Why ban alignments?

[TandemChelipeds]

spawn is probably the epitome of neutral. at least in the comics... but thats more because of the crappy D&D alignment mechanics. he's killed tons of demons AND angels (and the devil AND god). so it all balances out. he has evil tendency due to the selfishness.


debates like this make me question alignment in general...

It should be noted that in Spawn's setting, angels are pretty morally suspect too.

[geekintheground]

It should be noted that in Spawn's setting, angels are pretty morally suspect too.

true enough, though i'd say they still qualify as good. then again, never really read the comics, just have general knowledge of spawn himself like most comicbook characters :'(

[Fax Celestis]

Not to mention John Constantine, Hellboy, Doctor Manhattan, Ozymandias, The Comedian... These are all heroes or antiheroes that can't be played at a "no evil" table.

[NichG]

Not to mention John Constantine, Hellboy, Doctor Manhattan, Ozymandias, The Comedian... These are all heroes or antiheroes that can't be played at a "no evil" table.

Many of these wouldn't qualify as evil in D&D's alignment system. Out of them, I'd say that Ozymandias and the Comedian are the two sure bets. Build Hellboy as a Tiefling instead of a Half-Fiend and he might as well be CG.

And as far as a player wanting to play Ozymandias or the Comedian, surely its not hard to see how either of those could be highly disruptive. Ozymandias effectively manipulated and controlled the actions of the other PCs, so its a very asymmetric character that gives one player a lot more power than the others over the plot. The Comedian is a chaotic-stupid type who is generally going to ruin any chance of diplomacy or non-combat interaction for the party.

Is it impossible to run a satisfying game with characters like that? No, of course not. But for a lot of scenarios, themes, and even particular sets of players, characters like those are going to be a disaster.

[ImperatorV]

I'd say "Put down Lawful Neutral", and not let you screw over the world enough to make Mr Pump accuse you of taking at least three lives more than anyone else in the party. And every time you do manage to screw someone over, it will come around and bite you in the ass hard. You are free to act. You are also free to deal with the consequences of your actions. I like to run more idealistic games, where crime doesn't pay and what goes around comes around.

If someone doesn't like the way I run my games, they can run their own game. Until you are willing to run a game yourself, you are NOT an equal in voice at the table to the DM. Yes, we are entitled to make those rules. That's one of the perks of having the guts to sit behind the DM's screen. There are always more players to replace those that don't get along with my DMing style.

The PHB disagrees. Re-read the last sentence of each alignment given. The Good and Neutral alignments are explicitly called out as "The Best" alignments.

If you believe sitting behind a screen gives you absolute power, that's on you.

The PHB also says drowning heals you. Also, the "good and neutral are the best" is heavily influenced by RL prejudice, but let's not get into that. I accept most people don't believe "bad" members of society deserve respect, and arguing over will just get the thread closed. So let's drop that.

I'm the one writing the adventures, the NPCs, the setting, and everything else. It's mine, full stop.You don't have to do what I say, you have to create characters that fit within the theme and the tone of the game. there is a difference.

Seriously, so many of the posts defending alignment bans in this thread sound like a person who likes power trips. The GM has the right to enjoy the game, too. I don't enjoy non-Good games. So, I present a game of doing Good things. If players want that, they can come play. If they don't, they can pass.

Also, you could make the argument that:

"I want this game to be about medieval fantasy, it will be about medieval fantasy, because I said so."

All games have restrictions. That's what sets the tone and theme.

Yes. Horrible, horrible me for not being willing to go though a ton of GMing work to run something that isn't what I want to play.

To your first point, I will simply state that I don't think it should be up to one person to determine the "tone of the game." If you disagree than whatever.

The thing about medieval fantasy was funny, but it doesn't really apply since the game we are discussing is almost invariably about medieval fantasy (baring significant modifications). If we were discussing a system that allowed for more genres, I would say you can't force players into a genre if what they really want is something else.

If catering to your players is not something you want to do as a DM, then I suggest you either stop DMing or find a group of players who always (or nearly always) want the same thing as you do. If you have already done the latter than I'm not sure why you would have to ban anything ever though.



Ultimately, I think the difference of opinion here is due to my viewing the power of a DM as a privilege, not a right. I have a firm belief that no one in any kind of position of power should ever be able to utter the words "because I said so." If there is no reason beyond your personal emotions, there is no reason at all.

