To alleviate some confusion - the following is the original first post, to which Johnny3D3D is replying. This is being done because the first post now appears on all pages.
I'm currently doing a D&D setting rewrite. The previous (briefly published) version of it borrows Magic's chromatic alignment system and uses the 3e ruleset. For a long while I set it aside, but I've since ran several games in the setting and have converted it to 3.5 and then to Pathfinder without publishing the changes. The game my players are currently in is a Realm shaking event because at this point I want to start over, and do something I haven't done before - build a custom system. Let's be honest, 5e isn't going to be OGL, and even if it were I'm considering doing some pretty specific things that I don't think would work with what's been seen of it. I could be wrong - and one reason I'm proceeding slowly on this is I'd like to be proved wrong. But in the meanwhile I am working on things that will be in the next incarnation of the setting.
I'm not even sure I want to keep the same title overall. But I'll go with what I have for now.
I've a lot of influences to sort through. Magic is one, Final Fantasy, particularly tactics is another. There are large swathes of material I left behind in 2nd edition D&D I wouldn't mind bringing back. I don't know if I'll publish anything so, for the moment this is a thought exercise.
I'll start with alignment because I'm building from this idea right down to the creation myth of the setting...
At the beginning of all things there was one, and from his thoughts and dreams came forth five...
Each of the five is an exarch power. From alignments, to classes, this structure is a constant through line. While the current setting tacks on this alignment motif, the revision will truly make it core.
This concept of five elements is not new and can be traced back to Chinese alchemy. There is also The Legend of the Five Rings.
While I started with Magic's alignment system, over the years I've diverged significantly. Part of the reasoning of the changes I'll admit are lawsuit prevention. But the larger reasons are to rectify what I see as problems in the existing MtG color wheel that cannot really be rectified in that game because of its published history and need to remain tied to the past cards and settings.
The largest and most obvious change is a replacement of the colors black and white for violet and yellow respectively. The main reason for this is I want to remove good and evil from the equation of these alignments. While Mark Rosewater has pontificated that white isn't good and black isn't evil, the memo continually gets lost it seems - and as of the most recent block (Innistraad )it looks like WotC's given up and went back to assigning those roles to those colors.
On the very level of color black and white are bad choices. Neither is a color. White is the presence of all light / absence of all pigment. Black is the absence of all light / presence of all pigment. By their natures, these two are different from the other three - and you can say all you want about good & evil, there is an emotional tie to good & evil in white & black that can only truly be avoided by replacing the colors.
Magic can't do this. I can.
Changing the colors is a start, but not the end, of the step. Yellow must be able to be evil. Not evil but with good intentions as we've seen in what few white villains MtG has had, but bona fide and unquestionably evil. Violet must be able to be good and not just from a 'certain point of view.' but in a manner the audience will accept. This is going to require a change in the building of the two colors. Tertiary changes will then be applied to blue, green, and red to rebalance their concerns.
The reason for these two colors is set by the remaining three. When you mix pigments, blue & red render purple. When you mix light, blue & green render yellow.
Color pairs are defined by their conflict. At the risk of going political, I think split between socialism and capitalism is an ideal one to place here that will require the least reworking of the remaining original three. While Rosewater mentions this also, it's not the focus of the conflict between the two. Indeed, white and black argue about more than any other two colors, and that plethora of conflicts really needs to be shared about more evenly.
Think about it - Before the reworking of the pie blue had the lion's share of mechanics, black a reasonably close second, green and white next and red far, far behind. Philosophically though White and Black had the lion's share of the conflict and poor red still far behind (I like to break stuff - RAWR ).
Can red be a pacifist? Not in Magic as written.
But I digress.
In the setting by the by the philosophies have formal names tied to the made up language in the setting. Those will be used far more often than the colors themselves.
In reviewing the two "new" colors and the changes to the remaining three I will reuse Mark Rosewater's questions from his color week articles on
green,
white,
blue,
black, and
red.
- What does the color care about? What is its end goal?
- What means does the color use to achieve these ends?
- What does the color care about? What does the color represent?
- What does the color despise? What negatively drives the color?
- Why does the color like its allies and hate its enemies?
- What is the color’s greatest strength and biggest weakness?
