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May 29, 2012 -- 4:28PM, iserith wrote:

If I told KuzuD that I completely disagree with his interpretation of alignment while he was DMing for me, we'd be at an impasse, wouldn't we? An impasse that only came about because someone somewhere thought it was a grand idea and then someone much later decided they agreed. Potentially a game-destroying impasse. One need only look to these very forums to see the carcasses of games that breathed their last when someone disagreed with the DM as to what Chaotic Neutral meant.

Maybe, but assuming 3e (in 4e it does not matter at all) it would only matter when you play one of those classes with alignment restrictions and then only when your disagreement switches the character's alignment over to an illegal alignment. Otherwise, who cares whether you call it chaotic neutral and the DM chaotic good? And if you do care, there is a completely seperate issue going on that has nothing to do with alignments and everything with the relationship between DM and player.

Personaly I like alignment debates, although not at the gaming table, but in my experience when an "alignment" debate rises at the gaming table it is not about alignments but about a perceived break of the social contract. I ask my players not to play evil characters (and they know so well before they join), and so when PCs are about to do something I consider evil, I ask them about their PC's alignment. It is not that dictate their character's behavior, I simply remind them of the table rules we agreed upon when we the campaign started. Other than that I might remind them they are not playing their character consistently, but I don't care whether they write down unaligned, good or lawful good on their character sheet.

May 30, 2012 -- 4:03AM, Madfox11 wrote:

Maybe, but assuming 3e (in 4e it does not matter at all) it would only matter when you play one of those classes with alignment restrictions and then only when your disagreement switches the character's alignment over to an illegal alignment. Otherwise, who cares whether you call it chaotic neutral and the DM chaotic good? And if you do care, there is a completely seperate issue going on that has nothing to do with alignments and everything with the relationship between DM and player.

Right, alignment is never an issue until it is. Then it can be a big issue. The player uses it as justification as to why he did something psychotic; the DM uses it as a bludgeon to get them to not do that. It may, in fact, be grounded in a separate issue as you say, but I don't think I'm going out on a limb here by saying alignment is often either a catalyst for a larger argument or a convenient excuse to fight a proxy war between the players and DM over said separate issue that is best not fought.

May 30, 2012 -- 4:03AM, Madfox11 wrote:

Personaly I like alignment debates, although not at the gaming table, but in my experience when an "alignment" debate rises at the gaming table it is not about alignments but about a perceived break of the social contract. I ask my players not to play evil characters (and they know so well before they join), and so when PCs are about to do something I consider evil, I ask them about their PC's alignment. It is not that dictate their character's behavior, I simply remind them of the table rules we agreed upon when we the campaign started. Other than that I might remind them they are not playing their character consistently, but I don't care whether they write down unaligned, good or lawful good on their character sheet.

Obviously the best solution is a good Session Zero as you and others have suggested, myself included. Everyone gets on the same page before the game. But that's part of the problem of what happened here and alignment played into that, right on schedule. Alignment debates are too subjective and in my experience usually end in acrimony. It's just one more unresolvable argument to add to the growing pyre of things best left out of the game. Some games do alignment well - like Dungeon World - because they make alignment an issue of doing a specific thing the game considers "Good" or "Evil," based on class, and rewards you when you do it with XP - e.g. an Evil Thief gains XP "when you shift danger or blame onto someone else." It's specific enough to be argument-free, it doesn't suggest anything other than that as a constraint (if you want to call it that) for roleplaying, and is evocative. In D&D, it's a slow motion train wreck - you might be able to avoid it, but sometimes you'll stand on the tracks and tell it that trains wouldn't act that way and let it careen into you.

May 30, 2012 -- 5:33AM, autCyrius wrote:

@iserith: Of course it might cause disagreements, but in the d20 ruleset they are rather good explained and thus enabling the players (at least the one in my group) to get a basic idea of how the alignment should work (appearently though, the rogue and the barb had a wrong idea).

The trick is that it doesn't really matter how well it is explained in the book. People are going to say what it means to them. And then you're going to point to the book to tell them they're wrong. You might actually be correct when you say that. But it doesn't matter - the first shots have been fired. And then the same tired battle fought in many groups over many decades begins anew.

May 30, 2012 -- 5:33AM, autCyrius wrote:

But I think I've made up my mind now. I guess I'm not as good as DM according to the crap the group is doing, so I'll be quiting DMing for that group. I'll probably stop playing with them too, since I'm not enjoying playing with them anymore (too bad I introduced one of the molesters) and I fear I would just try to troll as much just to show them, how annoying it is.

It's never a happy day when you have to decide to walk away. I recently dropped two players from my game, but not for the same reason. It sucks. Best of luck in finding a new group and always take with you the positive aspects of the hard lessons learned while DMing for a troublesome group. Not to be paranoid about the motives of future players, but to know how to avoid the problems before they become problems.