Who taught you how to game? Chimpanzees? (This rant is rated: Mild and Geeky.)

The BBQ Pit
61

That’s great, but if your idea for a character was for a paladin or monk, for example, then alignment has just decided your character’s personality.

Like I said before, I got rid of the alignment stat and just decided that, for example, if a player with a monk did something I consider unlawful, there would be repercussions.

I’ve never seen alignment as a tool, to me it only exists as a restriction or as an arbitrary way of bringing people together. I mean, why the hell would two people automatically be allies just because they were good? Do they have no other interests in the world?

I always, always loathed it when a player with a good alignment decided that because something was “evil” and he was “good”, he could do any horrible thing to the “evil” creature, just because it was “evil”. Sorry, but that’s not what “good” means ya fuckwit. Good != anti-evil. You actually have to be “good”, and that means not torturing the baby goblins just because the Monster Manual says their alignment is “evil”. Sigh.

For example, I had a party come across a gnoll encampment next to a cliff with a cave it in. They had already killed all the males from the encampment in a prior encounter. Now all that was left was a couple of gnoll bitches and a multitude of cubs. One of the characters, a NG ranger, spied on the gnolls for a while and gleaned that there were no males left. So he snuck back to the party and they charged the encampment. The gnolls immediately ran and cowered in the cave.

So what did our “good” party do? They built a fire next to the cave and blew the smoke into it, asphyxiating the gnoll bitches and cubs. How nice…and this is just one example.

So, it’s not a problem anymore because I have no expectation for certain behaviors from my players. I keep their anti-social, homicidal tendancies in check via reputation. Just because you don’t have an alignment saying that you are “evil” doesn’t mean that you won’t be hunted down like dogs and hanged.

Thanks! Let’s keep it platonic though, otherwise the GF will get a bit wacky. :stuck_out_tongue:

62

Nine little boxes, not six. See, look at the multitude of choices presented! :wink:

The point system you described sounds pretty cool. Your alignment reflects how you play, not the other way around.

One the the best computer RPG’s ever made, Planescape: Torment, while using the AD&D 2nd Ed. rules, had a similar system of alignment. Choices you made during the game determined your alignment. You started off as True Neutral due to a case of amnesia (it was more complicated than this, but in essenence this is what happened) so you began with a clean slate. Lie to someone, your alignment edged towards chaos and maybe evil. Tell a person the truth even though it hurts them: your alignment shifts towards Lawful Neutral…and so on. It was an awesome way of doing alignments, but not really practical for a pen-and-paper game where you’d have to keep track of 5 or 6 characters tendencies for every little action.

63

Hmph. I’m Chaotic Neutral. Everybody knows Chaotic Neutral people can’t do math.

64

You make good points re:alignment.

To get back to the OP… ahem

Mr. GM, I for one am glad we have a female player. I think it’s nice to game in mixed company. So could you please stop trying to get her to make seduction rolls and sweet-talk guards and so forth? We’re all becoming increasingly uncomfortable at the idea of you acting out your little fantasies with her character.

Also, while I appreciate any input on how to make my new character, please stop suggesting all kinds of bizarre race and class combinations that will allow me to accomplish what I want and get other abilities and maximize points and get free stats and so forth. I have the concept for this character in my head, and these things are not in the concept. I don’t see him as an elven Fighter/Cleric, even though that might get me more points or whatever. That’s not how I make characters, and it disturbs me that it is how you make characters, if I’m gaming with you.

Finally, to all wizards: there are spells besides fireball and magic missile. Look into them.

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I roleplay on a little tiny message board. It’s completely nonstatistics based; each player takes turn writing the next piece of an ongoing story; we each have our own character and can ‘get inside their head’, but the posts are all in 3rd person. It’s a Pratchett fansite, set on his Discworld, and for some reason new people are always doing the same damn things:

  1. They want to be somebody from the books. Too damn bad, there’s not enough characters to go around, make somebody up. So they make up a new character identical to the book character but with a different name. :rolleyes: Um, no, I’m the OTHER redhaired sixfoot descendent of the last true king that was raised by dwarfs. Honest.

  2. They make superman. Look, jackass, there are no dice. Whatever happens is what we write happening. And I guarentee, in any fight scene, your genius trollish assassin/wizard is going to be incapacitated. What the hell else can we do? The alternative is, we start a storyline and in the first encounter, BAM you kill the villain. Flawed characters are more fun, and more importantly, they’re funnier. It’s a Pratchett fansite… we’re trying to groupwrite humorous fantasy, not stroke your ego.

