Allegiances and Alignment

[Frostmarrow]

I read the d20 Modern system reference document and found that alignment has been ditched and allegiances are used instead. A character can have from 0-3 allegiances. An allegiance is towards a belief-system; a philosophy; a nation, lord or organisation; or to what looks like a spell-descriptor (such as good, evil, death).

Now I was thinking of doing the same thing to DnD to some extent. I'll leave alignments as is for outsiders and magical beasts but the rest of the lot including PCs get to have allegiances instead. So a paladin of Kord might have three allegiances towards Kord, his code and Good and a ranger might have no allegiances at all.

Why? I guess I just don't want ordinary people show up on detect evil/good. Would this be a good system? I think it has a nice Pendragon-virtues feel to it.

 

[Tonguez]

Would this be a good system?

YES

now you can have a Paladin who follows the Code of Justice Law and Charity and a Rogue who beleives in Freedom, Indulgence and the redistribution of wealth...

 

[Nifft]

This is an awesome idea.

-- Nifft

 

[Frostmarrow]

Interesting. I was half expecting to see a massive front against this idea. Has this been up before, I wonder?

-Can't anyone see any trouble with this approach?

 

[herald]

Man! Are you guys doning terrible things for my wallet. You've made the itch to by this thing even worse.

It does sound very cool.

 

[Crothian]

Getting rid of alingmenst will effect your D&D game. How will you handle the alignment restrictions of classes? Howe will you handle the Evil and Good descriptors of spells? How will you handle the alments charged weapons? Will you redo all the gods aligments and give them Allegiances as well? What about the Detect Evil spells, protection from evil, magic circle agianst, you get the idea. Then there are the Holy word type spells. Alignment is built into the system pretty heavily, and there are quite a few changes to getting rid of it.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Getting rid of alingmenst will effect your D&D game. How will you handle the alignment restrictions of classes? Howe will you handle the Evil and Good descriptors of spells? How will you handle the alments charged weapons? Will you redo all the gods aligments and give them Allegiances as well? What about the Detect Evil spells, protection from evil, magic circle agianst, you get the idea. Then there are the Holy word type spells. Alignment is built into the system pretty heavily, and there are quite a few changes to getting rid of it.

Not necessarily. The mystical power of good, law, evil and chaos will still be there but only extra-planar and magical beings (maybe dragons) have an actual alignment. But to answer your questions one at a time:

1. Alignment restrictions of classes?

Characters must have certain allegiances instead. I.e. a paladin must be allied with Lawful Good.

2. Good and Evil spell descriptors?

Same thing. If you are a character allied with good, you would lose that allegiance if you cast Evil spells. As d20 Modern states.

3. The alignment of gods?

Gods are outsiders and as such they keep there alignment.

4. Detect Evil and Protection from Evil spells?

Works as normal but are only effective against outsiders and such. Orcs usually have chaos and evil as allegiances. If an orc attacks you whilst under the protection from evil spell it won't help.

5. Holy spell effects?

See 4 above.

I'm not looking to rid the game of alignments all together. I do have a problem with alignments being so intertwined with nature, though. I like the idea of alignment-forces being the source of everything but I'm keen on making those forces diluted on the Prime Material Plane.

When a monk becomes an extra-planar creature he would gain an alignment.

Which types of creatures should have an alignment then?

Aberrations: (?)
Animals: (No)
Beast: (No)
Construct: (No)
Dragon: (Yes)
Elemental: (No and Yes (elemental evil))
Fey: (No)
Giant: (No)
Humanoid: (No)
Magical Beas: (Yes)
Monsterous Humanoid: (No)
Ooze: (No)
Outsider: (Yes)
Plant: (No)
Shapechanger: (No)
Undead: (?)
Vermi: (No)

(My opinion in parenthesis)

 

[Mallus]

Getting rid of alingmenst will effect your D&D game. How will you handle the alignment restrictions of classes? Howe will you handle the Evil and Good descriptors of spells? How will you handle the alments charged weapons? Will you redo all the gods aligments and give them Allegiances as well? What about the Detect Evil spells, protection from evil, magic circle agianst, you get the idea. Then there are the Holy word type spells. Alignment is built into the system pretty heavily, and there are quite a few changes to getting rid of it.

Its a lot of work, true, but I think the result is a richer setting.

Few classes have alignment restictions anymore, correct? And even with those that do, it seems pretty simple to replace required alignment with required ethical or political allegiances.

I love the idea of a relatively small list of mix-and-match allegiances replacing aligment. Anything that moves toward a workable mechanic that can describe more complex characters is good in my book.

The spell descriptors are easily modded too. Replace 'evil' with 'demonic source' and 'good' with 'sacred source'. Add a few more... 'elemental'... 'from beyond'... I always thought the 'Good' and 'Evil' spells were silly.

Aligned weapons aught to have alingments like 'can only be used by the virtuous' or 'worshppirs of God X' or, 'Marxists' or 'Elves'. I never created aligned weapons based solely on simple PHB alignemnt. Too abstract. I want to tie important magic items to specific history/culture.

De-aligning the Gods is a good idea.

All the magic circles, detects, etc pose a challenge. Nothing an enterprsing DM could'nt work through.

My point is, in the end, that I really think its worth it to does these things, if you have the time to devote to the task.

 

[redwing]

This sounds like a great idea. Could someone go in to a little detail though? Where is this document you read? Where can I read it? Will there be many examples of different allegiances?

 

[Xeriar]

In order to convert you should have some definition of 'good' and 'evil'

I use selflessness and selfishness as my reference - this of course makes a lot of humans rather neutral in this respect, while generally venerating good.