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Greetings!
Anyone who's had contact with me while I've been DMing will know that I'm in the habit of gently nudging PCs' alignments on a regular basis. These shifts are in no way intended to tell people how to play their characters, but simply as a commentary on how I've seen them being played. They're not meant to say that people are playing their characters 'wrong', or anything like that, it's just that I view alignment as a fluid characteristic which is subject to change due to people's actions.
Alignment shouldn't be the definitive aspect of PCs behaviour (unless they're paladins or some such thing), but should be an extremely important part of it. Other factors are (as you all well know), personality, the deity they worship, how their background has shaped them, and a myriad of other factors.
Now, I haven't actually been changing anyone's alignment category as yet (eg; from N to NE), just altering their positions on the law/chaos and good/evil scales a bit. People can choose to react to this in any way they like. The only time I'd expect significant changes in behaviour is when someone's alignment has been moving consistently in one direction on a number of occasions, or when the little nudges actually lead to a shift of alignment (but to some extent, this is moot, because that's unlikely to happen unless they've already been acting that way).
Also, if people feel that the tweaks I apply are unfair then please take it up with me. If you've got a coherent and plausible reason why I'm wrong, then I might well relent (though don't neccesarily depend on it
).
Anyone who's had contact with me while I've been DMing will know that I'm in the habit of gently nudging PCs' alignments on a regular basis. These shifts are in no way intended to tell people how to play their characters, but simply as a commentary on how I've seen them being played. They're not meant to say that people are playing their characters 'wrong', or anything like that, it's just that I view alignment as a fluid characteristic which is subject to change due to people's actions.
Alignment shouldn't be the definitive aspect of PCs behaviour (unless they're paladins or some such thing), but should be an extremely important part of it. Other factors are (as you all well know), personality, the deity they worship, how their background has shaped them, and a myriad of other factors.
Now, I haven't actually been changing anyone's alignment category as yet (eg; from N to NE), just altering their positions on the law/chaos and good/evil scales a bit. People can choose to react to this in any way they like. The only time I'd expect significant changes in behaviour is when someone's alignment has been moving consistently in one direction on a number of occasions, or when the little nudges actually lead to a shift of alignment (but to some extent, this is moot, because that's unlikely to happen unless they've already been acting that way).
Also, if people feel that the tweaks I apply are unfair then please take it up with me. If you've got a coherent and plausible reason why I'm wrong, then I might well relent (though don't neccesarily depend on it
).
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