Not the bad "PALADIN FELL BECAUSE MY GM IS SHIT" stories, the actual good ones.
I had a cool one. A player had this cutesy innocent neutral good Urchin Bard in 5e. Urchins get a pet mouse, and this shitty little creature was still around at level 16. She had spent a lot of time on this pet, going so far as taking Awaken to make it intelligent. Lots of effort out in here.
They have a run in with some stupid thugs in a little village. The party was way out of their league, but because the party was careless, they had stolen a lot of their stuff, including the bards bag, where the mouse slept.
So they track them down, splitting up to find them quicker- it literally didnt matter, because any one of them could wipe their ass with the entire gang at once if they wanted to.
So the Bard finds them. They figure out she has a soft apot for the mouse, and threatens to hurt it. She just sleeps the guy, which prompts the thug next to him to smash the mouse with his mace.
First she heats metal the guy with the mace, and just watches him for 2 full turns as he melts in his chain mail, and then, as the rest start to run, she force cages the rest, and proceeds to spend 4 hours torturing them all to death.
The party Paladin was somewhat worried when she returned and no longer pinged as good.
Michael Hall
>2017 >Still using Alignments
James Diaz
Alignments are a central part of D&D, and as long as you aren't an autistic faggot, or playing with a GM who is, it is never a problem.
It also gives way to a lot of neat role-playing goals or choices that actually has an effect on the world around you, because they can literally see what kind of person you are.
Camden King
>Neat roleplaying choice >Literally a grid of 9 cardboard cutout personalities, 3 of them which don't even reflect how sane people actually function.
WEW LAD
Parker Clark
>Neutral good >Unrestrited
>Lawful Evil >Murder everything
>Neutral evil >Does anything he wants
I don't think you understand the alignment system
Xavier Miller
Read>as long as you aren't an autistic faggot
Aaron Miller
...
Evan Collins
You're still basing a character's overall characterization on a block of text in a 3x3 grid, making it the antithesis to "neat role-playing goals or choices."
Rule of thumb: a character with depth will eventually be able to fit every single block in the alignment grid at some point in their life, and that's because people aren't always going to be LG or LE or NG or CE at every waking moment, it's just impossible.
The best you can hope for is a stereotypical person of X alignment, which is fine for dungeon crawls but not for overaching storylines that are supposed to be based off of roleplay.
Levi Wilson
>It also gives way to a lot of neat role-playing goals or choices that actually has an effect on the world around you, because they can literally see what kind of person you are.
If your GM needs an alignment system for player choices to affect the world around the PCs, then he's a shitty GM.
Thomas Peterson
Personally I make a character and decide which alignment fits them best after coming up with their characterization. I do agree that a properly developed character will not fit neatly into any one square, but generally there is one that they have more in common with than others. And if a character changes, their alignment can too. The only thing I really dislike about alignments is classes and options that force players into specific ones. I'm fine with smite evil and protection from chaos, ect. But when people start saying shit like "are you really allowed to make that choice? Is that what a Lawful Whatever would really do?" Fuck off with that shit, if it's what the character would do, it's what he would do, he shouldnt weigh his alignment above his personal beliefs, because his alignment should be a result of his personal beliefs
Liam Rodriguez
Yet at the same time, the game will punish you for having depth because the GM felt as though you weren't LG enough so you get bumped down to NG and lose out on your nifty class features and spells.
I mean god forbid the savage actually learns not to fly off the handle at every little thing and becomes slightly less chaotic, or the monk actually becomes chaotic as a result of valuing pure strength over disipline, or the Paladin actually be forced to make hard calls that darkens his outlook without shifting his desire to help others or anything.
Nope, you chose that class so you're contractually obligated to stay within your lane, even though alignments no longer matter since the best classes in the game have no alignments that cannot be bent a bit.
Lincoln Martinez
If I ever play a game with an alignment system I'd probably pick a race/class without alignment restrictions, write up my backstory without any mention of alignment, then let the GM figure out what my alignment is. Then probably ignore whatever he says and stick to my characterization.
When the GM says my alignment changes, it changes without any comment from me.
