Suggestion for Alignment


General Discussion

1 to 50 of 66 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Please make alignment fully optional in Starfinder. In other words, do not make classes that require a certain alignment (they can still follow a code of behavior), do not make spells that function based off of alignment (instead use friend/foe).

The alignment system is a net negative. It creates more arguments at the table than anything it offers in return. It's an unsolvable problem because, as any forum post on the topic demonstrates, we each have widely differing opinions of what good, evil, lawful and chaotic mean and where each begins and ends. Its a part of the game that doesn't need to be there.

Thank you!

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Considering that it's been stated that you'll be able to use monsters from Pathfinder pretty much unchanged, I kinda doubt this change will happen.

Liberty's Edge

Starfinder Superscriber

You can easily use monsters from Pathfinder unchanged... just ignore the alignment line. It's a very rare monster that has abilities that actually require alignment to function.

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16

1 person marked this as a favorite.
rknop wrote:
You can easily use monsters from Pathfinder unchanged... just ignore the alignment line. It's a very rare monster that has abilities that actually require alignment to function.

Except for all of the outsiders who have abilities like holy smite, blasphemy, etc. Even the lowly 1st level protection from evil spells interact with alignment. Half-fiend/half-celestial templates also grant these abilities, which are fairly common templates in play.

The Exchange

Kick the alignment completly!


I think that alignments can help keep players under control and help give guidelines to make heroes really good and villains really bad. Although the alignment system is beneficial I would like to see more emphasis placed on what is/isn't socially acceptable and on characters that behave like real people.

At PaizoCon 2014 I attended a panel about understanding the alignment system and I asked how I could go about making a villain like Cardinal Richelieu as depicted in The Three Musketeers, who is a Christian cleric but also clearly evil. The panelists told me that he must be within one alignment step of good, so to keep a neutral alignment he would have to balance all of his evil deeds with good deeds. In the end they told me that Cardinal Richelieu doesn't cannot be used in Pathfinder; the alignment system doesn't allow an evil cleric of a good God.

Another attendant asked about how to make a mayor that worked hard to keep his town safe and happy, including by murdering strangers so that they couldn't start trouble. The panelists told him that his mayor needed to chose between lawful good and lawful evil and then live according to the alignment he chose. So his charter didn't work in the alignment system either.

In both cases the alignment system killed two interesting NPCs. Even though I think the alignment system is beneficial, I would like to see it toned town.


The alignment system isn't meant to hamper your character's progression like you seem to believe. It is merely there as a tool for you to use FOR your character, and if it really causes you this many problems then you're using it wrong. That being said, arguments shouldn't happen because alignments are there for each individual character, and each individual person can interpret it as they think is best, NOT as a way for others to say "you can't do that, it's out of your alignment". Being an evil character doesn't mean you cant do good things; they just do them for selfish reasons. Being chaotic doesn't mean you can't obey the law; sometimes there's no purpose to breaking it whatsoever, such as laws against murder. Being good doesn't mean you can't do anything evil; sometimes, some characters might decide that some act is truly for the greater good. Being lawful doesn't mean you can't break the law or rules; a paladin CERTAINLY would if it meant saving lives or causing the destruction of some evil being.
The alignment system isn't meant to guide how you play your character; it's meant to give your character more depth, to make him more human. Without it, there wouldn't be a way of differentiating the barbarians from the paladins, the necromancers from the priests.

The Exchange

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Yeah, the hundreds of roleplying games without an alignment system must be unplayable.... ^^

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
relativemass wrote:

I think that alignments can help keep players under control and help give guidelines to make heroes really good and villains really bad. Although the alignment system is beneficial I would like to see more emphasis placed on what is/isn't socially acceptable and on characters that behave like real people.

At PaizoCon 2014 I attended a panel about understanding the alignment system and I asked how I could go about making a villain like Cardinal Richelieu as depicted in The Three Musketeers, who is a Christian cleric but also clearly evil. The panelists told me that he must be within one alignment step of good, so to keep a neutral alignment he would have to balance all of his evil deeds with good deeds. In the end they told me that Cardinal Richelieu doesn't cannot be used in Pathfinder; the alignment system doesn't allow an evil cleric of a good God.

