tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post1271723526914430356..comments2023-06-08T08:26:07.304-05:00Comments on Advanced Gaming & Theory: Societies and Factions in the D&D WorldRipperXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03506064393275174920noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-39513485261660660992009-08-19T06:30:57.951-05:002009-08-19T06:30:57.951-05:00Agreed.
It also makes for better interactions betw...Agreed.<br />It also makes for better interactions between PCs and NPCs. I keep track of players behavior and figure their real alignment as opposed to the stated one. Clashing or matching alignments will affect morale and reaction rolls, a PC straying outside his/her stated alignment will lose charisma points with their allies, while enemies will still hate them. I never tell players that they can not do something, nor do I warn them of consequences. Fallen Rangers turned to bandits are a par for the course. An idiot CG fighter who took the battlefield and did a few CE acts ended up falling out of favor at the court, making headaches for DM, as he had to run a fugitives escaping adventure instead of the next dungeon adventure (a perk of having a well designed sandbox, but still a headache).<br /><br />Good book to read on the subject is "Presentation of Self in Everyday Life"Brooser Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08487438364129415650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-85279329901200089502009-08-17T12:00:26.820-05:002009-08-17T12:00:26.820-05:00Like I said a hundred times, alinment is a tool, n...Like I said a hundred times, alinment is a tool, not a crutch. You can apply this to modern politics, just as the base and in deciding who should get along with who. <br /><br />This is fiction, and fiction requires order. Just because we know something is following an alignment, doesn't mean that he can't act outside of it, or pretend to be something that he isn't and do it convincingly. It is just a tool that we can use to look at something and know instantly what to do with it. When writing, if we have an alinment written besides an NPCs name, then we know how to role play him without wasted words. It also gives sub-classes who have alinment restrictions something to base their decisions off of.RipperXhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03506064393275174920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-77882882702703728182009-08-17T07:27:12.778-05:002009-08-17T07:27:12.778-05:00Hmmmm, historic Driuids, the ones exterminated by ...Hmmmm, historic Driuids, the ones exterminated by Ancient Romans so long ago, were anything but military hierarchies, truly secret societies that used to murder and good works to keep the local population in cehck, and human sacrifice, the wicker man, to keep their mambers in check. Talk about bad outcomes for office politics and failing grades (religion was passed via oral lore, expressed in poems, and Druids had to write their own poems to show the elders what they learned, those who failed, were used up in sarifices. Exams were contests not to be chosen to go up in smoke.<br /><br />Guilds, yeah; Knightly Orders, these can go by alignments, Temples had their own secret societies and knightly orders, as well as orders for layety and fighting orders for non-warriors (in the Orient); I think that care should be taken to avoid blurring the line between the D&D alignment and political ideology. There WERE politics as long as man has been around, but not as we know it. Ideologies and Political Parties are really new, maybe 400 years old. Now it's a challenge to explain politics without the parties or ideologies, but read up on the political process in Rome at the time of Julius Cesar, and make of it what you will. <br /><br />Now, D&D Alignment is the purely game system driven invention to amke some sense of the fantasy world. Numerous grad students tried to root the Alignemnt in reality and ended up pulling a little from here, a little from there, emanign that alignment as envisioned by AD&D is not grounded in reality. having saidn that, Psychologists have come up with experimental data to show that whether one is predisposed to being liberal or conservative in American politics is largely a function of the parenting style. Another interesting parallel is that the measure of Goodness on most seriously designed What Alignment are You? tests directly corresponds to the measure of Altruiam and Maturity. I.e. aybody grown up and with any kind of responsibilities will score as a strongly Good character. Another surprise was that after the allegations that D&D was mentally unhealthy and driving people insane, a bunch of clinical psychologists did studies to ascertain teh effects of role playing games on adolescence. RPG's improve the reading ability which results in higher tests scores on some high school tests, and a big suprise was that patients who were diagnosed with narcissistic and anti-social personality disorders, borderline schizophrenics and psychopaths, actually improved while playing D&D, i.e. their grades went up, they made better progress in pscyhotherapy, and were able to fucntion better in the real world. Typically they were drawn to evil characters, one guy made it through grad school while playing an evil wizard. Apparently playing evil characters made them better able to get along with others in the real world.Brooser Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08487438364129415650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-90028777565757977672009-08-15T20:52:56.142-05:002009-08-15T20:52:56.142-05:00Thanks Valandil. If this blog accomplishes anythin...Thanks Valandil. If this blog accomplishes anything, I would like it to be that people reconsider their abandoning Alignments, by seeing just how useful they can be.RipperXhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03506064393275174920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-20437421807645221432009-08-15T13:19:01.663-05:002009-08-15T13:19:01.663-05:00Wow! THAT is one major kick ass post. I cant stop ...Wow! THAT is one major kick ass post. I cant stop being amazed by the way you´re able to handle alignements to help you create stuff. Well done!Valandilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02736239726821755165noreply@blogger.com