Province/Regent Alignments
Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2020 12:56 pm
My thoughts keep coming back to this... If not for the province alignments shown on the map, as players we would never be able to know for sure what alignment the other PCs are. I understand it's useful for the DM to be able to see what province alignments are, track them, and change them this way, but I'm not sure it's worth losing uncertainty about what alignment the other realms and regents are at the start of the game. Especially when it starts being used to justify what they do.
A possible solution would be to assume that provinces are the same alignment as their starting regent, and not bother to mark that on the map. (If that makes it tricky to apply the action penalties, we could just ignore them, the extra -1 or -2 doesn't mean much.) We'd also remove the ability to shift province alignments with Agitate or Leadership. Instead, they'd generate events when the province alignment didn't match the regent's, and shift when and only when those events were resolved well enough. (Otherwise, the regent could shift alignment to match the province, an option with its own perils.)
I think bringing the mystery back could save us some headaches. Alignment, and enforcing the consequences of going against it, would be firmly in DM hands. With the exception of cases where a PC admits to having a restrictive character class--and only to the extent they were believed, or could prove it with divine powers--players wouldn't be able to use their alignment to justify their actions to (or toward) other players, or criticize other players for their interpretation of it.
My main concern is less the spoiler, and more the sense of legitimacy players can get from having their character's alignment broadcast on the map, with the implication that others have to respect what they do because of it.
A possible solution would be to assume that provinces are the same alignment as their starting regent, and not bother to mark that on the map. (If that makes it tricky to apply the action penalties, we could just ignore them, the extra -1 or -2 doesn't mean much.) We'd also remove the ability to shift province alignments with Agitate or Leadership. Instead, they'd generate events when the province alignment didn't match the regent's, and shift when and only when those events were resolved well enough. (Otherwise, the regent could shift alignment to match the province, an option with its own perils.)
I think bringing the mystery back could save us some headaches. Alignment, and enforcing the consequences of going against it, would be firmly in DM hands. With the exception of cases where a PC admits to having a restrictive character class--and only to the extent they were believed, or could prove it with divine powers--players wouldn't be able to use their alignment to justify their actions to (or toward) other players, or criticize other players for their interpretation of it.
My main concern is less the spoiler, and more the sense of legitimacy players can get from having their character's alignment broadcast on the map, with the implication that others have to respect what they do because of it.