–John

66

Yue Han, I know exactly what you mean. I used to do storyboards as well, and it was a lot of fun, though incredibly frustrating. One one BBS people were asking me to run a storyboard, so I did, but I said I didn’t want to do fantasy. They got infuriated and I finally gave in. Why didn’t I want to do fantasy?

  • Everyone has to be an elf. What the fuck is it about elves? Everyone wants to be elven or half-elven, nothing else.

  • Everyoone thinks D&D is fantasy. So I would ask people for description of their characters and I’d get “He’s a level 7 Ranger with a +1 sword.” What the hell does that mean? What is level 7? They could not think outside of D&D terms.

  • Everyone wants to be superhuman, as I said. A friend of mine was doing a vampire-based storyboard and one guy wanted to be an ancient, powerful elder vampire. He was then bored because he didn’t know what to do. She suggested he give his vampire a flaw or a nemesis and he insisted that his vampire was so powerful he wouldn’t have any of those. And still he bitched about how bored he was.

  • They all want to be Gandalf or Drizzt or Raistlin or Elric or Conan or some other existing character. Originality is just not possible.

  • Worst of all, they all want to be the star. When the story goes on long enough, everyone gets a shining moment eventually. But everyone had to be the best at everything. No other character would be allowed to be better than them at anything.

There were no dice, no stats, nothing but creativity and these people were STILL munchkins.

67

Oy…not something I’ve encountered, thankfully. Closest in any games I’ve been in is a handful of characters trying to defend bigotry towards an ‘Evil’ creature because they’re evil - this usually has at least 1 good character (in one case a Paladin!) defending them, and leads to some good interaction and usually the bigot (in one example, my character) changing his stripes, though.

Nasty… Poor Gnolls… (I like Gnolls…I want to play one if I can talk my DM into it…)

Heheheheh… Good for you.

Actually all this brings up one of the problems I have with alignment… The idea of inherantly ‘evil’ or ‘good’ intelligent races (save for particular races like Celestials or Fiends) rubs me wrong. The ‘usually <alignment>’ races (The PHB races, most other Humanoids, many Giants) don’t bother me (much), since their usual racial alignment can be passed off as part of the cultural bias I noted above, nor do Undead, animals, constructs, or some extra-planar beings since there’s a sound explaination (lack of intelligence, method of reanimation, nature of their plane) as to why, but intelligent creatures with ‘always’ alignments (lycanthropes, most Dragons, some Humanoids) annoy me. Never does a Grimlock have a concience? Never is a Gold Dragon greedy and cruel?

By eliminating alignment as a definite thing, in the campaign world I’m building, I’ve allowed myself to create a good nation of Lycanthropes (Ruled by a Werewolf, who is a good and just ruler, handpicked by the previous ruler, a Weretiger… I’ve actually spent a lot of time on this particular nation… ^__^; ) There’s also evil Lycanthropes, some living among the good (though keeping a low profile…), some organised into their own packs, some living among the normal humanoids (Which few good Lycanthropes have the desire to do, since they’re feared), etc. (I also like Lycanthropes…I AM playing one…)

68

I like the good lycanthrope society idea. Can I steal it, Tengu? Please?

A good chunk of my campaign came out of the alignment wheel. I was idly discussing alignments with a friend of mine, who mentioned he never understood the concept of Lawful Evil. I mean, if you’re following a set of rules and laws, how can you be evil? Then we started discussing the religious right…

(And if that comment doesn’t get me a thorough Pit drubbing, I don’t know what will.)

But anyhow, my whole campaign is now built around the idea of a religious kingdom that has determined that humans are the righteous inheritors of the planet, and is killing off or kicking out the non-human races, and moving to invade nearby countries. The party has been deeply involved in the fight since the beginning of the campaign, two (real time) years ago.

You just have to keep in mind; evil people generally don’t see themselves as evil. Play your NPCs accordingly. The players usually follow along pretty well.

69

People will probably shun me here when I say that I actually like the alignment system in D&D. Remember that the players handbook always say that alignment is not something to get hung up on. It is more of a pointer on how to play your character. It doesn’t mean that an evil character can’t do good deeds or a good person can’t do some evil deeds, as long as the overall feel of the character remains good or evil, your keeping true to your alignment. Only when in doubt on how to act in a given situation is your alignment handy. It gives you pointers on how to deal with it. People who are hung up on alignment and say that you can’t go against it from time to time are bad roleplayers and probably have very two dimensional characters.
Alignment is an excellent device to keep your character motivated and is perfect for beginning players who are not too sure of themselves. Also, since I primarily play PlaneScape, alignment is more or less a must in my campaigns. No planes without it.

