New Alignment System

[gizmo33]

GIZMO'S ALIGNMENT SYSTEM

IMO the alignment system has problems as written. This probably isn't anything new to some people. To others, it suits their game just fine. That's cool. What I would like to do is submit my system for comment. It's not so much a rules system as it is a framework with which to develop a set of houserules. Those houserules will retain "good", "evil" and such as features of the campaign where they are best used, and remove them from areas of the game where they are more likely to cause problems in the DMs adjudication of the game. (The specifics of how I use these principles are bound up in my rules for new spells, magic items, and so forth and not easily posted.)

THE PROBLEMS AS I SEE THEM

The first problem is that alignment takes a whole range of motivations and potential philosophies and fits them into one of nine possible categories. IMO that's an oversimplification. It leads to problems of interpretation - "what is good" and stuff like that. Just visit a DnD message board on any given day and check out the daily alignment thread - someone posting a question like "can a paladin do such and such". It's not that people don't know what "good" means - it just that they only have a hazy idea of it, and in a game like DnD there are just too many variables to judge it.

Which leads to the second problem, which is that the DM has to judge it! Everyone in the RAW has an alignment, and if they start thinking or behaving in ways that goes against that alignment, the DM is suppose to change that persons alignment accordingly. And perhaps the player loses powers as a result. This sets up a potential conflict of interest between player and DM. And whereas the combat system might do the same thing (monsters trying to kill player characters also creates a conflict of interest), the combat system in DnD is much better defined - and so the DM is in a more comfortable place making judgments that go against the player.

A third problem is that, because everyone has an alignment, everyone knows that everyone has an alignment. And so one wonders why the world has not divided into nine different countries based on alignments. Fliers would be distributed that say "come, live in sunny Camelot, we're all Lawful Good, unlike those other guys". The expectation is that people know their own alignments, so even if a fraction of folks would be willing to misrepresent themselves for some reason, most people would not find it advantageous. I wouldn't want to be the only Chaotic Evil person in a Lawful Evil kingdom - or have to rely on non-detection spells for my survival.

And it just doesn't match the characterstics of fantasy/literature/history that we use for inspiration. There's nothing really like it in any story that I'm familiar with. Convoluted explanations are given as to why kingdoms don't advertise what their alignments are, but IMO they are unconvincing. People in the stories aren't making decisions about alignment in the way that they do in DnD. Good and evil exist, certainly, but they are ideals, embodied by only divine creatures. Examples of a mortal being good exist, like King Arthur, but there are times when he does things that are obviously not good. In DnD, in spite of the existence of alignment descriptors ([good], [lawful], etc.) for some creatures, a Lawful Good archon, and a lawful good mortal are treated the same way by most spells and game elements. Granted - DnD is not a literature simulation - so this is only one of many factors.

So I actually would prefer less certainty when it comes to alignment. I don't want to necessarily have an opinion about the alignment of Joe Commoner NPC in my campaign. Nor do I want PCs in my campaign to cast a spell and instantly know most everything of significance about an NPC. Is the NPC good? That should be a deep philosophical question for the most part, along the lines of "what is this person capable of". Not something easily resolved by a color-coded system.

I also don't want to nitpick my players about their choices - or get into the kind of debates. Maybe their idea of a paladin is a character like "Dirty Harry". I catagorize such characters as chaotic rather than lawful. But if you act in chaotic ways in order to defend the law, does that make you chaotic or lawful? And does a wanton disregard for collateral damage in the course of fighting evil make a person non-good? IMO these are thousands-of-years-old philosophical questions - I'm not going to convincingly answer them for a player who doesn't want to lose their powers or be labelled as something that they don't feel they are.

 

[gizmo33]

ALIGNMENTS AND CREATURES

"Good" is an ideal - and because DnD is a fantasy game it seems reasonable that Good exists and is tangible in the world in some way. What I'm saying is that mortals are not typically capable of embodying good to such a degree that it would count as their alignment.

Mortals in one type of classical mythology are made up of each of the four elements - Earth, Air, Fire, Water. An imbalance in these energies results in disease. Similarly, a mortal is made up of good, evil, lawful, and chaotic energy. Unlike the elements though, these moral energies are not typically in balance. Perhaps this imbalance in alignments is the "disease" of the world - but that's a question for philosophers.

The way this works in my game is this:
> player character races, like humans and dwarves, don't have an alignment by default. They have whatever personality their player envisions for them.
> Some creatures have alignment descriptors [lawful], [good], for example. Typically any creature that has an "always" alignment has an alignment descriptor. There is no [neutral] descriptor, so a slaad, for example, is just [chaotic].

