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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gizmo33" data-source="post: 3610503" data-attributes="member: 30001">ALIGNMENT AND MAGIC ITEMSThe magic item changes would follow the spell changes in most areas.  With additions below:HOLY WEAPONS+2d6 against evil creatures, +1d6 against non-good creatures.  Non-good creatures who weild the weapon gain a negative level.  A non-aligned creature who picks up the weapon can choose to take on a [good] descriptor at that time and attune himself to the weapon.  The weapon is attuned to an ethos, either that of a deity or some other (perhaps not completely specified) system.  In any case it's the ethos of the weapon that determines whether the character can stay attuned to it - not broader philosophical issues.  If the sword's creator made it so that someone who ran away in combat or slew non-evil creatures out-of-hand couldn't be attuned to it - then it's not a matter of whether or not such actions are, or are not "good" - it's more just an issue that the weapon doesn't like the actions (something the DM is much more qualified to judge than more abstract issues of morality).WHAT THIS MEANS FOR THE CAMPAIGN CULTURE/NPCsThis is probably a huge topic, but some thoughts on the subject:NPCs, under this system, would understand that a [good] descriptor, for instance, doesn't necessarily mean that the creature isn't capable of evil, or would they think the reverse of an [evil] descriptor.  However, they would realize that such a character is heavily influenced (whether by deity, magic item, or whatever) by such forces.  This probably isn't too different from the situation of alignment now.  Having such a descriptor is not a mandate for automatic trust from other like-aligned people.  Is a wizard with an [evil] alignment descriptor really evil?  Or has he just cast one too many Summon Fiendish Ape spells in order to battle other evil creatures?  That's for the players now to decide.  Some might tell you that such behavior leads to evil, and that one cannot have an [evil] descriptor for very long without becoming evil.  Again, the goal is to put the DM in a position where he is not required to resolve thorny issues of morality in order to run the game.But what is different is that the bulk of people don't have alignments.  They need to be judged by their actions.  As such (IMO) roleplaying and figuring out what a character is really about becomes more subtle and interesting - there's no quick/detectable label to use.  A deity's primary mode of interacting with his worshippers has to do with his ethos, not alignment.  CONCLUSIONSo what I've tried to do with this system is come up with a way to take away the issue of requiring that the DM judge alignment in order to play the game.  A DM is in a much better position to tell a player whether his actions are in keeping with the "Teachings of Thor" than he is whether or not a given action is "Lawful" or "Good".Also, because DnD is a fantasy game where principles and ideas take on lives of their own, it seems appropriate that moral forces like "good" have some sort of tangable representation in the game.  Demons *should* be Chaotic Evil.  It's just that I envision those kinds of creatures as being at the extreme ends of reality.  A paladin might wish that his very being were "Lawful Good", but what is really the case is that he is a mixture of lawful, good, evil, and chaotic who has chosen to live his life in accordance with the "Lawful Good" ideal espoused by his deity.  Hopefully, after a lifetime of service, he will die and his soul will ascend to the Lawful Good outer planes where his fallible good/evil/law/chaos body will be replaced with the pure form of a Lawful Good petitioner.  So the quetion of "what does 'good' really mean in absolute terms" then becomes relegated to "what does an immortal petitioner really do with their time", or "what does a creature with 40 intelligence think about" - questions that are an interesting part of the game, but ones whose answer is not vital to the conduct of the day-to-day events of a DMs campaign.AFTERWORDI realize the actual crunchy bits of this are imprecise - much of it is bound up in my houserules which include other campaign-specific elements that I would have to remove.  Surprisingly though, I've used this system for going-on 15 years no, through multiple groups, and even the rules lawyers haven't complained.</blockquote>

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