Restricting Certain Alignments

That's a good idea

I have not GM'd any systems do far that fall into the traditional alignment system. However, if I did, I don't hink that I would restrict any alignments, assuming I was playing with my normal group. Chaotic individuals can still have a common interest and work together, unless I am badly misunderstanding the alignment.

this is

Virus that makes people turn into sadistic edgelords. In theory it could be interesting as a modernized approach to a zombie apocalypse, in practice it reads like the fantasies of a mentally imbalanced teenager

I had the first 3 trade paperbacks.

Ennis really fucked up by allowing that complete edgelord faggot David Lapham take over, as Ennis tries to use Crossed to explore an idea or a concept (such as Altruism vs Pragmatism in a survival situation), whereas Lapham uses it for his own gore-drenched jackoff material

Basically think zombie virus apocalypse only people and animals don't turn into zombies, they turn into super edgy violent things that just do random violent sexual shit. The people at least are also designated by having the disease make a rash/boil/whatever cross on their face.

The series has like people raping dolphins and slaping other people to death with horse cock while tarping bridges/structures with from freshly flayed people. It's stupidly violent to disgusting levels for no reason to be stupidly violent.

...

>It's stupidly violent to disgusting levels for no reason to be stupidly violent.

Only when Lapham does it. Which is why I sold my three trade paperbacks. Cuz he fucked the whole series up.

The problem is you try to think alignment as a replacement for personality, when it's really a shorthand for it. I mean two characters can have totally different personalities while both being CE. Same with LG or any other alignment. Each alignment is a collection of nearly infinite personalities, otherwise you end with a world where only nine types of personalities exist which is unrealistic, silly and worst of all, boring.

Virus spreads that completely removes all inhibitions and sends people into a frenzy.

Initially made as an immature jab at people that say they could survive a zombie apocalypse, it nonetheless has a surprisingly solid and sober feel, which made the bursts of extreme violence and tragedy all the more impactful.

Sadly, it devolved into goreporn which completely removed any edge it actually had.
For example, the first issue has it's first shocking moment where two survivors get gutted and raped due to one of them being a fucking idiot, and it was a stark contrast to the odd zombie kill we'd seen before.
Later on, we see children getting fed into wood chippers as a matter of course.

Veeky Forums has gotten easier to troll?
More like a crew of people rolled in, thought they could clean out the place, and now have found their crusade running long overtime. Can't clear out cryptanalysis fast enough, and we old grognards are having too much fun to quit.
No specific group, just started 3 years ago when the place was being prettied up for market, only to spill out of Moot's pockets like spaghetti. Was a siren call to lots of folks from all over the net to come and cut a slice off the old king, but it hasn't changed anything really.
Just post a picture of female armor, or talk about Drow, sit back, and watch people, for free, fight for your pleasure.

Chaotic Evil, True Neutral, and Chaotic Neutral.

CE for the pants on head retarded behavior it induces. People can't play it to save their lives I swear. It takes a special talent to make a truly good CE character.

TN because I got very quickly fedup with that flip flopping. Help one side then cut them to ribbons everyones dead balance preserved yaaaay. No really that was his logic if everyone was dead it was all good and balanced.

CN because they just use it as a blanket excuse to justify EVERY RETARDED ACTION POSSIBLE and I take it as a red flag when someone brings that to the table. I know guys who could do a great CN character but still ban it.

I'm also a bit leery on Lawful Good because of it can cause issues with the damn paladin starting shit, again, because the rogue did his job.

It's god damn survival instinct at this point, you can tell alot of whats coming at you from the alignments the players pick.

I suppose, since Lawful Good doesn't always mean Lawful Nice.

I'm still not 100% sold, but since people do use alignments as replacement for personality as you said, would it be improper to scrutinize those who take those 2 alignments I've restricted?

If everyone properly understands alignments then there's no reason to ban any.

That said, if the party agrees to play a certain kind of campaign, they should avoid having wildly different alignments.

Man, if you actually think Crossed is an example of Chaotic Evil done right, you're a dumbass. It's cool that you enjoy it, but it is far from an example of being well done.