ALIGNMENTS AND CLERICS
Creatures who channel divine magic (ex. cast divine spells) gain the alignment descriptor that corresponds to their deity. This is not a mandate for behavior, it is simply just a characteristic.

However, a cleric must behave in ways that are consistent with the ethos of the deity. If not, they lose their divine abilities as well as the alignment descriptor.

Take for example a cleric of a war god of "chivarly and combat", a lawful good deity. A cleric of that deity would gain a [lawful] and a [good] descriptor. Were a cleric to violate the ethos of the deity (running away in a just battle, for instance) then he loses his spell-casting ability, as well as the [lawful] and [good] descriptors. But an important point: the cleric gets these descriptors by virtue of his association with the deity, not directly by his behavior. Thus the DM has only to judge whether the cleric's actions are in line with the ethos of the deity - not whether or not the deities ethos is entirely consistent with definitions of the word "law" and "good".

So as far as the players know, channeling the power of the deity simply bestows those alignment descriptors on the cleric. There is some correlation between the deities ethos and the traditional alignment definitions, but there's no real mandate that this be the case. Thus, in this system, a "lawful good" (ie. [lawful], [good]) cleric of a LG god of chivalry would probably lose his powers for refusing an order to engage in just combat from a Lawful ruler, while a cleric of a LG god of pacifism would get a promotion. Either party could argue (as we do on the internet) whether or not one or the other behavior is "lawful good", but such arguments stand as unresolved philosophical debates within the campaign and do not need to be resolved in order for the DM to effectively manage alignment.

OTHER WAYS OF GAINING AN ALIGNMENT DESCRIPTOR
> living on an outerplane for some extended period of time (ex. a saytr who lives in Limbo)
> using a magic item with a powerful descriptor (ex. a magic sword that is a bane weapon against evil)

ALIGNMENT AND DIVINE SPELLS
This is where the most significant changes occur. I can't guarrantee that the system is perfectly balanced, but given the history of nerfed spells and items in the game, IMO the sky won't fall if "Magic Circle against Evil" is less useful. IME the advantages are worth it. I also can't make promises about how this system interacts with the zillions of other rules supplements, prestige classes, and so forth that are out there.

That being said, some changes need to be made to clarify things - because most creatures now don't have alignments or alignment descriptors.

The first thing is that terms like "non-good" have a modified, but obvious meaning. For example the Holy Word spell has an effect vs. "non-good". In the new system, a creature with no alignment is "non-good", and so suffers the effect of the spell.

A second set of options is to modify the spells to use the "non-good" terminology. Protection from Evil would be changed to "Projection of Good" - whereby the protected creature would gain the save/AC bonus against any non-good creature. This might not be as much of a power-up as it sounds because AFAICT the typical situation is good PCs battling evil monsters, so I consider it only a moderate broadening of the power of the spell.

And of course you can just leave spells like Protection from Evil alone, ruling that it applies only to creatures with an [evil] descriptor. I use fairly liberal rules for spontaneous casting, so this is the option that I went with.

A third option is to increase the bonuses - protection from evil gives a +3 bonus instead of +2 because of the more limited set of creatures that it affects.

ALIGNMENT AND ARCANE SPELLS
Since there's no "deity ethos" to use, it's based off of the alignment descriptor (if any) of the spell. Also, the caster gains the alignment descriptor after they cast the given spell. Once they cast such a spell, they retain the alignment descriptor for some period of time (typically a month in my campaign) after which the slate is wiped clean. Subsequent casting of such spells though, has a way of extending the duration of the descriptor.

Casting an arcane spell with a diametrically opposite descriptor to the one you currently have can have harmful consequences - typically a temporary negative energy level that lasts one day. The caster is intuitively but well aware of such effects before the spell is cast.

 

[gizmo33]

ALIGNMENT AND MAGIC ITEMS
The magic item changes would follow the spell changes in most areas. With additions below:

HOLY WEAPONS
+2d6 against evil creatures, +1d6 against non-good creatures. Non-good creatures who weild the weapon gain a negative level. A non-aligned creature who picks up the weapon can choose to take on a [good] descriptor at that time and attune himself to the weapon.

The weapon is attuned to an ethos, either that of a deity or some other (perhaps not completely specified) system. In any case it's the ethos of the weapon that determines whether the character can stay attuned to it - not broader philosophical issues. If the sword's creator made it so that someone who ran away in combat or slew non-evil creatures out-of-hand couldn't be attuned to it - then it's not a matter of whether or not such actions are, or are not "good" - it's more just an issue that the weapon doesn't like the actions (something the DM is much more qualified to judge than more abstract issues of morality).

