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IX. Transparency This is a two-parter: Firstly, are the overall features of an Alignment (that we’ve discussed here) known by the players or kept secret? Secondly, are the Alignment ramifications of individual actions, as carried out by the PCs, known by the players or kept secret? In a...

VIII. Dimensionality Is there one, single Dimension that represents the Alignment, or are there myriad possibilities? A one-dimensional alignment is upheld and portrayed only by the one, true way. A multi-dimensional alignment can be represented by any one of a list of various possible guiding...

VII. Consequence Is Alignment deeply Consequential and connected to the rest of the campaign world and cosmology, or is it Inconsequential and isolated? A very consequential alignment means that player character action carries a moral and ethical weight that creates ripples of reactions from the...

VI. Categoricity Is the Alignment of a being wholly determined by a Category it belongs to, or are the traits of the Individual the only factor? A wholly categorical alignment means that the being has an alignment because it is part of a group. A wholly individual alignment means that no group...

V. Reliability Do beings act Reliably according to their Alignment or Unreliably? A strongly reliable alignment system means that creature behavior is dependable and predictable. A strongly unreliable alignment system still means that creatures act according to their alignment more than half of...

IV. Dynamism Can a creature’s Alignment change Dynamically or is it Static? A fully mundane alignment system is also at least somewhat dynamic by virtue of its free will nature; the level of dynamism determining how rapidly and easily one may change their alignment. A mythical alignment system...

III. Exclusivity Is every aspect of Alignment wholly Exclusive to one pole, or can certain elements Include more than one alignment? Exclusive alignment behaviors can only be good or evil, lawful or chaotic; while inclusive alignment behavior can be partially good and evil, partially lawful and...

II. Mythicality Is Alignment a Mythical, Cosmic Force or simply a Mundane description of a character's history of behavior? A wholly mythical alignment is circumscriptive -- the being in question doesn't have totally free will, and by their nature they are bound to act according their alignment...

Over the years, I’ve continued to be surprised that neither TSR nor WotC made an effort to educate in any depth the ways one can play with alignment in D&D. In an effort to understand it more deeply, I’ve written this tool to break down and identify the meaningful characteristics of a given...

Update. First of all, sorry if waiting 24 hours is ill-advised here. I'm not someone who is quick to respond because I have so many work responsibilities. I'm also a more pensive person and take my time thinking on things rather than jumping into discussion. Second of all, I will not be...

I've been pondering alignment for a few weeks and I ended up writing a 9 page ontological essay. It's pretty valuable for my own use, so I'd like to share it, but 9 pages is awfully a lot for a forum post. I don't have a D&D or roleplaying blog because I don't write enough of this stuff and...

Don't heed the undeserved skepticism. You will want to tweak, but it's not a big deal really; in fact it has some nice effects and can become a useful kit in your toolbox if you want to rework the game's damage values. D4s are now now scrappier but not by enough to make them ever better than a...

I'll admit I'm not a huge fan of the bard class, although there are bard PCs and NPCs that I've loved along the way. I'm running a 5E game without the PHBook and not very happy with the vague Bard writeup in the basic rules, so here goes my attempt. At the end are the Names of Power that my...

I'd like a treasure table based around heavy or otherwise awkward/hard to cash in treasure. I could have sworn a few years ago I spotted one on the net but can't find it. Curious if anyone has seen anything like that, or if there are any blog posts / articles on how to make treasure more...

Doesn't mean I have to be happy to make a :):):):):):) choice. I respected that site for all the awesome RPG game reviews they've had over the years. I've based many purchase decisions based on their guest reviewers. The forums I haven't used so much. There were some good reads, but I didn't...

Very well put! Actually I'll add to that. I'm seeing this happen at my job (which swings fairly heavily, although usually casually, to the left) more and more since Trump. I guess at least this means I've probably seen it at its worst. But yeah, people have become very self-rightous about...

There isn't much I can say since I can't go into the political realm itself (and I don't want to), but I see that nobody posted this on ENWorld yet and it's pretty big news among our circles RPGnet has issued an official ban policy on any posters who make a post that could be construed as...

(Reposting from Dragonsfoot. I'm not sure which is the more active OSR community) I had a dream last night where this idea came to me in the morning, heh. The purpose of this is to add yet more strategic options for tackling the dungeon. The party can recruit hirelings to be dungeon scouts...

Remathilis Improv during play certainly doesn't imply "sans prep".

GX.Sigma, innerdude GX, great post! Thanks for all the detail. Interesting ideas. innerdude, have you seen anyone else use "meta-authoring" or is that your own term to help describe the difference? I believe what you and GX are saying is very similar, if not the same. Essentially...