Why ban alignments?

[Anlashok]

I feel your pain

Maybe you should rethink the way you run games if vitriolously mocking people who do things differently and having an absurdly narrow scope of play options are requisite in order to run a "good" campaign.

But no. Everyone else is just a terrible person for thinking options are good.

[Extra Anchovies]

Maybe you should rethink the way you run games if vitriolously mocking people who do things differently and having an absurdly narrow scope of play options are requisite in order to run a "good" campaign.

But no. Everyone else is just a terrible person for thinking options are good.

I'd say this is a matter of different strokes for different folks; I love having thousands of character options, but some other people prefer a narrow, simpler set of game mechanics.

Besides, their criticism isn't of players who want obscure content from lots of supplements; it's of players who complain when they ask for those and are told, "no".

[SiuiS]

Banning an alignment is an easy to do and difficult to lawyer shorthand for banning the personalities and behaviors that would prompt a player to choose that alignment in order to justify themselves.

[Pan151]

Besides, their criticism isn't of players who want obscure content from lots of supplements; it's of players who complain when they ask for those and are told, "no".

The problem arises when players are told no for no valid reason.

[atemu1234]

Anyone can steal the show regardless of alignment. Anyone can act selfish regardless of alignment. If you have to ban something, ban the behaviour you dislike - the alignment is irrelevant.

There's a line between acting out of alignment and behaving a certain way and having an alignment that is conducive to the behavior. The alignment is highly relevant. You don't see Lawful Good characters killing their allies for their shares of the loot because that's what their alignment says to do.

[Fax Celestis]

There's a line between acting out of alignment and behaving a certain way and having an alignment that is conducive to the behavior. The alignment is highly relevant. You don't see Lawful Good characters killing their allies for their shares of the loot because that's what their alignment says to do.

No, they just tell the party rogue to stop sneaking around and picking people's pockets because it's illegal.

Disruptive is disruptive, regardless of alignment.

[atemu1234]

No, they just tell the party rogue to stop sneaking around and picking people's pockets because it's illegal.

Disruptive is disruptive, regardless of alignment.

If the rogue's lawful, then he shouldn't be doing it anyway. If he's chaotic evil, then he's supposed to be doing that. And that's why you ban that alignment.

[Sartharina]

Why does the DM care as long as the player isn't disruptive

Because the DM wants to play a certain style of game that's incompatible with a party with an evil player. Players don't like in when other players screw over their characters. DMs don't like it when players screw over their world.

[Snowbluff]

There's not such thing as a bad alignment, just bad players and DMs.

[Fax Celestis]

If the rogue's lawful, then he shouldn't be doing it anyway. If he's chaotic evil, then he's supposed to be doing that. And that's why you ban that alignment.

And if he's chaotic good, stealing from bad people to provide to the poor?

Because the DM wants to play a certain style of game that's incompatible with a party with an evil player. Players don't like in when other players screw over their characters. DMs don't like it when players screw over their world.

You still haven't demonstrated how playing, say, Faust is "screwing over their world".

Alignment is descriptive, not defining.

[squiggit]

Players don't like in when other players screw over their characters. DMs don't like it when players screw over their world.

Neither of which require an evil alignment!

In fact I'd say by far the most disruptive and problematic alignment based issue I've had was from a pacifist NG druid. Nothing quite like someone constantly trying to stop the party thief from... thieving or the party fighter from doing the only thing he's competent at. Constantly.

I'll take CE over that **** any day... or not, because ultimately a player is the problem, not the alignment.

[Divide by Zero]

Because the DM wants to play a certain style of game that's incompatible with a party with an evil player. Players don't like in when other players screw over their characters. DMs don't like it when players screw over their world.

Aside from an Exalted campaign or something similar, what style of game is incompatible with an Evil character? There are anti-heroes in every genre.

If the rogue's lawful, then he shouldn't be doing it anyway. If he's chaotic evil, then he's supposed to be doing that. And that's why you ban that alignment.

"Ok guys, here's the plan. First, the rogue will sneak over here, and then..."
"Sneak?! That's cowardly. I loudly announce our presence and charge forward!"

"We're going to have to bluff our way past these guys."
"No, I refuse to lie."

Any alignment can be disruptive if you take it too far.

[atemu1234]

Aside from an Exalted campaign or something similar, what style of game is incompatible with an Evil character? There are anti-heroes in every genre.

"Ok guys, here's the plan. First, the rogue will sneak over here, and then..."
"Sneak?! That's cowardly. I loudly announce our presence and charge forward!"

"We're going to have to bluff our way past these guys."
"No, I refuse to lie."

Any alignment can be disruptive if you take it too far.

He's a rogue. If he has ranks in bluff, he's inclined to bluff. If he doesn't, don't make him. And sneaking isn't a chaotic action. Wanton stealing from people is, and if he's pulling a robin hood he wouldn't be stealing from everyone.

