Tracking Alignment

[Aesmael]

Ok, not a setting based query this time. I want to have something more concrete than simply saying "I feel you have been acting pretty X lately, so your alignment is now XX"

Currently thinking of keeping a tally for each player for Chaos, Evil, Good & Law and when their actions are skewed towards one end of an axis (i.e Law vs. Chaos) they acquire that alignment. I want to set the theshold at a factor of five so for example if a character had 15 ticks for Good and 3 for Evil they are Good, but one more Evil tick will slide them into Neutrality.

Has anyone tried anything similar (and is willing to share experiences)? What advantages/problems do you foresee?

One thing I am worried about is when a character has accumulated a large total amount of marks their alignment has a great deal of inertia. But perhaps this is a feature rather than a bug.

Something else - the Atonement spell. I think with this system it might be appropriate to add a 'period of grace' during which the character's new alignment is enforced rather than what they have earned. Afterwards it will slip back if they haven't worked at keeping it. How does 1 Week/Level sound, and should it be the caster's level or the atoner's level that applies?
I expect never to have this come up, but still better to be prepared.
Forcible alignment change is even less likely to happen so I won't even think about it. Comes down to trusting the player anyway.

Finally, I would appreciate suggestions about how many points to 'reward' the players with for their actions to help me develop a sense of scale for this system.

The smallest acts (giving away an insignificant amount of money to beggar, for example) should be worth 1 point, but how much for the bigger ones? If you wipe out a people because you want to build a castle with a nice view (theirs) you would accumulate a lot of Evil points, I just can't decide how many (10? 10000?).

 

[Markn]

2nd Edition Alignment Chart

In 2nd Ed. there was an alignment chart similar to what you are talking about. There are 10 boxes in each of the good, evil, neutral, law, chaos and neutral zones. There also were gray zones in between each area of 10 boxes. Thus if someone was chaotic good it would take 20 ticks to change to neutral good or chaotic neutral (10 for the chaos, then 10 more to get out of the gray zone). I currently use this system and find it works very good. I have set 'penalties' for doing something out of your current alignment. Minor transgressions are worth 1 box, medium worth 2 and major worth 3 or more. Rather than track during in game as I have a sheet for each player I spend a few minutes after the session and run through the characters actions and adjust accordingly. The great thing about this system is people won't be changing alignment very often and when it does happen it will take time to adjust back so there are real consequences for playing out of alignment (as in alignment based spells would now affect that person where they may not have before). Keep in mind that I have just started using it (about 2 months) and I hypothesize that most characters will probably eventually fall into True Neutral in the long run as most players do some good and some not so good actions. Of course the exception is Paladins/Clerics where alignment is very important. I am just now seeing some players enter the gray zone between alignment change.

in a nutshell it will take time for players to change alignment but to me it seems the most consistent way to track alignment as it takes into account long term actions.

 

[Laman Stahros]

Do you know where you got that chart from (what product)? Or, if you don't remember, can you scan and post the chart? Your list of transgressions and amount of change they cause would be nice too.

 

[Orichin]

Id like to take a look at that chart too. Rather than everyone switching to true neutral, I think it'll give players a cut-and-dry outline on how to roleplay their alignment, which is one of the hardest concepts to grasp in my opinion.

 

[ARandomGod]

Do you know where you got that chart from (what product)? Or, if you don't remember, can you scan and post the chart? Your list of transgressions and amount of change they cause would be nice too.

Hackmaster has a chart for tracking alignment, minor shifts therein, and a series of rules about when and why to give Alignment Infraction Penalties, and how a PC can get them removed (how he can atone, as it were), at what point an alignment shift occurs, and which direction it occurs towards.

 

[Markn]

Alignment chart

To be honest, if memory serves it was either in the 2nd edition PHB or DMG. I actually just recreated the chart as I remembered it and didn't bother looking it up so I can't give you an exact page but I am sure it is in one of those 2 books. If you guys are unable to find it I can either post or email it to you, just let me know.

Regarding transgressions, I have no hard and fast rule. Initially I asked my characters for their starting alignment and then shaded the box in the appropriate charts. In most cases this was the middle most box. For example if I was told they were CG then it would be box five in Chaotic and box five in good. Thus only 6 points one way or the other would put them into the grey zone but it still would take 10 more points for an actual alignment change. The one exception to this rule I decided on was Paladins. They are supposed to conform to lawful good so I put them at the extreme end so it takes 10 to get them to the grey zone. However I think it is easier for a paladin to reach the medium and major transgressions so I think it balances out. Minor transgressions are things like pickpocketing, stealing and just about anything that is not within your alignment or character idea/ethos. Medium transgressions are things that are a little further out of your alignment. A druid killing an animal that was attacking his party. Though this is not wrong, he could have probably fled to avoid the fight (unless he had no choice), a rogue making sure discovered goods are returned to their proper owners and so on. Major would be murder, blatant disregard for alignment and/or character ethos. To make a long story short everyone will have their own view on what is minor/medium or major transgressions but to me this is the fairest way as you also reward players for the acts that are in their alignment. If you are LG and you return treasure found on a murdered guard then you get a tick going further on the good track (unless you are already at the end).

In a nutshell, each character will do some good, some evil, some lawful and some chaotic. Over the long term you should see a pattern to the character which may or may not be their starting alignment and to me this is their true alignment. This also reduces DM biasing and makes up for the fact that not everyone agrees on each action as to how it is represesnted by alignment since it looks at a collection of data on not just several incidents.

BTW, you may want to record what caused each adjustment in alignment even from box to box so if the issue comes up that you tell one of your players that pro from good spells now affect them and they thought they were CN then you at least have some support for your claim.

 

[Aesmael]

Thankyou Markn, that is very interesting. The only 'problem' I can see with that is that it becomes difficult to apply if the character's alignment and values are not well established at the beginning. Recording the deed that got the point(s) also seems like a good idea, though potentially cumbersome.
(Personally) have no intention of applying alignment 'penalties' goes, unnless your idea of a penalty is Protection from Evil thwarting your efforts to control the King.

 

[frankthedm]

the 1e hardcover dragonlance book had the alignment chart IIR.

 

[Orichin]

just went through 2nd edition AD&D PHB and DMG (both 2nd edition, though phb is '89 print run and dmg is '97) and couldn't find a chart matching your description or anything like it in index (checked anything that seemed even close in index)

 

[Markn]

I'll see if I can post it this weekend....

I had a long post written up but the server errored out so maybe I'll retype it another time.