I wouldn't ban any alignments at all. All of them can be played well and make for an interesting game. Even Chaotic Stupid, if you're running a comedy.

What exactly mean by scrutinize? Because I think a DM should look into each character's motivations, personality and concept before the game begins regardless of alignments. And that level of scrutiny usually turns up any lolrandumb or Chaotic Edgy characters regardless of what's written on the sheet.

>Man, if you actually think Crossed is an example of Chaotic Evil done right, you're a dumbass

Sorry you think my ass is dumb. (lol jk user)

>It's cool that you enjoy it, but it is far from an example of being well done.

I used to enjoy it when I was younger. As for being well done, well, I think it's a good (if very hyperbolic) example- no respect for the laws of man or god, urge fulfillment regardless of who is hurt etc

>Even Chaotic Stupid, if you're running a comedy.

I can't help but think of Steve Buscemi's character from ConAir for some reason. Specifically that line about how he wore some lady's head as a hat for a few hours.

>Because I think a DM should look into each character's motivations, personality and concept before the game begins regardless of alignments

Well, basically that, except I always have a feeling of how things will run with all the other alignments- some arguments in character, but then morality, pragmatism or greed win out. But for those 2 alignments, I find there is trouble. That's why I made the thread, as I was wondering (hoping) that other alignments can be problematic, or if I was justified in my stance on restricting.

There is nothing I'd want to take off the table for all campaigns, but I'm pretty willing to set down pretty rigorous restrictions for any given campaign.

"Make characters of any Lawful alignment, loyal the Yellow Emperor"

"Make characters of any non-evil alignment who are interested in exploring the Fargath Wastes."

"Make characters of any non-good, non-lawful alignment who are part of Warlord Garuk's army."

I would restrict chaotic anything but it won't fix my idiot players' behaviour.

Well, every character personality description should have a part on why the character works with the others (unless the whole point of the campaign is to fuck over each other), so I don't feel that any alignments are distruptive. Certain personalities or character traits can be, but you should always be checking for incompatible behaviors specifically and not just outright ban alignments. The latter feels lazy and leaves a bad taste in the players mouth, even if they didn't want to play that alignment. Saying 'dude, this character's a dick. Go make someone that can work in a fucking party.' sounds a lot more reasonable and if the player gets annoyed with that, you probably didn't want the player in your group anyway.

i don't really restrict alignments but given that my experience with anyone who plays CN is "i want to play an evil character but i'm to much of a pussy to deal with any consequences of my actions and i think be" i usually ask anybody who wants to be CN if they really want to be CN first

You.

I like you. You gave me a good answer.

I avoided Crossed for a long time but the 100 series was really neat. It's a century after the apocalypse and follows a group of archeologists trying to figure out what the world was like prefall. Humans vastly outnumber the infected because disease/cold weather/injury/inbreeding, people live in fortified citystates and speak in weird lingos you have to piece together yourself

Damn crossed seems really disgusting,who the fuck can stomach this shit(let alone CREATE it).

But to answer OPs question,i'm personally against restrictions of any kind,any alignment can be done right and hell,the alignment system is pretty limiting in itself.

+100 is great. I love how "fuck" became a polite word thanks to a generation hearing all their elders say it constantly.

Depends on the context of the campaign
>You will all be mercenaries so good aligned characters better have a damn good reason for murdering people for money
Or something like that.

Not really, but I expect the players to explain the reason why the character's moral/ethics etc. would be represented as such, and why'd they tag along with others.

>Damn crossed seems really disgusting,who the fuck can stomach this shit(let alone CREATE it).

A demented Irish comicbook writer who wanted to take shot at zombie-apocalypse nerds?

Though, to be fair, it only got really disgusting when he decided to let others have a go with the series. Then gross cocksuckers like Lapham came out of the woodwork and made it into goreporn spankfodder

Heh,can't say I'm not familiar with Garth Ennis,all I'm saying is,it requires immense fortitude to put something as grotesque as this on paper.
Conceptually the setting is pretty interesting,too bad it becomes goreporn

>Conceptually the setting is pretty interesting,too bad it becomes goreporn

That's why I dropped it.

