alignment alternatives

[I'm A Banana]

Wait a bit, and then pick up Philosophies and Falsehoods from Silicon Phoenix Gaming.

Though it's a bit light on the Real World Philosophies, it'll give some clear-cut rules on the use of a belief instead of or in addition to an alignment, and how a character can define themselves in terms of belief.

Thus, what alignment you are may spring from what you believe in. And people who believe it strongly *and* adventure can gain a few powers in the form of feats and prestige classes for it.

So you, too, can be a bit like Descartes and doubt *everything*. And then you can take a feat that allows you to be more resistant to illusions, or one that allows you to dispel magic simply by working out a situation in which it couldn't exist. And then you could take a PrC that gives you powers to see what is hidden by a Great Dieciever and gain abilities like True Seeing and Etheral Vision.

In other words, this is a bit of Shameless Self-Promotion, and it may actually help you out, here. ^_^

And yes, there is a mention of how to track belief instead of alignment, using philosophies instead of the usual axises.

So, anyone have a Protection from Niztche spell handy?

 

[Maldur]

I always thought the paladium games: alignment system very interesting. What about those?

 

[Wolfen Priest]

Two things.

First, I think the Palladium alignment system is probably the same or worse than the D&D one (even though they both stink by-and-large) ~Kevin S.: please don't sue me for slander. That system was basically the same as D&D in many ways, just with different names (i.e., anarchist = chaotic neutral, vigilante = chaotic good, aberrant = lawful evil, etc.), and it was missing the "neutral" alignment. Palladium replaced it with a "selfish" category, which made some sense, but who cares? Just change neutral to mean selfish IYC.

The only reason I use alignment in D&D is because of holy (or unholy/chaotic/lawful) items, and spells (detect chaos, law, etc. are cool). Also, the idea of concealing your alignment is cool.

 

[mmadsen]

Pendragon uses 13 "alignment" axes, not two. Instead of just Law/Chaos and Good/Evil, it has numerous personality traits, from Chaste/Lustful through Valorous/Cowardly.

 

[Rune]

I recall reading on another board (Webrpg, I think) a few years ago, someone's system of prioritizing, with which I was immensely impressed. It went something along the lines of this:

You have three categories, essentially "Self," "Others," and "Ideals."

You listed these items in the order of their importance to the character, so a selfish jerk would be Self, Ideals, Others.

And that's it. A paladin might have Others, Ideals, Self. A naive idealist would have Ideals, Others, Self, while a selfish idealist would have Ideals, Self, Others.

What I like most about the system is that it can work alongside the alignment system or replace it, whichever you prefer.