Of course, if a DM and several of his players collectively decide they want to focus on a certain alignment to the exclusion of the others, then I would feel differently about it.

[Roxxy]

To your first point, I will simply state that I don't think it should be up to one person to determine the "tone of the game." If you disagree than whatever.

I create the game, and send out feelers about what I am running. Part of that is setting the tone so I can attract the players interested in what I am running.

The thing about medieval fantasy was funny, but it doesn't really apply since the game we are discussing is almost invariably about medieval fantasy (baring significant modifications). If we were discussing a system that allowed for more genres, I would say you can't force players into a genre if what they really want is something else.

If we are going with Pathfinder, it is as much renaissance than medieval. Going with straight medieval fantasy is in and of itself a modification.

If catering to your players is not something you want to do as a DM, then I suggest you either stop DMing or find a group of players who always (or nearly always) want the same thing as you do. If you have already done the latter than I'm not sure why you would have to ban anything ever though.

The GM has the right to enjoy the game, too. I don't do all the labor of setting up the setting, writing the adventures, and GMing the games just because. I'm not going to cater to a player when it breaks the tone of the game or the theme of the setting. No playstyle accommodates everything. I'm open about what mine accommodates during recruitment, so players can avoid me if they don't want heroic magitech fantasy.

Ultimately, I think the difference of opinion here is due to my viewing the power of a DM as a privilege, not a right.

I can set myself up whenever I want, so it is a right. What I don't have a right to is players.

I have a firm belief that no one in any kind of position of power should ever be able to utter the words "because I said so." If there is no reason beyond your personal emotions, there is no reason at all.

Why did I put Asian elements into a setting if not because my personal emotions are pleased? Why did I put in trains? Or focus on heroic parties? Or choose Pathfinder over 4E? Every decision falls purely to personal emotion.

Of course, if a DM and several of his players collectively decide they want to focus on a certain alignment to the exclusion of the others, then I would feel differently about it.

Why? I am the one doing all the (considerable) work. It is natural that I get the most say. My players are not my equals. If they were, I would not have been given sole arbitration over the rules, the setting, the adventures, and all disputes by the rules themselves.

[ImperatorV]

I create the game, and send out feelers about what I am running. Part of that is setting the tone so I can attract the players interested in what I am running.

If we are going with Pathfinder, it is as much renaissance than medieval. Going with straight medieval fantasy is in and of itself a modification.
The GM has the right to enjoy the game, too. I don't do all the labor of setting up the setting, writing the adventures, and GMing the games just because. I'm not going to cater to a player when it breaks the tone of the game or the theme of the setting. No playstyle accommodates everything. I'm open about what mine accommodates during recruitment, so players can avoid me if they don't want heroic magitech fantasy.

Why did I put Asian elements into a setting if not because my personal emotions are pleased? Why did I put in trains? Or focus on heroic parties? Or choose Pathfinder over 4E? Every decision falls purely to personal emotion.

Why? I am the one doing all the (considerable) work. It is natural that I get the most say. My players are not my equals.

I say you should enjoy the "work" part of it or you really shouldn't do it. I run games because I like creating things. If someone wants me to create something different than I originally intended, then I take their idea and make it awesome.

So your logic is that since you created the campaign world, you get to say what happens in it. Ok. That's reasonable. The same logic also dictates that since the players create the characters, they get all the say over what the characters are (mechanics permitting), including alignment.

"But," you say, "That alignment is affecting in my campaign world, and so I can control it!" Yes and no. Character alignment certainly affects your campaign world, which you created and therefore by your logic have power over. But alignment is also part of the character the player created, and by your logic he has power over. As a conflict of two jurisdictions I believe that the solution should be for both parties to work together and find a solution.

[Roxxy]

I say you should enjoy the "work" part of it or you really shouldn't do it.

I'll do it if we can be the good guys. If not, it stops being enough fun to be worth the work.

I run games because I like creating things. If someone wants me to create something different than I originally intended, then I take their idea and make it awesome.

The problem is, what if I don't like what they want me to create?

So your logic is that since you created the campaign world, you get to say what happens in it. Ok. That's reasonable. The same logic also dictates that since the players create the characters, they get all the say over what the characters are (mechanics permitting), including alignment.

