM" because I have little experience running D&D. I have some, but most of my experience running stories was just that, running stories.

doppelgreener

13:03

This debate seems way too ideological for me, and I am already frustrated by some things so I'm not going to tend to join that, except for pointing out: y'all have differing perspectives and different defining experiences, and suffering from asserting what is and isn't the problem based on your experiences.

Dorian

They didn't have rules, or alignments, or anything really. Just a setting, a basic plot, and a handful of willing players.

doppelgreener

Please bear in mind those were your experiences, and your problems that you face.

Or that you see others facing.

That said, I do consider the D&D manuals to be totally awful and would've lead me toward being a pretty crappy GM had I not found an extraordinary mentor of a GM right around the time I was even beginning to play D&D.

And I'm gonna go sleep now. Goodnight. ;D

BESW

13:44

I'm thinking that maybe the Enchanted Forest is still too non-generic/unfamiliar for my Big Storium Game.

I should work with something really familiar, something I don't have to explain much at all.

Ben Hardy

Hmmm, I wonder if storium could support a pvp setup.

Red vs Blue style.

well maybe not red vs blue, but "You are here, your enemy is there"

only players are on both sides, it would be interesting with challenges.

I dunno how to get much more generic than, "You're in this forest"

BESW

Yuuur. It's the... ethos, I guess.

Like, what kind of adventure do you have? What kind of person are you and what kind of challenges do you face and what tools do you use to solve them?

GMNoob

@ObliviousSage I find this very hard to believe.

Oblivious Sage

Then maybe you need to spend more time observing Internet arguments about alignment.

Scratch that, nobody needs to do that.

Well, maybe Hitler's ghost.

3

Ben Hardy

I guess that same format could also be said for Enchanted forest, if we follow the story it is based off of.

We would have a player playing the princess, another player playing the dragon, and a third playing a knight, or the wizard.

If the knight wanted to take That princess from That dragon.

a simple strong, weak outcome doesn't quite come to mind.

BESW

14:00

Yeah, challenges would have to be entirely re-framed...

Although.

Ben Hardy

Perhaps I've just had 1 too many Bruce Waynes.

BESW

Strong: you get to narrate your success (and the other's failure). Weak: you get to narrate your failure (and the other's success).

Not sure how that'd play out.

Ben Hardy

Fair enough, with the three separate challenges all around the same challenge, the wizard could succeed in capturing the princess, but the princess would succeed in not being captured ultimately by breaking out (or not)

BESW

Let's see. Knight vs princess vs dragon.

Ben Hardy

and the dragon would then play his cards to determine how he intervenes

BESW

14:04

Challenge: Dragon. The dragon wants to take the princess and defeat the knight.
Challenge: Knight. The knight wants to defeat the dragon and save the princess.
Challenge: Princess. The princess wants to escape the dragon and learn more about the knight.

Whoever gets narrative control of each challenge decides its outcome.

Could work.

← 24 messages moved from Not a bar, but plays one on TV

Dorian

@ObliviousSage A fine example of the difference between socially perceived and inwardly believed alignment.

BESW

@InbarRose, @JoshuaAslanSmith [Storium poke] [gestures above]

Oblivious Sage

Also an example of the risks of not realizing they're not the same thing.

Inbar Rose

@BESW Not sure.

Dorian

The alignment system was never meant to be a way to screw players out of their abilities. It is tied to mechanics for the sole reason of creating new and interesting challenges for the players to face. If it's all RP, where's the risk? The threat of a paladin falling is not something to be thrown about on a whim, it is a narrative tool.

People seem to forget that D&D is not just a game, it is a storytelling device.

And that people, is why I love roleplaying so much.

It is storytelling, and if I do one thing worth doing with my life, I want to provide stories for people after I am long gone.

BESW

14:12

@InbarRose I think Storium PvP would probably be better framed as what Fate would call a "contest" rather than a conflict.

That is, competing to reach an external goal rather than directly attempting to defeat the other player character.

Avoid making another player character the goal.

So if we had a prince PC and a dragon PC, the fate of the NPC princess could be the stakes of the challenge.

But if the princess was also a PC, I think the stakes would have to be re-positioned.

Alex P

@InbarRose I think rules are tools, which you're free to apply judiciously or modify to suit your particular needs (though, tbh, it's way easier if you don't have to). I think thinking of them as "guildelines" is the result of having to modify them too much.

::looks at backlog:: That is a lot of discussion about alignment.

