Rethinking Alignment

[Nifft]

Inter-pantheonic healing (etc.): IMHO, this makes excellent advertising for a faith. "Look, our power is real! It makes you better!" -- and there's a strong basis for this sort of thing in some religious texts, where the leader-guy or deity-incarnate heals some non-believers and lo, they get faith fever.

However: you could require some participation from the recipient which would be anathema to faiths which strongly oppose yours. Like, you have to say, "praise be to Thor" so Thor can heal you. This is fine for those with no religion, but may preclude priests of other faiths, depending on how strict their rules are.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Slapzilla]

Looking at the length of the OP tells me that the idea of moral relativism in the alignment system is a big ol' headache. But...

If you are willing to create a template for each religion and create filters through which the divine magics of each will work, then more power to you and I'm interested how you do it. It just seems too unwieldly to me.

I think, in the game, good, evil, law and chaos are just as real as air, earth, fire, and water. One can smite evil, therefore it is, in absolute terms, a real and measurable thing. It has a quantity and a quality that can be recognized and separated from the whole, and if neccessary, targeted. A system that removes the quantity and quality can be difficult to implement. An Arthurian Knight who can Smite Viking makes some sense but you lose some of what makes the Paladin cool. Would the Knight of Odin be able to Smite Dwarf, or Giant?

The fervor of the zealot compared to the dispassionate but true believer compared to the one who only goes to church on the two extremely high holy days of the year adds three levels of 'believer' to the mix and maybe you've bitten off a huge mouthful. A kindly priest may heal an orc for free while an arch-conservative may only heal wounds obtained on church sponsored infidel smashing crusades, and then excommunicate the kindly priest. You get into who is right and who is wrong and the subjective nature of each threatens to unbalance things otherwise carefully balanced.

I think the answer lies in expanding the notion of alignments and fitting the religions within the expanded notions. If a Paladin of Tyr and an Arthurian Holy Crusader met, surely they would get along well enough and any real debates would be just that, debates. They may be inclined towards jousting as a means to test measure and resolution but with no hard feelings. A druid of any bent may think the whole mess is foolish with all the proving by combat and all. Orcs and Loki followers may agree on a deep visceral level on the whole destruction thing but without threats and coersion would they ever team up?

My point is that these things work themselves out and if you use the alignments as one of many filters, it is a tool for you. I agree that the pseudo-Celtic and the pseudo-Christian and the Dwarves will not see eye to eye, but these are natural filters. Coming up with a codified system beforehand makes sense to avoid seeming arbitrary in decisions and is to be applauded. My advice is 'simple is best'.

The other bottom line is will your players think this added level of 'realism' to be fun, or a stupid drag getting in the way of monster bashing?

 

[Felix]

I've seen the attempt to implement this using the standard D&D alignment system, and it always seems to work out clumsily.

Religious strife was a large part of the plot of the Tales of Wyre by this board's own Sepulchrave II. This story shows how Alignment and different pantheons can be used well. However, simply because one person can craft a story well doesn't mean that everyone will.

If by the climax of the story, all the Good religions have put aside their differences to work against EVIL!, and they do so because they suddenly realize their fighting was all a big misunderstanding, then the problem is not the system: the problem is the author of the story.

D&D alignments seem to suck out a lot of the possible conflicts in the campaign.

Only if you assume that Good cannot fight against Good because at some point they'll realize the other's Goodness and try to reconcile. Remember that while the ideal knight is LG, not every member of the army is; the enemy may want revenge for something a CE camp follower did. Hold fast to the human constants of Pride, Vindictiveness, and Aggression, and you'll have LG fighting LG as often as LE fights CE.

 

[Storm Raven]

I think the answer lies in expanding the notion of alignments and fitting the religions within the expanded notions. If a Paladin of Tyr and an Arthurian Holy Crusader met, surely they would get along well enough and any real debates would be just that, debates. They may be inclined towards jousting as a means to test measure and resolution but with no hard feelings.

But that's just what I don't want. Followers of the viking gods should be an anathema to followers of the pseudo-Christian analogue if you want to get any kind of medieval feel. Christian priests in England considered the raiding Vikings to be the very agents of the devil himself, and regarded them as wickedness personified. The vikings, of course, didn't see themselves in that light. we don't see them in that light. But when you try to shoehorn the dynamic into the D&D alignment system and try to reflect the Christian priests' attitude, you are left with having a bunch of evil Norse gods, or having Paladins of Tyr engage in friendly theological debates with Arthur's knights.

A druid of any bent may think the whole mess is foolish with all the proving by combat and all. Orcs and Loki followers may agree on a deep visceral level on the whole destruction thing but without threats and coersion would they ever team up?

But part of the issue here is that a worshipper of the Norse gods, no matter who he holds most dear, should regard Loki as a perfectly valid deity to pay homage to, and probably look to him from time to time himself. He shouldn't be saying "Loki = evil, smite his priests!". And the priests of the saxon pseudo-Christian god should regard the druids as infidels, not just as a moderately morally acceptable sect.

