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[Sergius]

- Averted in my last game, 'cos I'm playing Chaotic Evil.

He literally put me and my party alone in a room with the king.
I mean... C'mon. Who didn't see that coming?

That's the issue with me tho. I don't think that killing villagers is intrinsically evil. There are reasons (like self defense, fear for one's life, or "you just were pushed too far" by Angry Mobs with Torches and Pitchforks calling for your head) that while not Good actions don't make you less-Good (if we went that route, we'd lose alignment every time we do a non-Good action like eating or asking for payment for goods delivered. Is eating not evil? Is it good then? Is it a neutral action, meaning that evil and good characters's alignment each moves towards neutral?).

(Thinking that alignments themselves are rubbish vs actual personalities, motivations and sociopathies is a separate matter altogether)

For example, there are many people that say "so, not showing remorse or at least pity is evil then". But who says you have to externalize your feelings? Maybe the character is internally scarred. Maybe you don't have to TELL anyone, including the game master. Otherwise you have 100s of movies where the main character always talks to people like a total douchebag but actually does that out of bravado and always does the right thing no matter what... can't be good. Because Good is Nice.

The DM was pretty pissed that our IC conversation after the fact was "it is a true pity that the evils that befell these peasants drove them to seek death at our hands... clearly these evils must be erradicated to prevent more suffering" and was adamant that we were evil, in fact we were more evil for not admitting our evilness. (yes, this was a jab at him for forcing that situation on us and pretending that we intended it to happen).

He just keeps going on an on. Now he's changed his tune: it wasn't personal meaning I'm not saying you (the players) lacked restraint, I meant the characters. But if you *think* you played them correctly then they died happy right? (Wrong. We didn't roleplay them to "make them die happy and fuck the DM". Actually we roleplayed them pretty well according to their freaking class and alignment, Chaotic Good! Hell even Neutral Good would have been correct). One of them was a BARBARIAN for jeebus sake! If a barbarian learns restraint he fucking loses his barbarian abilities per R.A.W.! Geesh!

[Sergius]

Another douchey DM action: during the fight the Barbarian activated his Rage power (things weren't going that well, just more ammo to prove that the battle WASN'T one-sided on our favor). The DM decided that unknowingly he killed the good villager (that was with us) and found out at the end. Pretty sure by RAW, Barbarian Rage gives him strength, doesn't make him berserk. One thing I don't like about this group, is that they use a heavy houserule of 2e, and a lot of things are waved off as "well, it *would* make sense that if you're raged you can kill random people". I don't have anything about rules interpretations or not doing everything "by the book" but when opinions like "it makes sense" just get turned into implicit rules that result in pretty heavy handed bad stuff for the players.

I mean it "would make sense" that if you slipped and fell backwards you could crack your skull and die instantly. But that's not how rpg's work... if in a specific game you have HP then you have HP and if some specific things instakill then it's very important to make sure what these are and that there's a damn good reason to throw at the players. You're not going to kill D&D players because it makes sense that any "medieval" setting has bad hygiene and every person has a 0.2% daily chance of randomly catching dysentery or whatever and die, and there was no "cure disease" available at the moment.

It's like the whole Paladin argument. It's bad enough that RAW causes no end to arguments between people who said they should fall if they kill an innocent that was transmogrified into a deadly hobgoblin (but at least atoning is free in this case, he can be a Paladin again next week, Hurray!), and people who say "the rules only say willingly". Then you start adding things that "make sense" like "it makes sense that the Paladin is a subordinate of any cleric of his same deity and if he commands him to do bad stuff he falls if he disobeys and he falls if he does it" (this actually came up in conversation in my group). But the rules don't say that Clerics are the bosses of Paladins, and the fiction doesn't support it either (if you take for example, Jean D'arc as a paladin... Paladins are pretty much loose cannons, and they think they have a direct and righteous connection to their deity and can even consider Clerics to be failing their vocation if they aren't as fanatical as them, even if they're both roleplaying their classes correctly. It arguably makes just as much sense to have Paladins and Clerics bickering all the time because Paladins think Clerics are DOIN IT WRONG and vice versa!).

[scriver]

While I think that in the context of the in-game happenings I'd say your actions was definitely un-good, so to speak, though it's a little too complicated to call them evil, and regardless, they stemmed more from your DM forcing you down the road by making any "good" actions other than rolling over and letting yourself be lynched impossible - if he wouldn't even let you leave/run away, then there's not much else left to do than fight for your own lives. It's very similar to those stories of GMs set on making the party Paladin fall and throwing encounter after encounter of "challenges to his morals" on him and going "AHA! GOT YOU! YOU FALL" when you finally does the wrong thing, as if it was some kind of competition.

If you can't change GM, the only thing I can think of for you to do is to learn from this and, if he ever puts you in a similar situation again, insist that you attack the people with non-lethal attacks. Action heroes defeating "dumb obstructionist peasants" without killing them is a common storytelling thing as well, after all.

[Culise]

If a barbarian learns restraint he fucking loses his barbarian abilities per R.A.W.! Geesh!

