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Alignment House Rules
- Thread starter Sketchpad
- Start date
MarauderX
Explorer
I did this a while ago in one of my campaigns and it worked out well. Players thought it meant they could get away with anything though, and ended up ruining their reputation as they lied (little and big ones) to almost everyone they knew. It worked in their favor for a while until word spread of how they had misled some important people, then the players decided to make it their quest to right the wrongs they had done, sometimes by lying again... 
Example from that campaign: "We weren't ourselves, Lord Duke, sire, as we were being possessed... we wouldn't have faked killing the dragon just to get the reward you offered, honestly..." Made me shake my head more than once and play the NPCs as impartial as I could.
After that I decided to go with the Good, Evil, Neutral alignments for the players and just give the NPCs personalities instead of 1 of 9 strict alignments. Hasn't been a problem since.
Example from that campaign: "We weren't ourselves, Lord Duke, sire, as we were being possessed... we wouldn't have faked killing the dragon just to get the reward you offered, honestly..." Made me shake my head more than once and play the NPCs as impartial as I could.
After that I decided to go with the Good, Evil, Neutral alignments for the players and just give the NPCs personalities instead of 1 of 9 strict alignments. Hasn't been a problem since.
Hypersmurf
Moderatarrrrh...
Sketchpad said:
I'm sure there's plenty over in the House Rules forum.
You should be able to see it from the left side of the Tour Bus right about... now.
-Hyp.
(Moderator)
Nifft
Penguin Herder
IMC, Detect Evil/Good/Law/Chaos locates descriptors, not intentions. Descriptors are granted by Sponsorship, not Conduct -- though most Sponsors place restrictions on Conduct, you won't get Sponsorship through Conduct alone.
Examples which I hope will clear things up:
- Human (by default) -> Weakly Good
- Vampire, Wight, Ghoul (by default) -> EVIL
- Skeleton, Zombie -> Weakly Evil
- Human Paladin -> GOOD, LAWFUL
- Human Serial Killer -> Weakly Good
- Human Priest of Evil God -> EVIL
- Quasit Familiar of CE Necromancer -> CHAOTIC, EVIL
- Quasit Familiar of CG Alienist -> CHAOTIC, EVIL
- Innocent Golden-Haired Child under the effect of Protection from Good -> EVIL
- Vampire Priest of LG God -> Murky, indistinct (I'm not saying this could happen IMC, but that's how I'd rule it)
So, a wicked merchant who cheats, lies and kills but does not have Diabolic or Demonic sponsorship will detect as Weakly Good (default Human, powered by Positive Energy), while a noble barbarian who helps orphans but has magical powers due to a pact with a Demon-Prince will detect as Weakly Evil or EVIL, depending on the strength of the pact.
D&D is a world of black-and-white morality, so I like to have clear boundries as to what are OBJECTIVELY Good & Evil actions.
-- N
Examples which I hope will clear things up:
- Human (by default) -> Weakly Good
- Vampire, Wight, Ghoul (by default) -> EVIL
- Skeleton, Zombie -> Weakly Evil
- Human Paladin -> GOOD, LAWFUL
- Human Serial Killer -> Weakly Good
- Human Priest of Evil God -> EVIL
- Quasit Familiar of CE Necromancer -> CHAOTIC, EVIL
- Quasit Familiar of CG Alienist -> CHAOTIC, EVIL
- Innocent Golden-Haired Child under the effect of Protection from Good -> EVIL
- Vampire Priest of LG God -> Murky, indistinct (I'm not saying this could happen IMC, but that's how I'd rule it)
So, a wicked merchant who cheats, lies and kills but does not have Diabolic or Demonic sponsorship will detect as Weakly Good (default Human, powered by Positive Energy), while a noble barbarian who helps orphans but has magical powers due to a pact with a Demon-Prince will detect as Weakly Evil or EVIL, depending on the strength of the pact.
D&D is a world of black-and-white morality, so I like to have clear boundries as to what are OBJECTIVELY Good & Evil actions.
-- N
dvvega
Explorer
The way I view alignments is as a general tendency only.
Most players that I have played with cannot roleplay alignments well at all. Of course I do currently have a group that is great.
What I tend to do IMC is to have players choose an alignment as the basis of their attitude towards things, but then they can do whatever they want keeping that simple thing in mind.
