Five adjectives, rather than two letters (alignment)


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


After a little discussion with my group, the only argument in favour of the alignment system that seemed to come out strongly was that they help a player to easily decide what the character should do in a given situation. A simplistic example would be, upon seeing some beggars: "what do I do? Well, as there is a G written down, I should probably give them money or help them in some way", or "well it says N, so I wouldn't care, so I walk on by".
This is all well and good, I suppose, but I was thinking wouldn't this purpose be much better served by writing down, say, 5 adjectives that describe your character's personality instead?
For example, my tiefling warpriest is not just CG, he's Brave, Just, Open-minded, Reckless and Disdainful of the Privileged. That shows his good qualities, a thing he needs to work on (recklessness) and also a deep character flaw which allows for expansion of backstory. Being genuinely open-minded and accepting towards savage orcs or criminals (as he himself has been a victim of racism and stereotyping, as a tiefling) is all well and good, but he shows himself to be hypocritical if he immediately assumes all the rich are greedy and vain.
So as you can see doing this forces a player to think more deeply about the character's personality and flaws while also still being able to be used as a "quick guide" to "what would my character do here?"

It's an idea I've just come up with, I'm sure other people have thought of other things the same or similar, it's nothing original or innovative. I was going to ask my players to do it upon character creation instead of one of the nine alignments, and then as the GM I would note what I think their alignments would be in secret. So yeah, has anyone else made characters using a similar idea, do you think it has really helped compared to basing your characters' actions just off alignment?


Whenever I make a character, I turn to the Alignment section in Ultimate Campaign. For each specific alignment a number of Core Concepts are listed. I generally choose two of them for each character.

EDIT: I do like the idea of also having character flaws as part of the concept (Flawed Concepts?). Maybe using my way, you would select one or two Concepts from other Alignments to show a swaying moral/ethical compass.

EDIT EDIT: So for example your tiefling warpriest might have as core concepts Benevolence and Mercy, with the flawed concepts of Capriciousness and Liberty. Hmm, might be best to separate Core and Flawed alignment concepts entirely.


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Just dump alignment and do that. Your game will be much better for it.


I am worried that this might not mesh with all playstyles.

I usually see alignment as a VERY loose guide, which allows you to wing it at first until you get into the feeling of the character. At least how I tend to play it.

With this, you are asking for a full fleshed personality from the get go, which can be hard before you have put them through a baptism by fire.

For a discussion on alignment- if you can't make a justication for a general character in an alignment, you are not thinking outside of the box.

How about a lawful character that would willingly work with thieves and criminals because of a deep belief in personal responsibility and self determined roles ("if you steal, you either pay by getting caught and serving the time, or you pay by running from the law and always looking over your shoulder").

How about an chaotic aligned enforcer for the River Freedoms, hunting oath breakers and setting up proper duels between those that burglars and those that were unknowingly robbed?

Alignment IS limited...which makes it fun to subvert the traditional perspective. As long as you have a shared understanding of how it is loose (...paladin threads. Nothing more needs to be said), you can use it as a jumping point once you get past that initial "who am I?" phase.

Grand Lodge

Honestly, Pathfinder/D&D could dump the alignment system entirely and I wouldn't miss it one bit. Anything that currently relies on it could easily be redesigned.

For example:


  • Paladins could simply require a code of conduct that includes stuff like protecting the innocent, offering quarter, and tithing gold. Detect evil switches to "Detect Evil Outsiders and Undead" or something more eloquently-titled.

  • Barbarians could just be prohibited from putting skill points in "civilized" skills like Diplomacy and Profession to replace their savage nature and non-lawful restriction.

  • Monks could require 10 minutes of quiet meditation or rigorous practice every morning, sort of like how spellcasters need to prepare spells, to represent their lawful philosophy. If they don't get it, they lose half their ki pool or something.

Then comb through the various deities (and/or each domain individually) and tack on a quick blurb about what each one requires of its empowered followers (re: divine spellcasters). Got the sun domain? Sorry, no stealth for you, Mr. Sunshine. Worship Erastil for that sweet, sweet longbow proficiency? Better have a breakfast of food you hunted yourself if you want to memorize spells. Just spit-balling here, but you get the idea.

The one thing I can't stress enough is to not include anything that directly causes conflicts between players. None of this crap about not being able to associate with criminals, spellcasters, or those that use necromancy. That stuff is always group cooperation poison.


