The Order of the Stick

I feel like that's how Durkula tried to play things off but it didn't work for long.

Flipping alignments the other way could be presented as growing a sense of empathy. Whenever your character sees another person hurting, suddenly that character hurts in similar measure. Do with that as you will.

Forced alignment shifts seem like they'd really only work with a) a player group that wants a strong RP component in their game that b) is willing to let the dice decide some things. An RP group that isn't trying to express themselves necessarily through their characters, but is instead willing to see where the winds of plot take them.

Edited by TobiasDrake on May 5th 2021 at 6:36:12 AM

Does Belkar improving as a person momentarily after his wisdom got a +4 buff count?

The idea that the fiends would pull V away during Hel's plan to prevent their death always struck me like it was missing the point of why they even went through all the trouble in the first place.

Edited by LSBK on May 5th 2021 at 10:01:58 AM

Have they established if the Fiends can divide up their individual times? So one has twenty some minutes and another has like six but is it possible for the one with six to yank V for two nonconsecutive periods of three minutes?

If they can, Rich will certainly hold on the reveal until the last possible moment - so I expect the second period will be used fully first, and only the third one gets divided.

If they could divide their time, they would have done so when they took V the first time in Girard's pyramid. They only needed V for a few seconds for Roy to destroy the gate, after that keeping them wasn't really needed.

The fiends have no reason to let V know everything about the way it works. It probably can't be divided up, but choosing to do so in order to create an unwelcome surprise on the third time would be appropriate in my opinion.

They also have no reason to waste twenty minutes of valuable time that could be used to keep V away from the action later down the line.

While that may be true, narratively, we have been given every reason to expect that they can control his soul two more times for about twenty minutes each. This gives a way of keeping track of the score, so to speak. Ironically, it's less suspenseful if we have no idea how many times it can happen: for example, if they can break up the control into a bunch of small sessions.

The have one more go for about 20 minutes. That last go is for three, which narratively means it'll probably be the most important.

Forced alignment change, at least in the way it was described last page, sounds most fun as a curse or affliction of some kind.

I'm thinking of it as being the same phenomenon as, say, the player knowing a thing has happened, but RPing their character who doesn't. Like "I, the player, know that everything around me is an illusion, but I failed the perception check, and I was planning to sleep on this obviously suspicious bed." Some players would semi-finagle out of it, like having their character suddenly and inexplicably not want to touch anything any more, and others would shrug, stay in character and dive right in.

Force alignment change feels like it would hit the same beats. Your good/evil character, get afflicted with a predilection towards evil/good. Some gamers would finagle, like just not making any serious decisions while in that state and just say evil/good things here and there. But others would seriously try to RP the adventure with "how would this character act if they had no conscience any more / had smiles painted on their soul / etc?"

Like if your character becomes a vampire. Do you RP a tortured soul dealing with Horror Hunger. Do you RP as a person who suddenly thinks like a predator now? Or do you avoid it, and act the same way you always do except now you drink consequence free blood during combat.

It would absolutely suck as a permanent thing, though.

Edited by KnownUnknown on May 5th 2021 at 4:17:18 AM

Forced alignment change is a thing that can only be conceptualised in a setting where alignment is more fundamental to the universe than real-world psychology. The two are inherently incompossible - one has to take precedence over the other and you have to be willing to accept that characters don’t think and act the way you’d expect an actual person to behave.

Edited by Noaqiyeum on May 5th 2021 at 12:30:02 PM

I've been forced into evil alignment. Picked up a Devil's trident. For me it was a highlight of the campaign.

Personally I think a forced alignment shift to Good would be more interesting, especially with the ethical issues concerning whether or not to maintain what is essentially Heel–Face Brainwashing.

If I actually played D&D I would love it if the DM took me aside ahead of time and asked me if I was cool with having mine changed secretly during a planned event. I could easily think of a way to modify a character through a single alignment step ie. Evil <-> Neutral <-> Good or Chaotic <-> Neutral <-> Lawful. Going two steps or one step on both axes would be a lot more difficult while still feeling like the same person.

Like if you have a Lawful Neutral character, you can say that maybe they believe in the law in and of itself as the way to maintain functional society. An artifact makes them evil makes them want to exploit the system. One that makes them good makes them want to make sure the laws are actually as helpful as possible. One that shifts them true neutral simply reduces their belief in law itself. But going LG <-> LE is a massive personality shift to occur that quickly, let alone LG <-> CE.

The DM would have to check ahead of time and make sure the person is on board with it in secret because tbh I feel like they'd probably want to shift your alignment downwards rather than up to see how the situation shakes out.

My tiefling bard is a sickly sweet goody-good (NG). She's the heart of our party; the party leader basically adopted her out of fear that the world would eat her alive. I could see a lot of storytelling potential in a forced alignment shift turning her cruel for an adventure.

It wouldn't even be too hard to play. Percy's personality is one of unrelenting empathy in the face of the hard life she's lived. She's not super optimistic or peppy; she just cares about people too much to let her own personal tragedies turn her cold. She relates to people in need and that motivates her to put herself out there.

A forced alignment shift to Evil would just require taking away that empathetic piece of her. Letting her hardships make her cold and selfish. It's a road she could have gone down; it's just not the road she did.

Edited by TobiasDrake on May 6th 2021 at 9:15:01 AM

...So, I was wondering when Serini began to take notice of the Gates. As been mentioned before, she seems to blame the Paladins (or do-gooders that try to interfere in the Gates, in a general sense) for the destruction of the first gate, the Druid's gate. But that wasn't them. That was Redcloak accidentally burning down the forest.

However, she seems to have been observing them as early Azure City, where she knew some choice details about how that Gate blew up.

It makes me wonder when she actually decided to keep an eye out for the other Gates...and what exactly prompted it, since I don't think she was in the habit of checking on the other Gates. It seemed to be a largely independent affair.

She probably started observing them after recovering from what Xykon did to her, however long that took.

Nearly being murdered by a lich who stole your diary containing all the info you've compiled about the only things holding back a god killing abomination is a pretty big wake up call.

Edited by M84 on May 14th 2021 at 4:22:33 PM

She potentially could have started trying to do so immediately, but Dorukan's dungeon was under Cloister so she wouldn't know anything specific. Girard's gate probably also was rather warded up, but it totally was her scrying on the fakeout coordinates spot.

I thought that was Zi'dritti or whatever his name is. You're talking about the giant eye we saw, right?

It was confirmed to be the drow in an author commentary, yes.

And besides, in the message at the fake spot Girard confirmed that Serini knew where his Gate really was.

I think their joke ran into Poe's Law.

Oh alright.

Yeah, but she could have known about the fakeout too and could scry by to see who exactly popped it.

Edited by Adannor on May 14th 2021 at 5:21:29 PM