Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479253"All that is required for idiots to run rampant is for no one to mock and despise them publicly".

That's the original point of this thread, to mock publicly the idiotic views of Adam Dray expressed in that post.

Quote from: CRKrueger;479265That's the original point of this thread, to mock publicly the idiotic views of Adam Dray expressed in that post.

Hang Dai, fuckin CRK.

Quote from: CRKrueger;479265That's the original point of this thread, to mock publicly the idiotic views of Adam Dray expressed in that post.

Protip: This thread drifted rapidly into other territory.

Quote from: Vmerc@;479260Appears I have fucked up once again.  

So then you would agree that

Cosmology A with no absolute alignment system

is in no way intrisically superior or inferior to

Cosmology B with an absolute alignment system and irredeemable beings - as well as redeemable, free-willed creatures.

I do not. Alignment is a really terrible system, one of the great failures of an otherwise interesting and often well-constructed system IMHO. Even saying something like "the Medieval Christian ethos is actually correct" (as vacuous as that is) is better.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479269I do not. Alignment is a really terrible system, one of the great failures of an otherwise interesting and often well-constructed system IMHO. Even saying something like "the Medieval Christian ethos is actually correct" (as vacuous as that is) is better.

Now that is a statement I can fucking respect.  Not agree with, but respect.

Now if you'll excuse me I must get back to my trolling and let you get back to dispensing protips to the hoi polloi.  (Appears I did find that dictionary after all)

Quote from: Vmerc@;479271Now that is a statement I can fucking respect.  Not agree with, but respect.

Alignment does not function well as a rule because it neither constrains nor incentivises PC behaviour. The culture of play around it is to reduce its importance even further than in the core rules, when it simply isn't disregarded out of hand (as I tend to - I let PCs pick alignments because my PCs like to pick alignments, not because I care what their alignments are). That's a sign that a rule is not functioning properly, or usefully.

If you want to make alignment work (as a rule to incentivise and constrain behaviour, not as a coherent system of morality) here's how you do it:

Good characters get 25XP every time they act in line with the Cardinal Virtues: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_virtues or the Theological Virtues: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theological_virtues

Evil characters get 25XP every time they do something bad enough that another person objects IC or OOC.

Neither one loses XP for doing an act of the other type, they just are not rewarded for doing so.

I handle it differently in my games, of course, because I do not believe in a binary moral system. So the god Huitzilopotchli, who the PCs are carrying around in a crystal skull in my Emern game at the moment, will give whoever cuts the hearts of Huitzilopotchli's foes out and feeds them into the mouth of his skull-totem 25XP for doing so. He is rewarding his clients & paying his debts. So far, it's led to a half-dozen hearts being sliced out.

As GM I never incentivize behavior nor punish it, and I've about as much use for an alignment system as I do for a history text, as you've so cunningly ferreted out, but that system seems like it would work as well as any I could ever hope to devise.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479273I handle it differently in my games, of course, because I do not believe in a binary moral system. So the god Huitzilopotchli, who the PCs are carrying around in a crystal skull in my Emern game at the moment, will give whoever cuts the hearts of Huitzilopotchli's foes out and feeds them into the mouth of his skull-totem 25XP for doing so. He is rewarding his clients & paying his debts. So far, it's led to a half-dozen hearts being sliced out.

Fuck. That's sick.

I'm using it in my next game.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479269Protip: This thread drifted rapidly into other territory.

Protip: That will happen anytime you and Morrow are in the same thread.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479269Alignment is a really terrible system, one of the great failures of an otherwise interesting and often well-constructed system IMHO. Even saying something like "the Medieval Christian ethos is actually correct" (as vacuous as that is) is better.

Yeah, wasn't really implemented well (spells of detection, bonus against "evil" etc..) and carried with it too many problems.

Quote from: Cranewings;479275Fuck. That's sick.

I'm using it in my next game.

It's worth pointing out that Huitzilopotchli doesn't threaten them with anything for not doing it, nor does he always reward them for doing it. He mentions it just often enough that they keep on doing it.

Quote from: CRKrueger;479279Protip: That will happen anytime you and Morrow are in the same thread.

Morrow and I are occasionally capable of getting along. I've said before that I don't think he's stupid, which makes it all the more frustrating when he simply can't see how some thing he's saying is so utterly shitty and stupid.

QuoteYeah, wasn't really implemented well (spells of detection, bonus against "evil" etc..) and carried with it too many problems.

I treat "Detect Evil" as the ability to detect Negative Energy in the D&D sense of that term, and "Detect Good" as detect Positive Energy, though those are both amoral forces in my world. People call the healing energy "good" and the death energy "bad" through an obvious chain of reasoning.

Quote from: Vmerc@;479274As GM I never incentivize behavior nor punish it

So long as you're handing out gold and XP and other accomplishments for doing things and not for doing other things, you're encouraging and discouraging certain kinds of behaviour. Best way to handle it is to embed it in the world. So it's not the DM just handing out magic candy, but authority figures, or allies, or whatever in the world.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479272Alignment does not function well as a rule because it neither constrains nor incentivises PC behaviour. The culture of play around it is to reduce its importance even further than in the core rules, when it simply isn't disregarded out of hand (as I tend to - I let PCs pick alignments because my PCs like to pick alignments, not because I care what their alignments are). That's a sign that a rule is not functioning properly, or usefully.

If you want to make alignment work (as a rule to incentivise and constrain behaviour, not as a coherent system of morality) here's how you do it:

Good characters get 25XP every time they act in line with the Cardinal Virtues: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_virtues or the Theological Virtues: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theological_virtues

Evil characters get 25XP every time they do something bad enough that another person objects IC or OOC.

Neither one loses XP for doing an act of the other type, they just are not rewarded for doing so.

I tend to ignore alignment in D&D and focus more on individual actions (if it is the kind of campaign where cosmic good and evil matter).

The powers checks system from Ravenloft is another way to impact PC behavior. The thing I like about it is it actually lays out each action specifically and assigns a rough percentage chance of the dark powers taking notice. There are still a few on the list that require the subjective ruling of the GM (was the PC aware he desecrated a holy object or did he do it out of ignorance?) others are pretty cut and dry (Routine Torture, Major Betrayal).

I think this is why I keep reading this thread.  For every thirty pages of stupid, someone manages a new post that gives me ideas for my current project.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479284Best way to handle it is to embed it in the world. So it's not the DM just handing out magic candy

You seem to be the resident expert on the best way of things.  I'll simply agree that you know best, stoop to one knee, and present my back, the more easily for you to mount your griffon.