Headfirst wrote:

Honestly, Pathfinder/D&D could dump the alignment system entirely and I wouldn't miss it one bit. Anything that currently relies on it could easily be redesigned.

For example:


  • Paladins could simply require a code of conduct that includes stuff like protecting the innocent, offering quarter, and tithing gold. Detect evil switches to "Detect Evil Outsiders and Undead" or something more eloquently-titled.

  • Barbarians could just be prohibited from putting skill points in "civilized" skills like Diplomacy and Profession to replace their savage nature and non-lawful restriction.

  • Monks could require 10 minutes of quiet meditation or rigorous practice every morning, sort of like how spellcasters need to prepare spells, to represent their lawful philosophy. If they don't get it, they lose half their ki pool or something.

Then comb through the various deities (and/or each domain individually) and tack on a quick blurb about what each one requires of its empowered followers (re: divine spellcasters). Got the sun domain? Sorry, no stealth for you, Mr. Sunshine. Worship Erastil for that sweet, sweet longbow proficiency? Better have a breakfast of food you hunted yourself if you want to memorize spells. Just spit-balling here, but you get the idea.

The one thing I can't stress enough is to not include anything that directly causes conflicts between players. None of this crap about not being able to associate with criminals, spellcasters, or those that use necromancy. That stuff is always group cooperation poison.

If you eliminate alignment, then why would there be a Detect Evil anything? You can see in your own examples that you've been unable to get away from labeling the concept of alignment, and the reason is that the concept of alignment exists in our everyday lives. Even if you don't want to name it, your examples for the monk and barbarian still espouse it. It's not as easy as you think to throw those concepts out the window.

But let's say you eliminate the concept, then you eliminate the need for anything related to the concept. You've eliminated those labels of good, evil, lawful, and chaotic. Now you need a different mechanic to deal with this like knowing who a Paladin can smite and how he or she can detect those creatures. Do you limit those abilities to a list of names creatures and specific individuals? No more holy water to fight undead, because there's no good to create it. But it gets harder. Why does Iomedae oppose Asmodeus? Political reasons? There's no evil or good, so what is their problem with each other? Can you even use spells like Protection from Evil in another form? What would you protect against?

Eliminating alignment as a class requirement is easy, you house rule that you don't have to have it. Don't write on your character sheet, but I don't think you can just make it disappear.

Alignment isn't the cause of conflicts between players, it's just an excuse for people to act like jerks to each other. I've only been in one game where alignment became an issue, a Paladin used alignment as an excuse to go PvP. If Alignment is ever a problem, is not a class or character problem, it's a player problem.


In games I run, my players are instructed to ignore alignment.

Paladins, monks, etc, who are alignment sensitive, are told to hold to *very* general idea of what that code of conduct should be.

as for the mechanical side of things, I keep a notepad open and just keep track of where I think they fall. Clerics for example, so long as they generally hold to their deity's mandates and dogma, I simply mark down as being their deity's alignment. If a rogue typically only steals robin-hood style, I'll mark him down as being somewhere in the CG/CN area, if he steals from whomever, and kills his marks if convenient, I'll mark him as CE or NE as appropriate.

Dark Archive

I kinda agree that alignment should go, but it's such a big part of the universe. If you dump alignment, the outer planes would become one big mess. It can be done ofcourse, you could just name all demons, deamons and devils fiends etc., but it would still lose all meaning.

There are other games without alignment that use similar systems though. (D20 modern uses alliance, and Barebones Fantasy uses a system that works a lot like the one toxicpie described.)

Grand Lodge

when it comes to alignment, I throw it out and replace it with the magic color pie, works awesome.


toxicpie wrote:

After a little discussion with my group, the only argument in favour of the alignment system that seemed to come out strongly was that they help a player to easily decide what the character should do in a given situation. A simplistic example would be, upon seeing some beggars: "what do I do? Well, as there is a G written down, I should probably give them money or help them in some way", or "well it says N, so I wouldn't care, so I walk on by".

This is all well and good, I suppose, but I was thinking wouldn't this purpose be much better served by writing down, say, 5 adjectives that describe your character's personality instead?