Another attendant asked about how to make a mayor that worked hard to keep his town safe and happy, including by murdering strangers so that they couldn't start trouble. The panelists told him that his mayor needed to chose between lawful good and lawful evil and then live according to the alignment he chose. So his charter didn't work in the alignment system either.

In both cases the alignment system killed two interesting NPCs. Even though I think the alignment system is beneficial, I would like to see it toned town.

Who said Richelieu is a Cleric ? I have not seen him cast any spell, nor channel energy.

Mayor case depends on whether the strangers are innocent or not. Killing innocent = Evil. Killing not innocent = no specific alignment.

Wondering also if he kills them within the purview of the local law or outside the law. Sounds like prime Hellknight material to me though.

With answers to these questions, we can peg the mayor's alignment. Why do you say that the alignment system killed this NPC ?

That said, to make alignment have less of an impact, you just need to reduce its crunch impact in the daily rules :

- no alignment restrictions in the new classes (likely)

- less frequent use of magic (seems already a given)

- fewer outsiders (and maybe undead) : likely with the focus shifting from Medfan (other planes) to Scifan (other planets)

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

2 people marked this as a favorite.

I would peg Richelieu as a LE Aristocrat, personally. If we were going to place him in a fantasy version of Three Musketeers where he would be expected to have divine magic...well that could lead to a discussion of giving game stats to a real-world religion which is a forum no-no. Let's just say that if one were to model a monotheistic world using Pathfinder, from a game design perspective, it might be best to have several branches of the one faith to allow divine casters of many alignments to have options.

I'm neutral (hah!) on the topic of alignment in Starfinder. I like having it in Pathfinder, and I think it serves a useful mechanical and roleplaying purpose as a descriptive device. Pathfinder needs it as a spiritual successor to D&D. Starfinder, being more of its own thing, does not need it, but I wouldn't be upset if it were there, either.


4 people marked this as a favorite.

In space, no one can hear you have a moral dilemma.


Bearserk wrote:

Yeah, the hundreds of roleplying games without an alignment system must be unplayable.... ^^

This is a fair point. However, if you actually take a look at your characters in these games, they will almost always fit into one of the 9 alignments. Pathfinder's system is simply there to make things easier, not harder. For example, if a cleric casted "Detect Evil", without the alignment system it would be up to the GM to decide what is evil and what isn't. It's there to make things a bit easier, and unfortunately many misunderstand it's purpose, thus making the game harder instead.


lordofthemax wrote:
Bearserk wrote:

Yeah, the hundreds of roleplying games without an alignment system must be unplayable.... ^^

This is a fair point. However, if you actually take a look at your characters in these games, they will almost always fit into one of the 9 alignments. Pathfinder's system is simply there to make things easier, not harder. For example, if a cleric casted "Detect Evil", without the alignment system it would be up to the GM to decide what is evil and what isn't. It's there to make things a bit easier, and unfortunately many misunderstand it's purpose, thus making the game harder instead.

I just want alignment to be designed as an optional system in Starfinder, so that it is there for those who enjoy it and not a burden on those that don't. To make it optional, the game needs to stop integrating alignment into it's spells, classes, abilities and magic/tech items so heavily

Starfinder can be slightly different, so that alignment is a tool to help you design and define a character if you need it, but one that does not have mechanical consequences in gameplay.

You can do a lot to design away from the need for alignment and toward it being optional. As for one example of how, a "Detect Evil" ability can be re-flavored, you can go for some options:
1. Make it an ability that reads micro-expressions and works like "Detect Hostility"
2. Make it like Warhammer40k and make versions to "Detect Demonic Presence / Corruption" and "Detect Angelic Presence / Taint".
3. Keep it very similar but remove the alignment focus, and instead have it inform you which people your god accepts and which they reject, call it "Divine Judgement".

In Pathfinder, tying down mechanics to the alignment system makes arguments about it necessary. For example, did that Paladin fall, is casting that spell evil, is this action chaotic, etc. It becomes important, because there are consequences that aren't just story/plot related tied to it. Mandatory alignment just doesn't offer any benefit for me to outweigh the problems it causes.


lordofthemax wrote:
Bearserk wrote:

Yeah, the hundreds of roleplying games without an alignment system must be unplayable.... ^^

This is a fair point. However, if you actually take a look at your characters in these games, they will almost always fit into one of the 9 alignments. Pathfinder's system is simply there to make things easier, not harder. For example, if a cleric casted "Detect Evil", without the alignment system it would be up to the GM to decide what is evil and what isn't. It's there to make things a bit easier, and unfortunately many misunderstand it's purpose, thus making the game harder instead.

