D&D General More Nuanced Alignment?

[Zardnaar]

Alignment arguements are always fun. My belief is that it's mostly subjective, most people like to think of themselves as good and their beliefs are what counts as good. I'm more cosmic scale.

Good. Willing to help others.

Neutral Indifferent or screw you I got mine.

Evil. Willing to hurt or exploit others.

Very simple. Anyway I play a game czked Stellaris and it has 8 ethics. You can be normal or fanatic.

Materialist oppose by Spiritualism.
Xenophile opposed by Xenophobes.
Pacifism opposed by Militarist.
Authortarian opposed by Egalitarian.

You get there point to distribute (fanatic counts as two points). You then layer civics on top of that.

In the Stellaris universe the equivalent of alignment debates is assigning real life countries ethics and civics espicially the USA. Probably a lot easier as New Zealand (egalitarian, xenophile, pacifist with agricultural trait, welfare state good at trade).

Anyway no human culture is really fanatic anything (Sparta and North Korea might be exceptions). Dalejs fanatic Xenophobes.

Anyway if you were working on a value system to replace alignment what do you think of something like this as a basic starting point? It's still simplified but having a 20 point system or whatever is getting very complicated. Instead if a 3 by 3 alignment table you have a circle of values. I would probably tweak it to maybe 10 and gave Egalitarian oppose Materialism (in game materialism is science).

 

[Zardnaar]

Or Ten.

Authortarian/Liberalism
Egalitarian/Materialism
Science/Spiritualism
Xenophile/Xenophobe
Militaristic/Pacifism.

3 points can't mix opposing ethics.

 

[robus]

I get alignment for monsters, it’s a good starting point for their motivation. But what purpose does it serve for players. For clerics and paladins, sure I can see that veering from Good might cause their gods to question their devotion (or whatever alignment the god cares about) but for most other classes what purpose does it serve?

To me the ideals and bonds serve as a better source of alignment. Is the character considering those or dismissing them? If so why, and what story elements can I introduce to challenge that?

 

[Zardnaar]

I get alignment for monsters, it’s a good starting point for their motivation. But what purpose does it serve for players. For clerics and paladins, sure I can see that veering from Good might cause their gods to question their devotion (or whatever alignment the god cares about) but for most other classes what purpose does it serve?

To me the ideals and bonds serve as a better source of alignment. Is the character considering those or dismissing them? If so why, and what story elements can I introduce to challenge that?

Seems a great idea for videogames where whatever you use one can get mechanical effects.

IRL what happens if a player just ignores whatever you're using though?

Older D&D punished you my one rewards you the punishment as such is opportunity cost.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I would (and do) drop alignment entirely. People be people. Even the BBEGs should have something more to them than LE or CN or whatever.

The Stellaris options you mention are a better starting point than DnD alignments. But I still feel there's still no real need to have such simplistic system.

 

[Zardnaar]

I would (and do) drop alignment entirely. People be people. Even the BBEGs should have something more to them than LE or CN or whatever.

The Stellaris options you mention are a better starting point than DnD alignments. But I still feel there's still no real need to have such simplistic system.

Stellaris is basically point buy race, ethics and civics pick an authority (democracy, imperial etc) build your own civilization.

 

[Steampunkette]

Hand each of your players a Political Compass and tell them to put a dot where their character is.

Or give 'em a basic rundown of the different moral philosophies and ask them to choose a moral philosophy and their values.

Or give them "Selfless, Ambitious, Responsible, Independent, Kind, Spiteful" and tell them to roll 6d6 to get their total points to spend on their different alignments. Max of 10 to any one alignment.

A person who is Ambitious and Spiteful is likely focused on their own desires and unkind to others. They may value their independence or prefer the responsibility of society.

A person who is mostly Ambitious and Kind is pretty much NG rogue. Could feel Responsibility to others or have an Independent streak.

Making them roll for their alignment points makes them think harder about the aspects of their character and how much "Spite" they want to add to their otherwise good person who throws out snarky spiteful answers.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

If you aren't attaching rules interactions to an alignment system....then it seems wasteful to develop the system in the first place.

So to develop a good alignment system I think you first need to identify how it will be used.

 

[Helldritch]

I do play Stellaris from time to time and keep I up to date but I do not think that the Civilisation compass works well with individuals. For those that do not like alignment; The current alignment system might not be perfect because it is either too restrictive for some, not enough for others and all the variations in between.

As long as what you do with alignment suits you and your players I really don't see the problem with the current system that we have. As I and many others have said in other threads, the current alignment system is a good tool. It is easy to use and to adapt.

The attempt you are doing with the Stellaris system is a perfect example of the current system not being precise enough for you. Thus, you are searching for a way to make it more precise and less "offensive" and thus, over complicating it in the end.

When you will be finished with your adaptation of the Stellaris system, you find that if you want to share your system that you will have to put a note saying that when applied to a race/ancestry/culture your system allows for individuals to be different from the usual member of their race/ancestry/culture ad no one wants to be part of a fanatical xenophobic expansionist race/ancestry/culture. And guess what? We already have that kind of warning in the MM and many do not even read it or accept that it is a good way to mitigate the effect of cultural alignment on individuals....

But if you really go for such a system as in Stellaris, you will see that you will have a lot of work ahead of you. With hundreds of entries in the MM and so many cultures in a campaign setting you're in for quite a task. I would take time to explain my goal to my players and have them help me out with the actual MM and campaign setting. Maybe you might start small with a small zone and just a few monsters/foes to see where this lead and if it works out for everyone. Again, not an easy task you ate undertaking here.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Hand each of your players a Political Compass and tell them to put a dot where their character is.

Or give 'em a basic rundown of the different moral philosophies and ask them to choose a moral philosophy and their values.

Or give them "Selfless, Ambitious, Responsible, Independent, Kind, Spiteful" and tell them to roll 6d6 to get their total points to spend on their different alignments. Max of 10 to any one alignment.

A person who is Ambitious and Spiteful is likely focused on their own desires and unkind to others. They may value their independence or prefer the responsibility of society.

A person who is mostly Ambitious and Kind is pretty much NG rogue. Could feel Responsibility to others or have an Independent streak.

Making them roll for their alignment points makes them think harder about the aspects of their character and how much "Spite" they want to add to their otherwise good person who throws out snarky spiteful answers.

this will end in alignment minmaxers