That's roughly the approach a number of other games have taken. Ars Magica, for example, has you take three adjectives and then numerical values between -3 and +3 for each one. These numbers, in turn, act as modifiers to appropriate rolls. For example, if your brave, heroic knight has Brave +3, Heroic +2, and Likes Apples +3, then he would get a +3 modifier on the equivalent of saves vs. fear, but also might take a -3 penalty to detect a lingering fear aura from where a lich used to live. And if a succubus tried to tempt (suggestion)him to do something evil, he would get a +2 bonus on his save against that effect, but would get a penalty of -1 if the succubus offered him some apples along with it.

I like that approach.

Grand Lodge

toxicpie wrote:

After a little discussion with my group, the only argument in favour of the alignment system that seemed to come out strongly was that they help a player to easily decide what the character should do in a given situation. A simplistic example would be, upon seeing some beggars: "what do I do? Well, as there is a G written down, I should probably give them money or help them in some way", or "well it says N, so I wouldn't care, so I walk on by".

This is all well and good, I suppose, but I was thinking wouldn't this purpose be much better served by writing down, say, 5 adjectives that describe your character's personality instead?
For example, my tiefling warpriest is not just CG, he's Brave, Just, Open-minded, Reckless and Disdainful of the Privileged. That shows his good qualities, a thing he needs to work on (recklessness) and also a deep character flaw which allows for expansion of backstory. Being genuinely open-minded and accepting towards savage orcs or criminals (as he himself has been a victim of racism and stereotyping, as a tiefling) is all well and good, but he shows himself to be hypocritical if he immediately assumes all the rich are greedy and vain.
So as you can see doing this forces a player to think more deeply about the character's personality and flaws while also still being able to be used as a "quick guide" to "what would my character do here?"

It's an idea I've just come up with, I'm sure other people have thought of other things the same or similar, it's nothing original or innovative. I was going to ask my players to do it upon character creation instead of one of the nine alignments, and then as the GM I would note what I think their alignments would be in secret. So yeah, has anyone else made characters using a similar idea, do you think it has really helped compared to basing your characters' actions just off alignment?

If a player has a decently profiled background this may work. Generally alignment comes first, and unfortunately last. That's all the player invests in the character. But alignment should inform the adjectives! If you know your character is brave, just, and open-minded, you know he is lawful and either good or neutral. So yes, the adjectives are more helpful, so long as they are consistent with each other. How would you deal with a character that was both just and hateful? You'd have to define him in terms of a lawful evil alignment!


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Ronnie K wrote:
If a player has a decently profiled background this may work. Generally alignment comes first, and unfortunately last. That's all the player invests in the character. But alignment should inform the adjectives! If you know your character is brave, just, and open-minded, you know he is lawful and either good or neutral. So yes, the adjectives are more helpful, so long as they are consistent with each other. How would you deal with a character that was both just and hateful? You'd have to define him in terms of a lawful evil alignment!

I disagree. A rather famous example of a just but hateful character is Sam Vimes from Pratchett's Discworld series. Personality traits can also be flaws that the character is trying to overcome, and much of Vimes is, in fact, defined by the fact that he knows that he shouldn't do what he wants to do. (In contrast to his rather one-dimensional assistant, Carrot, this makes him both a more nuanced and more human person.) The lustful celibate doesn't have to be the evil priest -- he can also be Sir Lancelot (White's version). Some of the great works of literature are about how a fundamentally good person learns about and deals with evil tendencies in his own mind, either by giving in to them or by rising above them. (See Cabaret for an accessible example.)

The major issue is that people (and critters) no longer come gift-wrapped in nice, color-coded boxes, which means that effects like "smite evil" no longer make sense. You could homebrew spells like detect personality, lesser which tells you one of the adjectives, or the greater version which tells you all of them, but it's not clear to me whether "likes apples" would be a virtue or a flaw.

Grand Lodge

Orfamay Quest wrote:
Ronnie K wrote:
If a player has a decently profiled background this may work. Generally alignment comes first, and unfortunately last. That's all the player invests in the character. But alignment should inform the adjectives! If you know your character is brave, just, and open-minded, you know he is lawful and either good or neutral. So yes, the adjectives are more helpful, so long as they are consistent with each other. How would you deal with a character that was both just and hateful? You'd have to define him in terms of a lawful evil alignment!