Yes, except for the fact that the alignment issue was brought up in recruitment. If it was unacceptable, they could have not joined.

"But," you say, "That alignment is affecting in my campaign world, and so I can control it!" Yes and no. Character alignment certainly affects your campaign world, which you created and therefore by your logic have power over. But alignment is also part of the character the player created, and by your logic he has power over. As a conflict of two jurisdictions I believe that the solution should be for both parties to work together and find a solution.

It affects my game, not the campaign world. I recruited for a game of selfless heroes, and said up front it was a game of selfless heroes when you joined, and you brought a mercenary that only cares for money. If you don't want to play a selfless hero, don't try to sign up for a game about selfless heroes. I don't find that reasonable.

[NichG]

I say you should enjoy the "work" part of it or you really shouldn't do it. I run games because I like creating things. If someone wants me to create something different than I originally intended, then I take their idea and make it awesome.

So your logic is that since you created the campaign world, you get to say what happens in it. Ok. That's reasonable. The same logic also dictates that since the players create the characters, they get all the say over what the characters are (mechanics permitting), including alignment.

"But," you say, "That alignment is affecting in my campaign world, and so I can control it!" Yes and no. Character alignment certainly affects your campaign world, which you created and therefore by your logic have power over. But alignment is also part of the character the player created, and by your logic he has power over. As a conflict of two jurisdictions I believe that the solution should be for both parties to work together and find a solution.

The thing is, no DM has a duty to run for a particular group of players, just like no player has a duty to play in a particular DM's game (or with particular other players, or whatever). Not to mention that a given player is capable of enjoying a variety of games and a given DM is capable of enjoying running a variety of games. If those varieties intersect, then enjoyable gaming can happen between that player and DM. If they don't, then it makes sense for the player and DM to shop around for others to pair up with. Now multiply this by six to find a group with common interests.

Just because a random sampling of 6 people includes one guy who wants to play a lawful evil businessman who uses modern economic theory to assassinate someone, someone who wants to play a heroic robot, a guy who wants to play a moody cowboy good guy, someone who wants to play a potato farmer, someone who wants to play a summoned creature from the land of monsters, and someone who wants to play a hyperintelligent dinosaur bent on vengeance against the Kuiper belt for wiping out his species means that those people must play together (and inevitably step all over eachothers' toes). Instead, one DM can run an Adventure! campaign, another DM can run a gritty, realistic, medieval campaign, etc, and the players can self-sort themselves into the campaigns they find interesting.

The DM is basically setting up a shop selling a particular product. The players decide if they want to buy what he's selling. Sometimes the DM offers a menu rather than a single thing and players can pick what they like out of the menu. Sometimes the DM offers to customize the product in order to cast a wider net. But the restrictions that the DM sets are just part of identifying their product. If you as a player go to a "no-evil" or "heroic fantasy only" table then you know out of the gate that you won't have to deal with the other PCs being evil either. You know what you're getting. The DM was clear from the start about what they wanted to run. If you wanted to play an evil character, you should have gone to a different table and left your slot in the game open for someone who actually was interested in buying what the DM was selling.

[TandemChelipeds]

It affects my game, not the campaign world. I recruited for a game of selfless heroes, and said up front it was a game of selfless heroes when you joined, and you brought a mercenary that only cares for money. If you don't want to play a selfless hero, don't try to sign up for a game about selfless heroes. I don't find that reasonable.

But there are so many other things you can play that are neither totally selfless cut-and-dried heroes nor money-chasing mercenaries. What about a hedonist wizard? What about a cleric of a war god, driven to fight as religious observance? What about a bard who only seeks stories to tell, or a ranger who wants to hunt exotic game, or a cavalier seeking glory? What about an ubermensch investigator? What about a monk, seeking to break an old addiction with strict ascetic discipline? There are so many interesting stories to tell, and honestly, a party consisting entirely of faultless altruists sounds kinda boring.

[draken50]

But there are so many other things you can play that are neither totally selfless cut-and-dried heroes nor money-chasing mercenaries. What about a hedonist wizard? What about a cleric of a war god, driven to fight as religious observance? What about a bard who only seeks stories to tell, or a ranger who wants to hunt exotic game, or a cavalier seeking glory? What about an ubermensch investigator? What about a monk, seeking to break an old addiction with strict ascetic discipline? There are so many interesting stories to tell, and honestly, a party consisting entirely of faultless altruists sounds kinda boring.

