dreaded_beast said:
Thanks for the replies everyone.
Actually Plane Sailing, that version of alignment sounds pretty cool.
How would it translate into a "typical" DND game though?
Namely, alignment based effects such as good,evil,etc.
IANPS, but I'll interject here and say that... well, it wouldn't translate. The honor ("honour") system in
Conan is very, very cool, but it's designed to account for a very different type of conduct than that assumed in the standard D&D game (if there is such a thing), or in traditional high-fantasy paradigms such as LotR, the
Belgariad, or FR. The characters in REH's books don't really follow notions of "good" or "evil"; by D&D standards, even Conan himself, the hero, might barely rate CN at times. Thus the
Conan d20 honor system, which IMHO exactly captures the feel of REH's character "ethics." Not as useful for a standard D&D game, though.
The gist I'm getting from this thread is that point systems seem to be the favored solution. I use a more informal system similar to this, which fits into my overall "chip system" (used for bonus XP, fate points, and alignment). In short, I award white chips for truly good acts and black chips for evil acts. Multiple unsavory acts or multiple small acts of kindness may warrant a chip, whereas a truly saintly or heinous act will result in a shower of white or black chips upon the player's station, as appropriate. At the end of each session, players turn in their chips for good and evil points. The difference between black and white chip totals (or vice versa) is used to determine the number of points received, with one exception: A PC who earns three or more black chips at any point during a session must turn in all white chips. This represents the fact that at some point, no matter how many good deeds you try to perform to balance out the dark ones, you're still corrupted.
Good points are treated as your Aura of Good for the purpose of detect good and similar effects; vice versa with evil points. Smite, holy aura, and similar abilities work only against a target with five or more points in the appropriate alignment.
Additionally, players who have five or more good points, and earn at least one good and no evil points in a session, gain a +1 bonus to Will saves for the next session. This can repeat indefinitely, though it does not stack.
NPCs are assumed to have fewer than five points in each direction unless they have the appropriate alignment subtype. I don't really use law and chaos that much for individual alignments IMC (they're more the province of modrons, slaadi, and similar outsiders).