In the GameMastery Guide, one of the ways the book itself suggests that players look at alignment is to first create the character, have the character's behaviors, goals, etc., in mind, and then pick the alignment that best (not perfectly, just as close as possible) fits what you established. So what happens when you've examined your ki-using Monk character and learned that the alignment that best fits that character is anything but lawful? Oh, he's lawful in the "discipline vs. unruly" part of the Law/Chaos axis that the Monk fluff cares about, but that's it. The smooth functioning of society, preferring a plan rather than winging it, respecting authority figures for nothing more than their position? Your character does not care about these things, the Monk class does not care about these things, but good lick playing a character who's only Lawful in one aspect and trying to sell that as Lawful enough.

Alignment barely has any redeeming qualities. Mandatory alignment has zero.


I like D&D/PF alignment as a system that goes beyond the (barely) one-dimensional alignment system (even though not named as such) on Earth, as long as I don't have to deal with jerks who want to play Chaotic Evil characters labeled as Chaotic Neutral.

But Pathfinder already has optional provisions for removing alignment, although despite many alignment flame threads, including several that included posts that complained about alignment and wished it gone, I have only once stumbled upon a thread on these messageboards in which some posts mentioned actual use such provisions.


UnArcaneElection wrote:

But Pathfinder already has optional provisions for removing alignment, although despite many alignment flame threads, including several that included posts that complained about alignment and wished it gone, I have only once stumbled upon a thread on these messageboards in which some posts mentioned actual use such provisions.

They work rather well, just be careful with having paladins and antipaladins in the game since sometimes their loyalties lead to them not coming across as many "evil" enemies as they're used to.

President, Jon Brazer Enterprises

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I'm with others in this thread: I'm cool with alignment sticking around as a way of quickly describing a character, but I would very much like to see all mechanical elements related to it are removed.

While fantasy is flooded with good vs evil stories, there is far less of them for in science fiction. The biggest sf franchise to have good vs evil is Star Wars, and even then, I can think of only one force power not used by anyone on the good side: force lightning. Beyond that there was no other mechanical benefit to any alignment. Mind you, the last Star Wars RPG I played was WEG d6.

Dark Archive

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Honestly, I think alignment could be removed as short hand anyway <_< Short hands aren't really good for decribing characters and players tend to give more interesting descriptions without them

Speaking of Unchained rules for removing alignment, I'm actually planning to try those rules eventually. I haven't so far because I have run APs and I don't do much setting altering when I run published adventures. I'm planning to use those rules when I'm trying homebrew setting.


Dale McCoy Jr wrote:

I'm with others in this thread: I'm cool with alignment sticking around as a way of quickly describing a character, but I would very much like to see all mechanical elements related to it are removed.

While fantasy is flooded with good vs evil stories, there is far less of them for in science fiction. The biggest sf franchise to have good vs evil is Star Wars, and even then, I can think of only one force power not used by anyone on the good side: force lightning. Beyond that there was no other mechanical benefit to any alignment. Mind you, the last Star Wars RPG I played was WEG d6.

Being a massive Star wars nerd myself (this comment has nothing to do with actual alignment, I just have this weird need to correct errors about Star Wars), I would like to point out that there were multiple light side jedi who used force lightning (Kyle Katarn, and in the books I believe Mace Windu did as well. Need to check this, but I know for a fact that Kyle did). Moreover, Yoda must have had some form of experience with it prior to episode 2, since we say him effortlessly block Dooku's lightning.

Now, onto my comment on alignments. I see all of your points, removing the mechanics that revolve around alignment (with the exception of detect evil and such) would actually help the game. Sorry for passive-aggressively treating half of you here like morons, that was bad on me. However, I still think that it should be kept if only to be a general idea of your characters behavior, but not actually effecting the game much.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
relativemass wrote:

I think that alignments can help keep players under control and help give guidelines to make heroes really good and villains really bad. Although the alignment system is beneficial I would like to see more emphasis placed on what is/isn't socially acceptable and on characters that behave like real people.

