House Rules for Alignments

[Paragon Kobold]

In my next campaign I will use the following altered rules for alignments:



Normal people/things/orcs/sea serpents et cetera DO NOT have alignment.

The following DO have alignment.

Outsiders

Undead

Spells with an alignment descriptor.

Gods

Magic items that are specifically stated as having an alignment.

Paladins, and similar classes that typify a particular alignment,
such as the blackguard.

Clerics that have an [Alignment] domain.


This means that while a goblin can be nasty, a Dwarf stalwart,
and an orc can be a psychotic axe-murderer they do not have the
supernatural attributes of being LAWFUL or EVIL or CHAOTIC in the
sense that they react in a certain way to magical effects.
Demons on the other hand are creatures of supernatural Evil and Chaos,
and can be affected by magic as such.

Since most clerics will not have an alignment this opens for the possibility of
having corrupt churches, but a Lawful god will still not grant a Chaotic spell.

For good or ill this will also remove the 'we can kill the orc infants because
they are evil' argument.

 

[Whisper72]

A very good idea.... what you may want to add though is some form of 'taint'. I.e. besides clerics and blackguards being truly 'evil', 'normal' folk who somehow 'sell their soul' can also get an alignment.

So... a murdering orc will not automatically be evil, but an orc who murders in the name of Gruumsh (or whomever) _may_ (i.e. this does not need to happen to all) beget the 'evil' alignment if his/her fervor is so great that s/he is somehow noticed by Gruumsh himself. The 'advantage' for such a being would be that s/he could now make use of aligned magical items.

In essence you would not be chucking the whole alignment system, merely saying that everyone is simply more or less Neutral, unless coming from an alignement plane, or having (quite literally) aligned themselves with a cause/god/demon/whatever causing them to 'get' an alignment.

 

[ARandomGod]

A very good idea.... what you may want to add though is some form of 'taint'. I.e. besides clerics and blackguards being truly 'evil', 'normal' folk who somehow 'sell their soul' can also get an alignment.

So... a murdering orc will not automatically be evil, but an orc who murders in the name of Gruumsh (or whomever) _may_ (i.e. this does not need to happen to all) beget the 'evil' alignment if his/her fervor is so great that s/he is somehow noticed by Gruumsh himself. The 'advantage' for such a being would be that s/he could now make use of aligned magical items.

In essence you would not be chucking the whole alignment system, merely saying that everyone is simply more or less Neutral, unless coming from an alignement plane, or having (quite literally) aligned themselves with a cause/god/demon/whatever causing them to 'get' an alignment.

I like the idea of not having an alignment. I also like the idea of being able to aquire one. There should be some sort of benifit to having an alignment, so people would want one, and it should be somewhat difficult... there's already a penalty built in the system of so many things affecting alignment only!

 

[cerberus2112]

I did something similar by adopting the Allegiance system in D20 Modern, then allowing various allegiances to have alignment descriptors . . .

 

[Paragon Kobold]

I guess one could tie it in to the special feats from Vile Darkness and Exalted Deeds.

Becoming 'Evil' would probably involve sacrificing infernal powers, while achieving the 'Good' alignment could be from saintly deeds to help the innocent (e.g. saving them from being sacrificed to infernal powers...)

I'm not sure how I would implement Law and Chaos; nor do I think I would like to GM for someone who was trying hard to become Chaotic...

And how do one become Lawful anyway? Getting up at the same time every morning? Meditating a lot?


I have the feeling the players who complain the most about the alignment system will be the ones most eager to gain an alignment if I make a system like this...

 

[ARandomGod]

I guess one could tie it in to the special feats from Vile Darkness and Exalted Deeds.

Becoming 'Evil' would probably involve sacrificing infernal powers, while achieving the 'Good' alignment could be from saintly deeds to help the innocent (e.g. saving them from being sacrificed to infernal powers...)

I'm not sure how I would implement Law and Chaos; nor do I think I would like to GM for someone who was trying hard to become Chaotic...

And how do one become Lawful anyway? Getting up at the same time every morning? Meditating a lot?


I have the feeling the players who complain the most about the alignment system will be the ones most eager to gain an alignment if I make a system like this...

Going lawful or chaotic I would think would also require some sort of devotion to an extraplanar being.

And it makes sense for people who may have complained about being forced to have something eager to be allowed to get something. There's a big difference in saying "you must" as opposed to "I might allow you, if..."

 

[Li Shenron]

This is a very good possibility.

What about adding on top of that, mostly for the purpose of spells and effects, that committing an evil act temporarily grants an evil aura and committing a good act temporarily grants a good aura...?

This should apply only to clearly evil/good deeds: killing an innocent for anger/envy/wick pleasure would make you radiate evil, but merely being dishonest, unfriendly/xenophobic, or indulge in physical sins (lust, gluttony...) may not be enough; to sacrifice your own self to help innocents would make you radiate good, but just helping the old lady cross the road or simply not doing anything evil won't.

The character would not get an alignment in the strict sense, but he may have a lingering aura for the purpose of spells like Detect Evil and abilities that work only against a specific alignment, such as Smite Evil. For example, the spell would detect someone who has recently committed a murder, or who is currently going to commit it. The aura would linger on for a while, become fainter, and disappear in time. Someone who has been acting good/evil for a very long time may have effectively a quasi-permanent aura.

This is of course a complicated addition that requires DM's adjudication, but it doesn't need to be precise, and the DM should feel quite free about it. It stresses the good/evil axis however, because law/chaos is IMHO more a matter of ideas rather than acts, and therefore it would be more difficult to base a similar thing on lawful and chaotic deeds...

 

[dren]

Except for a paladin, all other classes don't have a strict alignment. They fall somewhere on the neutral-good-chaos-law paradigm. You weave in and out, and unless there happend to be a detect alignment spell, there is no way to determine where exactly where you are at that point in time. You are seen as generally good, if good is what you put down on your sheet and generally act that way.

For neutral characters, it's pretty much the same.

For evil characters, take out the good in the above list and replace evil, all else applies.

I've bothered with alignment too much in the past. I don't care what a PC does unless it's not "evil." And even if it is a mini-evil, then I'll have an npc embarass them to teach them a lesson. Paladins follow a strict code, but they make the code up, and it's up to them to follow it.

 

[Sigurd]

Tying it back to Gods

I have played with the idea that alignment is not universally known. For example if a Paladin senses alignment it is crucial that the target has come to the attention of his\her God.

Most creatures are just the great unwashed and are not worth the effort to catalogue. If a character prays for guidance about a creature the diety may make a judgement on them. Broadly these judgements are accurate but may differ by one degree depending on point of view. Alignment heavy characters may get visions of past events in the other persons life as a gift for prayer or study. They do not get a little "LG" or "CE" floating in gold letters above the head of the target.


I like the idea of humanoids competing for space not having an alignment if that is all they are doing. Over indulgence in Taboos can also taint you in my world. Cannibalism is evil in my world but extream cases happens without alignment change. Murder is different from killing largely because of the psycholigical perspective of the killer. (How many adventurers are not killers????) It is also very hard to maintain extream alignments of Good or Evil without straying over time toward neutral.

Sigurd