Bentley Roberts
>If your GM needs an alignment system for player choices to affect the world around the PCs, then he's a shitty GM. >I don't know how D&D works You can't detect good and evil in our world, buddy.
Adam Sanchez
Oh and if the GM tries anything like a helm of opposite alignment, my response will be something like: > If you want to mind control my PC, then you'd better be willing to take full control until the mind control ends.
Thomas Watson
>thinks alignment is the only way to have consequences for PC actions.
Michael Nelson
>He is so stupid and that he needs mechanical reasons for why he shouldn't murder-fuck everyone in sight. I don't want to say you're autistic, but you're most likely autistic.
John Flores
>thinks you can force consequences on murderhobos How are you doing that, when literally nobody has any chance of ever figuring out they did anything?
Isaiah Clark
First off, a murderhobo isn't going to choose a class with alignment restrictions that would interfere with their murder-hoboing so on that front, alignments are worthless by default in terms of stopping murder-hobos.
Second, unless they go out of their way to kill everyone who could've witnessed them doing a crime in a way that's fast, quiet, and over a wide area, people are going to talk about the roving band of murderers who have murder-hobo'd across the landscape and eventually, people are going to rise up to try and take you out either for fame/fortune or because it's the right thing to do.
Third, if their reputation grows too infamous, they'll find it difficult to trade for supplies or buy new equipment in between runs at the dungeon.
Logan Johnson
>a class with alignment restrictions Stop playing a shitty system, or get a better GM who isn't a retard.
Owen Rogers
I don't get this image. If the chains snap, wouldn't the swing stop moving and fall?
Kayden Robinson
Alignment isn't personality, dumbasses.
Lucas Hughes
Here's the thing chief.
If alignments matter, then they negatively impact the game because the player will always subconsciously ask themselves, "will this action conflict with my character's alignment" which means that they'll never branch out and will end up becoming a stereotype of that alignment.
However, if alignments don't matter, then the question becomes "why the fuck is this still even a thing?" because now, it no longer serves a purpose.
So it boils down to a lose-lose situation where either you're sacrificing character depth and immersion to stay within a narrow range of optimum choices, or you're sacrificing time and space in the PHB to accommodate something that's vestigial to your character overall.
Kayden James
Like HP, the book claims that it's one thing but then references it in a completely opposite way that conflicts with what it told us.
Like alignment is supposed to be how your character deals with problems overall, and yet it still describes each alignment using personality traits like "lawful good tends to be honorable and duty-bound" or "chaotic evil tends to be unpredictable and destructive" within the same breath.
And then some editions punish you for not adhering to these personality traits and then the whole thing just goes to shit.
Blake Moore
>Me and a friend make a thief and paladin >My archetype is actually assassin, but some negotiating with the DM let's me say thief >Start chaotic good (just out of training) >Back story is we are childhood friends >He's a noble, my fake identity is a minor noble >Adventuring around, trying to reunite the kingdom >Character's whole motivation is it's all for the paladin >Anytime the DM throws a problem at us and it all goes to complete shit I take the easy route >Nearly get caught a couple times and suspicions begin to rise >Convince everyone it's a miss understanding >DM warns me in private the things I'm doing to get info/protect the group/solve problems are going to cause a shift >Start rping that my character is beginning to enjoy it >"It's only bad guys so there's no problem right?" >Near campaign end, have dropped to neutral evil >Couple characters know what's up >Paladin refuses to believe them, "we've known each other for years!" >find out the newly crowned King is gonna have paladin killed >It was a toss up between him and paladin for the job >Manage to barely kill the king but get caught >Trial ensues >Upon digging and letters from my "family" find out I'm not a noble at all >Refuse to trade info on the thieves guild in town for easier punishment >Sentence is death in a gruesome way >Shortly before paladin comes and asks why? Tries to convince himself it's all a misunderstanding >I can tell him it was all for him and send him down into self loathing >Instead lie and convince him it was simply because I like killing >He pings me and recoils >Asks the million platinum question >"Was our friendship all a lie?" >"No, but if it helps your friend died a while ago believing no price was to great to fix things."
DM didn't realize I like and read the same books as him, it was fucking annoying trying not to get caught but one of the more fun games I've played.