At PaizoCon 2014 I attended a panel about understanding the alignment system and I asked how I could go about making a villain like Cardinal Richelieu as depicted in The Three Musketeers, who is a Christian cleric but also clearly evil. The panelists told me that he must be within one alignment step of good, so to keep a neutral alignment he would have to balance all of his evil deeds with good deeds. In the end they told me that Cardinal Richelieu doesn't cannot be used in Pathfinder; the alignment system doesn't allow an evil cleric of a good God.

Another attendant asked about how to make a mayor that worked hard to keep his town safe and happy, including by murdering strangers so that they couldn't start trouble. The panelists told him that his mayor needed to chose between lawful good and lawful evil and then live according to the alignment he chose. So his charter didn't work in the alignment system either.

In both cases the alignment system killed two interesting NPCs. Even though I think the alignment system is beneficial, I would like to see it toned town.

You assume the Christian god is good, by Pathfinder standards, in the sense that Iomeadae is good. First, obviously real world ethics van religion is far more nuanced than that, and it's not possible to shoehorn it in something as simple as Lawful/chaotic or Good/Evil. Second a god that destroyed mankind with a flood for their sins, ask for Eye for an Eye, destroyed entore cities, turned people into salt statues, and unleashed plagues that killed firstborns to convence a king, tell their followers to burn witches in a pyre wouldn't be good. If Iomeadae did that things we would not accept him being LG, and pretty much every GM I know would tell me that I lose my paladinhood if my paladin beheaves like that. Killing every firstborn in a country because the country's king refuse to release slaves would not be a good act, per Pathfinder description. Regardless of how it would be considered in real world.

Either you have several "facets" of God, with different alignments, or you put him as somewhat True Neutral, sometimes kind and forgiving, other times vengeful, his motivations being impossible to understand and his judgment inscrutable. In any case, Richeliue could be Evil, snd a cleric, just like Torquemada could too.


Dale McCoy Jr wrote:

I'm with others in this thread: I'm cool with alignment sticking around as a way of quickly describing a character, but I would very much like to see all mechanical elements related to it are removed.

While fantasy is flooded with good vs evil stories, there is far less of them for in science fiction. The biggest sf franchise to have good vs evil is Star Wars, and even then, I can think of only one force power not used by anyone on the good side: force lightning. Beyond that there was no other mechanical benefit to any alignment. Mind you, the last Star Wars RPG I played was WEG d6.

In the first 3 movies, Mace Windu used Force Lightning against Palpatine very shortly before being killed(*), and Yoda used Force Lightning in his aborted duel against Count Doofus Dooku(**).

(*)I think in the 3rd move, but I could be remembering wrong.

(**)I think in the 2nd movie, but I could be remembering wrong.

Liberty's Edge

I would love for Starfinder Gods to be able to change their alignment with time (and maybe some would have done so) or to not have any alignment at all (accepting worshippers from all alignments) a la Arcanis.

I very strongly doubt it though as that would require rewriting the domains/subdomains of all non-True Neutral gods, which would then sink PFRPG-compatibility. Because a Cleric of Asmodeus who chose Law and Evil as his domains could not be built in SFRPG. Unless any god can grant any alignment domain.


I think people is in a mistake with the whole "compatibility" stuff. It does not mean you can play one character in any of the two systems, without any change. It means they can be translated with just a modicum of effort. 3.0 and 3.5 and PF are compatible, yet not sll of them have rage powers, or CMB /CMD, or same skills.

I think Gods will have alignments, but not becsuse they need to preserve the lawful snd Evil domains.

President, Jon Brazer Enterprises

UnArcaneElection wrote:
Dale McCoy Jr wrote:

I'm with others in this thread: I'm cool with alignment sticking around as a way of quickly describing a character, but I would very much like to see all mechanical elements related to it are removed.

While fantasy is flooded with good vs evil stories, there is far less of them for in science fiction. The biggest sf franchise to have good vs evil is Star Wars, and even then, I can think of only one force power not used by anyone on the good side: force lightning. Beyond that there was no other mechanical benefit to any alignment. Mind you, the last Star Wars RPG I played was WEG d6.

In the first 3 movies, Mace Windu used Force Lightning against Palpatine very shortly before being killed(*), and Yoda used Force Lightning in his aborted duel against Count Doofus Dooku(**).

(*)I think in the 3rd move, but I could be remembering wrong.