GMNoob

@ObliviousSage That's actually kinda my point. Sure, alignment is a topic of internet denizens deeply involved in the hobby. It's not anything that random people even notice.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@GMNoob appropriate wording

Oblivious Sage

Do you know the rule of customer feedback? For every 1 person who complains to you, 10 people just left & didn't come back.

Alex P

@GMNoob When my wife tried to play D&D with some folks in high school, the GM wasted an hour making the players take alignment quizzes as part of character creation.

Oblivious Sage

14:22

Now think about how many people are online complaining about alignment.

GMNoob

In my estimation, alignment conversations are the sort of "You think you like X, but really, X is stupid, and you are stupid for liking it. Let me show you how in the most unlikely, but still slightly probable usage possible."

Alex P

@ObliviousSage Think about how many newbie questions about alignment there are right here, yeah.

GMNoob

@ObliviousSage Ranting on the internet is not customer feedback. It's "look at my narcicism"

2

Dorian

@GMNoob You sir get a gold star for that comment XD

Alex P

@GMNoob That's just cheating with definitions. Again, think about the people who are like, "Oh, crap, a bad thing happened in play. What do I do??" That's a complaint. Is it a RANT??

GMNoob

14:26

Now, I agree that the general category of game rules which put restrictions on people due to some RP concept which exists in only one campaign world, have been deemed a bad idea. But that's not about alignment.

Joshua Aslan Smith

meh I think rants can be about complaining to complain vs to soapbox becuase a lot of people dont realize that complaining on a forum does nothing

Oblivious Sage

It seems pretty clear that a lot of people have anecdotes about bad experiences with the alignment system. It seems absurd to claim that the people online talking about those bad experiences outnumber the people who actually had bad experiences.

GMNoob

@Dorian Credit belongs to Dr. Drew of love line :)

Alex P

@JoshuaAslanSmith I really don't mind a rant if it's self-aware. Just turns it into a comedic monologue, basically. ;)

GMNoob

@ObliviousSage I have ranted about alignment on forums without ever experiencing that bad experience myself. Because it's theoretically a good argument, even though my games have never encountered it. I see no reason to believe that's untrue for others as well.

Dorian

14:28

@GMNoob I don't even know what that is! -is oblivious to pretty much everything "new" and "hip", and a ton else besides-

GMNoob

Dr. Drew of Love line, is old and not hip :P And very localized to Los Angeles California.

Inbar Rose

@AlexP How did we manage to get back to talking about Alignment, we just stopped :P

GMNoob

Drew Pinsky

David Drew Pinsky (born September 4, 1958), best known as Dr. Drew, is an American board-certified internist, addiction medicine specialist, and radio and television personality. He has hosted the nationally syndicated radio talk show Loveline since the show's inception in 1984. On television, he hosts the talk show Dr. Drew On Call on HLN, and hosted the canceled daytime series Lifechangers on the The CW. In addition, he serves as producer and starred in the VH1 show Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, and its spinoffs Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew, Celebrity Rehab Presents Sober House and hosts pod...

Dorian

@InbarRose Actually technically everyone just kinda went silent for a while, then picked up where we left off lol

Inbar Rose

@BESW That is an interesting idea, but I think that your continued comparison of Fate to Storium is starting to fall apart.

Alex P

14:33

Well, I'm gonna dance through the backlog and reply to things! :P

@ObliviousSage So, I think "mechanics should never tell you how to play your character" is selling the role of game mechanics in play kinda short.

Some of the coolest game mechanics I've seen do involve telling you what to do.

They're not like alignment because, well, good design happened.

Darkest Self from Monsterhearts, for example. It's an acting cue.

> When you become your Darkest Self, there’s a script to follow. That script is described on your Skin sheet. Play that script as hard as you can.

> This is the moment where you are supposed to lose sight of your humanity, whatever amount you had in the first place. It’s the point at which you forsake the world. You’ll be able to escape your Darkest Self eventually. Until that point, revel in the darkness.

GMNoob

14:49

I think it's important to recognize that some people like telling stories, and some people just love open ended gameplay.

I know that some people look at alignment restrictions and think, "why can't I do what I want to do?" and others look at it and say, "Ok, so that's how my character would behave", and others view it at just another obstacle or restriction in methods needed to solve the problem infront of them.

Oblivious Sage

15:13

Alignment is like pointer arithmetic in C++. You can do some very cool things with it, but most of the time it's just extra hassle, and if you use it wrong it will ruin your day.

