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You guys don't allow Amulets of Indulgence in your games? You buy 'em for ~10,000gp (or 4,750 to make it yourself), and if you commit an act that would change your alignment, it turns to dust and negates the act. They're perfect for those times when you're playing Lawful Good but the king has some really sweet equipment, or some innocent villagers pissed you off by not giving a big enough quest reward!
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Aug 27, 2013 18:38
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Mniot posted:You guys don't allow Amulets of Indulgence in your games? You buy 'em for ~10,000gp (or 4,750 to make it yourself), and if you commit an act that would change your alignment, it turns to dust and negates the act. No because that's a dumb patchwork solution to a problem that shouldn't exist.
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Aug 27, 2013 18:44
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It's a trick. The very act of buying one changes your alignment. It turns to dust when you commit an evil act but otherwise doesn't do poo poo.
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Aug 27, 2013 18:47
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Kajeesus posted:I think the rule is that you could put good in the character sheet as soon as your dude becomes honestly devoted to helping others, but if he dies before he can commit enough good deeds to outweigh his past, he's not getting into the good afterlife. So it won't really matter if Belkar is still Evil, became Neutral or shot straight up to Good, he's still going to go to some version of Hell specially tailored for non-jolly murder-halflings.
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Aug 27, 2013 19:00
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Well, it's ultimately up to the DM. I think a heroic sacrifice can outweigh quite a lot of evil.
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Aug 27, 2013 19:04
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This is why alignment is stupid.
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Aug 27, 2013 19:05
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greatn posted:It's a trick. The very act of buying one changes your alignment. It turns to dust when you commit an evil act but otherwise doesn't do poo poo. That's pretty funny, except that the act of buying it should change your alignment and then the amulet should work correctly, preventing you from changing back. Seriously, though, I've played plenty of games where the gods just look the other way when their paragon stabs some kid in the neck. Because that's actually better then actually using alignment mechanics. Does anyone know of a game that successfully manages to have morality exist as an object in the game-world? I don't mean games that make you think about morality, but games where you could say, "sell me 50 grams of Evil" in a shop or something and have a game system that doesn't fall apart? I think Kill Puppies for Satan is the closest-sounding thing to that that I've heard of.
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Aug 27, 2013 19:18
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West End Games Star Wars and dark side points?
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Aug 27, 2013 19:21
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Mniot posted:Seriously, though, I've played plenty of games where the gods just look the other way when their paragon stabs some kid in the neck. Because that's actually better then actually using alignment mechanics. The Twelve Gods of the Azurites are pretty cool with their Paladins committing genocide. This is fitting with the maybe-not-completely-true meta conflict; but, it does highlight how different people handle supernaturally dependent alignment maintenance in that the OotS world has some definite relative morality and most play groups that encounter that situation quickly devolve into yelling sessions about how morality/alignment/terrible game systems should be applied.
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Aug 27, 2013 19:24
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terminal mehmet posted:The Twelve Gods of the Azurites are pretty cool with their Paladins committing genocide. This is fitting with the maybe-not-completely-true meta conflict; but, it does highlight how different people handle supernaturally dependent alignment maintenance in that the OotS world has some definite relative morality and most play groups that encounter that situation quickly devolve into yelling sessions about how morality/alignment/terrible game systems should be applied. Right but they, just like Kore, thing they are doing good by slaying evil and as such aren't breaking their codes
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Aug 27, 2013 19:26
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RickoniX posted:Right but they, just like Kore, thing they are doing good by slaying evil and as such aren't breaking their codes I'm pretty sure I just said that.
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Aug 27, 2013 19:27
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sebmojo posted:The point he makes in the commentary to DSTP is that the repeated 'I' is significant; V's decision is purely ego-driven. My four words don't have that resonance. On the other hand it's also quite boring. The prophecy might as well have been "make a deal with the Devil". "Disintegrate. Gust of Wind." is much better. The four words aren't just a confirmation of how V wants power for the sake of it - instead, they're the unassuming catalyst that inevitably leads to ultimate power (and ultimate corruption) that only becomes obvious with hindsight (much like all prophecies). They're also a great example of V's "blast first, ask questions never" mentality, which is also how the conflict with the black dragon got started in the first place. It's both cause and act itself, which is why it's way more interesting.
