Clerics and the DCC

[Hamakto]

You still have to track everyone's alignment that you heal. Which means that dirt farmer the dm was using to dispense information? He has to know his alignment. And how is the cleric to know whom he can and can't heal? An evil person falls and breaks his leg, is the cleric supposed to just walk by and not help him? That's not the act of a good cleric. This method makes a simple healing spell way too complicated. I'd rather handle the implications of a cleric healing someone of opposite alignment via roleplaying.

Actually it worked out really well on the character sheet... there were three blank boxes in the sheet listed +0, +1 and +2. You just wrote the characters name in the box. Oh... and to the right of this box was the matrix indicating what the results of the row were.

The tracking of who and their alignments was a negligible amount of effort. We were play one shot adventures with people we never played with before. And I was till able to keep everyone straight. I honestly think that once you try it you will probably change your mind on it. It sounds far worse in text than it is during play.

[smathis]

You still have to track everyone's alignment that you heal. Which means that dirt farmer the dm was using to dispense information? He has to know his alignment. And how is the cleric to know whom he can and can't heal? An evil person falls and breaks his leg, is the cleric supposed to just walk by and not help him? That's not the act of a good cleric. This method makes a simple healing spell way too complicated. I'd rather handle the implications of a cleric healing someone of opposite alignment via roleplaying.

Or by using the chart like everything else. Instead of mapping out a matrix of every alignment, why not have it listed on the "Lay On Hands" chart?

The gods in a lot of Appendix N books are distant and capricious. Maybe a diety doesn't want a LG paladin to survive. So he lays down some smack on the LG Cleric that heals him? Or maybe the diety doesn't mind so much when that LG Cleric heals the CN Thief because he believes that the CN Thief will convert to his cause?

An evil person falls and breaks his leg, is the cleric supposed to just walk by and not help him? That's not the act of a good cleric.

This is one reason I'm a strong advocate for removing the Good-Evil axis. That statement right there. I don't think that conversation ever needs to happen at a tabletop -- and yet I've witnessed it far more than I'd like to admit.

It all depends on what the player and DM agree a "good cleric" would do. I've seen "good clerics" behead commoners because there was a slight twinge on the Detect-Evil-ometer.

I think the Law-Chaos axis promotes behavior more conducive to the gaming table because those forces are actually in real conflict. And how someone Lawful or Chaotic should behave is less prescriptive. While Good and Evil are, at best, after-the-fact judgements on what people have done. And, at worst, an excuse for rampant dickery.