John Q. Mayhem
Explorer
I think Snoweel was joking, guys.
I've Fixed Alignment!!!!!!1!!1
- Thread starter Snoweel
- Start date
Hjorimir
Adventurer
Back on topic we go!
I find that the alignment system fails to fully quantify the depth of human personality. Players will ignore it whenever it gets in the way and cling to it as a defense whenever convenient.
I've removed conventional alignment for creatures native to the prime material IMC. Extraplanar creatures, however, are heavily influenced by their point of origin within my cosmology and still have standard D&D alignments associated with them.
Back to the prime...
Characters have a 'mien' that indicates if they are favored by a particular force (alignment) that comes down to Grace and Taint, Order and Discord. It is particularly important for divine casters to remain favored by the source of their power. But, as a general rule, the other characters do as they wish and just try to stay true to their own personality.
There are ramifications (both good and bad) for being associated with any given power (but I won't go into them here).
I find that the alignment system fails to fully quantify the depth of human personality. Players will ignore it whenever it gets in the way and cling to it as a defense whenever convenient.
I've removed conventional alignment for creatures native to the prime material IMC. Extraplanar creatures, however, are heavily influenced by their point of origin within my cosmology and still have standard D&D alignments associated with them.
Back to the prime...
Characters have a 'mien' that indicates if they are favored by a particular force (alignment) that comes down to Grace and Taint, Order and Discord. It is particularly important for divine casters to remain favored by the source of their power. But, as a general rule, the other characters do as they wish and just try to stay true to their own personality.
There are ramifications (both good and bad) for being associated with any given power (but I won't go into them here).
Trainz
Explorer
I like alignment as it is (I just don't use it as a straight jacket, which is NOT what the game designers intended anyways... yeah... it's not really. It can be seen as such, but it ain't).
That said, IIRC, in OD&D there was only Chaos, Neutrality, and Law. Maybe Neutrality wasn't even there. I don't kow.
Mmm ?
Yeah. I'll go now.
That said, IIRC, in OD&D there was only Chaos, Neutrality, and Law. Maybe Neutrality wasn't even there. I don't kow.
Mmm ?
Yeah. I'll go now.
Like many folks, I've had some trouble with alignment also. Most of our campaigns simply use it as a general guideline, unless your creature type actually specifies something (like a demon). This way, the paladins in our campaign won't be fooled by a demon in disguise when using Detect Evil (unless other precaustions have been taken by the demon) but they can't use it on every chump they meet to decide if now is the time to hand out justice. Works ok for us. The only other exceptions are when the character has chosen to make being good/evil a defining character trait, like paladins, really good clerics, or assasins. Then I ususally hold them to a higher standard.
So the goal is to keep handy spells like Detect Evil working, right?
Let's look at the real world.
We know some people are evil. Watch the history channel when they show stuff about criminals and Hitler's friends.
So aside from people with odd views of alignment, we know that Evil happens and that there are Evil People.
A general rule of opposites apply and we usually assume there are Good people. Nobel Peace Prize winners come to mind. Activists who go to crappy countries and get shot while handing out food.
We also know that there are people who don't fall into those extremes, who we still often call evil or good (most people call themselves good, though they're not as dedicated) and most people would call the guy who raped their friend (1 in 5 women are raped) evil.
So there's varying degrees of good and evil. If you were so inclined you could make alignments for:
Saintly Good
Mostly Good
Kinda Good
Huh?
Kinda Evil
Mostly Evil
Fiendishly Evil
And then there's the Law/Chaos thing. I know for a fact, some people are very lawful. These are the people who argue with game rules and absolutely cannot deviate from the rules. And if its not written, they can't fathom that anybody could just make a decision. And then there's the people who just don't make any sense at all. I'm assuming they're the chaotic ones.
And unfortunately, we all fall into aspects of good, evil, lawful, and chaos everyday. We may tend toward one set of behaviors, but we are seldom one alignment all the time. The honest man who goes to church and helps out at the food shelter, but uses the company printer to print his D&D characters is STEALING!
So how do you model all of that, and all of that flux? Or do you say screw it, There are 9 alignments and they reflect the way you act most of the time, or are a summation of all your actions.
The more important thing is, alignment isn't an average. If I act nice all through 5th level, then I start maiming and pillaging the day after I level up, then I'm probably now evil. its more of a pulse rate on how the character generally acts.
Janx
Let's look at the real world.
We know some people are evil. Watch the history channel when they show stuff about criminals and Hitler's friends.
So aside from people with odd views of alignment, we know that Evil happens and that there are Evil People.
A general rule of opposites apply and we usually assume there are Good people. Nobel Peace Prize winners come to mind. Activists who go to crappy countries and get shot while handing out food.
We also know that there are people who don't fall into those extremes, who we still often call evil or good (most people call themselves good, though they're not as dedicated) and most people would call the guy who raped their friend (1 in 5 women are raped) evil.
So there's varying degrees of good and evil. If you were so inclined you could make alignments for:
Saintly Good
Mostly Good
Kinda Good
Huh?
Kinda Evil
Mostly Evil
Fiendishly Evil
And then there's the Law/Chaos thing. I know for a fact, some people are very lawful. These are the people who argue with game rules and absolutely cannot deviate from the rules. And if its not written, they can't fathom that anybody could just make a decision. And then there's the people who just don't make any sense at all. I'm assuming they're the chaotic ones.