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Aug 27, 2013 19:34
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Kajeesus posted:Well, it's ultimately up to the DM. I think a heroic sacrifice can outweigh quite a lot of evil. Given that a single act of "leave Elan" would have kicked Roy down an alignment tier, probably, but ConfusedUs posted:This is why alignment is stupid.
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Aug 27, 2013 19:38
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terminal mehmet posted:The Twelve Gods of the Azurites are pretty cool with their Paladins committing genocide. This is fitting with the maybe-not-completely-true meta conflict; but, it does highlight how different people handle supernaturally dependent alignment maintenance in that the OotS world has some definite relative morality and most play groups that encounter that situation quickly devolve into yelling sessions about how morality/alignment/terrible game systems should be applied. I am almost a 100% certain that the one thing that will change by the end is the racial alignment restriction.
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Aug 27, 2013 19:43
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terminal mehmet posted:The Twelve Gods of the Azurites are pretty cool with their Paladins committing genocide. Goblin genocide. Since the OotS gods created goblins precisely so that the "real people" would have something to slaughter without feeling bad about it, it's not surprising that the Twelve Gods are okay with it.
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Aug 27, 2013 20:17
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Ursine Asylum posted:Given that a single act of "leave Elan" would have kicked Roy down an alignment tier, probably, but Elan is probably one of my favorite characters but frankly I think if the spirit of lawful good in charge of Roy's case was ever forced to spend an extended period of the epilogue with Elan there would be a new exception to the "don't ever leave anyone behind" rule.
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Aug 27, 2013 20:21
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Cat Mattress posted:Goblin genocide. Right. Except that's part of the meta conflict as told to us by unreliable narrators that I was talking about. So the morality is relative in both the cultural and divine sense.
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Aug 27, 2013 20:22
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terminal mehmet posted:Right. Except that's part of the meta conflict as told to us by unreliable narrators that I was talking about.
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Aug 27, 2013 20:33
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Belkar's easily comparable to Sabine at this point in that he cares about his friends. Some of them, at least. Sabine's feelings towards Nale seem pretty selfless, but are you going to argue over her alignment?
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Aug 27, 2013 20:53
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Bell_ posted:Belkar's easily comparable to Sabine at this point in that he cares about his friends. Some of them, at least. The thing that's always confused me about her alignment is that she's a succubus yet works for Lee, the lawful evil archfiend.
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Aug 27, 2013 21:02
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Bell_ posted:Belkar's easily comparable to Sabine at this point in that he cares about his friends. Some of them, at least. Her greatest fantasy is power and murder, that we know of. Belkar's greatest fantasy is to chill out with a cat and an old man, cooking dinner.
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Aug 27, 2013 21:05
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greatn posted:Her greatest fantasy is power and murder, that we know of. Belkar's greatest fantasy is to chill out with a cat and an old man, cooking dinner. Well, to be fair, Mr. Scruffy was also influencing that dream, so it's hard to say whether or not Belkar's wishes alone would have generated that specific scene.
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Aug 27, 2013 21:10
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Kajeesus posted:Well, it's ultimately up to the DM. I think a heroic sacrifice can outweigh quite a lot of evil. If they play by MUD rules (or videogame rules in general) he may already have done a lot of "good". In most MUDs every mob has an alignment and killing Evil things is always Good (likewise killing Good things is always Evil) regardless of why you are doing it. So if you are trying to play a Neutral character you occasionally have to go murder an orphanage full of kids just to keep your alignment from swinging too far to the Good from killing random Evil monsters. Belkar doesn't care what he kills or why, he just loves killing, so he has killed quite a lot of Evil creatures. Certainly since joining the order he's killed mostly Evil creatures. He's killed a few Good creatures and conspired to make a Paladin fall and various other Evil things, but he has killed hundreds (perhaps thousands) of Evil creatures. If he gets a judge that weights actions rather than intent (like a dumb computer game) his love of killing could be a net Good. Unfortunately it seems the judges do weigh intent.
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Aug 27, 2013 21:11
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Angela Christine posted:Unfortunately it seems the judges do weigh intent.
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Aug 27, 2013 22:11
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The Order of the Stick: Alignment Arguments are Awful Stupid
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Aug 27, 2013 22:55
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Five hundred and two pages later and we're still stuck on alignment.
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Aug 27, 2013 22:58
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Is too much to hope for that there'll eventually be a d&d edition that gets rid the alignment system and any other game mechanic that attempts to define morality and ethics as a finite set of labels?
