Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Please implement alignment in some form.

a crazy psycho killer is chaotic evil even when hes nice to his family.
a paladin who kills criminals still s lawfull good.

Not crossing the street at a designated crosswalk is a crime. Parking your cart in a way which blocks the street is a crime. A child shoplifting a tiny wooden toy horse is committing a crime.

In the world you and I live in, not all "crimes" are grounds for summary execution on the spot. The same goes for the world of D&D. You need to be very, very careful about what your paladin defines as a crime worthy of death. Without concern for justice, without concern for GOOD, your "paladin" is not lawful good in any way at all, but neutral (or evil). Under your definition, the "paladin" is the same as the crazy psycho killer.

No good DM would let a player at a tabletop game get away with a paladin summarily executing someone for stealing an apple and still claim to be lawful good.

I think this is where video games often fail: the difference between murder and picking up somebody else's property because you knocked it over (yeah, learnt that one the hard way in Oblivion!) isn't exactly nuanced but "criminal is criminal", and more often than not they get treated exactly the same way.

Someone else mentioned that any flavour of lawful is reduced to lawful stupid in such circumstances.

I was going to argue that an Oath of Vengeance paladin can do some pretty nasty stuff to uphold his tenets but I looked it up and there isn't any requirement in 5th edition that a paladin has to be good.

The biggest problem I see is that an action for any one character could shift them towards any alignment depending on their motivations. It's like the idea of going back in time to kill Hitler as a baby. Killing babies is evil but stopping Hitler is good. I psycopath that just likes to kill would be committing an evil act where as someone doing it to stop future suffering could argue that it's good (Although I think somethings should remain evil regardless of intent as it would leave a "stain on your soul"). When you have a thinking DM they can judge your actions a lot better than a static video game.

I still think in a video game setting the best option would be to have a selectable "intent". For example lets say you are given a quest to rescue a noble. Once you get the quest you could have an internal dialog with yourself and be presented with options like:

1. I have to do the right thing and rescue this person.

2. I am obligated the rescue those in distress even if I dislike them.

2. My purse is light, this could be a good pay day.

3. I have nothing better to do, might as well.

4. Nobles taste good.

After you make your selection any alignment shifts related to the quest could be adjusted appropriately. This isn't anywhere near perfect but it could prevent the issue of having to pick dialog choices to keep a particular alignment.

Given how the world is today, I think I might actually help Hitler. A prime example of the utter subjectivity of such notions.
A different place, a different time, a different circumstance - suddenly everything changes.

I would suggest perhaps exercising better judgement before making that sort of statement.

The same goes for anybody thinking of replying.

Edited to add:

if someone from the future shows up to kill a baby you probably bitchslap him.

@Tyr2000
And now we come to the old philosophic argument between deontologists and consequentalists:
Are the intentions or the consequences more importent when you decide what is good and evil?
People discuss this since over 2000 years, so we will not find a final answer here.

Regarding this game:
The GM ( or developer in case of a computer game) has the final word what is considered good or evil in this setting.
Some players will always disagree with this.
The best thing the devs can do is to design it in a way that most players find it at least OK (if not perfect) while making sure the others do not rage quit.

I certainly would and would find the idea abhorrent even with the benefit of foresight, as I suspect would most people.

On reflection, I realise I probably misinterpreted Ellderon's comment so if I have mistakenly assumed "edgelords be here" then I apologise.

This exactly. I'm not going to try to debate on real world good and evil, much more intelligent people than myself have attempted and continue to attempt to do so. The fact it has been continued to be debated throught human history leads me to personally believe it is completely subjective and there is no such thing as universal "good and evil" and it's really just what's "good and bad" for a particular person or group of people. Remember that a not small portion of society considered the very game we are talking about to be a direct link to Satanism, their absolute evil.

Buuuuut in a fantasy world good and evil can be quantifiable forces. This can allow us explore these ideas in a new way, dramatize them to make an emotionally ingaging story and implement a ruleset around them. The creative talant at WoTC and Larian are the ultimate arbiters of what constitutes good and evil in BG3 and I'm not trying to suggest what they should consider each to be, rather to brainstorm about how it could implemented as a game.

I guess my arguing for the alignment axis to be in the game is the same reason the d&d ruleset exists in the first place, to add structure to storytelling and make a game out of it. I don't view alignment, structurally, as much different than hit points. If you can add a shield with damage resistance to mitigate hit point loss then why not use an "intent" to mitigate alignment shifts?

I'm not saying this is realistic but if we are quantifying other abstract concepts such as how much damage it takes to die, how much armor protects you, how much people like you, why not do it with alignment/morality as well?

Not putting in alignment is a cop out to dnd, anyone who says its not in there has not read the books. You are told to pick an alignment, every race is giving an alignment it leads towards, Every Diett, every monster. And the paladin code of devotion is text book lawful good. So stop saying theres i no alignment. How will they handle paladins breaking there oaths or they wont.

Funny how even in a forum about a CRPG game Godwin´s law still applies.

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1"

I like alignments. Its usually a starting off point whenever I create a new character: "Today I'm in the mood for a holier-than-thou Evil Smiter" and I build the persona around that. I dont know how true this is really, but it feels like alot of the time people just want to play a "wizard version" of themselves or a "fighter version" of themselves so then alignments become too rigid and narrow because our real selves are too nuanced to fit in a 3x3 Good or Evil matrix.