I disagree. A rather famous example of a just but hateful character is Sam Vimes from Pratchett's Discworld series. Personality traits can also be flaws that the character is trying to overcome, and much of Vimes is, in fact, defined by the fact that he knows that he shouldn't do what he wants to do. (In contrast to his rather one-dimensional assistant, Carrot, this makes him both a more nuanced and more human person.) The lustful celibate doesn't have to be the evil priest -- he can also be Sir Lancelot (White's version). Some of the great works of literature are about how a fundamentally good person learns about and deals with evil tendencies in his own mind, either by giving in to them or by rising above them. (See Cabaret for an accessible example.)

The major issue is that people (and critters) no longer come gift-wrapped in nice, color-coded boxes, which means that effects like "smite evil" no longer make sense. You could homebrew spells like detect personality, lesser which tells you one of the adjectives, or the greater version which tells you all of them, but it's not clear to me whether "like apples" would be a virtue or a flaw.

I don't disagree. My example was just that, an example. But even in you example it is the 'detailed background' in contrast to what Vimes 'knows that he shouldn't do..." that makes him a believable persona. Virtues, flaws, etc. are more meaningful in contrast to motivation (alignment). If the alignment is lawful good, then hateful is a flaw. If alignment is lawful evil, than it is not a flaw.


Ronnie K wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:

[ A rather famous example of a just but hateful character is Sam Vimes from Pratchett's Discworld series. Personality traits can also be flaws that the character is trying to overcome, and much of Vimes is, in fact, defined by the fact that he knows that he shouldn't do what he wants to do. (In contrast to his rather one-dimensional assistant, Carrot, this makes him both a more nuanced and more human person.) The lustful celibate doesn't have to be the evil priest -- he can also be Sir Lancelot (White's version). Some of the great works of literature are about how a fundamentally good person learns about and deals with evil tendencies in his own mind, either by giving in to them or by rising above them. (See Cabaret for an accessible example.)

The major issue is that people (and critters) no longer come gift-wrapped in nice, color-coded boxes, which means that effects like "smite evil" no longer make sense. You could homebrew spells like detect personality, lesser which tells you one of the adjectives, or the greater version which tells you all of them, but it's not clear to me whether "like apples" would be a virtue or a flaw.

I don't disagree. My example was just that, an example. But even in you example it is the 'detailed background' in contrast to what Vimes 'knows that he shouldn't do..." that makes him a believable persona. Virtues, flaws, etc. are more meaningful in contrast to motivation (alignment).

Agreed. I think the point I was making in contrast to you is that the adjectives, in and of themselves, are a "detailed background," so there's no need for alignment. It's the struggle that makes Vimes himself, not the victor.

One of the issues, IMHO, is that alignment doesn't provide "motivation." I don't feed stray cats and help at church suppers because I'm a good person -- instead, I'm a good person because I do those things. Writing "NG" on my character sheet isn't a motivation for my character to do good, but "Generous +3" is, especially if there's mechanics to back it up. And, yes, if I write "Generous +3" and "Miserly +3" on my character sheet, I've got a conflicted character -- but that conflicted character could be "good," "evil," or "neutral" depending upon a whole bunch of things, and could even vary from time to time (since no one is 100% consistent).

If you do the adjectives right, then alignment is meaningless, because it's either an oversimplification, or it's a direct consequence of the adjectives in the first place. If the adjectives I picked are "trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent," then I don't need to define myself as LG as well. I'm -- quite literally -- a Boy Scout.

Who also "Likes Apples +3," and a clever succubus could use that to her advantage.

Grand Lodge

Orfamay Quest wrote:
Ronnie K wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:

[ A rather famous example of a just but hateful character is Sam Vimes from Pratchett's Discworld series. Personality traits can also be flaws that the character is trying to overcome, and much of Vimes is, in fact, defined by the fact that he knows that he shouldn't do what he wants to do. (In contrast to his rather one-dimensional assistant, Carrot, this makes him both a more nuanced and more human person.) The lustful celibate doesn't have to be the evil priest -- he can also be Sir Lancelot (White's version). Some of the great works of literature are about how a fundamentally good person learns about and deals with evil tendencies in his own mind, either by giving in to them or by rising above them. (See Cabaret for an accessible example.)

The major issue is that people (and critters) no longer come gift-wrapped in nice, color-coded boxes, which means that effects like "smite evil" no longer make sense. You could homebrew spells like detect personality, lesser which tells you one of the adjectives, or the greater version which tells you all of them, but it's not clear to me whether "like apples" would be a virtue or a flaw.