Sodra (Violet)
Sodra takes black's place on the wheel. While capable of being just as selfish as black and every bit as obsessed with acquiring power (or just acquiring for acquisition's sake), Sodra is not into oppression or control. Those are things it despises Valra for.
What does the color care about? What is its end goal?
Sodra cares about individuals. While 'me' is usually first on that list, Sodra (unlike black) cares about others, or at least their freedom. The loss of freedom by one is a loss of freedom by all. This isn't a moral imperative to Sodra - it's a pragmatic one. Whatever the government/enemy/what have you can do to Bob over there, they might be able to do to me.
The conflict between Sodra and Valra lies in their attitude about that which binds them - society. Sodra sees society and community as existing to serve the individuals that make it up. Valra sees the reverse - individuals exist to serve society. Sodra wants personal benefit for itself and others too if possible. Everyone should be allowed to determine their own fate.
In pursuit of that freedom Sodra acquires power, just like black does. While black seeks power for its own sake though, Violet seeks power to protect and advance the self. Too much power can hinder the self sometimes.
What means does the color use to achieve these ends?
Sodra is tied to the self, and its magic is likewise tied to those things individuals experience that objects and abstract things like communities do not. Thus the tools of Sodra are not explained as being "willing to do evil things" like Magic explains black, but rather Sodra has province over madness because it can experience it - over disease and death because that defines individuals and while they are communal concerns, they are individual experiences and afflictions.
This also means that Sodra explores magic to prolong the self to the detriment of other concerns. Undead and other prolonging. These "dark" magics go here because as dark as they are, they speak to something Sodra fears more - death. Yet that it is fully willing to use that it most fears as a weapon more often than other colors speaks to a strain of hypocrisy.
What does the color care about? What does the color represent?
Black's original list here was...
Death, Amorality, Darkness, Decay, Disease, Corruption, Impurity (Contamination), Reduction, Deceit, Manipulation, Machiavellian thinking, Individualism, Destruction (calculated), Sacrifice of Others, Sacrifices Pieces of Self, Fear, Execution, Self Absorption, Undead
Sodra's list, by contrast, is
Individualism, Independence, Strife, Acquisition, Confidence, Mortality, Finite Existence.
A much shorter list at first blush - but a closer look reveals that death and disease are part of mortality, and undeath is an answer to it. Manipulation serves acquisition, as does deceit. But it's not just a matter of Sodra having a better agent than Black. The choice to believe in morality or amorality is not a pairing that any two colors can have because it runs too close to the good / evil argument.
For each color sees its enemies as evil (or at least questionable) and itself as good, with a neutral outlook on its "allies". Or, in moral terms: Morals are the values of the color. Immoral is the label the color applies to it's enemies. Amoral is the attitude of the color to it's allies values.
What does the color despise? What negatively drives the color?
Sodra and black are both colors of self interest, and selflessness befuddles and confuses each. Sodra in particular does not believe in altruism exists. In every rational action there's at least one winner. Even a self-sacrificing fool is benefiting someone - most likely the person who duped him into being foolish to begin with. Sodra has a very dim view of charity and the like as it sees such as ultimately weakening the long term interests of all involved.
Like black, Sodra suffers from infighting. And all other colors criticize that infighting. Sodra sees such acrimony as both necessary and natural. One can only become stronger if there are worthy opponents to challenge. When everyone is looking to their own interests, heads will but. Some of Sodra's worst enemies as a result are other Sodran aligned.
Why does the color like its allies and hate its enemies?
Valra promotes community before individuals. Sodra sees that as a form of slavery, and sees Valra through the lens of tyrranny. An over reaction to be sure, but Sodra chafes at the concept of group control and that's all Valra is about as far as Sodra is concerned.
Abora (green) bothers Sodra for different reasons than it bothers black. Sodra finds Abora's indifference to individuals repulsive. Abora takes the community card and plays it on the world in general, and to Sodra that's just stupid. The world is more than capable of caring for itself. Where Abora sees the resources of nature as exhaustible, Sodra sees them as inexhaustible because Sodra can't seem to look beyond its own use to those of its neighbors and get an eye for the bigger picture.