Oh, and Tensu, I believe that 3E states that if a creature has the identifier ‘always’ in it’s alignment, that actually means that 90% of the creatures are of that alignment. Ofcourse there are sometimes good white dragons, it’s just that the vast majority of them are evil and so people think that they are always evil. Look at them as pitbulls. They are trained and raised as being vicious and mean, so 9 times out of ten they are, and their character and instinct lend them for being like that, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any sweet or cuddly pitbulls anywhere. They’re just amazingly hard to find.*

*[sub]Note to pitbull lovers: I don’t know the creatures at all and could be very wrong here. I just go on my, admittedly biased, information I have on them.[/sub]

70

:shuns Aghris: :wink:

I’ve never liked D&D’s alignment system. It just seems so limiting-- and too focused on the whole Good Vs. Evil thing.

But then again, I find almost everything about D&D is limiting, and interferes with the actual acting-without-a-script that goes on around a table.

Good vs. Evil. It’s so old already! Why must every GM want to do something involving epic battles between good and evil? Pah! They’re lame.

Gimme a megalomaniac alchemist who wants to shrink an entire city. Gimme a troop of bandits (of whatever species) hunting for some food to carry them through the winter, and the village you have to defend. Gimme some intrigue as a Duke sends guerrilla troops into his neighbour’s realm in order to promote his cause at court.

71

My problem with the alignment standard in D&D is that it encourages extemes: there is a lot of range between “willing to steal from the wealthy” evil and “live puppy eating” evil, but forcing you into a box tends to make you vere towards the extreme. You can have fun with a party that dosen’t mind who they hurt in a bar brawl, or who isn’t above taking the money and running off on an employer. On the other hand, constantly having to look for kittens to kick really grows tedious.

72

Steal away! Nice to know I’ve inspired someone else’s gaming. :slight_smile:

Have you gotten me and Tansu conflated? :slight_smile:

Where does it say that? In the MM under alignment it says that ‘Always’ creatures can CHANGE, but those that do are ‘either unique or one-in-a-million’. (It gives 50%+ for Usually and 30-40% for Often.)

(And actually, in your example, you picked the ONE dragon I don’t have a problem with being ‘always’ - White Dragons are little more intelligent than dogs. Nothing wrong with that, just thought it was a little amusing)

Heh…the game I’m currently involved in is Good versus Neutral. :slight_smile: (Actually for the first third it was Good versus Good… We didn’t know that though. The other guy did. :p)

Another problem I have with alignment… I’d consider that to be a Neutral trait (though, officially, it’s ‘Evil’), getting to be Evil when it becomes ‘Enjoys stealing from the poor’.

73

White dragons are significantly smarter than dogs, I believe young adults have an Intelligence of around 7 - less than human average (9 to 11) but capable of speaking multiple languages (though most young white dragons only speak Draconic), and they have are very cunning. As they get older white dragons get more intelligent, most mature adults are of at least average intelligence.

74

OK, MM checked, and you’re right. (At least about the numbers… From what I can tell, they should only be able to speak one language until Mature Adulthood.) Still, they’re the idiots of Dragonkind.

75

Whoops… Excuse me. Ah, well. Two birds with one stone then. :wink:

Hmm… my bad then. I was going from memory as I don’t have the MM ready here. Well… my way sounds definitely better than the MM way anyways, so I’m sticking to it. I too can’t understand that ‘always’ always means always. :wink:

Also going from memory. Never liked dragons in my game. If we are talking about munchkinism, then dragons definitely fall into that group. Only slightly short of the Tarresque and the Astral Dreadnaught.

Not me. My games usually involve battles between Law and Chaos, and/or Good vs. Good. Or, most interesting of all: Neutral Evil vs. Neutral Evil. And the players caught in the middle of all the scheming (insert evil GM grin).

True with inexperienced players or munchkins. Luckily, I only have one such player in my party and I can handle him. For him the alignment system is too limiting and I try to encourage him to play outside the box. The other players on the other hand have it dead on. They realise that an alignment is a tendency to play their character in a specific way, not an absolute rule. They learned this by playing PlaneScape. You will definitely think of Lawful Good differently when you see two armies of Paladins marching towards each other, ready for the kill, both sides backed up by Devas and Aasimar :smiley: