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vonklaude 07-24-07, 04:30 AM

This is a view I came painstakingly to via argument in other threads of this forum. I feel it is a good view that helps the DM to run their game and does not require the DM to call some things in RAW 'exceptions' to the alignment system. 1) Take a mystical approach to alignment, in keeping with the setting. Alignment is a mysterious attribute of things, possibly connected to a soul, or possibly not. Being mysterious means it is inexplicable. It is therefore not reducible by reasoning in the ordinary scientific sense that we are used to (and reflexively apply). 'Mystical' is 'right' for a fantasy setting based on medieval Europe, and, unlike a causal psychological explanation, it covers all D&D phenomena without exceptions. 2) In short: Alignment is a detectable compulsion to act a certain way. 3) Players are not permitted to exploit alignment, so as DM look for consistency between what they do and the motives they say they are following. Apply this principle to any aspect of RP. If Bob says that his character 'Flora' loves flowers, then look for Flora to show some appreciation of flowers. 4) Players, societies, NPCs, and nearly all entities can contain tensions and contradictions in their alignment behaviour. This is mandated by RAW, but even if it wasn't it promotes good gameplay. One can observe that most storytellers use precisely these tools to good effect; It's when your Lawful NPC breaks the law that your story comes to life and players start to wonder what's going to happen. As someone else (Gyrofthewastes) said You do have instances where an individual begins engaging in behaviors that are merely risky, or perhaps detrimental to others in a way that is not clearly apparent. The character may still have the noblest [or ignoblest] of intentions in employing such measures and yet by employing them cause consistent suffering [or weal]. RAW authorises alignment fluctuation within an entity without demanding an immediate change of their detectable alignment. 5) Experience of actions, even those of others, can affect alignment. Now in the case of PCs the DM shouldn't let NPC actions change their alignment, except perhaps in backstory or RP, but the reverse is certainly true. Good examples can lead to NPCs changing their minds. RAW hints at this. And RAW is clear that one's own actions feedback into alignment, in part to prevent player exploits. 6) That said, follow the definitions laid out in the books. Don't add anything to them, or take anything away, but exploit them to create an interesting and consistent game world. For example, don't assume 'Lawful' necessitates having laws, despite the nomenclature. The 'Lawful' alignment description in RAW doesn't mandate a legal system, and that gives the DM freedom to mix things up a little. 7) On animals and automata, read the line as a whole. Things 'incapable of moral action' cannot be non-Neutral. Simply being 'incapable of action' has no effect on alignment. 8) In D&D alignments are objective, not subjective. An entity's feelings about their intent to harm doesn't change their intent from an intent to harm. A culture might arise where all members get the same feelings from intents to harm as Good people in other cultures get from intents to help. Nonetheless, an intent to harm is Evil, and intent to help is Good. The most unpalatable consequences of this view are, I think, the following: a) Babies have alignment even while they are incapable of evidently purposeful action. That isn't how we modern people view infants, is it?! In such times and places as our fantasy uses as a point of reference, babies were thought to be born Evil, and only through work and devotion to be capable of becoming good. It would have been odd (back then) to imagine newborns to be Neutral. The way to use this in game, consistent with RAW, is to include babies in the general alignment demographic of their genetic population, and then allow nurture to move them toward the alignment demographic of their cultural population. An orc raised among humans is more likely to be CE than a human, but less likely to be CE than if raised among orcs. b) An entity can be aligned without having (yet) taken any alignment related actions. That sounds terrible, doesn't it?! Yet the converse is no more helpful. Let's consider cases: An entity acts first, and that creates in them a compulsion to act similarly next time? Or: An entity acts, sans compulsion: so alignment only means actions? The first case is going to eventually put a compulsion before an action, if only the next action, and in the second case where does the consistency come from? The best alternate view would seem to be 'Action and compulsion occur simultaneously', but what gameplay advantage do any of these views buy us over putting compulsion first? On the other hand, all these views run into trouble with things (in the MM) that are born non-Neutrally aligned (especially the 'Often' creatures which aren't Outsiders or particularly weird, like Giants) and the 'action requirement' has trouble with things that can't act but are aligned. The DM is forced to make at least some exceptions. Therefore take the view proposed, the gameplay is (at least) as good, and there are no exceptions. c) Doesn't this go against DMG134? The answer is to read that section as being about what it is entitled as, i.e. Changing Alignments. It doesn't tell the DM how an entity got their alignment in the first place, but does tell them a lot of things about how alignment is maintained, especially for PCs. It gives a variety of tools for alignment change, from instant to gradual. These all work fine under the tenets above. d) But I want my game to be black-and-white. I want my players to know who to hit and when to do it, no questions asked. Okay; in this case the tenets above for a mystical understanding of alignment are not for you. In play, a mystical understanding of alignment as laid out here will let the DM do the following: ==Paladins get more use from Detect Evil, because their DM can have more evil around that they will usefully know to distrust, but that have not yet committed evil acts needing a smite. This protracts the engagement between Good and Evil, which is good for both adventure and RP. ==Sight-and-smite is out the window. Paladins need to put a little more work in. ==The DM can still choose between using alignment-hiding magic or bald-facedly bluffing, even when PCs have recourse to Detect spells. For example, a high-level civil servant may Detect Evil, but being Lawful they have (thus far) served their polity well, even if ruthlessly. The DM lets her players know they are Evil - now they know to distrust them - but let's her players know that they need a better solution than 'kill it' this time. ==Since Evil entities might not yet have acted evil, the challenge can be laid down to Good entities to redeem them. If they must have acted evil, then it is a longer stretch to find the tolerance to do this. ==The DM can use the full flavour of the mix of alignments listed under community demographics, without all the Evils having to hide under cloaking devices. 'A Neutral. Yep, another Neutral. Neutral too. Guess what? Neutral' etc. Good societies can contain evil groups that everybody knows about, but that are furtive enough to get away with their badness. We're pretty sure they poisoned Gran's cow, but we're not sure... ==Know why skeletons summoned to row a boat still Detect as Evil. Given a chance, these entities will do evil. This isn't a complete list. In particular there are some esoteric gameplay possibilities available. For example, the paladin discovers that the heir to the throne (new born) Detects Evil. What does she do about it? Or conversely, the anti-paladin discovers the (new born) first daughter of the Chiefteness is <shudder> good, but the Chiefteness is delighted to have a girl-child and will kill out of hand any of her minions that harm her. I don't put this as the only way to play alignment. But rather as a good way that as near as I can make it is consistent with RAW and asks for few assumptions and no exceptions. I hope it helps your game. -vk