Look at the idea of a Crusaders and Saracens campaign - unless you redefine the D&D alignment system, for the two sides to engage in a truly religious type war, you have to make one side or the other evil. I don't think that works very well.

The other bottom line is will your players think this added level of 'realism' to be fun, or a stupid drag getting in the way of monster bashing?

if what you are going for is a monster bashing campaign, then, as I said in the original post, the D&D alignment system as structured is perfectly suited to the task. If you want religious tension and conflict, it seems to me to not work so well.

 

[Storm Raven]

Inter-pantheonic healing (etc.): IMHO, this makes excellent advertising for a faith. "Look, our power is real! It makes you better!" -- and there's a strong basis for this sort of thing in some religious texts, where the leader-guy or deity-incarnate heals some non-believers and lo, they get faith fever.

It could, if you were an evangelical religion. But evangelical religions bent on converting all of the masses to their faith are the exception rather than the norm for history. Most faiths in the past really couldn't care less about nonbelivers, their deity was concerned with his own people. For example, a certain religious figure in our history got into trouble with the religious leaders of his era because he preached to tax collectors, prostitutes, and other undesirable sinners. The religious authorities practiced a style of religion that didn't want sinners as recruits. Religion, and religious benefits, were to be saved for those who proved themselves worthy.

For example, one might imagine that the Saxon pseudo-Christian church is evangelical, and craft their attitude to performing miracles for unbelievers with that in mind. But the Norse pantheon doesn't care if you convert or not, and saves its benefits for those who have shown their loyalty.

 

[Planeswalker Maloran]

I find the D&D alignments have worked well for most of my campaigns so far, but I can see how this could really help a lot with inter-religious conflict. Some people might not like it because it breaks the D&D sacred cow of absolute good and absolute evil, but I like it because it makes the world more realistic (and thus more believable). Believability is always the key to getting me to enjoy a game.

Also, this system doesn't seem any more complicated than the standard alignments, it just has a different set of complications. Rather than two dimensions of alignment, you have one. For us, against us, or neutral. It just is approached from multiple angles. It's neat, and I like it.

On an additional note, you could have some or all faiths treat cure spells as inflict spells when used against heretics. Forget positive vs. negative energy, as that relies on absolute good versus absolute evil. A god heals his own people, and harms his enemies.

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

I find the D&D alignments have worked well for most of my campaigns so far, but I can see how this could really help a lot with inter-religious conflict. Some people might not like it because it breaks the D&D sacred cow of absolute good and absolute evil, but I like it because it makes the world more realistic (and thus more believable). Believability is always the key to getting me to enjoy a game.

Also, this system doesn't seem any more complicated than the standard alignments, it just has a different set of complications. Rather than two dimensions of alignment, you have one. For us, against us, or neutral. It just is approached from multiple angles. It's neat, and I like it.

On an additional note, you could have some or all faiths treat cure spells as inflict spells when used against heretics. Forget positive vs. negative energy, as that relies on absolute good versus absolute evil. A god heals his own people, and harms his enemies.

QFT. This is the key here. Replace the alignment system with a religious belief or allegiance system.

Additional points to keep in mind:

Historically, ethnic groups identified themselves by ethnicity rather than by religion. The Irish would raid Scotland and Wales and be raided in turn even though all three groups followed the druids. Although I don't know the involvement if any of the druids in those battles. I do know that amongst the Germanic peoples (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, Swedes, etc.) the priests of Odin on both sides would perform sacrifices to win Odin's favor and ensure their side won.

Pagans/Heathens, Infidels, and Heretics were treated differently by the Mediæval Church as were schismatics and apostates (see Catholic Encyclopedia for details). However for game purposes, you could break down the classificaton of believer, lapsed or potential believers (lapsed, schismatic, apostates), and enemies of the faith (pagans, heathens, infidels, heretics). Excommunication takes on a very powerful force in the game now.

The polythesistic or pantheistic would hold a more tribal view — one of us, allied with us, or against us. Game-wise it could work the same except that allies and enemies would be more fluid. One Orc tribe could ally itself with a Goblin tribe against a common enemy Orc tribe.

And since this is all predicated on removing the alignment system, it is vitally important to define laws, criminal behavior, and taboos. And the infamous variant golden rule — he who owns the gold gets to make up the rules (and ignore them for himself).

All in all, this would make for a very interesting world. I just might incorporate it myself.

 

[Slapzilla]

So I guess if you are looking for the pan-theistic thing you could simply set them up as 'In' or 'Out'. Within the pantheon you could have a certain level of 'alignment' and outside of the pantheon things will simply work or not. You would have to do all that accounting beforehand so as not to be seen as arbitrary. Or you could take character intent into account and just be arbitrary. Keep us posted.