Do you honestly think this metagaming is acceptable? I mean doesn't evil have it hard enough as it is with the lynchmobs and domino city bans?

Aren't auras just a way for the game to represent what characters may feel smell or hear within a certain area to the player?

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Sir Azeriel El'johnson - Tormtar and Triadic Knight

The AoD represents -2 to enemy saving throws. That's it (and whatever fluff the player in question wants to interpret into her particular aura). You might be able to recognize that IC. It doesn't mean you feel a creeping sense of oozing evil. If a DM told you otherwise (and indeed the R&L quote on WYSIWYG seems to support this), it needs to be re-evaluated in light of these recent discussions. That's what the current topic is about; whether or not it's the right, fairest interpretation.

Of course you're not metagaming that you feel an evil aura if you really do feel that aura and if it's obviously evil. But that seems unlikely.

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well. until there is an official ruling from the DMs my BG will have no aura . I could even go so far as a person saying "gosh Morshy, i don't feel right today for some reason" being able to feel like Morshkul is the cause and that it's an oozing evil smell or somesuch coming from him is ridiculous.

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Nothin matters berk. Don't you see? Even so a poor sod shoudn't go hungry

although honestly the aura is stated to be only felt by enemies

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Nothin matters berk. Don't you see? Even so a poor sod shoudn't go hungry

Right. I don't know if I would be doing this right (I'm also coming into the thread really late) but usually when I roleplay things from DnD, I see them very open to interpretation. In fact, at least in the past and outside of this server, some of the best roleplay I've had was when people took things of the core rulebooks, worded them a bit differently while keeping the same effects in check.

Aura of Despair for instance just reduces all your Saving Throws by -2. How I've roleplayed it out of a combat scenario was that my character felt more submissive because the air felt opressive while having no hints that it was because the character was a blackguard. As far as he could tell, it was the effects of the other character's force of personality over him. On the other hand, when in actual battle with the blackguard, I would keep the opressive aura thing, but the evil behind it actually weighing the character down both physically and mentally.

Just my two cents.

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"Remember the sales day, and keep them holy." - The Fourth Law of Gaben

I think the "Players decide the alignment" idea is the one that I have the biggest problem with. I run (and have run) D&D games when I'm not playing here (Some say 'a nerd', others say... 'a huge nerd') and from that experience I say it really shouldn't ever be the player's choice after character creation. It's more a situation of your DM agreeing with the alignment you considered initially. Once you create the character, you have the freedom to make whatever decisions you think that character should make, but that doesn't mean that your alignment is a choice you get to make. Instead it is the culmination of not just your decisions but also your intent (which is how people who make similar decisions to others can have trastically different alignment, like a spy infiltrating a city).

In a way, it's like saying that while you are the chef of the delectable dish that is your character, other people get to decide what it tastes like. In the end, it's only in comparison to and by the perception of others that your alignment matters at all. That's how it works on Amia, too. Any change in alignment has to be ratified by the DMs here, and DMs can and do punish characters for taking actions counter to their alignment/class combination. It stands to reason they're keeping an eye on people who claim to have a certain alignment and act differently. I'm not saying the player shouldn't protest, but the ultimate decision (and responsibility) rests with the DMs. They may not be you, but when it comes to impartially observing you, the buck stops there.

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Mathus, Void Apostle of the New Moon

Just as a totally shameless tangent, I'll cite this thread as further evidence in my long-standing assertion that the alignment system is the single worst thing ever to come out of D&D. The sum total of its effectiveness has been its ability to incite pointless bickering.

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Winner of Amia's "Most Ethical Time Traveler" award 2026

Character Portraits!

CoA: I don't disagree with you in principle, but that's not very realistic in our context. The relationship a tabletop DM has to the PCs he follows from the beginning of their story, all the time, is not comparable to a team of DMs with more or less a revolving door policy occasionally catching glimpses and scratching the surface of an individual character's story - out of the hundreds of active characters on the server. That would be an issue even without the changing standards and policies as old DMs leave and new DMs take their mantle. The practical constraint of availability also leads to a problem of authority and justification: who is DM X who hasn't interacted with Player Y and his story to evaluate Y's character and use his power over him? The DM's role and authority here is very different to a home campaign, and that's why they should be, and in practice are, sensitive to such considerations.

And that still doesn't address the other problem: if a team of people were going adjust alignments consistently, they would need an explicit formula that can calculate a quantifiable alignment across the board. That a pipe dream (or a nightmare) so we can't really trust the alignments of all PCs in game at any one time conform to the same standard. Realistically, they don't, and that's why I am very sceptical of giving alignment any more relevance and impact than it already has.

Liz: I agree! Down with it?

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If you've never played 4th edition you've got another thing coming.

