Tracking Alignment

[da chicken]

Um, I have a question.

What's the point? Why do we need to delineate alignment so precisely? Alignment in 3E is extremely loose. Only four classes have alignment restrictions, and two of them are weak (Bard and Barbarian) and a third is basically an afterthought (the Paladin's code is more strict than alignment).

If we're not going to punish players for not playing their alignment, and we want characters to be as varied as possible, why do we need to assign explicit attributes to one axis of the spectrum?

I mean, I understand you can run alignment however you want, but all I see this doing is making alignment more like the straightjacket it was in 2E.

 

[mmadsen]

Why do we need to delineate alignment so precisely?

For a game with gods that hand out power to their followers, it only makes sense to base that power on how well the followers actually follow the tenets of their religion. Clerics are not an afterthought in D&D; they're central to it.

And for holy knights like Paladins, of course we're looking to Pendragon for inspiration; it's the Knights of the Round Table game.

I mean, I understand you can run alignment however you want, but all I see this doing is making alignment more like the straightjacket it was in 2E.

Where's the straightjacket? What we've presented here, the Trait-Pair system, can be used purely descriptively (since you regularly kill Orc babies, your Merciful score is low), or, if you add in some rules, prescriptively (since your Merciful score is low, Pelor grants you no more spells until you atone).

 

[Dog Faced God]

This system is a good idea, but it seems flawed to me.

Let's consider this example:
I'm an NG cleric (L/C = 10/10, E/G = 2/18) and I go into a town where the populace is being starved to death by their foppish, wealthy arrogant leaders. I, and my trusty band of cohorts, incite the people to take up arms against the guards who enforce these tyrants's rule. Meanwhile, we kill off the arrogant leaders, and liberate the people. Yahoo. So at the end of the adventure I make d6 checks: I roll a 3. I roll a d20 3 times: 6, 13, 15. All three rolls are lower than my current "Good" rating, so after I did all these selfless acts, my good score goes down by three points.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the nature and result of the checks at the end of the adventure.

 

[Thorvald Kviksverd]

This system is a good idea, but it seems flawed to me...

...I roll a d20 3 times: 6, 13, 15. All three rolls are lower than my current "Good" rating, so after I did all these selfless acts, my good score goes down by three points.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the nature and result of the checks at the end of the adventure.

Hey DFG,

If those 3 checks were for good and selfless acts, you would be rolling to increase your GOOD score--if you failed to roll higher than your current score, your GOOD score would remain the same.

If, on the other hand, those same 3 checks were next to your EVIL, you would be rolling to increase it...

1st roll > 2, so new values 17 GOOD/EVIL 3

2nd roll > 3, so new values 16 GOOD/EVIL 4

3rd roll > 4, so new values 15 GOOD/EVIL 5

One more adventure like this, and the Cleric will fall into disfavor with his patron...

Hope the above cleared things up

 

[Dog Faced God]

M'kay.... that makes about a gajillion bajillion times more sense now. I'm definitely gonna poach this for my games. Great ideas!!!