It is similar to the way Vampire the Masquerade offers paths to the vampires. They are a set of rules regarding their behaviour. Another thing you can look at is Rifts (SHOCK HORROR). That game of crunchy bits actually had an alignment system where you would choose an alignment and it gave you a pattern of behaviour. This was usually a list of things you would/wouldn't do numbered 1 to 10.
Most players that I have played with cannot roleplay alignments well at all. Of course I do currently have a group that is great.
What I tend to do IMC is to have players choose an alignment as the basis of their attitude towards things, but then they can do whatever they want keeping that simple thing in mind.
It is similar to the way Vampire the Masquerade offers paths to the vampires. They are a set of rules regarding their behaviour. Another thing you can look at is Rifts (SHOCK HORROR). That game of crunchy bits actually had an alignment system where you would choose an alignment and it gave you a pattern of behaviour. This was usually a list of things you would/wouldn't do numbered 1 to 10.
Hypersmurf
Moderatarrrrh...
dvvega said:
That's standard for all Palladium games, I think.
The three categories of alignment are Good, Selfish, and Evil; each has two or three types within that category, so it loosely approximates D&D's two-axis system.
-Hyp.
Viktyr Gehrig
First Post
If you do get rid of alignments in general, I would reccomend picking up Allegiances from d20 Modern instead-- so that you have something to base alignment effects off of, and so that you can still have alignment restrictions for character classes like the Paladin. (I would remove the restrictions on Bards, Barbarians, Druids, and Monks.)
That way, unless you choose an Allegiance to Good, Law, Chaos, or Evil, you simply register as Neutral.
The only thing you'd have to be wary of is people acting in exceptionally Evil ways without taking the Allegiance to Evil. Feel free to assign it to people who behave in particularly heinous fashion-- rather like an alignment shift, except that adding an Allegiance does not have to displace other Allegiances.
That way, unless you choose an Allegiance to Good, Law, Chaos, or Evil, you simply register as Neutral.
The only thing you'd have to be wary of is people acting in exceptionally Evil ways without taking the Allegiance to Evil. Feel free to assign it to people who behave in particularly heinous fashion-- rather like an alignment shift, except that adding an Allegiance does not have to displace other Allegiances.
Stormborn
Explorer
In my current homebrew campaign we have abandoned alignments all together. I prefer the players have character concepts, including some rough background and some motivations for doing what they do. But I know my players fairly well, and I know what they are likely to do and why, based on who they are and the characters they tend to play. Overall they are likely to be Chaotic Neutral-Neutral Good.
Of course, in the first hour of play they had killed two men in a bar fight, basically over a girl, and wound up hiding out with a group of sewer dwellers. Not exactly good behavior, but fairly consistant with their character ideas and the setting. Although it did send my wife's character into soem degree fo shock, she had never actually killed anyone before.
If you do ditch the system and are still using various "Detect" spells or classes with alignment restrictions you will need to do soem adjusting. Detect spells should still work, but probablly only on creatures or items with Good, Evil, Etc. subtypes. If the class has alignment restrictions think of some aspect of game play behavior that reflects that. Give the Paladin and Monk religous vows for example.
Of course, in the first hour of play they had killed two men in a bar fight, basically over a girl, and wound up hiding out with a group of sewer dwellers. Not exactly good behavior, but fairly consistant with their character ideas and the setting. Although it did send my wife's character into soem degree fo shock, she had never actually killed anyone before.
If you do ditch the system and are still using various "Detect" spells or classes with alignment restrictions you will need to do soem adjusting. Detect spells should still work, but probablly only on creatures or items with Good, Evil, Etc. subtypes. If the class has alignment restrictions think of some aspect of game play behavior that reflects that. Give the Paladin and Monk religous vows for example.
Wombat
First Post
I threw alignment out entirely and have had no problems at all. I also dropped all the alignment-based spells and items, as they no longer made sense. Of course this meant some minor tweaks with the Paladin (no alignment restrictions, so have to play the part a little more adamantly, but none of my players ever really liked the class, so there were no problems).
Overall, I've found alignment to be one of the Great Sacred Cows of D&D. Despite the fact that a great number of people complain about it and no two people can agree on what "Good" and "Chaotic" mean from game to game, it remains in the core rules and will do from now unto the setting of the game.
Overall, I've found alignment to be one of the Great Sacred Cows of D&D. Despite the fact that a great number of people complain about it and no two people can agree on what "Good" and "Chaotic" mean from game to game, it remains in the core rules and will do from now unto the setting of the game.
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