Shunra (red) remains allied with Sodra because of a common love of freedom and with Balcra (blue) on a common love with knowledge. Balcra irks Sodra because it believes a balance can be achieved between it and Valra if only enough knowledge is acquired, but Sodra holds that any system is going to have a winner and if that winner isn't me, it's not acceptable. Shunra irks Sodra because its thoughtlessness can be self destructive, and Sodra isn't keen on self destructive urges no matter how pleasurable they might first seem.
What is the color’s greatest strength and biggest weakness?
Sodra is very different from black here despite being on the same spot of the wheel. Black's strength is in being willing to do anything. Sodra's strength is found in itself. Self reliance, confidence, and sheer ego keep it going. That strength is likewise its weakness - Sodra loathes being dependent on anyone above all else, even if that would gain it power or advantage. Sometimes though that is very necessary, and that is a place Sodra is at its most helpless.
Valra (yellow)
Where Black gets an attitude improvement in becoming Sodra, white takes a darker turn. The end result again, is a situation where anyone can be the hero or the villain.
What does the color care about? What is its end goal?
Valra thrives on structure, order, and the communities that create that structure and order. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and Valra will not hesitate to sacrifice anyone or thing for that order. According to Mark Rosewater, white seeks peace. Fair enough. Valra seeks harmony.
Above I pointed out that Sodra represents strife and sees such as beneficial. Valra abhors such infighting and the motives behind it - self promotion, self realization, self anything really. Yellow wants a world where no one questions their place, no one tries to advance, no one does anything outside their own station. And while such a world would have harmony and indeed, be at peace, it would be a drear place. Valra gives you everything you want by taking everything you have.
Of all the colors, Valra speaks most often in the terms of good and evil. It's a pontificating color after all. But the structure it promotes can be turned to far more hideous evils than the other four colors combined. Sodran villains can be powerful, but they tend to be loners. Valra comes in groups.
In one way Valra and Sodra are alike - neither care much for things beyond themselves. Sodra doesn't care about things outside the individual as long as they don't affect the individual. Valra doesn't care about things outside the community as, again, as long as they don't affect the community. Both see things outside their focus as tools for advancement. Community is acceptable to Sodra if it advances the individual (and if that's self, that's a bonus). Individualism is acceptable to Valra only if that individual will be subservient and advance the group before themselves.
Morality vs. amorality not part of the conflict of yellow and violet as it is for white and black because both communities and individuals are capable of both.
Valra can commit the greatest evil of all in my mind - "Just following orders."
What means does the color use to achieve these ends?
Valra uses the people that make up the society it holds so dear. It even gives nice lip service to caring for them or their needs and will do that if it isn't inconvenient for the group. Magics of control come naturally to Valra, but also of protection and preservation.
As with white, Valra's greatest tool is law. Note though that the morality and immorality of a law isn't given any thought here. An immoral Valran will make immoral laws to support its community.
Unlike white, Valra has no purview over religion. Deities, like people, come in all colors, and demand service in the fashion their color implies.
What does the color care about? What does the color represent?
White is about balance. Valra is most definitely not. "Balance" would be a notion foreign to all five colors and formed in a cognitive dissonant balance of an entity possessing all five colors of alignment. Valra is about the group, the hive, the community, the we. Community, Civilization, Structure, Law, Loyalty, Cooperation and Subservience are things Valra represents that are shared with white.
What does the color despise? What negatively drives the color?
Individualism, Freedom and Will, particularly free will, endanger Valra's vision of utopia (or maybe distopia). These must be quashed whenever and wherever they are found with extreme prejudice. Everyone must serve for yellow's philosophy to work.
Why does the color like its allies and hate its enemies?
Shunra (red) and Sodra are hated by Valra because they collectively represent freedom, and accuse Valra of representing slavery, which Valra finds just as hateful a word as anyone. But their notion of unbridled freedom is one Valra argues cannot exist without creating anarchy, and the slavery of survival of the fittest is much more brutal than anything Valra would devise.
Individually Shunra (red) is begrudged for not controlling its urges, and Sodra for a more intellectual and purposeful dissension.
Valra sees its "allies" as very useful tools. Understanding nature allows for it to be controlled through agriculture. Acquiring knowledge and artifice are tools to that end. There is no balance to yellow's position between Balcra (blue) and Abora (green) at all - instead it turns the one against the other in the service of the community. Then Valra gets mad when Shunra (red) or Sodra (violet) points that out.
What is the color’s greatest strength and biggest weakness?