Because I don't care how much you like onions, I'm not ordering them on my pizza. You have decided that non-evil =Faultless Altruists, not us. And I owe you as a player nothing. You are not in my game, you will not be in my game. The players in my games know my terms and expectations, they have decided that they are willing to explore the pizza I provide knowing that it does not, and will not have onions.

I have an obligation to the players in my game based on the social contract I make with them. If you are not in my game, I have no obligation to the players that aren't. I as a rule expressed to all of my players is that by default: "Your characters will get along." There have been intra party arguments, anger between characters over decisions, but ultimately, every time they work together of their own volition to achieve their goals. "But" some players may say: "aren't stories where one member of the team is forced to work with others they don't like and strongly disagree with potentially interesting, like bad guys with control chips and stuff?" and I say "Sure, but not in my games, if you'd like to do that, find another game."

I don't have to care what you like. I owe you nothing.

[Aka-chan]

I'm the one writing the adventures, the NPCs, the setting, and everything else. It's mine, full stop.

Well, except that you're not the one writing the main characters. And unless you have purely reactive players who don't have their characters do anything unless prodded by the GM, they're going to have a role in driving the plot too. Not to mention that most of the GMs I know will take PC backstories as jumping-off points for plot ("Okay, I'll set up the guy who killed Character A's parents as one of the antagonists, and at some point a situation will come up that threatens to reveal Character B's deep dark secret...oh, and Player 3 says that his character's goal is to find the lost city his deity used to rule before her apotheosis, so I'll work that in somehow..."). The story really is being jointly told by you and your players.


As far as banning alignment goes, I think that banning alignments outright eliminates a lot of interesting stories. One that comes immediately to mind is the archetype of the former villain seeking redemption. He may well be Evil-aligned at the start of the campaign, because 1) he hasn't yet done enough good to outweigh his past evil deeds, and 2) everybody who's trying to make a big change in their life backslides sometimes. I had a character like this in the first game I ran, and he was a compelling, interesting character who significantly contributed both to the party and to the richness of the overall story. Telling the player that he couldn't play that character would have been an immensely bad idea.

I also agree with the posters who've said that Good alignments can sometimes be just as disruptive as Evil ones. There's a thread in the main roleplaying forum, for example, where the OP talks about two parties he's run games for--one Good, one Evil. The Good party did such things as murdering town guards, while the Evil party did such things as warning an order of paladins about an approaching orc army. (Granted, the Evil party probably had a self-serving reason for doing so, like not wanting to get killed by the orc army themselves, but still.) And honestly, I feel like I've heard just as many stories about stereotypical stick-up-the-posterior paladins disrupting parties as I have about sterotypical CE murder-everything-that-crosses-their-path characters disrupting parties.

[Roxxy]

[QUOTE=TandemChelipeds;18209489]But there are so many other things you can play that are neither totally selfless cut-and-dried heroes nor money-chasing mercenaries. What about a hedonist wizard?

What about a cleric of a war god, driven to fight as religious observance? What about a bard who only seeks stories to tell, or a ranger who wants to hunt exotic game, or a cavalier seeking glory? What about an ubermensch investigator? What about a monk, seeking to break an old addiction with strict ascetic discipline? There are so many interesting stories to tell, and honestly, a party consisting entirely of faultless altruists sounds kinda boring.

There are games where you can fit any one of those concepts just fine. I just don't run them. I write the sort of adventure hooks where there isn't ever going to be much reward. I can't stand the commonplace idea that people who fight for glory or money are anything other than evil. You are killing people because of the thrill and energy and the egotism of forming a legacy, or just so you can get paid. You can't justify that.

This is why I like best to just chuck alignment, and say "write somebody who is on the side of good". It makes it so much easier to accept wiggle room and have flawed characters, while also making it easy to demon the sorts of people who deserve to be demonized.

[TandemChelipeds]

Because I don't care how much you like onions, I'm not ordering them on my pizza. You have decided that non-evil =Faultless Altruists, not us.

Actually, that was Roxxy. Who I was responding to.

And I owe you as a player nothing. You are not in my game, you will not be in my game. The players in my games know my terms and expectations, they have decided that they are willing to explore the pizza I provide knowing that it does not, and will not have onions.