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR THE CAMPAIGN CULTURE/NPCs
This is probably a huge topic, but some thoughts on the subject:

NPCs, under this system, would understand that a [good] descriptor, for instance, doesn't necessarily mean that the creature isn't capable of evil, or would they think the reverse of an [evil] descriptor. However, they would realize that such a character is heavily influenced (whether by deity, magic item, or whatever) by such forces. This probably isn't too different from the situation of alignment now. Having such a descriptor is not a mandate for automatic trust from other like-aligned people.

Is a wizard with an [evil] alignment descriptor really evil? Or has he just cast one too many Summon Fiendish Ape spells in order to battle other evil creatures? That's for the players now to decide. Some might tell you that such behavior leads to evil, and that one cannot have an [evil] descriptor for very long without becoming evil. Again, the goal is to put the DM in a position where he is not required to resolve thorny issues of morality in order to run the game.

But what is different is that the bulk of people don't have alignments. They need to be judged by their actions. As such (IMO) roleplaying and figuring out what a character is really about becomes more subtle and interesting - there's no quick/detectable label to use. A deity's primary mode of interacting with his worshippers has to do with his ethos, not alignment.

CONCLUSION
So what I've tried to do with this system is come up with a way to take away the issue of requiring that the DM judge alignment in order to play the game. A DM is in a much better position to tell a player whether his actions are in keeping with the "Teachings of Thor" than he is whether or not a given action is "Lawful" or "Good".

Also, because DnD is a fantasy game where principles and ideas take on lives of their own, it seems appropriate that moral forces like "good" have some sort of tangable representation in the game. Demons *should* be Chaotic Evil. It's just that I envision those kinds of creatures as being at the extreme ends of reality. A paladin might wish that his very being were "Lawful Good", but what is really the case is that he is a mixture of lawful, good, evil, and chaotic who has chosen to live his life in accordance with the "Lawful Good" ideal espoused by his deity. Hopefully, after a lifetime of service, he will die and his soul will ascend to the Lawful Good outer planes where his fallible good/evil/law/chaos body will be replaced with the pure form of a Lawful Good petitioner.

So the quetion of "what does 'good' really mean in absolute terms" then becomes relegated to "what does an immortal petitioner really do with their time", or "what does a creature with 40 intelligence think about" - questions that are an interesting part of the game, but ones whose answer is not vital to the conduct of the day-to-day events of a DMs campaign.

AFTERWORD
I realize the actual crunchy bits of this are imprecise - much of it is bound up in my houserules which include other campaign-specific elements that I would have to remove. Surprisingly though, I've used this system for going-on 15 years no, through multiple groups, and even the rules lawyers haven't complained.

 

[buzz]

Gizmo, this is an interesting take on things. I like the idea of a character having descriptors only if there's some special connection between them and one of the alignment axes. Reminds me of Allegiances in d20M.

 

[tomBitonti]

Nice writeup!

 

[Zaruthustran]

Sounds good to me. "Evil" is more like taint, a condition that gets applied if the character spends time in hell, associates with demons, casts certain spells. Not a giant flag that pops up the instant he murders one guy.

This solves the problem of the Paladin walking down the street, Detecting, say, a dozen evil commoners out of a crowd of two hundred. Should he murder those commoners? Jail them on no grounds other than "you detect as Evil!"? Or what?

Under your system, the petty base viciousness of humankind is just that--unextraordinary, everyday evil. The normal everyday selfishness and disregard for fellow human life. The evil of CNN dropping an interview with Michael Moore (talking about his new film, which shows the value the US health care system places on human life) in favor of an interview with Paris Hilton (talking about nothing whatsoever).

Capital E Evil only comes up via some sort of extraordinary circumstance. Same for capital G Good. You pay your taxes, leave decent tips, call your mom, and refrain from punching your jerk of a boss? Good for you. You're a decent human being. But you're not on par with an Angel. You're not Good.

I also like how Clerics can gain the Good descriptor as a side effect, even if they're not especially swell guys. Currently in D&D you simply can't run a "corrupt officer of the church" scenario without crazy convolutions and spells.

Good work on this new system.

 

[gizmo33]

Thanks guys. I'm sure after all these years my players will appreciate that it's written down too.

