Alternates to Alignment

[Dareoon Dalandrove]

Anyone ever feel that alignment is too restrictive? What do you use?


I know L5R has the "Taint" and honor points, which I think work beautiful for that setting but wanted to know about other systems.

 

[Thanee]

Hmm... most systems simply don't have such a concept.

Palladium has something very similar to D&D alignments (scrupulous and unscrupulous and such). They list what kind of actions are allowed and what are not, some rough guidelines at least.

Well, Star Wars has Light/Dark Side Points.

Hmm...

Bye
Thanee

 

[Psion]

I've don't feel it is restrictive per se. Why would I? Alignment is descriptive, not compulsory, and more a magic mechanic than anything else. There is no punishment for changing alignment anymore, and the alignments are so broad as to allow a wide vareity of characters and traits in each. (Now one might argue that classes that use alignment are restrictive, but that's another matter.)

You might look at the allegience system in d20 modern (also available online at the SRD page.) It includes alignment but goes beyond it, allowing a variety of factors when considering the motivations of a character.

 

[Zappo]

Like Psion said, I don't feel that alignment is restrictive. All it does is linking your character's general attitude to certain mostly magic-related effects. Since in D&D good and evil, law and chaos, are supposed to be real, tangible forces, like gravity or electromagnetism, which can be detected and measured in an empirical way, a mechanic which states in a broad way where a characters stands on the "ethical spectrum" is fairly useful.

Star Wars' light/dark side system works largely like D&D's alignment. You may consider removing alignment altogether; if you don't like it and you're ready to modify the various alignment-related effects in D&D, you could as well do away with the entire concept.

 

[Wombat]

I simply removed most references to alignment and let it go from there.

Okay, the Paladin goes away, but that class was never very popular in my games. Other than that, remove a few spells (most of which we never used or found annoying anyway), remove a few magic items, and you are good to go.

It's not that hard, honestly

 

[WayneLigon]

I generally like it as written, but you might want to check out the first Book of Hallowed Might from Monte Cook; he introduces a 'sliding scale' for alignment, with each component having a rating. Thus one could be Lawful (3) Good (4), which is pretty far down on the low end of the LG scale.

Another system was in an old Dragon, where certain traits were assigned to each alignment; each might be related to the concept of Law, for instance, or Good, but each was themself quite unique. A LG person might be Virtuous, Law-Abiding and Chivalous while another LG person could be Pious and Judgemental.

 

[Ron]

If you're looking for a replacement of the alignment system, I would suggest you to take a look in the alliance system of Dragon Lords of Melniboné. There is only one axis, Chaos-Law, and characters receive starting numbers on Chaos, Law, and Balance based in their class and race/culture. From that point on, characters receive additional chaos, law, and balance points based in their actions, as judged by the DM. As they accumulate points in any of the counters, they might receive special bonuses for being allied or even champions to one of the causes.

That said, Dragon Lords of Melniboné is a poorly edited game. I would look for the BRP version, Stormbringer 5th edition, which is a much superior product and portraits the same mechanic without changes.

 

[Hjorimir]

In my campaign, alignments (which I call miens) are more of a planar quality than anything else. I only have four alignments: Discord, Grace, Order, Taint. All of the characters started out without an alignment unless they were a divine caster (they need thier alignment to establish a connection to a god). Outsiders, as natives to various planes, inherit the mien appropriate to their nature. Devils, for example, have a Mien of Tainted Order.

 

[Galethorn]

(double post; sorry)

 

[Galethorn]

I just looked over the Allegiance system again, and it actually looks like it would work pretty well...

You see, they list several different examples of areas in which you can have allegiance; Person/Group, Organization, Nation, Belief System, Ethical Philosophy (law/chaos), and Moral Philosophy (evil/good).

So, for example, if you used this system in D&D, you could have a paladin of Tyr with allegiance to Good, Tyr (a belief system or person, depending on the campaign world), Law, the church of Tyr (an organization), the High King (a person), and his adventuring group (a group; duh), in that order.

So, under allegiances, he'd write down "Good, Tyr, Law, Church, The King, and (insert party name here)", meaning that he would act however he felt was best, but in general, he would work put the greater good before his god, his god before the law, the law before his king, and his king before his friends.

Conversely, another paladin of the same god might have "Tyr, the King, my Nation, Law, and Good", meaning that he put his god before the king, the king before the nation, the nation before the law, and the law before the greater good.

Both would be paladins, but both would have different outlooks.

So, basically, you still have 'alignments', but not straightjackets, and a concrete way to know whether your elven ranger would fight alongside his fellow elves against invading orcs, or help stop a nearby dam from collapsing and inundating a local village. This way, you could have "detect law" detect anybody with an allegiance to law, and unholy weapons hurt people with allegiance to good.