I have an obligation to the players in my game based on the social contract I make with them. If you are not in my game, I have no obligation to the players that aren't. I as a rule expressed to all of my players is that by default: "Your characters will get along." There have been intra party arguments, anger between characters over decisions, but ultimately, every time they work together of their own volition to achieve their goals. "But" some players may say: "aren't stories where one member of the team is forced to work with others they don't like and strongly disagree with potentially interesting, like bad guys with control chips and stuff?" and I say "Sure, but not in my games, if you'd like to do that, find another game."

I don't have to care what you like. I owe you nothing.

Well. Somebody's getting defensive over perceived slights.

[Fax Celestis]

After the latest few posts, anything further I could say on the subject will earn me a warning, so I will bid you adieu.

[Roxxy]

Well, except that you're not the one writing the main characters. And unless you have purely reactive players who don't have their characters do anything unless prodded by the GM, they're going to have a role in driving the plot too.

Exactly. I want a plot of heroic deeds undertaken to protect those who cannot protect themselves. That sets the game up for a certain type of personality.

Not to mention that most of the GMs I know will take PC backstories as jumping-off points for plot ("Okay, I'll set up the guy who killed Character A's parents as one of the antagonists, and at some point a situation will come up that threatens to reveal Character B's deep dark secret...oh, and Player 3 says that his character's goal is to find the lost city his deity used to rule before her apotheosis, so I'll work that in somehow..."). The story really is being jointly told by you and your players.

I have never once used a PC backstory as an adventure hook. I feel like it discourages from having backstories that aren't "all my loved ones and everything I ever cared about is gone" for fear the GM will use their pasts against them. Another GM may well be able to work with it well, but that's not me.

As far as banning alignment goes, I think that banning alignments outright eliminates a lot of interesting stories. One that comes immediately to mind is the archetype of the former villain seeking redemption. He may well be Evil-aligned at the start of the campaign, because 1) he hasn't yet done enough good to outweigh his past evil deeds, and 2) everybody who's trying to make a big change in their life backslides sometimes. I had a character like this in the first game I ran, and he was a compelling, interesting character who significantly contributed both to the party and to the richness of the overall story. Telling the player that he couldn't play that character would have been an immensely bad idea.

He is still evil at the beginning of the campaign. That's a significant portion where the whole "selfless heroes" thing is thrown off.

I also agree with the posters who've said that Good alignments can sometimes be just as disruptive as Evil ones. There's a thread in the main roleplaying forum, for example, where the OP talks about two parties he's run games for--one Good, one Evil. The Good party did such things as murdering town guards, while the Evil party did such things as warning an order of paladins about an approaching orc army. (Granted, the Evil party probably had a self-serving reason for doing so, like not wanting to get killed by the orc army themselves, but still.) And honestly, I feel like I've heard just as many stories about stereotypical stick-up-the-posterior paladins disrupting parties as I have about sterotypical CE murder-everything-that-crosses-their-path characters disrupting parties.

That sounds like an issue with the players, not the alignments.

[TandemChelipeds]

There are games where you can fit any one of those concepts just fine. I just don't run them. I write the sort of adventure hooks where there isn't ever going to be much reward.

Note that none of the characters I listed would necessarily turn down someone in need. They simply had amoral motivations, or fell into commonly villainous archetypes.

I can't stand the commonplace idea that people who fight for glory or money are anything other than evil. You are killing people because of the thrill and energy and the egotism of forming a legacy, or just so you can get paid. You can't justify that.

You can if they're fighting back. Or if they struck first. If there's already a war zone, is it evil to enter that war zone with the expectation of fighting? Is it evil to join a fight because it's where the fighting is, and fighting is what you love? Is it evil to stomp Nazis, given the opportunity? Not everyone can be a Gandhi, and not everyone who isn't a Gandhi is a Hitler. Gandhis need Pattons to protect them from Hitlers. It's simply a logical consequence of a world where good is gentle and evil is warlike. If the Pattons weren't around, the Gandhis would get stomped in a day.

This is why I like best to just chuck alignment, and say "write somebody who is on the side of good". It makes it so much easier to accept wiggle room and have flawed characters, while also making it easy to demon the sorts of people who deserve to be demonized.