I mean, I still maintain my stance that Crossed are a good, but hyperbolic example of CE.
Some disagree with me. And that's fair. I mean, the Orcs and Uruk-hai are also good examples of CE, right?

I feel that our DM is about to restrict Chaotic Good and Lawful Evil, because me and my friend have been playing those two and we're having too much fun with it according to him.

That's fucking stupid. "Too much fun"? Wtf?

>Virus

It's not viral, it's memetic.
They showed pretty early that you can become crossed even if you haven't been in contact with the crossed.
Just hearing them talk can cause you to become crossed if it affects you psychologically.
They even showed that the crossed ones have access to knowledge they shouldn't have, like personal info about people they've never met.
It's more like a curse than a virus.

That said, the comic is pretty dumb overall because there's only so much you can do with the concept before it outstays it's welcome.

>guy who hasn't read a single Crossed comic

>any alignments that you would/have restricted from your gaming group if you could?
Nope. But my players know there are consequences for their actions. TTGs aren't the same as video games.

Our unified quest to restore order by subjugating local towns and installing oppressive leaders that subscribe to our totalitarian ideals have pretty much fucked the original idea of our DM to unite the land against a conclave of lords because he assumed we would play "good guys" when we interpreted it as Commies vs Nazis, guess who we're playing as.

I'm going with the Nazi's? (you better not be Red, or you're going to be dead).

Alright, I'll bite.
Explain how the crossed convict in the cop car had personal info about the officer's family without speculating.

Gott mit uns, literally.

...

>Explain how the crossed convict in the cop car had personal info about the officer's family without speculating.

It said right there in the comic that the Crossed was speculating. It's been a while since I read it, but it was a bit of dialog between the male lead and that very cop- male lead said that the Crossed pieced it together via cold-reading.

It was a scene that was meant to showcase that the Crossed were able to think and reason out things

He didn't. He was talking shit to get under the cops skin, this is revealed in the panels where the glasses guy is talking to the cop.

See?

Furthermore>They showed pretty early that you can become crossed even if you haven't been in contact with the crossed.
Just hearing them talk can cause you to become crossed if it affects you psychologically.

Is nonsense- it's only ever been that people become Crossed via fluid exchange, else that lady who had to put her son down would've Crossed herself.

It's also been established that the crossed retain all knowledge and skills that they had prior to being crossed.
Maybe the guy in the back of the cop car was some kind of conman or PUA before? He might have had some cold reading skills.

Also, have any of you guys ever used crossed in a D&D game instead of normal orcs or zombies?

Err...in OP's pic is that a child? Is it a midget? I really can't tell.

Either way is it gonna be ok?

So after re-skimming the comic, it turns out I miss-remembered a bunch of details.

It's essentially what would happen if you tried to turn a shock image into a comic books franchise. Veeky Forums hates chaotic stupid edgy shit, so it's easy to get fa/tg/uys riled up by posting it.

It's a child.
It'll be okay until they get bored of listening to her cries, they they'll rape her to death.

>Also, have any of you guys ever used crossed in a D&D game instead of normal orcs or zombies?

When I ran a game of "Hellcats and Hockeysticks", with these psycho chicks called "The eXed". Pretty much chicks who went through bad breakups would get an X rash on their face and just become great big destructive, verbally abusive bitches.
It was a magical disease, so it could only 'infect' those chick in bad-breakups

No, I'm not kidding. It only lasted a session, but it was fun as hell.

You know what? That's fine. Sorry I was a douche and said you never read the comic

No biggie man. I think the biggest thing I based my original assumption on was how Randall was crossed without ever being near the crossed, then I realized he was hit by the cum-bullet.
Jesus Christ.

>The latter because anything less than Morder Orcs or Crossed, I feel is doing the alignment a disservice.

Chaotic Evil is a 100% legitimate alignment. You don't abide by rules and you don't abide by morality.

Guess what PCs do, usually? They leave society and go kill and loot, essentially.

Bahaha, I remember that scene!

Ahhh...sometimes I'm sad I got rid of those comics. But like I've repeated a gajillion times already- David Lapham fucked the series up.

