"Narrativist" 9-point alignment
- Thread starter pemerton
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AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Well, I agree with you, in the REAL WORLD, its all about some sort of socio-economic situation, but that's because our real-world ethical systems are only constrained by purely utilitarian limitations. Maybe at best there some things that are 'just tradition', and certainly 2 societies can find different, but equally effective, solutions to a problem depending on their cultures, and then potentially fight about it, but there's almost always some money mixed in there someplace, or some other manifestation of power.
But in a fantasy world, where Pemerton has already stated that the question "is law or chaos best suited to providing greater weal?" has an OBJECTIVE answer? Things might potentially be a bit less subjective. Maybe that universe hasn't worked out yet which answer is the correct one, but a correct one exists, so logically each possibility will have its champions. Some may be merely self-interested, but others will probably at least represent 'higher powers' interests, if not be hoping to achieve actual objective truth.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Right, I was thinking instead of different-sized dice for each one just have them all be mechanically equal, and I was also thinking that 6 is a lot. I thought possibly 3, I like the number 3 because 3 things fit in a person's mind at one time. That of course doesn't mean each factor has to be equally weighty as far as the character is concerned of course.
One mechanic that might work is to allow a character to receive an HS, a 'vitality point' when they engage one of their descriptors. These can be spent in the various ways that 4e lets you spend HS or AP, or possibly to recharge certain powers.
Yes, but....
You seem to be determining that well-being in the living world is primary, and since Good and Evil are about well-being, then good and evil are primary. I am questioning the base assumption that well-being of people in the living world needs to be the focus. Historically, in the real world, it hasn't always been.
For example - Let us say the King of the Gods controls the afterlife. He says that following his rules gets you into the perfect afterlife, for all eternity, even if people get hurt while you do it. If you will, well-being for all eternity is an issue in this fantasy world. This complicates matters, as the way to eternal well-being may not actually be Good, by the book definition! You can, in fact, have interesting concern of elves not dying of old age and not getting into this afterlife, and humans do. What now, is yoru moral position - what is more important, the eternity of humans (Lawfulness) or the eternity of elves (textbook Goodness).
Manbearcat
Legend
Uh huh...ever the moderate you are
Cortex+ assumes ~ 3 – 7 dice per pool. Smallville doesn’t have MHRP’s Affiliations (Solo, Buddy, Team) which constantly add 1 die per pool. So in their stead you have 6 Values (there are some other PC build difference subtleties but that is primary). Given their less broad applicability (compared to Affiliations), I would guess the number 6 was chosen by the designers such that, despite the nature of the conflict, you pretty much ensure that you’re going to get your 1 “stuff that matters to me” die in your action/reaction pool. You can certainly pare it back to 5, 4 or even 3 if you’d like. However, you're then narrowing the scope of stuff you’re invested in such that you may find a stray conflict here and there where you lose a die in a pool now and again, affecting the maths. Simultaneously, you aren’t invested in the conflict from a value perspective…which is basically the point of play! Personally, while I'm a big fan of thematic tightness, I like the idea of 6 values assuming each of them are clear and have punch (such that I can find compelling, antagonistic satellite conflicts to place in their orbit).
Regarding die size, they need to be stepped for two reasons:
1) That die size has meaning to your character. The higher the die size, the more emotionally invested, the more capable, the more willing you are to stand your ground, fight for what you believe in, and come up with the goods.
2) A lower die size indicates a conflicted, strife-ridden value that will inevitably get you into trouble/trigger more opportunities for complications (rolls of 1 in dice pool), feeding into the plot point economy.
The Heroic Fantasy Hack is shaped up a little bit differently than Smallville. It hews pretty much to the MHRP PC build model except trade Affiliation for Backgrounds (basically Race or something equivalent) and trade Power Sets for Class Power Sets. There is nothing here uniformly across PCs for Values/Alignment. You can do one of three things:
A) Sub the 3 Distinctions for Values outright. However, per normal rules, you're looking at a d8 or a d4 + 1 PP rewarded for their use. As such, you have no "Value hierarchy" which causes emotional impact, tension, and varying stakes depending on what kind of conflict you're involved in (due to the die size/your committment and the propensity for n Value to complicate your life factor being muted). Further, unless you pick 3 core setting values for your L vs C premise you're wanting the game to be primarily about (eg Authority, Duty, Individuality), you're not going to have symmetrical investment across the PCs.
B) Grab Values as above, assume 1 extra dice per pool and typically just throw an extra die into bad guy pools.
C) Mix Values into the Specialty (eg Melee Combat, Diplomacy) Pool (you choose 1 at Master and 3 at Expert).
D) Rely on individual Quest Milestones to do the heavy lifting of C vs L.
Of all those prospective routes, I'd go with B. You really need Distinctions and Specialties to fill out personal build stuff that makes your character unique. Quest Milestones will formally have you pushing play toward you achieving a thematic goal, but it doesn't have the "Value Hierarchy/Prioritization" angle, the "this matters to me so much that I will always pull out all the stops" angle, and the "this kind of stuff usually gets me into trouble" angle.
As an aside, I'm running this for my home game right now. It is awesome.