[squiggit]

He's a rogue. If he has ranks in bluff, he's inclined to bluff. If he doesn't, don't make him. And sneaking isn't a chaotic action. Wanton stealing from people is, and if he's pulling a robin hood he wouldn't be stealing from everyone.

Which doesn't change any of his points. The hyper disruptive ideologue paladin will find any stealing, regardless of who you're stealing from, to be reprehensibile and any sneaking or bluffing to be dishonorable and therefore something he cannot tolerate.

And that's only if you're lucky and he doesn't consider it Evil (and therefore kill you on the spot).

[Ettina]

I'd say it's because the players need to work together more cohesively. Because CE and CN are often used to kill and betray your teammates for no reason, and neutral evil just to betray them over the long term. If I were DM, I wouldn't allow a player to be CE because they'd steal the show; they're supposed to be a team, not with one member selfishly killing the others for no reason.

Belkar hasn't killed any party members, and he's Chaotic Evil. Richard from Looking for Group is another Chaotic Evil character who stays loyal to his party.

[Brookshw]

Maybe you should rethink the way you run games if vitriolously mocking people who do things differently and having an absurdly narrow scope of play options are requisite in order to run a "good" campaign.

But no. Everyone else is just a terrible person for thinking options are good.

You're a funny guy, and apparently one who wasn't around for older editions. Now get off my lawn.

[Sir Garanok]

Being CE/NE in a good party causes a lot of problems most of the time.

To surpass those problems,and avoid pcs killing each other,
you have to makes acts an evil character would never do,which is bad rp and a bad choise.

We usually make a mini-conference before starting a campaign and decide the
general alignment-direction of the party.

[Fax Celestis]

Being CE/NE in a good party causes a lot of problems most of the time.

To surpass those problems,and avoid pcs killing each other,
you have to makes acts an evil character would never do,which is bad rp and a bad choise.

Ettina just gave two examples where this isn't the case.

Seriously, no one in the NE/CE Is Unilaterally Disruptive camp is bothering to actually give non-anecdotal evidence.

[torrasque666]

The problem arises when players are told no for no valid reason.

And who gets to determine what's a valid reason?

[Zanos]

Maybe you should rethink the way you run games if vitriolously mocking people who do things differently and having an absurdly narrow scope of play options are requisite in order to run a "good" campaign.

But no. Everyone else is just a terrible person for thinking options are good.

Meh, I'm personally a very permissive DM but I've encountered character concepts that were outright ridiculous for the setting, and people who complained when I calmly explained to them why that character was inappropriate. I wouldn't say that it's an "age of player entitlement", as I've found that people who have trouble grasping the concept of an inappropriate character have trouble grasping a large number of other concepts.

I do agree in general that alignments shouldn't be banned. Evil characters can have friends and agree that party enemy X needs to die. There's certainly cause to give Evil characters more intense scrutiny because you may need more plot hooks than "because it's the right thing to do", or you might get someone who rolls a CE slaughterer, but that's a per character basis. You could also have a paladin who kills people for jaywalking.

[atemu1234]

Belkar hasn't killed any party members, and he's Chaotic Evil. Richard from Looking for Group is another Chaotic Evil character who stays loyal to his party.

Belkar is both atypical and has come shockingly near killing his party. Quite frankly he hasn't yet because he knows the others would kill him. Plus, he's a ranger, so poor sneaking skills.

[Divide by Zero]

He's a rogue. If he has ranks in bluff, he's inclined to bluff. If he doesn't, don't make him. And sneaking isn't a chaotic action. Wanton stealing from people is, and if he's pulling a robin hood he wouldn't be stealing from everyone.

Which doesn't change any of his points. The hyper disruptive ideologue paladin will find any stealing, regardless of who you're stealing from, to be reprehensibile and any sneaking or bluffing to be dishonorable and therefore something he cannot tolerate.

And that's only if you're lucky and he doesn't consider it Evil (and therefore kill you on the spot).

This was my point, yeah. You're looking at it from the perspective of a reasonable player, and none of the alignments are necessarily disruptive if played by a reasonable player.

[Jeff the Green]

If the rogue's lawful, then he shouldn't be doing it anyway.

That's not even remotely true. Lawful means you follow a code, not that you follow the laws of wherever you are. Or do you think that Paladins become violent racists when they visit Thay?

A thief who follows a strict code of who he steals from and then returns stolen goods when he unwittingly steals from the wrong person is absolutely fine. For example, Indiana Jones steals repeatedly and unashamedly, but Complete Scoundrel pegs him as LG. Likewise, just about anyone in the Mafia is LE. In fact, of all the classes called out by WotC, only two must be chaotic. One of these is the sacred thief of a CN deity and so has the same restrictions as a cleric, and the other specifically focuses on stealing from LE devils.