Surprisingly millions of babies are killed every year and as abhorrent as it is it's considered to be "lawful"

Which takes us back to our lawful character alignment topic.

I don't know where "lawful stupid" began and you, Vometia, are absolutely correct. It is stupid how you can pick up an item that belongs to someone else and automatically be considered a thief like in oblivion when trying to fix an area you may have accidentally blown up. In that case one would consider the fireball launched at a wall of alembics a crime rather than picking up an alembic and putting it back on the shelf. However, I digress. Being Lawful is simply that you believe in laws. Laws help to keep things in a state of order be it the laws of physics or the laws of man. For evil or for good it doesn't discriminate. If your Paladin is lawful good then they have a strong sense of both preserving order and protecting/helping people and society.

So if your Paladin were enacting executions all over the place for things like shoplifting this "would" be acceptable if that were the "law" in that location and crimes were all punishable by death. A Paladin who's greater good is preserving society would call this good. Now in a D&D world there's a chance you can convince such a Paladin that the system he's serving is evil though that DC would be strongly dependent on how well the laws are keeping the peace and happiness of the society.

I really don't think that Godwin's law applies here as I was using the "Go back in time and kill Hitler" thought experiment as an example of doing an "evil" act for a "good" goal rather than comparing an individual or idea to Hitler/Nazism to win an argument. Hitler, being almost universally associated with evil, just made for an easier example than writing "Evil person who is completely evil and devoid of any goodness". Plus I would think most people have encountered the go back in time and kill Hitler idea and are familiar with it and I was hoping it would not illicit a debate on the example itself but the ideas of doing evil for an ultimately good goal and how an act itself can be good or evil (or both) depending on the individual and their intent and how that would translate into in-game alignment. (Just to clarify I don't feel like you were attacking my ideas or anything like that and I hope you don't think I am doing it likewise. I just feel that Godwin's law is thrown out too often and used as a "You said Hitler, I win now, discussion over.")

As for alignment being in the game I'm just thinking of ways everybody could be happy or at least not upset about it. Player agency and experience are more important than including a system simply for the sake of it being there in the original ruleset and if they are unable to implement in a way that doesn't leave people shoehorned into choosing options for metagaming reasons I agree it should be left out. However I like concepts like Paladins falling and having to redeem themselves, alignment restricted items, detecting good/evil law/chaos (And particularly ways to prevent others from doing so), etc. and I don't see how we could see these things in the game without it being a static story element for a npc.

I think a dynamic point based alignment score could work if done correctly. I would even be content even if the didn't call it good/evil law/chaos (Although that would be my preferance). They could use a colored "aura" or "spirit" or maybe adjust the expression/appearance of your character sort of like how the force did in KOTOR (All be it to a much much more subtle degree, more like a sour expression or aggressive body language).

That´s fair, I concede your point.




Yeah, that was a game mechanics flaw that comes from the beginning of D&D, and I do not think it´s going to change since BG3 will use D&D5e rules and WoTC are closely advising the development of the game.

Also, if you touch the alignment axis you will have to create new spells. You will have protection from chaos but also "protection from moral relativism, communal", "Zone of grey moral ground", and besides holy and unholy word, you will have "Cultural and society-related accepted behavior word". =D

I'm not going to be too upset with its omission given the hurdles of implementing it in a way that wouldn't limit player agency. I will say however that the Forgotten Realms isn't a world with true moral relevance. Take this part of the Player's Handbook:

"Alignment is an essential part of the nature of
celestials and fiends. A devil does not choose to be
lawful evil, and it doesn't tend toward lawful evil, but
rather it is lawful evil in its essence. If it somehow
ceased to be lawful evil, it would cease to be a devil."

Good, Evil, Law, Chaos aren't as abstract concepts as they are in the real world. Implementing alignment would have to involve adding just enough moral relativism to keep it intersting while honouring canon lore


I'm not going to be too upset with its omission given the hurdles of implementing it in a way that wouldn't limit player agency. I will say however that the Forgotten Realms isn't a world with true moral relevance. Take this part of the Player's Handbook:

"Alignment is an essential part of the nature of
celestials and fiends. A devil does not choose to be
lawful evil, and it doesn't tend toward lawful evil, but
rather it is lawful evil in its essence. If it somehow
ceased to be lawful evil, it would cease to be a devil."

Good, Evil, Law, Chaos aren't as abstract concepts as they are in the real world. Implementing alignment would have to involve adding just enough moral relativism to keep it intersting while honouring canon lore which I fully admit may be better off not being addressed at all.

Or we just have a 10 hour prolouge with the player discussing Sartre's "Being and Nothingness" with a npc in front of a fireplace and then just standing still for the next 50 hours of gameplay due to the existential ramnifications of taking a single step.

GOTY 2020!

I agree alignments are essential when speaking about celestials and devils, which appear to be important elements in this game.

Alignment could be confining, but it was also defining and a vehicle of storytelling. Even the likes of Sauron seems less daunting and interesting when viewed through a prism of postmodern relativism. Only time will tell how this impacts storytelling in a setting that at its core was driven by the struggle between good and evil. Hopefully though, the writers avoid more contemporary tropes becoming a focal point.

I wasn't suggesting post modernism, but that alignment is so contraining that it kills naunce and reducing characters to one dimesionality.