Valra is very, very strong because it fosters the building of very large groups. But when disunion does break out Valra can have a very hard time dealing with it. So it finds itself preoccupied in destroying such dissension before it can occur.
The Others
The nature of the other three colors doesn't change that much. For the most part they gain other aspects of the old white/black conflict this that conflict has been pruned in scope.
Balcra (blue) remains as focused as ever on knowledge. Order is shifted to Balcra - knowledge cannot grow without ordered patterns of investigation. This is a different thing from law though, as law can be written for irrational reasons as the whim of society demands. Valra after all isn't always the wise council of elders - it's often a lynch mob. It is also now Balcra, not white as before, concerned with purity. Pure things - elements, structures, models, what have you, are more readily studied. Dispassion is associated with Balcra - a measure of dispassion is necessary to toe the line between selfish and selfless interest as blue does. While Valra and Sodra can agree to the necessity of knowledge, they put their own spins on that knowledge. Balcra however isn't necessarily opposed with any color in this regard, and what the other four see as "dispassion" is more often Balcra's passion for obtaining scientific, logical truth at work.
Shunra's (red) change is very subtle. Sodra has a focus on freedom as set above, what was once associated with Shunra (red). What Shunra (red) seeks is simplicity. Balcra and Valra both love complex interactions, laws, rules and order - Shunra just wants to keep things personal and simple. Unlike Sodra, red thrives on friendships and small communities. But where Valra builds up million man empires, Shunra rarely goes beyond the clan scale because it sees no point. Action, impatience and directness remain watch words within the color, but a love of the simple life and the simple things in life are defining to this color and perhaps later in the thread I'll elaborate on how this helps to expand this color well outside the bounds of 'hulk smash'.
Abora (green) remains the nature color at first blush. Abora however now fully espouses the notion that sometimes, even most of the time, ignorance is bliss. The seeking of knowledge by breaking things down to their component parts is antithetical to Abora. Abora now also claims decay as that is part of nature and the process by which individual power withers (which Sodra hates) and artifice fades (hateful to Balcra).
Classes
I intend to retain class / level progression. While I've played and appreciate class-less design I don't think it's appropriate to want I want to accomplish. I will also likely be starting from d20 and going my own direction while regearing things. I intend to keep the 9 spell levels approach with magic, something that I think is clear 5e isn't going to reinstitute. The main question I have answered for myself is what classes will be present, and more importantly why.
I want to keep the class count small. While the 4 count of 2e seemed too small, the 20 or so of 3.5e (including splatbooks) or 30 or so of 4e is excessive. 11 was a good number, though even that seemed a bit squeezed.
I'm going to go with 10 classes. 5 use magic, 5 don't. The reason for 10 is there are 10 connections between the five alignments. Each class is based on a pair:
Yellow & Blue - Monk
Blue & Violet - Rogue
Violet & Red - Sorcerer
Red & Green - Barbarian
Green & Yellow - Druid
Violet & Yellow - Cleric
Violet & Green - Ranger
Green & Blue - Bard
Red & Blue - Wizard
Red & White - Fighter
At first blush this might seem crazy to make all classes aligned. However, keep in mind that unlike d20 classic alignments, these alignments are not exclusionary. That is to say, just because you have a red alignment doesn't mean you can't also be any other color. The classes demonstrate this and the same holds for characters.
Note also that each alignment has 2 martial and 2 magical classes. I'm hoping to set things up that classes will share traits if they share a color. For example, sorcerers and wizards share red spells, and druids and clerics share yellow spells. The spell list will be evenly divided into five pools.
The martial feats will likewise overlap. So fighters and barbarians will have a red themed overlap, while rangers and barbarians will have a green based one. Each class will have things uniquely their own.
All Martial classes
I am going to come up with something they get that scales by level and that spellcasters don't share.
All Magical classes
The spell progression changes such that the maximum number of spells available ever is 12. Around 7th level lower level spell slots start disappearing as higher level spells become available. However, spells are rewritten such that the slot level the spell is cast from, not the level of the caster, determines the magnitude of the effect. Most spell preparations work in Vancian fire-forget pattern, but not all do. At will and per encounter spells will be possible.