(**)I think in the 2nd movie, but I could be remembering wrong.

Palpatine cast the force lightning; Windu reflected it back at him.

Dooku cast the force lightning; Yoda reflected and then absorbed it.

Neither of them cast force lightning themselves.


Dale McCoy Jr wrote:
UnArcaneElection wrote:
Dale McCoy Jr wrote:

I'm with others in this thread: I'm cool with alignment sticking around as a way of quickly describing a character, but I would very much like to see all mechanical elements related to it are removed.

While fantasy is flooded with good vs evil stories, there is far less of them for in science fiction. The biggest sf franchise to have good vs evil is Star Wars, and even then, I can think of only one force power not used by anyone on the good side: force lightning. Beyond that there was no other mechanical benefit to any alignment. Mind you, the last Star Wars RPG I played was WEG d6.

In the first 3 movies, Mace Windu used Force Lightning against Palpatine very shortly before being killed(*), and Yoda used Force Lightning in his aborted duel against Count Doofus Dooku(**).

(*)I think in the 3rd move, but I could be remembering wrong.

(**)I think in the 2nd movie, but I could be remembering wrong.

Palpatine cast the force lightning; Windu reflected it back at him.

Dooku cast the force lightning; Yoda reflected and then absorbed it.

Neither of them cast force lightning themselves.

They still had the option of negating it or blasting it in a different direction. When they redirect force lightning coming from someone else back to that someone else, how does the fact that they themselves did not create the lightning hold water?

President, Jon Brazer Enterprises

Tectorman wrote:
They still had the option of negating it or blasting it in a different direction. When they redirect force lightning coming from someone else back to that someone else, how does the fact that they themselves did not create the lightning hold water?

There's plenty of abilities in Pathfinder that counter abilities of another class that doesn't give them access to the ability itself. Take Ray Shield for example. It reflects a ranged touch attack, you can reflect them.

And even if light force users had the ability to use force lightning and simply didn't, my point is still valid (if anything it strengthens my argument): there is no mechanical difference between the light side and the dark side. So any mechanics to alignment should go away.


I'm not sure how much water holds the argument that Starfinder should not have any alignment because a differentanf unrelated sci-fantasy franchise might or might not have powers attached to being evil. Star Wars has it's own internal consistency, that is different to Starfinder's

Especially when the answer is that said power IS attached to the dark side (forcé lightning is also called "sith lightning", and the few non-sith or dark jedi users that can control it are renowned for "dips" in the dark side (like Kyle Katarn,galen marek or Mace Windu)


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Alignment forms a large part of the basis of the Golarion multiverse. Starfinder is set in that very same multiverse, just at a different time period.


Dale McCoy Jr wrote:
Tectorman wrote:
They still had the option of negating it or blasting it in a different direction. When they redirect force lightning coming from someone else back to that someone else, how does the fact that they themselves did not create the lightning hold water?

There's plenty of abilities in Pathfinder that counter abilities of another class that doesn't give them access to the ability itself. Take Ray Shield for example. It reflects a ranged touch attack, you can reflect them.

And even if light force users had the ability to use force lightning and simply didn't, my point is still valid (if anything it strengthens my argument): there is no mechanical difference between the light side and the dark side. So any mechanics to alignment should go away.

See my above comment concerning Kyle Katarn.


Dale McCoy Jr wrote:
Tectorman wrote:
They still had the option of negating it or blasting it in a different direction. When they redirect force lightning coming from someone else back to that someone else, how does the fact that they themselves did not create the lightning hold water?

There's plenty of abilities in Pathfinder that counter abilities of another class that doesn't give them access to the ability itself. Take Ray Shield for example. It reflects a ranged touch attack, you can reflect them.

And even if light force users had the ability to use force lightning and simply didn't, my point is still valid (if anything it strengthens my argument): there is no mechanical difference between the light side and the dark side. So any mechanics to alignment should go away.

No, I'm agreeing with you. What you have the ability to do is what you have the ability to do. What you then do with those abilities is another thing entirely. A character's ability set has nothing to do with what they use those abilities for, ergo alignment shouldn't be anything more than a descriptor, if we even have to have it there for that.

If Yoda and Mace can use Force Lightning (whether they created it or not) and the audience can understand that the circumstances under which they used it were justified, then anyone anywhere who uses Force Lightning (whether they create it or not) should only be under that level of scrutiny as well. It's not what power you have, it's what you do with it.