Well,they certainly are an example of CE,but the important distinction is that they are an irrational example of CE,same as with LOTR orcs.That's good if you want villain fodder,but not particularly nuanced enough for a PC(unless that's what you're going for,of course).
What I would point towards as an example of a bit more nuanced CE is Orcus,or something similarly omnicidal,maybe someone who was so broken by the world that he can't see any course of action other than retaliation.

Oh.

I think I'll go to another thread now.

They intentionally and explicitly made it meaningless from the get-go; part of the inspiration (there aren't enough quote marks) behind Crossed was that zombie stories inevitably boil down to "find the cure!" or "get to the safe place!" and they wanted to have a zombie story that was explicitly impossible to cure, had no clear origin to the virus and had no reliable safe place. The rationale is that this frees up the writer to focus on things like characters and scenarios that don't fall into worn, tired zombie tropes.

Which would be great except it's terrible. Crossed hits that special kind of awful where you can see something interesting and then immediately regret being interested (not because of the gore but because the interesting thing is just tossed aside or whatever). Like, there's a Crossed story that takes place in the modern day and involves a bunch of survivors piecing together references to a previous Crossed event that happened when man was barely civilised, implying that the Crossed were originally a Neanderthal-like side-species ("Homo Tortor") that might have bred into the human genome and is now atavistically reasserting itself in the form of the current Crossed outbreak. Except when you find the guy who wrote the book, he's become Crossed and insists he made it all up. (Now, maybe he's saying that because he's Crossed and crazy and just wants to say whatever it takes to hurt you, but still)

What started off as an attempt to tell a story avoiding certain tropes essentially becomes a non-story. The series tent poles of "no cure, no answers, no safety, no salvation" mean that nothing really happens over the course of the story other than some murders. You don't engage with the characters because they're not there to do anything besides die. You don't invest in the events because nothing the characters do can matter.

>are there any alignments that you would/have restricted from your gaming group if you could?
yeah, all the evil alignments.

I have the first 9 issues by Garth if you want them, I think he did up to 10, but I couldn't find a good seed to the final issue.
I could upload them if you know of a good service where I don't have to make an account.

So maybe Darkseid? or is he LE, you think?

It's okay bro, Thanks though.

Hmm,I'd say Darkseid is more LE,if only because he wants to assert control,which I would associate with lawfulness and order.That is if I remember his character correctly.

Please do upload.

I found this: viewcomic.com/?s=crossed

>solid
>sober

yeah, nah. The only thing Garth does well is write Superman.

Give us a few examples of nuanced CE that would be good for PCs, if you please.

LE and CG (generally, of course) both subscribe the the idea that the end justifies the means.
Darksied, Apocalypse and Magneto fit the LE alignment if you don't count specific issues where they deviate for their usual norms.

Would Galactus fall under CG or TN?

>as Ennis tries to use Crossed to explore an idea or a concept (such as Altruism vs Pragmatism in a survival situation)
This. The whole reason he didn't just use zombies is because zombie fiction has largely solved zombies as a threat, so he wanted something that there was really no way of humanity prevailing against.

"fight" on Veeky Forums still means "debate club" anywhere else. We're unnaturally civil while calling each other idiots. Somewhat enthralling really.

But honestly, Veeky Forums is no easier to troll than ever prior. it's downright impossible to make us mad. I mean, pic related, that's a female dwarf, right? But on /v/ or /b/ it's an invitation to scream for the moderators.

on /mlp/ they'd just call it humanized Applejack.

Honestly,it's quite hard to think of much off the top of my head,I'd say a dark side playthrough of KoTOR 2 would be a good starting point.Amatsu-Mikaboshi from Marvel could be another.Will contribute more if I remember.
Galactus would probably fall under TN,since he cares about universal balance,without regard to (some) life.

Uploading now.

Which makes for piss-poor reading, generally. It's like those Muv-Luv games, where the super special aliens are totally invincible and cannot possibly be defeated because author fiat.

Like most exercises in guro, it started badly, and went downhill.