GMNoob

15:31

That's a nice analogy. Only problem is that most of the time, I actually forget alignment exists, which you can't do with pointers in C++ :P

Oblivious Sage

What I would like is for alignment to be like unsafe pointers in C#: just as risky, but only present when you deliberately choose to use it because you want it for something the basics can't do.

GMNoob

16:24

@ObliviousSage That's how I use alignment in my games. Once in a while, the GM will say.. "what alignment are you guys anyways?" :P

lisardggY

The main issue I have with alignment is that, well, in most cases, I don't get why they're needed. If they're tied to mechanics, then they're annoying (as you said earlier, @ObliviousSage). If they're not, they're incredibly simplistic groupings of personality and behavior, and I much prefer something like the World of Darkness' Nature and Demeanor archetypes.

The only place where I feel they fit in well is in a cosmology where Good and Evil are palpable forces, like Moorcock's Elric and Corum stories. Which works for a specific subset of settings and scenarios.

GMNoob

@lisardggY In my experience alignment is used for 3 things. 1. Picking a deity for your character to follow. 2. Detect evil spells. 3. Inspiration for doing something which is mechanically less than ideal, because of your alignment.

lisardggY

@GMNoob #1 and #3 don't really need alignment. The former just needs a compatible set of beliefs, and the latter - any personality and characterization.

#2 is the problem, because Detect Evil, like many, many spells and effects in D&D 3.PF, assume that Evil and Good are concrete, measurable qualities, not opinions or moral outlooks.

(Regarding #3, my usual problem is finding inspiration for doing something which is mechanically ideal. Optimization bores me. :))

GMNoob

@lisardggY The spell, as far as I remember detects motivation, not some concreate measurable quality. The old.. "If your heart is pure, you may draw this sword" shtick.

lisardggY

@GMNoob Yes, but it implies that Evil is an objective quality. If someone wants to kill someone, is that evil? What if it's revenge because that person killed his entire family? Where do you draw the line?

Ordinarily, you wouldn't have to draw the line. Motivations are wibbly-wobbly. But a spell requires a concrete answer.

GMNoob

16:40

@lisardggY As someone else said, it was nice when people knew the difference between right and wrong.

lisardggY

Abilities like Smite Evil get even more problematic, since they don't require your current motivations to be evil, do they? Is an evil terrorist being evil even when he's volunteering at a puppy shelter?

@GMNoob This is one sort of story that one can tell. It's far from being a bad kind of story. I kind of like it myself. But it's still one with a simplistic morality.

Consider the Bible. Think of stories like King David. He's done some bad things, some things that can be considered somewhat evil. But he's generally a Good character.

GMNoob

@lisardggY No, current motivations are irrelevant. The question is simple. Are you more interested in helping the weak and poor of your society, or in helping yourself. There is nothing wrong with a simplistic morality for a simplistic game.

lisardggY

@GMNoob I agree. But there's nothing wrong with non-simplistic morality either. And alignment doesn't help for telling those stories.

GMNoob

@lisardggY There is nothing about alignment that says you have to always act a certain way. Alignment is a general charactersitic, not a definition of your next action.

I think that is something people get confused about. Since the Paladin is not allowed to act outside of their alignment without being punished, somehow that got translated into people's minds that nobody is every allowed to act outside of their alignment without their alignment changing.

lisardggY

@GMNoob No, that's not the case at all. Not my case, anyway.

GMNoob

16:44

anyway, I've got to go to a class now about biblical miltary tactics... speaking of King David :P

@lisardggY But the examples you gave were exactly that :P

lisardggY

Have fun.

@GMNoob No, I was going somewhere else with that. It's just that when you allow for these more complicated behaviors, being defined as Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil becomes a simplistic plot device - you're the Good Guy(tm) here, and thus your actions will be judged as such, regardless of what they actually are.

We both agree that alignment isn't a straighitjacket, and that two characters with diametrically opposed ideologies can behave very similarly.

GMNoob

@lisardggY Oh, I've never seen it played or described that way before. But another time. There is one exception for monsterous races which can never be "good" (their weak and poor are not relevant) but in all other situations, the good guys can end up doing evil things, and get divine justice for it.

lisardggY

@GMNoob To me, it just means that character A being defined as LG doesn't mean much as a means of characterization. I'd rather just treat him as "Character A", rather than a label out of a very restricted set of labels.

You create a character, bring him to life in your head and in the game. He behaves a certain way. You can look him over and say "On the whole, he would fall into the Neutral Good bracket". That's fine - it's not restrictive, it's not a reduction of his personality, it's just a general characterization of how he behaves. The question for me is what does it give me.