Other than that I agree with you. Though despite all it's shortcomings alignment ends up being necessary. I just think it's very open for interpretation, everyone has a different take on it and sometimes opinions clash. No one is right and no one is actually wrong within certain parameters (Like Chaotic Evil meaning you can just go on a murder spree). An open mind just has to be kept about it. People's personalities vary, you can have a completely ruthless evil character but at the same time you can have a very polite and respectable individual who will disintegrate you if you disrespect him (See Larloch). This ends up applying to every other alignment as well. But people are also being very restrictive about alignment. The thing with it is that we are not NPCs. Since we are in charge of our characters alignment it can very easily change, it's why the core NWN campaign had choices that changed your alignment. I hate to use the same website for source material but I have one instance of Roleplay from there taken from a PnP campaign where their paladin temporarily turned ruthless that I absolutely loved that I think is a good example of this.

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Powder_Keg_of_Justice

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"Remember the sales day, and keep them holy." - The Fourth Law of Gaben

Just because it's difficult doesn't mean there isn't an entire forum dedicated to the evaluation and judgment of player RP. You don't get to just say "I think I deserve this, therefore," and that's made perfectly clear in the stickies in the Request forum. What you're saying in multiple places here, that Alignment shouldn't be up to the DM, it should be up to the player. By that logic, since roleplay is the valuation by which all of these pieces of judgment are vindicated, why not just say "I decided that my character is now lawful neutral." and lock your own thread and click on the idol in the OOC room that lets you change your character's alignment?

They're already doing this, it's not like I'm suggesting something that doesn't already exist. I had to justify the alignment change when my character switched from Lawful Evil to Lawful Neutral, and it got OK'd by the staff, because they are the final arbiters of whether that gets to happen or not. This is already the way it is, and it's working pretty well, even given how many people play and how little of the RP that goes on is witnessed by the DM team.

Aside from basically breaking the game in half, the suggestion "Let's just abolish alignments altogether" is just lazy, anyway. If you need help figuring out what alignment someone should be, feel free to PM me the details and I'll help. It's really not that difficult. This chart works for everybody, you just have to know the details. If you don't think it applies to your character, then you're probably too close to the subject and would benefit from an impartial view.

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Mathus, Void Apostle of the New Moon

Are you honestly reading only the parts of my post you want to so you can make that accusation and ignoring the rest? If you want to be a sneaky BG, be sneaky, don't flaunt your power. Per server rules, as it stands, people detecting your aura is not metagaming so please stop accusing me of such, I'm getting really fucking tired of it.

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Sir Taelar Ardelyn of Wiltun
Winner of the Razor Tongued Award 2015!

Kira "Penny" Sigers
Better than Boulderdash!

Show me the server rule that says that. I'd very much like for there to be a ruling on it one way or the other honestly. I don't even care what the ruling is so long as they make one.

Edit: I didn't realize I'd kick up this much of a shit storm about AoD. I'd sort of intended this thread to be sort of an optimistic kick in the rear, not an argument about what is or isn't meta gaming where everyone gets angry at each other.

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Gerald Edmund
Discord: Metal Viking Guy #5433

DC taxation is theft!

Technically the rule can be interpreted either way.

It is phrased "A PC does not see a whirl of red dots orbiting a Blackguard nor are the auras of a Knight Commander visible (though any PC will feel the effects should they enter an aura)". This could either mean:

#1.) A PC who receives either benefits or penalties of an aura (as listed on the buffs/debuffs at the top right of the screen) will feel the effects of an aura (but not see it).

#2.) A PC who enters any aura will feel its effects even if they aren't the direct beneficiary (or opponent) of said aura's creator.

Personally, I'm inclined to feel the former is more accurate, since "effects" = the positive or negative thing that happens to you when you enter said aura, and obviously not everyone feels its effects (neutral/allied don't feel Blackguard auras).

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Mathus, Void Apostle of the New Moon

Eh, about the only thing I'd debate is the blackguard aura of despair stuff. Blackguard lore would back up the assertion it can either be turned off or the blackguard can exclude it from being noticed or affecting others, otherwise it contradicts a lot of published blackguards who work using stealth, guile, lies, politics, run secret cults in normal society under secret identities, etc. A blackguard isn't hammered down by the paladin's honor and truthful, upfront to your face combat nonsense, it's a mortal that's made a deal with a powerful evil outsider or deity.

If the server is going by cannon lore, saying AoD is always on/always noticable would contradict the lore.

I don't agree that it should be on all the time, my complaint or issue is that when it is on it should be detectable.

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Sir Taelar Ardelyn of Wiltun
Winner of the Razor Tongued Award 2015!

Kira "Penny" Sigers
Better than Boulderdash!

At least with RDD they did not do a forced skin color change due to getting scales at higher RDD levels, not being able to hide wings its very linient