Finally, how would I go about using this in d20? Well, 5e kinda sorta can do it with Inspiration and Bonds, Flaws, Ideals, Traits...but it doesn't have the prioritization, etc angle working for it. And I'm not a huge fan of the GM fiat "here is a token for good roleplaying rather than accepting this complication" deal. With 4e? I would probably go with some kind of "here is a token you can cash in in the future for an Advantage in an SC or a No Action Recharge 5, 6 roll for an Encounter Power...but I'm going to complicate your life with +n encounter budget for this combat or 1 more Hard DC in this SC...deal?"
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
5e is OK, but I don't find it that engaging really. In the campaign I'm in I don't think anyone has actually remembered to USE their inspiration, and we're all level 5 now.
As for 4e, well, what's left of it at my table these days... We subsumed all these 'bennies' under vitality points, so just issuing one is effectively a 'token'. I dunno. I think I'd rather just stick with 3 equally important descriptors per PC, and this does it. It is easy to keep 3 in mind, and you don't have to think about which is more important. I think what I'll do is when you USE a vitality point, I'll just up the ante.
Starfox
Hero
These to quotes together point me to a problem. For me, the 9-point alignment was never a square, but a circle. The most extreme good is NG, the most extreme lawful in LN and so on. In order to go from NG to LG you are by definition making some compromises where good gives way to law. In order to go from LN to LG the same thing happens to law.
This does not mean that every LG person is less god that every NG person. There can be persons who are LG and strive so hard that they manage to be more good than the "average" NG and more lawful than the "average" LN. But they would have to strive hard indeed, much harder than a NG or LN that maintains the same grade of goodness or lawfulness.
Edit: In relation to the OP in this view, the likely resolution to the conflict between a CG and a LG character is likely be NG - they blunt each other's non-good ethos alignment and unify on the things they have in common - creating the greatest good by whatever means fit the situation.
The problem with a NG good character in a narrative story is that he will not contribute to the desired collision of ideas that can be explored in a narrative scope. The NG character won't want to argue morality, but will instead want to act in cooperation with whatever morality is expedient to creating the greater good.
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Starfox
Hero
I think all alignment combinations are incoherent in this way. And that is what makes the interesting to play. A paladin (pre 4E) doesn't simply have to be good and be lawful- he must take these seemingly incompatible ideals and make them work together. A devil needs to be played as both completely selfish and completely devoted to order- another contradiction. A CH elf believes in spontaneity and does not want to pay taxes - in his view all social ills can be cured by immediate action of whoever happens to be nearby - analyze this on a larger scale and it breaks down. The only alignment combination that really seems coherent is CE, but with some arguing I think it is possible to say that even your own individual freedom in the end will conflict with ultimate evil. If a CE creature has the option to end the world, should it do so? Evil prompts it to end the world (including itself), but chaos prompts it to remain itself and keep the world around as a playground.
I realize my two posts here are a bit OT, as the original topic was about how to make a conflict between cooperating CH and LG characters interesting and put in the spotlight. What I am saying here is that conflicts between two characters with different interpretations of the same alignment - say two paladins - can be interesting. As can conflicting alignment influences within a single character.
As I think you realise, the approach/interpretation you present here is different from what I had in mind in the OP.
I also think it is different from what Gygax says in his DMG/PHB alignment descriptions (though perhaps his presentation of the planes in Appendix IV fits with your approach) - and it is these descriptions that I draw on in the OP.
In the approach I find in those descriptions, LG is not a compromise between lawfulness and goodness - it is a claim/conviction that good can best, perhaps only, be realised by means of social order. Conversely, CG is a claim/conviction that good can best, perhaps only, be realised via relatively unconstrained self-realisation. Neither of these claims would make sense if we already knew that both law and chaos are self-standing values in their own right that dilute goodness.
The latest Unearthed Arcana has some stuff about alignment that seems consonant with my OP (emphasis added by me):
This is pretty much what I set out in my OP: good and evil, as labels, tell you what the proper end of human striving is; but with that settled, law vs chaos is still a potentially interesting point of disagreement about means.
The standard alignment system embraces the fundamental points of tension in D&D: the struggle between good and evil on the one hand, and the conflict between law and chaos on the other. The nice thing about this arrangement is that it allows for tension even within a good-aligned party. The law–chaos divide means that characters can still disagree on how to promote good in the world.
. . .
You might prefer attitudes that are more nuanced, without the implicit demarcation of heroes as good‐aligned creatures and villains as evil‐aligned ones.
. . .
For your own alignment system, try to create at least two paths, one of which allows a range of options for the player characters. The other paths can divide the world between the characters (including their allies) and their enemies.
. . .
You might prefer attitudes that are more nuanced, without the implicit demarcation of heroes as good‐aligned creatures and villains as evil‐aligned ones.
. . .
For your own alignment system, try to create at least two paths, one of which allows a range of options for the player characters. The other paths can divide the world between the characters (including their allies) and their enemies.
This is pretty much what I set out in my OP: good and evil, as labels, tell you what the proper end of human striving is; but with that settled, law vs chaos is still a potentially interesting point of disagreement about means.
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