Alignment: Oops

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kkwaters
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Alignment: Oops

Post by kkwaters » Wed Jul 06, 2022 11:18 am

I am in a Quandary as to how to handle this dilemma I created for myself:
I started a new Character, and got this character to the highest level I ever have been before in the Arelith game.
(Needless to say, I am personally invested in this character.)
I started it with an ideal for the Alignment I have never played before, thinking to try something boldly new and different.
I found I am no where near able to play this alignment where I thought I could.

I have given it the old College try, and it is not for me at all. At least not in the foreseeable future...

What would the responsible thing be to do?

How did you handle this situation, if it ever came up for you?

(I am not interested in a quick fix for this, I am interested in the experience of other players, and what they did for a fix. I will consider the options of what to do after some serious contemplation.)
"Reality is the Ultimate Role-Playing Game."

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God_In_Action
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Re: Alignment: Oops

Post by God_In_Action » Wed Jul 06, 2022 11:28 am

You can ask a DM to change your alignment. You would normally just need to explain why the alignment change fits the RP of your character.

Arienette
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Re: Alignment: Oops

Post by Arienette » Wed Jul 06, 2022 11:53 am

kkwaters wrote:
Wed Jul 06, 2022 11:18 am
I am in a Quandary as to how to handle this dilemma I created for myself:
I started a new Character, and got this character to the highest level I ever have been before in the Arelith game.
(Needless to say, I am personally invested in this character.)
I started it with an ideal for the Alignment I have never played before, thinking to try something boldly new and different.
I found I am no where near able to play this alignment where I thought I could.

I have given it the old College try, and it is not for me at all. At least not in the foreseeable future...

What would the responsible thing be to do?

How did you handle this situation, if it ever came up for you?

(I am not interested in a quick fix for this, I am interested in the experience of other players, and what they did for a fix. I will consider the options of what to do after some serious contemplation.)
Need more info to give any applicable advice.

Examples:

A. You are playing a Blackguard of Bane, Lawful Evil. But you have come to find playing a Lawful character isnt your style, and you dont find yourself doing anything particularly Lawful; you are more Neutral Evil.

B. You are playing a Lawful Good Paladin, and have come to find that LG isnt a style of play you enjoy and your character is not living up to the alignment.

Example A is a simple fix and theres no need to over-think it too much. BGs can be any Evil, and Bane's worshiper alignments include both LE and NE. A simple DM support ticket should clear this up.

Example B is a much larger issue. Your options here are to either suck it up and work on living up to your alignment/class, or to attempt to go through a difficult process that will include losing your paladin levels.

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Amateur Hour
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Re: Alignment: Oops

Post by Amateur Hour » Wed Jul 06, 2022 3:59 pm

My personal experience was creating a character with one mechanical alignment that just never really fit with the rest of my concept of the character. I didn't have anything alignment-restricted on them--no divine classes, no alignment-locked classes, no alignment-locked gear, no Radiant Heart to consider--so I simply stated the above: "My character Jane Smith is mechanically XY, but I feel like I've always played them as XZ, because <insert brief explanation here>." Getting it approved was pretty painless. The main thing is that you have to roleplay "falling out of your alignment" before you can apply for the mechanical shift to a different alignment, and that you can only go one "step" at a time (though I've talked to some people who made characters, took one step out the door, realized they wanted to change it more than one step, and got it approved since the character was very new).

If your first level is an alignment-locked class and you intend to swap to an alignment that doesn't allow that class, you're looking at a remake, at which point you don't need to apply for anything. Though if you're thinking of remaking the character solely because you feel like the alignment they are on paper isn't one you enjoy playing, I'd encourage you to consider whether or not it might be better to retire the character and play a brand-new character with an alignment you enjoy playing more. Just my personal take, but if I've made a character with an alignment I don't like playing, whose plot arcs I've tried to direct to serve this alignment I don't like playing, roleplaying the sudden shift just isn't going to be fun either.

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kkwaters
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Re: Alignment: Oops

Post by kkwaters » Wed Jul 06, 2022 8:13 pm

Apologies for being Vague about the Alignment.