And who deserves that kind of treatment? I'm all ears.

[Jeff the Green]

I have never once used a PC backstory as an adventure hook. It discourages players from having backstories that aren't "all my loved ones and everything I ever cared about is gone" for fear the GM will use their pasts against them.

Players actually do that? The one character I did that with was unbearably dull because of it (in part), and the one I'm currently building to replace her has living parents she loves and gets on with, a number of friends and colleagues she likes, even an adult son.

[Roxxy]

You can if they're fighting back. Or if they struck first. If there's already a war zone, is it evil to enter that war zone with the expectation of fighting?

If you entered that fight because you were paid to enter that fight, yes. You are basically killing people because you got paid to kill people.

Is it evil to join a fight because it's where the fighting is, and fighting is what you love?

Yes. It is very much an evil act. You are killing people because you love killing. Of course it's an evil act.

Is it evil to stomp Nazis, given the opportunity?

Are you stomping Nazis because they are bad or because they invaded your country? Then you are fine. Are you stomping them because you were paid to stomp them? You are the lesser evil and the Nazis the greater evil, but both of you are evil.

Not everyone can be a Gandhi, and not everyone who isn't a Gandhi is a Hitler.

No, but killing people for money is kind of bad.

Gandhis need Pattons to protect them from Hitlers.

Patton wasn't a mercenary. He was a glory hound, but he fought for something beyond glory, not just the glory itself.

It's simply a logical consequence of a world where good is gentle and evil is warlike. If the Pattons weren't around, the Gandhis would get stomped in a day.

Good is not nice or soft, but it can't be paid off, either.

And who deserves that kind of treatment? I'm all ears.

Mercenaries
Those who fight solely for glory
Those who fight because they like to fight
Well intentioned extremists
Murderers
Rapists
Tyrants

[TandemChelipeds]

You are killing people because you love killing.

killing

You keep using that word. You're talking about killing. I'm talking about fighting. The joy comes in the struggle, the clash of blade on blade. The dodges and parries, the narrowly-avoided arrows. The dance of competing tactics and strategies, the minimization of losses, the maintenance and protection of supply lines, the seizing and loss of territory. The camaraderie, the unity of bodies in the operation of something far larger than any of the individuals involved. The game ends when someone dies. Defeat is the enemy, but so is victory. The fight is change. The fight is joy. The fight is life. You can water that down with your "causes". Or you can embrace it.

^and that's how you write a chaotic neutral war cleric

[Ninjaxenomorph]

I'll give you a scenario. We have this guy, he was driven from his home city for a crime he had nothing to do with, and joined the military to still support his family. Army is eventually beaten and he is forced to leave. The man joins a band of mercenaries to use his skills to continue providing for his family. That still evil?

[Roxxy]

You keep using that word. You're talking about killing. I'm talking about fighting. The joy comes in the struggle, the clash of blade on blade. The dodges and parries, the narrowly-avoided arrows. The dance of competing tactics and strategies, the minimization of losses, the maintenance and protection of supply lines, the seizing and loss of territory. The camaraderie, the unity of bodies in the operation of something far larger than any of the individuals involved. The game ends when someone dies. Defeat is the enemy, but so is victory. The fight is change. The fight is joy. The fight is life. You can water that down with your "causes". Or you can embrace it.

When sharp and heavy weapons are involved, killing is exactly what fighting results in. You can't just divorce the two because you don't want to face the reality of what you are doing to people to have your thrills. Sure, you had fun. You also slit a young man's abdomen open because you wanted to take part in the greatest game around. Not because you were fighting for your kingdom, or your freedom, or to stop a great evil from being wrought. No, it was for your entertainment. You're no better than that necromancer who sacrifices screaming victims on the altar of her dark patron.

^and that's how you write a chaotic neutral war cleric

And that is why I like to trash the alignment system when possible. That vile sort of person shouldn't be allowed to claim neutrality instead of evil.

[Roxxy]

I'll give you a scenario. We have this guy, he was driven from his home city for a crime he had nothing to do with, and joined the military to still support his family. Army is eventually beaten and he is forced to leave. The man joins a band of mercenaries to use his skills to continue providing for his family. That still evil?

As evil as the man who gut a shopkeeper to steal the wares to provide for his family.

