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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GSHamster" data-source="post: 5784865" data-attributes="member: 20187">I like a lot of the mechanical implications of alignment, especially when played straight. I like the idea that paladins get bonuses against the darkness, of circles of protection keeping the undead at bay. I like having hallowed ground such as churches which are sanctuaries. I like the idea of purely good entities, and purely evil entities.What I don't like about alignment is how it often substitutes for personality. How it becomes a straight-jacket for players, and how it often (Detect Evil in particular) becomes a weapon against purely mundane villains.So here's my proposed alignment system. There are three alignments: Good, Mortal, and Evil.All normal races and creatures are Mortal. Mortal means you have free will. You can be decent and kind, or cruel and violent, or anything in between. Spells that work on alignment, either Good or Evil, have no affect on Mortals. Detect Evil would not pick up anything when confronted with a band of human pirates.Good and Evil are generally reserved for supernatural creatures. Demons, undead, angels, etc. The creatures we classically think of when invoking alignment mechanics.This way, the vast majority of alignment mechanics in the game still work, but they get pushed to the areas of the game where we expect them to work, where our stories and myths usually have them.As well, since all regular individuals have the Mortal alignment, their personality is no longer tied so strictly to alignment. You can't tell who is good or bad with spells. Villains can be more than simply "chaotic evil, so violent and brutish".Now, you do have classify monsters, but most of the time it's fairly obvious. The ones who live, grow old and die are usually Mortal. Some might have special rules, like (involuntary) werewolves, which might make sense to be Evil while in wolf form, but Mortal while human.</blockquote>

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