If we were at all rational about it: the inhibition-free crossed would purge themselves in a gory display of self-induced cannibalistic blood orgies over the course of a few weeks. But, since it isn't realistic, the crossed get nuclear launch codes and super-smart zombie nuns who can't conjugate words or read anymore.

Remove the art, and it's full of characters acting stupidly against their own best interests and monsters that always win. Remove the dialogue, and it's gore-porn. Even united, neither excuses the other's failings.

I don't see it.

Ok, real talk; I was just gonna google a picture to show what I meant, but it turns out the pic in is literally humanized Applejack from mlp.
Here's another pic for the very same artist, "Mangneto".

That's hilarious

I'm the only dm in a group of dm's who's against evil players and I'm known for it.

I do not altogether ban evil players, but I do warn them that they'll get fucked if they act out of line (karma's a big thing in my world). What I mean is. It's fine to play some sort of devil on a contract to help a party. But a random psychopath is going to be held up by the inquisition and publicly executed.

The thing is. If you are a dm, and a player is acting a lil' shit (The biggest taboo being fucking all the other players over), set a trap up for them. Find a situation where they willingly go to their death, make it abundantly clear that the resulting events are due to their actions. Basically don't be 'that dm' and smite them with your holy god fist. Make it their fault, and most of all, make it entertaining. Mostly this is just for 'redeemable' players. If you've had your occ talk with them and they are acting like a bitch, then don't bother with poking fun. Kick them out, maybe turn their character into the next bbeg, you'll save yourself and your players a lot of trouble.

...

I will allow any alignment as long as it doesn't unduly disrupt the game. If I'm running a jokey or non-serious game, anything goes usually; in a serious game I'll still allow it as long as the player justifies it to me, and they contribute to the plot instead of just being a jackass.

>the inhibition-free crossed would purge themselves over the course of a few weeks

Right; they often travel in packs but are just as often shown tearing their fellow Crossed apart - even tearing THEMSELVES apart. But because author fiat, Alan Moore has them still being around 100 years later.

This. this is why I never got into the series. morbid curiosity drew me in at first, but the story is a mess in more ways than one.

Here's issue 0-9
mega.nz/#!8RYE3aJQ

Whoops, forgot the decryption key.
!e7dF_guIFgJM0owWKcDkKXTFoo_lZ1bDXup5e6_EqVA

The entire Chaotic side of the spectrum is mostly restricted for me. Chaotic Evil and Neutral often leads to "because reasons", "lol iunno", "it's okay i'm chaotic", and "fuck you i'm doing it anyways" as reasons for virtually everything they do. Chaotic Good is included in this as well by virtue of association and so players can't say I'm biased against Chaotic Neutrals or Chaotic Evils, just Chaotics.

True Neutrals get scrutiny unless the character is playing a Monk or possibly Druid. Lawful Good gets scrutiny unless the player has a good philosophical understanding of what Lawful Good represents.

Everything else is pretty much a go.

Then why does it have the face of a middle aged man?

>They even showed that the crossed ones have access to knowledge they shouldn't have, like personal info about people they've never met.
Uh, later in that issue they explained that the guy just noticed the cop's wedding ring.

to be frank Garth Ennis is a moron who can't write his way out of a paper bag without taking a gigantic crap on someone, if you want to read a comic from Avatar Press that's actually good, look up Uber

yeah Muv-Luv isn't all that great either, although I actually do like the BETA, cause unlike the Crossed they are actually an interesting set of enemies

Yeah uber is the shit, of course I'm a sucker for alternate WWII stories.

the beta arent interesting at all they are simply enemy whos bizarro plot armor invalidates all but the most contrived strategies to best them.

>Uber.
>good.

Yeah, nah, I disagree. Dark Gods on the other hand is pretty decent, have a look at that one.

On /v/ or /b/ it's an invitation to jack it.

Personally I just kick out That Guy so everyone can play whatever alignment they want because they aren't That Guy.

Why would you play with That Guy? Is there a point to keeping That Guy in the group and just trying to control his pantshittery with weird rules like this? Even if you're short players, it's probably a mercy to kill a group in the womb than to actually attempt at playing with That Guy and having a nightmare of a session before the inevitable collapse.