Quote from: Shasarak;1124739It is interesting that you choose the Law-Chaos axis.  Personally I find the Good-Evil axis to be the least arbitary (excepting bacon of course).

Good/Evil is the most arbitrary because human morality varies dramatically across time and space. For most of our history we considered genocide and slavery as morally good.

Also, as the TV show Charmed demonstrated at length, a balance between Good/Evil is a fundamentally stupid idea.

Law/Chaos has a far stronger foundation in world mythology. The Stormbringer universe got tons of mileage out of it.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1124265I don't remember which blog I read, but it was pretty clever about stating how the default mode for RPG was absurdist comedy. Improv in entertainment works best for comedy, absurdist comedy (it's much harder to have Improv produce something like Westworld or True Detective season 1). And RPG is a lot of improv. Combine that with the fact that it's natural to break tension with comedy. One of the reasons you have  GM with some control, who can enforce rules and consequences, is that without that even the best intentioned group that wants a serious game will devolve into absurdist comedy.

D&D at its best is absurdist Marx Brothers craziness and I love the comedy of the game. I remember DMing for some kids once and they were being chased by ghouls so the fighter threw caltrops on the ground and the wizard cast grease on the ground so the ghouls slipped and fell on the caltrops. Then they lit the grease on fire and kept on knocking the ghouls down with ten foot poles whenever they tried to get up. Kids were laughing so hard they almost couldn't breathe. Was one of my proudest moments as DM.

Forced lolrandom comedy doesn't really help with that, just distracts from the stuff that's really hilarious about D&D. Generally the hilarity emerges naturally from the game, you just have to be flexible enough to allow for the kind in intelligent tactics that result in crazy hijinks and provide interesting environments for the PCs to interact with. Stupid shit like puns that refer to real world stuff on the other hand are stupid and generally not funny at all. What should be funny is that the situation in game is hilarious.

Quote from: Daztur;1124923D&D at its best is absurdist Marx Brothers craziness and I love the comedy of the game. I remember DMing for some kids once and they were being chased by ghouls so the fighter threw caltrops on the ground and the wizard cast grease on the ground so the ghouls slipped and fell on the caltrops. Then they lit the grease on fire and kept on knocking the ghouls down with ten foot poles whenever they tried to get up. Kids were laughing so hard they almost couldn't breathe. Was one of my proudest moments as DM.

Forced lolrandom comedy doesn't really help with that, just distracts from the stuff that's really hilarious about D&D. Generally the hilarity emerges naturally from the game, you just have to be flexible enough to allow for the kind in intelligent tactics that result in crazy hijinks and provide interesting environments for the PCs to interact with. Stupid shit like puns that refer to real world stuff on the other hand are stupid and generally not funny at all. What should be funny is that the situation in game is hilarious.

*scribbles notes furiously* You know, I don't think any rulebook states one way or the other if grease is flammable (duration may vary, though -- back in 1E it was permanent. Yikes).

Awesome tactic though.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1124265I don't remember which blog I read, but it was pretty clever about stating how the default mode for RPG was absurdist comedy. Improv in entertainment works best for comedy, absurdist comedy (it's much harder to have Improv produce something like Westworld or True Detective season 1). And RPG is a lot of improv. Combine that with the fact that it's natural to break tension with comedy. One of the reasons you have  GM with some control, who can enforce rules and consequences, is that without that even the best intentioned group that wants a serious game will devolve into absurdist comedy.

And that's why I prefer running text-only games. I know "N-N-NARRATIVE GAMES?!" is seen as blasphemy here, but when it comes to running something that tries to consistently keep as straight a face as possible then it's the only way to pull it off long-term I've found. I run games IRL as well, but there's inevitably an undercurrent of... well I hate to say self-awareness, but even in the more serious games I've run, the humour starts flowing between us when an especially bad roll hits, or an amusing response pops up (even if we laugh about it but then play the response pretty straight). I enjoy both games but I'm not going to pretend we'll be getting True Detective S1 face-to-face or via voice chat.

Lolsorandom quirky, absurdist attempts at constantly being funny have always been part of the hobby, but whilst I don't want to sound like Old Man Yells At Twitter some more, I definitely roll my eyes at most of the "Yeah that chain of events definitely happened" stories that're propagated and even more so when the usual suspects are trying to get people to like their whacky new subversive OC. I think a lot of it comes from people still being very self-conscious that they're playing D&D, that dorky game for the basement dwelling geeks they decided to try, but are also very critical of associating themselves with that group.