My character is on Paper LE, a sorcerer.
I have not been playing it as LE, and reached level 15.
I wanted to get higher in levels, then go Black Guard, as an LE character - who serves Bane. (which was intended at character conception.)
I have found I much prefer to play a good or at least neutral character, I do not have the stones to play a real LE alignment, yet.

I am going to park this character indefinitely until I either decide to play LE, or just keep the character mothballed.
Damned frustrating to have to do this at this far into my character's career.
At least I figured it out prior to trying to go BG or such...

Thank you all for helping me sort this out.
"Reality is the Ultimate Role-Playing Game."

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Re: Alignment: Oops

Post by Arienette » Wed Jul 06, 2022 8:23 pm

kkwaters wrote:
Wed Jul 06, 2022 8:13 pm
Apologies for being Vague about the Alignment.

My character is on Paper LE, a sorcerer.
I have not been playing it as LE, and reached level 15.
I wanted to get higher in levels, then go Black Guard, as an LE character - who serves Bane. (which was intended at character conception.)
I have found I much prefer to play a good or at least neutral character, I do not have the stones to play a real LE alignment, yet.

I am going to park this character indefinitely until I either decide to play LE, or just keep the character mothballed.
Damned frustrating to have to do this at this far into my character's career.
At least I figured it out prior to trying to go BG or such...

Thank you all for helping me sort this out.
Another option is to ask for an alignment change to Neutral, and just not take BG levels. Can take bard or Ranger or whatever dip instead.

Sorc with pal/bard is cool and powerful but just a “regular” sorcerer? Nothing wrong with that whatsoever!

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msterswrdsmn
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Re: Alignment: Oops

Post by msterswrdsmn » Thu Jul 07, 2022 6:22 am

You could also get creative with how you're being evil.

Banites are typically people who see themselves as "lawful enforcers" who use fear to intimidate their opposition in submission. The use of fear is inherently evil, sure, but what you're using it for is a bit more open.

You could rp your sorcerer as leaning more towards lawful neutral, except when dealing with whatever they consider grave offenses. Then you're ruthless and making an messy example out of the poor unfortunate soul.

Magic makes this a bit more flexible beyond just torturing people. Enchantment focused? Get the other players OOC permission first, but liberal use of gaes spells against the targets IC wishes (again, get OOC consent first!) or other mind-controlling spells to force them into submission on your terms. Necromancer? Kill them in a gruesome way, then use their corpse as a thrall, setting a precident as to what happens to [insert whatever you had to kill them for].

Doing terrible things for what you believe to be the "greater good", ie, enforcing discipline and order on Arelith (which notably lacks these things quite often) with morally grey results would be enough to earn you an "evil" alignment without going full blown baby-eating cackling evil. If you're struggling to come up with ways to do this, try shooting some tells/pms to people on the other side of the alignment pool to brainstorm ideas to create small pc-run quest/story lines.

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kkwaters
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Re: Alignment: Oops

Post by kkwaters » Sun Jul 17, 2022 4:09 pm

Thank you both for the ideas on how to handle it.

What I chose to do was to start a new Character for now that is NG.

I will likely come back to my Character once I feel better about how to handle the troubles I created for myself.

Thank you both for the ideas and suggestions.
"Reality is the Ultimate Role-Playing Game."

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The GrumpyCat
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Re: Alignment: Oops

Post by The GrumpyCat » Sun Jul 17, 2022 8:47 pm

Total respect for the direction you're taking. I'm awful at playing evil pcs as well, so you've got my total sympathy there.

I would like to add - just as a public service announcement - the above is correct in that to get an alignment shift you just need to put in a ticket, or flag down a DM, and give a good reason for the change. So long as it's legal for your class/character it should be fine.

The only small caveat is that we tend to only do one point shifts at a time. So we could change your LE sorc to NE or to LN but not to say, CN or LG.
This too shall pass.

(I now have a DM Discord (I hope) It's DM GrumpyCat#7185 but please keep in mind I'm very busy IRL so I can't promise how quick I'll get back to you.)

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