Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous vs BG3

My primary concern with PF: WotR is that it always judges alignment based on the ACTIONS rather than the REASONING.

I mean, a evil character could easily help people and then decline the NPCs rewards, seemingly out of good will - IF, the PC believes that they could win a leverage/influence over said NPCs for their own personal gains later. Or perhaps just to keep a facade to hide their true character. Meanwhile, a good character could easily make a pact with a devil - IF, they truly believe that in doing so they would gain the power to save someone / help someone. I also believe that a good character could kill a person that they know are innocent, IF they truly believe that the outcome out-weight the deed (i.e, kill the innocent child, save the village - but I would also believe this to be true in less extreme scenarios).

Respectively, a lawful aligned PC breaks a NPC out of prison because the organization the PC belongs to have demanded the NPC's release. The action in itself would definitely be chaotic by the standard of most games (... Because you're breaking the law) - however the REASONING behind it makes it lawful in my head as the character's action is driven by their dedication to their organization and the word from their superiors which I personally rule as lawful. Meanwhile, a chaotic character could most definitely be a law abiding citizen in general, and even be willingly arrested and take their punishment if they commit a crime - BUT, while the PC could logically understand that their actions are perceived as illegal and accept the punishment, they would still - at least in their head, but probably verbally - truthfully believe that the law itself is faulty, not their action. But perhaps the PC is scared they'll put people they care about in trouble if they try to run, or perhaps they have some form of grand masterplan that requires their arrest ('la "Law Abiding Citizen"-style <3 ).

This discussion has already been debated a lot here - and it is a huge problem in general with games not properly reading the PC's motivation and judging based solely on their actions. It is especially painful for the Evil characters (aka, go murder hobo every now and then or your alignment is gonna change).

And this is borderline unforgivable in a game where your alignment is CRUCIAL for your character! Because you force your players to choose: stay true to your decisions and change alignment - OR make a decision that is "wrong" for your character just to nudge them into the right alignment-direction.

Like don't get me wrong. I like the alignment system, but I don't think it works very well at all with a computer instead of a live DM.