I don't disagree. My example was just that, an example. But even in you example it is the 'detailed background' in contrast to what Vimes 'knows that he shouldn't do..." that makes him a believable persona. Virtues, flaws, etc. are more meaningful in contrast to motivation (alignment).

Agreed. I think the point I was making in contrast to you is that the adjectives, in and of themselves, are a "detailed background," so there's no need for alignment. It's the struggle that makes Vimes himself, not the victor.

One of the issues, IMHO, is that alignment doesn't provide "motivation." I don't feed stray cats and help at church suppers because I'm a good person -- instead, I'm a good person because I do those things. Writing "NG" on my character sheet isn't a...

I'm not sure alignment would be meaningless; rather alignment is a descriptor. Given a detailed background alignment would seem to be obvious, rather than prescriptive. It's an observable trait, rather than a restriction. In game this is important as good v. evil, law v. chaos are objective realities.

Grand Lodge

Manwolf wrote:
If you eliminate alignment, then why would there be a Detect Evil anything?

There wouldn't be Detect Evil (thing), there would just be Detect (thing). Maybe that's a cool way to add modular choices to the paladin: You select an oath, which determines your code of conduct as well as what your smite ability affects. A paladin with one oath might have to tithe 10% of the gold he earns and his smite affects devils. Another paladin might be required to offer quarter to enemies and his smite affects undead. Lots of cool opportunities to customize there.

Manwolf wrote:
You can see in your own examples that you've been unable to get away from labeling the concept of alignment, and the reason is that the concept of alignment exists in our everyday lives.

My examples replace broad alignments with specific verbiage, which I think is a better way to represent the core ideals of being a paladin, the savage nature of being a barbarian, and the rigorous structure required to be a monk.

As for alignment existing in our everyday lives, I couldn't possibly disagree more. But that's a philosophical argument not appropriate for this thread.

Manwolf wrote:
Even if you don't want to name it, your examples for the monk and barbarian still espouse it. It's not as easy as you think to throw those concepts out the window.

Yes, that's the point. Espouse it in such a way as to keep the core concepts of each class intact while divorcing each from the alignment system so it can be entirely removed.

Manwolf wrote:
But let's say you eliminate the concept, then you eliminate the need for anything related to the concept. You've eliminated those labels of good, evil, lawful, and chaotic. Now you need a different mechanic to deal with this like knowing who a Paladin can smite and how he or she can detect those creatures. Do you limit those abilities to a list of names creatures and specific individuals? No more holy water to fight undead, because there's no good to create it.

Yeah, I know. That was the point of the examples I listed in my previous post. Paladins know what to smite because "Smite Evil" becomes "Smite Undead." Oh, look, a zombie. Smite Undead.

Manwolf wrote:
But it gets harder. Why does Iomedae oppose Asmodeus? Political reasons? There's no evil or good, so what is their problem with each other? Can you even use spells like Protection from Evil in another form? What would you protect against?

Harder? Maybe, but it also opens up great opportunities to flesh out your game world with more details instead of relying on "LG vs CE" as the sole reason for endless cosmic conflict. Why does Iomedae oppose Asmodeus? Why does Zeus oppose Hades? It's not because Zeus is a good guy and Hades is evil, I can tell you that much. Hades performs a necessary role and Zeus is basically a serial rapist. They (usually) hate each other because there's a complicated history between them, and that's what makes their relationship interesting!

Manwolf wrote:
Eliminating alignment as a class requirement is easy, you house rule that you don't have to have it. Don't write on your character sheet, but I don't think you can just make it disappear.

I think with a few modifications to various classes, spells, and magic items, you can get rid of the alignment system.

Manwolf wrote:
Alignment isn't the cause of conflicts between players, it's just an excuse for people to act like jerks to each other. I've only been in one game where alignment became an issue, a Paladin used alignment as an excuse to go PvP. If Alignment is ever a problem, is not a class or character problem, it's a player problem.

Yes, it's a player problem, but it's one that's facilitated by the alignment system, not suppressed by it. In my opinion, a good RPG system is one that encourages and rewards players for working together instead of setting up obstacles.


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I find all of the "eliminate alignment" discussions incredibly silly, since it can be kept around and still be fine as long as you make a habit of doing one thing: roughly determine a character's personality before you pick an alignment, not the other way around, then figure out what alignment fits that personality.

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