Thank you for the response—and others as well—and the answer is quite as I expected it—Players can't be trusted.Rhifox wrote: ↑Mon Apr 18, 2022 9:23 amTo be perfectly honest... mostly because of player anger. As witnessed just in this thread and every other discussion where this has come up. People feel they should be able to play evil characters, even characters of obviously evil classes or races, and yet be completely immune to any magical attempts at detecting them. It's the usual one-dimensional Sneak RP paranoia where their character somehow becomes completely invalidated if they're exposed, because they were designed purely for Sneak RP and if they can no longer do that they feel they need to trash the character rather than having them grow and evolve and find a new purpose. It's an extension of the usual hatred of any and all forms of supposed "metagaming" (even though Detect spells are IC, not OOC, and have an easy guaranteed counter in undetectable alignment).Steve wrote: ↑Sun Apr 17, 2022 5:18 pm If Detect “Alignment” is going IG, why should it NOT function exactly as the 3.5 Rules describe?
It'd certainly be easier on me if I could just implement it straight without all of these extra checks that inflate the script to ridiculous levels, and sometimes I think about just outright doing that. I'm opposite from other players in that I think RP is lessened by not having detect evil, rather than lessened by having it. Not having it removes reactivity and consequences for player actions. It makes being Evil mean basically nothing. It allows people to play outright evil classes like blackguards and yet be buddy-buddies with paladins. Paladins are largely useless at their actual job of routing out evil -- and in turn are relegated towards knee-jerk accusations of evil because the only thing they can do is judge character associations and rumors instead of having a tool to try and validate their assumptions. Not having it harms RP, in my opinion.
Which makes me wonder: if players can't be trusted, does even a "watered down" version make any sense to put IG? I'm of a similar mind as Wolfshear and Deathgrowl, in that it will be used as a crutch to enact PvP, some mechanical "push" on what should be CvC and role-play.
Like I'm always saying—and a lot as of late—mechanics can't fix role-play.
I really, really wish this could work. I'd much prefer the straight 3.5e Rules Detect (Evil) Alignment implementation, because clear is better than confusing use and confusing result. Especially if a Non Detection deterrent / spell was available to counter.
On a further note: I think this thread is just another example to add to the pile about how the Server leans toward PCs being good, and most role-play being about "destroying the Evil." It's not rocket science to observe that the majority of Players in D&D want to pay the Good Hero, the shining knight, the poster child for lawful and good. The way I see it is that playing Evil is just not fun for the majority, and they don't even know how and/or why to begin...which is probably a good thing in RL!
I think this thread also shows that BGTSCC continues to lack a fully developed environment where players CAN play Evil toons, and not rely on a constant need to interact with Goodies and Neutrals just to have some healthy or full IG experience.
Lastly, the fact of having objective and REAL existence of Good and Evil in the Forgotten Realms, is hard to parse form a RL modern perspective. Perhaps even in the Forgotten Realms perspective. Consider whether or not it really IS justifiable, that if a Paladin sees a known Evil Being in the street, doing nothing but standing there, does said Paladin have the right to kill that evil being?
This is more or less the issue with alignment, PCs, Good vs Evil on BGTSCC: what is justifiable, and what "tools" are given to the players in order to "justify" the actions of their PCs? And how will that maybe create OOC waves, that just simply do no good?
I would love to see equally supported "hubs" for Good aligned and Evil aligned PCs, on BGTSCC. Until this somehow would manifest, for me, it seems doubtful that adding this Detect Alignment mechanic will do any real good for Role-play, besides creating far more OOC conflict than before.
That's just my 2 cents. I would be happy to be proven wrong!!!