Alignment Does Not Create Actions

I'm sure a lot of us seen this happen at some point..."I kill the homeless beggar!"..."Why?"..."Because my alignment is evil." However, such a player has the concept of alignments reversed. And this might be part of why some people dislike the concept of alignments in the first place (or at least part of the reason).

Alignment does not cause a person to commit an act, instead acts define the alignment. 

If a character with an evil alignment kills a homeless beggar it is not because they are evil, it is because they are homicidal. The act of killing randomly for the enjoyment of it is what tags a person as having an alignment of evil.

Some players see an alignment as a blanket that covers everything that could possibly fall within that description. However, truly evil people do not commit every type of evil act "just to be evil". There is no record of Hitler kicking puppies for the fun of it.

So, alignment is better expressed as a result of actions taken by a character, even potential actions. It seems like alignment needs to better defined, or at least more narrowly. For example, an evil character might be "homicidal" or "likes to inflict pain" or a "kleptomaniac". A good alignment might be defined as "caring" or "unselfish". Neutral might be "callous" or "unbiased". Instead of giving a character a blanket alignment, narrow it down to what they actually have a predilection for doing.

And that is part of the problem with alignments. They can be a straight-jacket. For instance, an evil aligned character might commit genocide, but is kind to puppies. Having an evil alignment does not automatically mean the character is evil 24/7 all the time in every situation. People, and well-done characters, are more nuanced than that. This is easier to accomplish if an evil aligned character has defined areas where/when they are evil, with the assumption that outside of those areas they are "normal".

I Hate the Game I'm Running, But My Players Won't Let Me Stop

I hate the game I am running. Right now I am running Shadowrun (third edition). I love Shadowrun but I hate being the GM. I can never figure out that delicate balance between challenging the players and letting them walk all over the opposition. Part of me realizes that Shadowrun is a munch-kin game designed for min-maxers who want nothing more than to stomp all over everything in their way. I realize that but still try hard to challenge them. I have been able to instill a fear of the unknown, but they still walk all over everything they actually meet.

But then we have nights where the mage goes unconscious in one hit (his own fault for not using a Karma point to re-roll all of his failures) and at the end of the night he says he had a horrible time being out of the action for the entire night. I calculated the odds and figured he could easily survive the hit. My bad. But it is frustrating.

And then we have last week. They are investigating a series of murders and at the end of the night they realized they hadn't rolled a single die. They ended the night by saying they had a great time.

And the week before. This time one of the players mentioned he really appreciated the fact that we've been playing Shadowrun long enough that he could actually upgrade some cyberware for his character. He said this is something he has never been able to do before in a Shadworun game. This is coming from someone who has played in multiple Shadowrun games since it was first released in 1989. All of his other campaigns ended before they could gain enough nuyen/karma to reach their goals (and I've actually been rather stingy with nuyen/karma - mostly because I forget to hand them out).

So, I guess for now I'm sticking it out. I have not yet reached the table-tossing level of running Shadowrun. I may not like it, but my players do...and the players are the important ones.

5E Friday - That New Game Smell

5E still has that new game shine. People are still excited about it. Every new release is an event and something to be talked about. People seem to be eager for new material (races, spells, monsters, adventures, etc).

Part of the reason for this is that there really isn't a lot of material out there right now. Official WotC products are few considering the game has been out for 7 months. 3rd party products are also scare as everyone waits to see what type of OGL is released. Scarcity is heightening the desire for more product. This has helped sustain the initial infatuation/love with 5E. (After all, they can't mess up what they already have if they don't release anything new.)

However, at some point this scarcity will come back to bite them. People will begin to lose interest as there is nothing to get excited about. Take a look at Pathfinder and their Adventure Paths, which is their primary business model. Their Adventure Paths come out once a month and a new one starts every 6 months. People can get excited about a specific Adventure Path and just as that it starts to wane, a new one comes along to get excited about. Along the way, people keep buying at least one product a month (more if they like all the accessories for that Path).

WotC needs to keep people excited about 5E. Right now it is still strong, but for how much longer?