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Aug 27, 2013 23:05
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Slashrat posted:Is too much to hope for that there'll eventually be a d&d edition that gets rid the alignment system and any other game mechanic that attempts to define morality and ethics as a finite set of labels? Yes, because it would mean rewriting every spell that revolves around alignment. That said, I guess you could tie "Alignment of X" spells to the alignment of your deity, even if you're not a cleric, but that opens up a whole new 
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Aug 27, 2013 23:08
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Slashrat posted:Is too much to hope for that there'll eventually be a d&d edition that gets rid the alignment system and any other game mechanic that attempts to define morality and ethics as a finite set of labels? Or you could accept that D&D has never been a system of principled realism, and people who debate endlessly about those rules are as annoying as anyone who debates endlessly over weapon damage rules. It can be a fun way to cast things sometimes, without acknowledging that that's how the world really works.
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Aug 27, 2013 23:14
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Slashrat posted:Is too much to hope for that there'll eventually be a d&d edition that gets rid the alignment system and any other game mechanic that attempts to define morality and ethics as a finite set of labels? Fourth Edition basically did this. It was great! Everyone hated it.
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Aug 27, 2013 23:14
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sebmojo posted:Fourth Edition basically did this. It was great! Everyone hated it. I thought they just distilled it down to lawful good, good, neutral, evil and chaotic evil as a single linear track?
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Aug 27, 2013 23:16
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Slashrat posted:I thought they just distilled it down to lawful good, good, neutral, evil and chaotic evil as a single linear track? Yeah, they only got rid of the fun alignments. And Chaotic Neutral.
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Aug 27, 2013 23:17
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Kajeesus posted:Yeah, they only got rid of the fun alignments. And Chaotic Neutral. They did two things - added 'Unaligned', as a 'gently caress alignments' option (awesome) and uncoupled alignments from all mechanical effects (ditto). They left in Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil as the saintly/demonic options (plus good and evil?). Although I think Burlew makes the best possible case for alignment as a good story mechanic, the alignment wheel really is ridiculous Gygaxian nerdcruft.
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Aug 27, 2013 23:23
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They also added an "unaligned" option for people who don't give a poo poo about alignments. E; fb.
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Aug 27, 2013 23:24
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Guys Blekar clearly shifted alignments in #807 where it originally said alignment instead of behavior.
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Aug 27, 2013 23:25
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I liked the approach in d20 modern where you had an "allegiance" (forgot the exact term used), which could be an alignment, or anything else; like loyalty to a given person or your nation or whatever. The alignment system in D&D, though, is a logical extension of the cosmology. There are several different afterlives, based on someone's morality (good people go to Heaven, evil people go to Hell), so there has to be an absolute morality system which allows judging people depending on whether they're good or evil. Hence, alignment. (At least one axis of it.) The law-vs-chaos axis comes from Poul Anderson and Michael Moorcock.
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Aug 27, 2013 23:30
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The only thing I liked about 4e was the "unaligned" option. I hope that comes back alongside the 9 point alignment chart.
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Aug 27, 2013 23:31
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sebmojo posted:They did two things - added 'Unaligned', as a 'gently caress alignments' option (awesome) and uncoupled alignments from all mechanical effects (ditto). They left in Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil as the saintly/demonic options (plus good and evil?). The more important thing 4e did was pretty much entirely nuke alignment actually making any mechanical difference, which forestalls an awful lot of the stupid it produces. When Detect Evil isn't a thing any more, it becomes less of a problem to have the Paladin and the evil vizier in the same room together without arguments about why they didn't figure him out...
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Aug 27, 2013 23:39
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thespaceinvader posted:The more important thing 4e did was pretty much entirely nuke alignment actually making any mechanical difference, which forestalls an awful lot of the stupid it produces. When Detect Evil isn't a thing any more, it becomes less of a problem to have the Paladin and the evil vizier in the same room together without arguments about why they didn't figure him out... Still pretty stupid, the vizier is always evil. 
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Aug 27, 2013 23:41
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Mniot posted:You guys don't allow Amulets of Indulgence in your games? You buy 'em for ~10,000gp (or 4,750 to make it yourself), and if you commit an act that would change your alignment, it turns to dust and negates the act. I have never heard of that before. What's it from? Anti Double Post Edit: Angela Christine posted:Still pretty stupid, the vizier is always evil. Int is a dump stat for paladins.
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Aug 27, 2013 23:51
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