[TandemChelipeds]

I'll give you a scenario. We have this guy, he was driven from his home city for a crime he had nothing to do with, and joined the military to still support his family. Army is eventually beaten and he is forced to leave. The man joins a band of mercenaries to use his skills to continue providing for his family. That still evil?

Hi, Jetstream Sam. Back from your stint in Revengeance?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLL3MVki46U&t=2955

[ImperatorV]

That sounds like an issue with the players, not the alignments.

The irony burns.

Also, I find your pathological hatred of "evil" things to be a little unhealthy. And somewhat hypocritical, given that in order to have a story of heroism, you must have something evil to pit it against. The only differences between an evil PC and a villain is who is controlling them and what side they are on. You are fine with having evil in your story as long as what? It doesn't have a good ending for the evil? Tell me, if evil always failed why would anyone do it? It makes virtue worthless if the alternative isn't just as viable, if not more viable. Resisting temptation is easy when the temptation is weak. I would postulate that the heroes you so love aren't heroes at all in your games; they had already won from the start! Is there any character development to be had at all?

[Ninjaxenomorph]

As evil as the man who gut a shopkeeper to steal the wares to provide for his family.

So in Berserk, Guts and Casca are evil? I also assume you've never read Schlock Mercenary.

Hi, Jetstream Sam. Back from your stint in Revengeance?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLL3MVki46U&t=2955

Not really helping my point having heroic mercenaries

[TandemChelipeds]

When sharp and heavy weapons are involved, killing is exactly what fighting results in. You can't just divorce the two because you don't want to face the reality of what you are doing to people to have your thrills. Sure, you had fun. You also slit a young man's abdomen open because you wanted to take part in the greatest game around. Not because you were fighting for your kingdom, or your freedom, or to stop a great evil from being wrought. No, it was for your entertainment. You're no better than that necromancer who sacrifices screaming victims on the altar of her dark patron.

But it is, in fact, better. Cruelty for a cause is the worst kind there is. It allows you to delude yourself into thinking you're a different kind of person.

And that is why I like to trash the alignment system when possible. That vile sort of person shouldn't be allowed to claim neutrality instead of evil.

That's awfully judgmental.

[torrasque666]

Ok guys, can we move this away from Roxxy and their alignment beliefs? Its not the topic of this thread to grill one another over why someone is wrong to ban X alignment. Both sides have made their point and Roxxy's view is that its very Black and White when it comes to alignment on the good/evil axis.

And besides, if this keeps up we might end up in a similar incident as what kept happening with JP. And I know none of the Guild want that to happen again.

[Roxxy]

Also, I find your pathological hatred of "evil" things to be a little unhealthy. And somewhat hypocritical, given that in order to have a story of heroism, you must have something evil to pit it against. The only differences between an evil PC and a villain is who is controlling them and what side they are on. You are fine with having evil in your story as long as what? It doesn't have a good ending for the evil?

Basically. I'm okay with the evil priest who carries out human sacrifice and molests children existing in the game. He is not there to be the hero of the story, however, and I have little interest in running a game for the villains.

Tell me, if evil always failed why would anyone do it?

Heroes can't be everywhere, and they aren't common.

It makes virtue worthless if the alternative isn't just as viable, if not more viable. Resisting temptation is easy when the temptation is weak.

If you want that kind of theme, play a gothic dark fantasy game, not this heroic fantasy game.

I would postulate that the heroes you so love aren't heroes at all in your games; they had already won from the start! Is there any character development to be had at all?

Of course. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to never dip into something questionable. Good characters don't even have to disagree with each other. You just have to fight because you believe in the correctness of your actions, not because you were offered a ton of gold or thought it would be fun, and you can't go and jump into a fight for the thrills or for the money.

[TandemChelipeds]

Ok guys, can we move this away from Roxxy and their alignment beliefs? Its not the topic of this thread to grill one another over why someone is wrong to ban X alignment. Both sides have made their point and Roxxy's view is that its very Black and White when it comes to alignment on the good/evil axis.

And besides, if this keeps up we might end up in a similar incident as what kept happening with JP. And I know none of the Guild want that to happen again.

Point taken. I will say, even if I disagree with Roxxy, she is far more articulate than that other one, and doesn't deserve to be lumped in with them. I simply happen to have a worldview that is diametrically opposed to hers, which I can live with.