Bard
Bards are now 9 level casters (there are no partial casting classes). The spine of the spell list is green, which is enchantment/charm heavy, and blue which provides illusions and potent divination spells. The bard returns to his druidic character from 1st edition to some degree. The class combines a real world experience mentality from green to the theoretical book knowledge of blue.
Bards continue to spontaneously cast their main spells. They can prepare spells from a tertiary color more freely than other classes, but they won't be as effective at their use as the classes which actually have those colors.
Barbarian
Barbarians will still rage, hit hard and take hard hits - an enraged barbarian is a sight to behold.
Cleric
Violet and Yellow are the two colors most given to speak in terms of faith and of "good" and "evil", and their spells form the spine of the cleric's list. A cleric's access to tertiary spells is god dependent. They spontaneously cast those spells, and prepare the base class spells normally. Buff spells tend to be green, so the cleric will not be as effective at this task as in years past. Also, all classes will have some amount of self recovery ability - so a cleric need not devote all his energy to healing to be effective.
Druid
Over the editions the druid's spell list has become almost as unfocused as the wizard's - without the restriction the wizard has of having to find the spell first. Now, the spine of a druid's spell list lies squarely in green and white. Buffing and nature come out of green, white provides healing and the result is a more support oriented druid less able to go CoDzilla and show up the rest of the party.
Druids can use off color spells if they are in the right environment. If a druid wants to use a blue spell he'll need to find a large body of water. Druids will despise the city for a mechanical reason - urban areas have no color affinity and hence a druid in the city loses the ability to use off color spells. Fleshing out this "location matters" motif promises to be challenging.
Fighter
The fighter will be fleshed out before the barbarian, and he now will have some amount of focus in arts of war. The best archers will be rangers, the best unarmed remain monks, the best brawler / hit me bro will be the barbarian. Fighters are the best leaders of armies (if they favor yellow) or single combatants (if they favor red).
One thing I don't intend to do is tell the fighter they can have oodles of feats instead of real class abilities.
Monk
The monk, like the fighter, needs some work. Depending on who you ask they need a lot of work. As one of blue's two martial classes the monk will share with the rogue a penchant for skill monkeying.
Ranger
The ranger loses his spells and stops dabbling in two weapon fighting to become a dedicated archer. One class ability I'm strongly thinking of is sniper strike - something like - if the opponent and the ranger didn't take a move action on their last initiative the ranger can hit for bonus damage at medium and long ranges.
Rogue
Sneak attack may get broken up such that the ranger gets the missile part of it and perhaps the monk or fighter swipes the flanking part - leaving the rogue with the ambush/flat footed piece. The idea of allowing all the martial classes to have a "strike" for 1d6/level if the prerequisites are met is tempting. The rogue will still be the skill monkey king and the stealth king, as if violent and blue share anything other than knowledge - it's hoarding secrets and loving being hidden.
Sorcerer
The largest planned change for the sorcerer is his kissing the wizard spell list goodbye and getting his own. The two classes still overlap in red, and as the two red casters they'll be the ones to call up for lightning bolts, fireballs and other artillery spells. But sorcerers specialize in necromancy and other violet magics leaving divination and illusion to the wizards. Sorcerer spell choices won't be as permanent, but they won't be as flexible as the wizard.
One sorcerer theme I'm considering is a tattooed sorcerer. These caster's skin reveals their spell lists to the astute eye.
Wizard
For the longest time the wizard cast all the spells the cleric didn't. When the druid showed up in 1e this was another list the wizard didn't get but as time has gone by the wizard list has exploded. The only real rhyme or reason for a given wizard was what the player chose. Combine this lack of focus with a lack of penalty for the lack of focus and you end up with arguably the strongest class in the late game. And even if CoDzilla can beat the wizard in a straight fight, the wizard's ability to avoid unfavorable fights rendered this moot.
Wizards now have a spell spine like everyone else - Blue and Red. The four elements are in these colors, so expect to see a more elemental wizard. That said, blue provides powerful divination and illusion, and red has more than a few buffs to go with it's considerable firepower. Wizards can also dabble in tertiary colors, but again these will be the rarer spells for wizards to learn, spells they'll not wield as well as the classes which those spells truly belong to.
My original reply
I hate GURPS.
Since I'm building this primarily for my group in Knoxville my only real option other than d20 is Savage Worlds, and SW isn't suited to what I'm wanting to do.