By turning everything and anything into one extended slapstick joke - no matter how tiresome or repetitive - they're putting up a sign to say, "I'm not some dumb nerd pretending to be a Holy Paladin of Ilmater, I'm just having fun being some dumb, quirky jester-bard who's like totally random and whacky and doesn't care about anything! I'm not one of those dumb nerds who takes it seriously I'm just here to have fun, haha."

It's true that the less one tries to be witty, the more witty their occasional attempts will be perceived.  Maybe this is nothing more than self-filtering out the borderline stuff, making the things that make it through the filter more witty by comparison.  Or maybe it is knowing the right time and place.  I know I've picked up a rep for wit sometimes in social circles where I'm on the fringe and don't say much, but it never happens in groups where I'm there all the time.  (And the things I said that got me that rep didn't sound all that witty to me at the time.)  

That said, my main group is almost entirely made up of people that can sometimes go on a tear.  When they start to feed off of each other, it's magical.  That can be totally OOC context, entirely in character, or some mix.  Even with a mostly or totally OOC  context, I wouldn't dream of derailing it when it happens.  Way I see it, that's effectively a mental break, even if an unplanned one.  It runs; it stops; everyone manages to catch their breathe from laughing so hard; we get back to game refreshed and happy.  It only goes that perfectly every third or fourth session, but I'll let something rip once or twice every (8-hour) session just in case it's one of the magical ones.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1124934It's true that the less one tries to be witty, the more witty their occasional attempts will be perceived.  Maybe this is nothing more than self-filtering out the borderline stuff, making the things that make it through the filter more witty by comparison.  Or maybe it is knowing the right time and place.  I know I've picked up a rep for wit sometimes in social circles where I'm on the fringe and don't say much, but it never happens in groups where I'm there all the time.  (And the things I said that got me that rep didn't sound all that witty to me at the time.)  

That said, my main group is almost entirely made up of people that can sometimes go on a tear.  When they start to feed off of each other, it's magical.  That can be totally OOC context, entirely in character, or some mix.  Even with a mostly or totally OOC  context, I wouldn't dream of derailing it when it happens.  Way I see it, that's effectively a mental break, even if an unplanned one.  It runs; it stops; everyone manages to catch their breathe from laughing so hard; we get back to game refreshed and happy.  It only goes that perfectly every third or fourth session, but I'll let something rip once or twice every (8-hour) session just in case it's one of the magical ones.

Steve buddy, you need to record that shit and put it on Youtube to maximize the social good.

Quote from: Snark Knight;1124931Lolsorandom quirky, absurdist attempts at constantly being funny have always been part of the hobby, but whilst I don't want to sound like Old Man Yells At Twitter some more, I definitely roll my eyes at most of the "Yeah that chain of events definitely happened" stories that're propagated and even more so when the usual suspects are trying to get people to like their whacky new subversive OC. I think a lot of it comes from people still being very self-conscious that they're playing D&D, that dorky game for the basement dwelling geeks they decided to try, but are also very critical of associating themselves with that group.

By turning everything and anything into one extended slapstick joke - no matter how tiresome or repetitive - they're putting up a sign to say, "I'm not some dumb nerd pretending to be a Holy Paladin of Ilmater, I'm just having fun being some dumb, quirky jester-bard who's like totally random and whacky and doesn't care about anything! I'm not one of those dumb nerds who takes it seriously I'm just here to have fun, haha."

Is.... Is that why they do it? I always thought it was desperately unsocial, unfunny people trying to tell an ever-less-believable lie in a desperate gambit to get people to pay attention to them. It's seems like something a certain caste of socially awkward nerd would do (essentially the opposite case to the previous example).

Alignment debates are routine and you can find 'official positions' on any action as lawful or chaotic or good or evil.  There was just a recent discussion of how in the Al-Qadim boxed set, the Lawful Good rulers use slavery.  Lampooning alignment is easy to do, and that's what this is - not much of an effort to shoehorn it into a game.  

As far as 'clown-shoes', there is a campaign that I'm a player in that lampoons the tropes of a standard fantasy campaign.  We refer to it as the 'spoofantasy' campaign.  It's like Police Academy/Naked Gun - you play the situations more or less straight but you make fun of the tropes.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1124950There was just a recent discussion of how in the Al-Qadim boxed set, the Lawful Good rulers use slavery.

The apologetics in that thread with the whole "oh but it's not as bad as slavery elsewhere because it's reflective of how Islam tries to make the practice humane" can absolutely suck my ass.