It's shorthand for a general type of behavior, which can be convenient, but it's shorthand on a specific two-axis system that focuses on a specific subset of behaviors. Archetypes, I feel, give me a better language, a better taxonomy for personality shorthand references.

Joshua Aslan Smith

17:26

alignment chart(s) are good for 1 thing and 1 thing only at this point in time. Making alignment examples for other popular mediums: ala DS9 Alignment

3

Alex P

@GMNoob That's because of game text literally saying stuff like you lose half your XP when you change alignment.

@GMNoob Consider a character who wants to help the weak and the poor through violent overthrow and mass vengeance. What would that character be labeled in most D&D settings?

So really it's a "smells like" test more than anything else.

"Do you mostly resemble what we think of as a heroic good guy for this kind of story?"

user61230

19:03

So, my local games shop is doing something awesome

user61230

> Free RPG Day - June 21st: Pair A Dice Games will be hosting Free RPG Day. On Free RPG Day, you will be able to grab brand new material for a variety of RPGs --- no overstock, retail-priced or dead product here. The goal of Free RPG Day is to inspire gamers to play a new RPG. We'll be running RPG demo games starting around 12 noon, so stick around and play some games.

> Everyone will get to choose one free item. A bonus item can be selected when you purchase $10 or more in the store on free RPG Day. All this happens from 10AM till 6PM on Saturday June 21st. Come early, because all this co…

wax eagle

hmmm, wonder if I could get a babysitter that day...looks like some cool stuff is available

nm, I'd have to go to ATL :(

lisardggY

Cool.

Is it a local thing, or a wide initiative like Free Comic Book Day?

user61230

19:19

Unfortunately, I think it's just local? But I don't actually know!

user61230

There aren't too many RPG communities in this area, so it might be a local community-building thing

lisardggY

freerpgday.com

Seems worldwide. Cool.

I wonder if the three FLGSs here are participating.

Unfortunately, all of these Free X days are always on Saturdays, so Israeli shops always participate one day early or late.

Nope. No Israeli retailers on the list.

user61230

Aww! Also, you live in Israel? :D

lisardggY

I do.

user61230

Sweet! I want to go back at some point soon.

lisardggY

19:23

When were you here?

user61230

It was... hmm, four years ago o.O

user61230

I was part of an engineering competition there. Didn't get too much of a chance to experience it, unfortunately.

lisardggY

Cool. Where did you stay?

wax eagle

@Emrakul ~~national~~ (what I get for not reading) global thing

user61230

@lisardggY We were in Tel Aviv for the most part, if I recall correctly.

lisardggY

19:29

@Emrakul Well, that makes sense.

Being a Tel Avivian myself, I refuse to acknowledge the merit (or, in some cases, existence) of other parts of the country. :)

user61230

Hah! Pretty much!

user61230

We did go to Jerusalem, though, after the competition.

user61230

It was pretty much one day for traveling, unfortunately.

user61230

@wax Yeah, cool! Thanks!

GMNoob

@lisardggY Israel has FLGS?

lisardggY

19:41

@GMNoob At least one in Tel Aviv, in the Ichilov mall, though its RPG section isn't huge, and has more boardgames and such.

And another in Ra'anana.

There used to be a handful more, though never too many.

GMNoob

@lisardggY I don't understand how someone can never leave TA. I find concrete suffocating :P

lisardggY

@GMNoob I have to admit that I leave TA every day, to go to work. :) But I'm a city boy. I like concrete and cracked sidewalks and ubiquitous cafés. Grew up here.

GMNoob

@lisardggY Which one of those is Hakubia?

lisardggY

@GMNoob I don't actually think they have a physical store, most of the time.

They sell in book and game stores, and they make a killing at Icon and Olamot every year, though.

GMNoob

Ok, now I don't feel so bad for being unable to find it :P

lisardggY

19:48

There's Romach in Ra'anana, and Freak in TA, and I think there's something in Rishon as well.

GMNoob

@AlexP If they are actually helping the weak and poor, chaotic good, or neutral good. If they want to help but aren't, Neutral, if they think they are helping the poor, but are really hurting them, chaotic evil. If the weak and poor are a monsterous race, Neutral Evil.

lisardggY

Though it seems to be more a gaming space/club than a shop.

GMNoob

I've been tempted to open one every now and again

One thing that has surprised me are all the fantasy novels sold at the hagana train station.

lisardggY

Haven't been there in years.

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