[Pan151]

And who gets to determine what's a valid reason?

Common logic.

Wanting to prevent thing X is a valid reason for banning thing X itself.

Wanting to prevent thing X is not a valid reason for banning an entirely independent thing Y.


In short, if an alignment itself is specifically undesirable, then you ban that alignment. Say, if the story is that the party was specifically chosen by the god of Balance to eradicate all extreme alignments and bring true balance or something, then it would make perfect sense that you would not allow a LG, CG, LE or CE character, because such a character would not have been chosen by the god in the first place.
However, what people in this thread seem to specifically have a problem with is disruptive behaviour, which is irrelevant from alignment and thus banning specific alignments is misguided and pointless.

[Thurbane]

If your players think Chaotic Neutral means "lolrandom", you need to get better players. When I play Chaotic Neutral, I basically play it as "Chaotic Good, but willing to stoop lower". You know, the way everyone else plays Lawful Neutral.

Actually most (all?) of my players are quite mature and non-disruptive. The alignment restriction was written into the campaign document not because I feared my players would be intentionally disruptive to the theme of the campaign, but merely there to avoid any confusion later on.

And I think it's hilarious that you bemoan the effects of newer editions and the internet, seeing as the entire CN=lolrandom attitude is an artifact from AD&D, when the game designers were still trying to wrap their heads around the idea of chaos not being implicitly evil(though arguably, they still haven't quite figured that out; see the de facto evil Slaadi in 3e and the axing of all non-evil chaotic alignments in 4e).

Never really played 4E, so can't comment on that. I suppose the CN = Chaotic Insane viewpoint has existed since 1E; I mean AFAIK that is the first time that alignment existed.

In my personal view, Law vs Chaos could actually be a very interesting campaign, like the Jedi vs the Sith, or the Vorlon vs. Shadows (although everyone has their own take on whether those conflicts fall directly into Law vs. Chaos or not). The current campaign I'm running, however, is focused on Good vs. Evil, and that's my choice as a DM.

I still personally believe there is a "new age of player entitlement", but whether it's specifically connected to 3.0 onwards and/or the popularity of forums where people gather and, among other things, dissect the faults (real or imagined) of their DM is up for debate. I guess I'm very old school in the fact that I believe if someone is good enough to give up a significant chunk of his time to DM for us and create a fun world/campaign for us to game in, I tend to view them with respect and accede to the occasional ban or restriction during character creation.

[Raven777]

I wonder why it isn't Paladins that get routinely banned? It is hard to argue that their class features flat out encouraging them to interfere with what other party members / players can or cannot do doesn't make them disruptive.

[Darkweave31]

I normally just 'ban' all alignments and tell my players to make interesting characters without using a cobbled together ethics system as a crutch or excuse.

[Thurbane]

I normally just 'ban' all alignments and tell my players to make interesting characters without using a cobbled together ethics system as a crutch or excuse.

That's a good point. I should point out, in addition to my above posts, that I tend to use a character's alignment as a guide rather than a hard and fast rule. I'm never going to tell a player "No, your character can't do that, you're NG!". I might have an alignment shift if multiple and flagrant violations of alignment guidelines occur, but this will have little impact for non-Paladins. As to how that fits in with my campaign guidelines, it hasn't come up so far, but I like to think I'm a reasonable and approachable DM, so I'd discuss it with a player to try and reach a mutually agreeable outcome.

[Jeff the Green]

I'm never going to tell a player "No, your character can't do that, you're NG!"

Yeah, the closest a DM should come to saying this is "This seems really out of character given your previous generosity/nobility/murderhoboness; what's your character's reasoning or motivation?" or "Okay, I think we may have pegged your character's alignment wrong. He's really acting more like Lawful Evil than Lawful Neutral."

In D&D the one thing the player has control of is their character, and it isn't the DM's job to usurp that except within very narrow game mechanics (e.g. enchantments). It is the DM's job to help the player improve their roleplaying of a realistic character.

[Troacctid]

Ettina just gave two examples where this isn't the case.

Seriously, no one in the NE/CE Is Unilaterally Disruptive camp is bothering to actually give non-anecdotal evidence.

I don't think Ettina's examples count as non-anecdotal.

The point isn't that it's impossible for NE/CE not to be disruptive, it's that they have the capacity to cause a specific kind of disruption that will never, ever occur with other alignments. There is a line. Evil characters can cross the line. Non-evil characters, by definition, cannot. Banning evil alignments is just another way of saying "You can play your character how you like, as long as you never cross this line."

Edit: The way my last DM played it was that you were allowed to become evil, but if you did, your character would become an NPC, and you'd have to make a new one. The NPC would then become a villain in the campaign, thus allowing the player to go through with it if they really felt it would be true to their character to do so, but without creating a situation where the rest of the party is socially pressured into cooperating with them.