Slavery is fucking evil, full stop. I don't give a shit if it's Westerners doing it or Muslims. If your culture engages in slavery and says it is okay on any level, it can go fuck itself.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;1125119The apologetics in that thread with the whole "oh but it's not as bad as slavery elsewhere because it's reflective of how Islam tries to make the practice humane" can absolutely suck my ass.

Slavery is fucking evil, full stop. I don't give a shit if it's Westerners doing it or Muslims. If your culture engages in slavery and says it is okay on any level, it can go fuck itself.

This is why I prefer the single Law/Chaos axis. You can have a society that practices slavery without it pinging detect evil all the time and forcing the party paladin to become Daenerys Targaryen.

The only way you can have humane slavery is by incorporating people, a la The Unincorporated Man or Jennifer Government. I'm surprised that policy isn't widely featured in cyberpunk fiction AFAIK.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;1125119The apologetics in that thread with the whole "oh but it's not as bad as slavery elsewhere because it's reflective of how Islam tries to make the practice humane" can absolutely suck my ass.

Slavery is fucking evil, full stop. I don't give a shit if it's Westerners doing it or Muslims. If your culture engages in slavery and says it is okay on any level, it can go fuck itself.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1125131This is why I prefer the single Law/Chaos axis. You can have a society that practices slavery without it pinging detect evil all the time and forcing the party paladin to become Daenerys Targaryen.

The only way you can have humane slavery is by incorporating people, a la The Unincorporated Man or Jennifer Government. I'm surprised that policy isn't widely featured in cyberpunk fiction AFAIK.

OKAY you two: This stupid Horngry thread is NOT GOING TO BE ABOUT THE ETHICS OF SLAVERY. FUCK OFF WITH THAT DISCUSSION TO YOUR OWN DOOMED THREAD.

That is all. Back to our regularly scheduled dumb nonsense.

Quote from: Azraele;1125133OKAY you two: This stupid Horngry thread is NOT GOING TO BE ABOUT THE ETHICS OF SLAVERY. FUCK OFF WITH THAT DISCUSSION TO YOUR OWN DOOMED THREAD.

That is all. Back to our regularly scheduled dumb nonsense.

Slavery is unethical. End of discussion.

I find even the nine default Alignments almost comical. Like something you would find the works of Forgotten Realms in-setting book of some scholar as he attempts to find order among the universe. I think Alignment (or the lack thereof) is really a personal thing that should fluctuate from table to table. That being said, I cannot even fathom how to understand that diagram from the original post. Like, are you suppose to just act based on the combinations of "status"? And essentially be a cardboard, one-dimensional character?It feels that way. But it almost feels like parody. I almost expect it to be something from the Knights of the Dinner Table comic strips.

Personally I use the Law/Neutral/Chaos scheme. Simple yet elegant. It has a strong foundation in older fantasy works. And to be quite honest, I loved Matt Colville's explanation of Law vs Chaos.

Guys, make sure you stick to the topic.

Quote from: Eldritch_Knight;1125147I think Alignment (or the lack thereof) is really a personal thing that should fluctuate from table to table.

It mostly does, really. I find the more experienced gamers tend not to pay much attention to it, so long as your character is behaving consistently they're good with it.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1125168It mostly does, really. I find the more experienced gamers tend not to pay much attention to it, so long as your character is behaving consistently they're good with it.

This is a good point: as far as I can tell, the original impetus for Alignment as a mechanically-supported rule was so that Gygax could punish people for playing against archetype. It was essentially a codifying of behavioral expectations, but messier than later jabs at the same thing (actually, I feel like the insanity mechanics in CoC were much cleaner in this regard, although they weren't quite the same).

Is ANY alignment system more sensible, workable, than the nonsense I posted above?

Really, that nightmare polyhedron up there isn't any less intuitive than whatever the fuck "Chaotic Neutral" is meant to imply. Or "Neutral Evil"
(Man, game designers get too caught up in symmetry and create some stupid shit as a result...)

I've been using Law-Neutral-Chaos, but even that doesn't really need "Neutral" now, does it? It's basically white hats and black hats, but even that isn't defined mechanically; it's more something implied by the religions and cults and codes of chivalry that the setting has, whatever I make them. That organic approach serves the same function; I really only need alignment for magic weapons, when that's appropriate. And those weapons are so rare that I could probably do away with alignment entirely and just have each one have it's own code and expectations, which strikes me as more flavorful and interesting.

Damn, I think alignment just sucks. Unexpected realization there.