I looked at the d20 modern rules for allegiances in the SRD. That does sound somewhat like what I'm looking for in spirit. I couldn't tell much from that particular chapter how those ideas were put into play though, and I'm not otherwise familiar with d20M. The idea of the allegiance with regards to a person or philosophy, as opposed to a deity, is interesting though. The closest I've gotten to that is with magic items, like a holy sword, where I reserve the theoretical possibility that the sword could be a "Sword of the Knights of Malta" and have a [lawful] descriptor, without an allegiance to a particular deity. In practice though I've not yet had a holy item that isn't associated with a deity, though I tell my players that such a thing is a theoretical possibility.

The problem I would have with having a thieves guild make you [chaotic] is that I envison that it takes a pretty substantial god-like power to give someone an alignment descriptor like that (or close proximity plus power, as in the case of a magic item). I suppose that in theory you could have a thieves guild with such tradition and prestige that it's ethos would almost constitute a god-like force and members would gain [chaotic] by association, but I haven't used something like that (yet). That would start a slipperly slope were I'd have to start classifying the myriad of philosophies and organizations according to alignment, and my goal was to get out of that business and let the philosophies themselves argue about what they were without me having to decide.

 

[gizmo33]

Sounds good to me. "Evil" is more like taint, a condition that gets applied if the character spends time in hell, associates with demons, casts certain spells. Not a giant flag that pops up the instant he murders one guy.

Thanks for pointing out the "spending time in hell" situation. While monsters that live there (like the saytr example) are an easy call, I've always like the idea that PCs that went adventuring there would pick up a faint whisp of something. Here's my current campaign practice, updated to 3E terminology:

ALIGNMENT AND PLACES
Spending time in hell causes you to give off a faint lawful evil aura. Using a spell like "Detect Evil", the third round of concentration is sufficient to establish that the aura doesn't come from the character, but is merely about him (as if splashed with a flask of unholy water). The aura persists for roughly one hour per day spent in the strongly-aligned place.

This solves the problem of the Paladin walking down the street, Detecting, say, a dozen evil commoners out of a crowd of two hundred. Should he murder those commoners? Jail them on no grounds other than "you detect as Evil!"? Or what?

Yea, and it just so happens that the people most likely to gain an alignment descriptor (spell casters) are also those most adept at hiding them.

Under your system, the petty base viciousness of humankind is just that--unextraordinary, everyday evil. The normal everyday selfishness and disregard for fellow human life.

I think of it as the relationship between air and Elemental Air (or Good with a capital 'G' as you point out - the philosophy of Plato). It's theoretically possible (another note I should make) that a persons behavior would be of such vile evil (or pure good) that they could earn an alignment descriptor without divine involvement. I've never used the rule in my campaign though, just said it was there - it's something on par with divine ascension but not dependant on power/level.

I also like how Clerics can gain the Good descriptor as a side effect, even if they're not especially swell guys. Currently in D&D you simply can't run a "corrupt officer of the church" scenario without crazy convolutions and spells.

IMC there is a looser coupling between alignment and cleric behavior. I'm not sure if it's loose enough to get the "corrupt officer of the church" - at least as implemented in my campaign. The reason is probably that my deities tend to be involved enough that long-term behavior of their clerics is judged - and while 'deity ethos' and alignment aren't in 1-1 correspondance, extreme differences would be noted. It would be hard (I think impossible) for a Lawful Good cleric IMC to sacrifice a person and keep his powers/alignment descriptor - being as that such an action goes against the ethos of each of my good deities. "Jerky" behavior though, probably falls through the cracks. For this reasons NPCs view a [good] descriptor with more skepticism than good alignment, and having such is not a mandate to be trusted implicitly.

But there is the chance that unaligned members of the church (fighters, and such) are not as picky, although I think their cleric superiors would eventually catch on to their behavior. It would be possible for a corrupt, non-cleric person to serve a Lawful Good church for some period of time until his actions were found out. It certainly wouldn't be a simple matter of detecting him with a spell.

The clerics of my neutral deities tend to be more in conflict with good PCs for political reasons - not so much "corrupt" as they just have other priorities. A cleric who would be LN in the RAW can associate more freely with persons that were LE in the RAW without having issues because only the cleric would have an alignment - so the strength of the relationship would depend more on how well the LE people suited the cleric's ethos. Not so different from the RAW in it's implementation, but without the "Lawful Evil" sign blinking over the heads of the fighters to make the cleric feel uneasy about his choice of companionship.

 

[KrazyHades]

I like it a lot!

Can we get a sticky on this or something so that it doesn't get lost in the archives?