And unfortunately, we all fall into aspects of good, evil, lawful, and chaos everyday. We may tend toward one set of behaviors, but we are seldom one alignment all the time. The honest man who goes to church and helps out at the food shelter, but uses the company printer to print his D&D characters is STEALING!
So how do you model all of that, and all of that flux? Or do you say screw it, There are 9 alignments and they reflect the way you act most of the time, or are a summation of all your actions.
The more important thing is, alignment isn't an average. If I act nice all through 5th level, then I start maiming and pillaging the day after I level up, then I'm probably now evil. its more of a pulse rate on how the character generally acts.
Janx
redkobold
Explorer
All of the talk of alignment and role playing is fine. What I would like to see discussion on is how an alternate system would be used with such spells as protection from evil and detection of evil and weapons with a modifier against a particular alignment.
Do campaigns that use an alternate system just eliminate these or do they only work against extremes of the alignment like the aformentioned demon.
I find it troublesome if in an adventure, detect evil is cast, thereby destroying the suprise of who the conspirators are or giving a justification for the good characters to go and slay the evil opponent.
What are some options for this delimma? Here are a few off the top of my head...
Raising the level of the detect and/or protection from spells?
Allowing the evil opponent a saving throw to not show up as evil?
Do campaigns that use an alternate system just eliminate these or do they only work against extremes of the alignment like the aformentioned demon.
I find it troublesome if in an adventure, detect evil is cast, thereby destroying the suprise of who the conspirators are or giving a justification for the good characters to go and slay the evil opponent.
What are some options for this delimma? Here are a few off the top of my head...
Raising the level of the detect and/or protection from spells?
Allowing the evil opponent a saving throw to not show up as evil?
SylverFlame
First Post
The way I've traditionally done the Detect Alignment spells is as such:
First, you take the general alignment of the plane (Material=Neutral). You then look at the people present. In the case of Detect Evil, anyone who is massively evil (those with the evil descriptor) make the caster puke, while the really evil people made them feel uncomfortable or itchy. Those who are nice (or not really evil, which was generally my NPCs) don't.
Since the plane itself is the moderator or feel, places like the abyss would only show you the Arch-Demons as evil. However, as one Paladin learned, you don't cast Detect Evil in the Seven Heavens. He spent a week paranoid as heck and puking like mad.
I guess no one can live up to that high a standard.
However, I generally ruled that PCs who were evil had to do something particularly nasty before the spell would really pick them up. Thieves robbing a few gold here or there was fine (even from their allies), but it wasn't until indiscriminate murder came up that we had a problem.
EDIT: Forgot to subscribe.
First, you take the general alignment of the plane (Material=Neutral). You then look at the people present. In the case of Detect Evil, anyone who is massively evil (those with the evil descriptor) make the caster puke, while the really evil people made them feel uncomfortable or itchy. Those who are nice (or not really evil, which was generally my NPCs) don't.
Since the plane itself is the moderator or feel, places like the abyss would only show you the Arch-Demons as evil. However, as one Paladin learned, you don't cast Detect Evil in the Seven Heavens. He spent a week paranoid as heck and puking like mad.
I guess no one can live up to that high a standard.However, I generally ruled that PCs who were evil had to do something particularly nasty before the spell would really pick them up. Thieves robbing a few gold here or there was fine (even from their allies), but it wasn't until indiscriminate murder came up that we had a problem.
EDIT: Forgot to subscribe.
Last edited:
D+1
First Post
Which is why,Snoweel said:
- acting outside of your alignment, even directly contrary to it, doesn't automatically mean that the character MUST change alignment. Alignment is NOT a straightjacket and must not be used to DICTATE how characters must act. Rather, it is a general description of how they DO act.
- alignment is generalized because it HAS to be. It cannot possibly replace detailed descriptions of personality, philosophy, religion. Yet as you say it has usefulness anyway because it provides some general categorical reference points.
In other words, if I have this right, your system removes neutrality as an elemental part of the combinations and simply has 4 extremes, which regardless of what you care to name them still equate to good, evil, chaos, and law.
Drow Jones
First Post
One of the groups I play with had big problems with alignment. They are used to RPGs without them, but I'm not sure if this was the source of the problems.
Instead of role-playing their characters as they liked, they looked at the alignment first and role-played "as their alignments dictated".
This despite the pretty extensive written backgrounds/personality descriptions and even after I explained that your actions define your alignment and not the other way around.
I solved the problem by taking their alignments into my (DM) custody. They play as they like and their alignments change according to their role-playing (over time of course).
- DJ
PS: Monte Cook's Book of Hallowed Might has a pretty nice alignement system based on differing levels good/evil/lawful/chaos.
Instead of role-playing their characters as they liked, they looked at the alignment first and role-played "as their alignments dictated".
This despite the pretty extensive written backgrounds/personality descriptions and even after I explained that your actions define your alignment and not the other way around.I solved the problem by taking their alignments into my (DM) custody. They play as they like and their alignments change according to their role-playing (over time of course).
- DJ
PS: Monte Cook's Book of Hallowed Might has a pretty nice alignement system based on differing levels good/evil/lawful/chaos.
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