Whoa.  Let me stop you right there.  RAW only states that a barbarian that becomes Lawful loses their abilities.  Choosing to exercise a modicum of restraint, in and of itself, is not enough to become Lawful anything, or even Neutral anything; Chaotic or Neutral players can certainly justify restraining themselves from any acts.  Even if you adopt the principle of alignment strongly reflecting/straightjacketing personality (which, by the way, is also incorrect according to RAW), this is still especially true for Chaotic Good or Chaotic Evil, because these actually do have particular restraints "baked in" - specifically, a predisposition towards good or evil.  By RAW, the only class that explicitly loses its power for a single alignment-inappropriate is the Paladin (specifically, for a willful evil act).  Otherwise, alignment changes are up to DM interpretation.  Given your DM, I wouldn't say that's much of a consolation, but don't confuse your DM's behaviour (or your own beliefs; I saw nothing in your stories about the barbarian becoming Lawful, or even flirting with the idea) for the rules-as-written. 

Sorry, but "Chaotic stupid" is a particular pet peeve of mine, almost as much as "Lawful stupid."

EDIT: Also, a barbarian rage is, in the written fluff, a "screaming blood frenzy" wherein (s)he "becomes reckless."  As far as mechanical effect, they do gain strength and constitution, but lose armor class and cannot use most charisma, dexterity, or intelligence skills or most manually-triggered magical effects.  That said, there is no restriction as per RAW on a raging barbarian choosing to inflict non-lethal damage. 

[Kadzar]

This is why I'm glad 4th and 5th edition got rid of Paladins falling from committing an evil act. It can be used well, but mostly it leads to either bad DM's fucking people over or good DM's having to watch the paladin character's actions like a hawk to make sure they don't slip up once.

Plus, it takes away from the drama. With paladins falling, if they come across a some baby orcs and kill them, then fall, they know, okay, that was wrong, I shouldn't have done that. If paladins don't fall (and know they won't fall), they can kill the baby orc and be kept up every night thereafter wondering if they did the right thing. Or maybe they'll be fine with it, and gradually start rationalizing worse and worse sins. Rather than damning them for their acts, it's much better to let them damn themselves.

[Sergarr]

Personally I think that the Alignment system has got to go and be replaced with Internal Ethics - a set of answers on "what would your character do in these stereotypical situations?".

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Generally, I find that any time a game uses methods to attempt to force players to act a certain way, the players just decide to punch the game square in the mouth... repeatedly... until dead. RPGs need to recognize that players will play them however they wish. no matter what. If anything players' skills should develop off how they act, thus rewarding them for sticking to a style of play, not forcing them in to one.

[Tack]

Ah, yes.
The good ol' "STOP THE BOAT- I'm going fishing."

[NullForceOmega]

It is not reasonable to believe that one of the primary mechanics of Dungeons and Dragons, the 'alignment' system needs to go away because you don't like it.  The system exists for a reason, and it is heavily tied into the rest of the games' basic structure.  If you don't like alignment DON'T PLAY D&D.  There are a vast number of other, less structured systems to use, many with similar basic mechanics.

[Sergarr]

It is not reasonable to believe that one of the primary mechanics of Dungeons and Dragons, the 'alignment' system needs to go away because you don't like it.  The system exists for a reason, and it is heavily tied into the rest of the games' basic structure.  If you don't like alignment DON'T PLAY D&D.  There are a vast number of other, less structured systems to use, many with similar basic mechanics.

The reason being "the justification for slaughtering the entire races because they're Always Chaotic Evil"? The sheer implications of that "Always Chaotic Evil" alignment are mind-boggling, don't tell me you're defending that.

Give me one good reason why Alignment system should stay as it is.

[NullForceOmega]

Fine, you rewrite every single portion of the game to remove it.  Every spell that uses alignment as a factor, every mention of the concept in the whole of the games' structure, every deity, every race, every monster, go for it.  It won't be D&D.

[Sergarr]

Fine, you rewrite every single portion of the game to remove it.  Every spell that uses alignment as a factor, every mention of the concept in the whole of the games' structure, every deity, every race, every monster, go for it.  It won't be D&D.

You still hasn't answered me why Alignment system should stay as it is.

[Gentlefish]

It's been houseruled that, unless you're an outsider/cleric/paladin, detect x won't work on you, and any non-outsiders' "always x" (except for animals - they're not intelligent enough for anything more than neutral) is "usually x" and it is always bad to kill babies.

[NullForceOmega]

I was going to wall of text and explain the system in a reasonable fashion, but that doesn't matter.  You don't own the property, you are just a customer, if you don't like the product buy something else.

[Sergarr]

I was going to wall of text and explain the system in a reasonable fashion, but that doesn't matter.  You don't own the property, you are just a customer, if you don't like the product buy something else.

So... you're not going to provide the reason why Alignment system should stay as it is.

Okay.

I have a question: do you own your country? If not, then why do you have a right to vote? After all, you're just a citizen of your own country and don't actually own it (and you didn't even buy it!), so, by your logic, you don't have any say in it.

And if you don't like it, you can always just go to another country!

Do you see the problem with this line of logic? Because I do.