Five Alignment System [Multi-alignment rules added]

[Gez]

Actually, a very intelligent or wise person following this philosophy would discover that doing good generally nets the greatest personal benefit.

This isn't actually true.

If you're always selfish, it comes to bite you in the back, as the others become unwilling to help you.

However, if you're always selfless, it also comes to bite you in the back, as the others become all too willing to "parasite" you.

The "best" behavior is a delicate mix of both -- enough friendliness to garner sympathy, enough badassness to avoid being seen as an easy prey.

Therefore, doing good doesn't net the greater personal benefits. You should abstain, from time to time, in order to remind people you want something in exchange for your help.

 

[ARandomGod]

This isn't actually true.

If you're always selfish, it comes to bite you in the back, as the others become unwilling to help you.

However, if you're always selfless, it also comes to bite you in the back, as the others become all too willing to "parasite" you.

The "best" behavior is a delicate mix of both -- enough friendliness to garner sympathy, enough badassness to avoid being seen as an easy prey.

Therefore, doing good doesn't net the greater personal benefits. You should abstain, from time to time, in order to remind people you want something in exchange for your help.

But that's actually my point, in it's whole. And it doesn't take a very bright person to figure the truth of that point out. Therefore, a truely selfish (ie self oriented) person would be to do what you've defined as the best behavior. It would be helping other out so that they would help you out later, to garner good will . It would be showing your hardness when appropriate. It would be, in general, doing things that will further your position. And that is, usually, doing things that either are, or are seen as, nice. It would be being firm where needed, and doing "good" works where needed, to help the greatest number of people (or at least most benificial people to you) ... in order to have the most effective cost/benifit ratio of people beholden or friendly to you.

The Way of the Selfish Bastard really includes a lot of helping other people out. And it can be viewed as quite selfish indeed, if you're cynical in that way.

 

[LazerPointer]

Cool system, man. The one thing that jumped out at me while reading through is that bards have to be a certain alignment to tap into the passion behind their music.

Feel free to make it that way, taking into account that their music does magic stuff, after all, but I think people are driven to make music for all sorts of reasons. Some are selfish, some are crusaders, and some are just driven by self-expression for its own sake. If you opened up this restriction, you'd have a lot more types of bards running around in your world.

 

[Michael Morris]

Cool system, man. The one thing that jumped out at me while reading through is that bards have to be a certain alignment to tap into the passion behind their music.

Feel free to make it that way, taking into account that their music does magic stuff, after all, but I think people are driven to make music for all sorts of reasons. Some are selfish, some are crusaders, and some are just driven by self-expression for its own sake. If you opened up this restriction, you'd have a lot more types of bards running around in your world.

In order to prevent muddying the waters, I haven't been discussing the rules of multi-alignment with this system. Just as Magic cards sometimes have multiple alignments (Spirit Monger anyone), so too can people in this system be multi-aligned.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Very interesting indeed. Not a big fan of the alignment rules for the Everquest D20 RPG, I just may use these instead.

 

[Michael Morris]

Ok, it's been a few months, so here's the rules for multi-alignment.

A starting character has two alignments spheres. One represents his current mindset, the second represents his history or - in the case of spellcasters - his training. Spellcasters have a bit more control over their alignment for two reasons: 1) Their training always involves mental control of some sort far beyond that used by non-spellcasters and 2) Their spell selection is tied to their alignment spheres.

As a character progresses if they don't change in attitude or anything they basically keep stacking up the same color alignment sphere. But as a character develops and they express other - even sometimes conflicting views - they express more spheres.

A character gains a sphere at each odd sphere. So a 5th level character has 4 spheres.

This system never "forgets" past actions. The only way to change an already set sphere is an atonement spell (Dusk actually has five of these spells, one for each alignment. The appropriate version moves the sphere to their color).

While certain classes are required to start at a given alignment, they don't have to keep all their spheres in that alignment. Characters which are required to have an alignment must keep half their spheres in one area. Further some character types, like paladins, can't have spheres of enemy colors. Deities may set extra strictures on their divine casters.

Thoughts on this extra layer of complexity? Good - let's get to detection spells.

A detection spell simply picks up the strongest reading. If the detection spell is designed to pick up a specific alignment and that isn't the character's strongest alignment then the character rolls a willpower save against the spell at a +2 bonus per sphere that isn't of the appropriate alignment.

Example. Teresa is aligned UUWR. She is targeted by a paladin's ability to detect Shunrian or Sodrean. She saves against this ability even though it normally has no save, and with a +6 bonus at that since she has three other spheres that aren't B or R. However, if she is later targetted by a detect Balcridian she wouldn't have a bonus to the save and if the spell doesn't allow a save she won't get one.

Spells are a little trickier though. Short of tricking them with things like sleight of mind they always find a color they seek. Forbiddance set against R would hit Teresa. When a multialigned character is targetted by a spell or ability that looks for alignment they count as each of their alignments whether they want to or not.

 

[Sollir Furryfoot]

I like the system of stacking, multicolored alignments but I'm not so sure about those detection spells. For instance, what if a character has 2 or more colored alignments of equal amount? Also, does the addition of allowing a saving throw meaning that some people without that appropriate color alignment still might show up, and those with the appropriate color alignment might not? Also, if a person has two opposing colors such as White and Black, they'd have an equal chance of throwing off a detect spell of that alignment, and more of a chance of resisting than someone Pure Green would? I just might not be understand the system right, and if that's the case, please pardon me.

 

[Kisanji Arael]

This isn't actually true.

If you're always selfish, it comes to bite you in the back, as the others become unwilling to help you.

However, if you're always selfless, it also comes to bite you in the back, as the others become all too willing to "parasite" you.

The "best" behavior is a delicate mix of both -- enough friendliness to garner sympathy, enough badassness to avoid being seen as an easy prey.

Therefore, doing good doesn't net the greater personal benefits. You should abstain, from time to time, in order to remind people you want something in exchange for your help.

Well, but you see... that's your opinion. That's based only on what you -- personally -- have merited to be good and evil. Ignore politics and real world situations. What Michael is saying is that the Persian and therefore Christian merits of good and evil aren't quite as relevant, because people will assume that anyone opposing their own alignment is evil, just as the environmentalist will assume that the big companies plowing down oak trees are evil, while the person plowing the trees will have justified it to himself, and those of us who don't concern ourelves with environmentalism won't have an opinion either way. I think I'm right on this. Correct me if I'm wrong, Michael.

 

[Michael Morris]

Well, but you see... that's your opinion. That's based only on what you -- personally -- have merited to be good and evil. Ignore politics and real world situations. What Michael is saying is that the Persian and therefore Christian merits of good and evil aren't quite as relevant, because people will assume that anyone opposing their own alignment is evil, just as the environmentalist will assume that the big companies plowing down oak trees are evil, while the person plowing the trees will have justified it to himself, and those of us who don't concern ourelves with environmentalism won't have an opinion either way. I think I'm right on this. Correct me if I'm wrong, Michael.

No, your correct. This alignment system doesn't pass judgement, though the five alignments themselves do. The Sodrean alignment doesn't describe itself as selfish, and I can imagine there are members of the alignment that would take offense at being described this way.

Also, all these alignments are only bad IMO if taken to their extremes. Extremist white becomes facist, extremist red becomes anarchistic, and so on.

 

[GimbleRaulnor]

Nice system. M:tG anyone?