Force lightning requires strength of a sort only a Sith can command because we accept consequence and reject compassion. To do so requires a thirst for power that is not easily satisfied
-Darth Plagueis, Sith Lord.

I suspect that deflect ray, or whatever is the name of what Yoda and Windu did, do not require "reject compassion" and "a thirst for power", thus being fundamentally different to the Sith's lightning power.


KahnyaGnorc wrote:
Alignment forms a large part of the basis of the Golarion multiverse. Starfinder is set in that very same multiverse, just at a different time period.

Yeah, I'd be surprised if it didn't continue pretty much unchanged.

There's a lot of people who don't like alignment but there's a number of us who do (in PF, anyhow). For me, at least, removing the mechanical impacts of alignment would be a substantial change to the Golarion universe (it's absence would be more significant in my mind than the disappearance of Golarion itself) and would require some kind of in-game justification for why these objective, definite concepts of morality were no longer present.

President, Jon Brazer Enterprises

Tectorman wrote:
No, I'm agreeing with you.

Oh. I thought you were arguing against what I was saying. My bad.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

But casting an evil spell like Blasphemy is totally different to cast Spell Turning to bounce it back.


Dale McCoy Jr wrote:
UnArcaneElection wrote:
Dale McCoy Jr wrote:

I'm with others in this thread: I'm cool with alignment sticking around as a way of quickly describing a character, but I would very much like to see all mechanical elements related to it are removed.

While fantasy is flooded with good vs evil stories, there is far less of them for in science fiction. The biggest sf franchise to have good vs evil is Star Wars, and even then, I can think of only one force power not used by anyone on the good side: force lightning. Beyond that there was no other mechanical benefit to any alignment. Mind you, the last Star Wars RPG I played was WEG d6.

In the first 3 movies, Mace Windu used Force Lightning against Palpatine very shortly before being killed(*), and Yoda used Force Lightning in his aborted duel against Count Doofus Dooku(**).

(*)I think in the 3rd move, but I could be remembering wrong.

(**)I think in the 2nd movie, but I could be remembering wrong.

Palpatine cast the force lightning; Windu reflected it back at him.

Dooku cast the force lightning; Yoda reflected and then absorbed it.

Neither of them cast force lightning themselves.

Now that you mention it, this does fit for Mace Windu, but in the case of Yoda vs Count Dooku, it looks to me an awful lot like Yoda actually generates Force Lightning to retaliate against Count Dooku'so first Force Lightning attack.

Liberty's Edge

Yoda always struck me as a shifty devious little fellow with far too many secrets

President, Jon Brazer Enterprises

UnArcaneElection wrote:

but in the case of Yoda vs Count Dooku, it looks to me an awful lot like Yoda actually generates Force Lightning to retaliate against Count Dooku'so first Force Lightning attack.

To me it looks like he is holding onto the force lightning generated by Dooku and then sending it elsewhere for the first time. The second blast of force lightning, Yoda just absorbs it, demonstrating his power that no one else has. Yoda is clearly showing off just how much more powerful than he is than everyone else by taking control and sending it back to its owner, with no implements, something no one else is capable of.


Even, though he absorbs both of Count Dooku's Force Lightning attacks, he does have the ability to use Force Lightning, whether using the absorbed energy or his own to do it.

Of course, it could be that Jedi-equivalent Starfinder characters will have access to a Talent that let's you use a Sith-equivalent Talent some number of times per day, but only after absorbing the output of such a Talent.


Dale McCoy Jr wrote:
I'm with others in this thread: I'm cool with alignment sticking around as a way of quickly describing a character,

I think it's possible to go from a description of someone's personality, desires, and actions to ascribe them an alignment. I think it's very unlikely you can go the other way. Either there's more than one way to be, let's say Lawful Neutral, in which case it's not really short-hand for describing their personality; or their isn't, and most people are going to not fit exactly into any alignment category.


UnArcaneElection wrote:

Even, though he absorbs both of Count Dooku's Force Lightning attacks, he does have the ability to use Force Lightning, whether using the absorbed energy or his own to do it.

Of course, it could be that Jedi-equivalent Starfinder characters will have access to a Talent that let's you use a Sith-equivalent Talent some number of times per day, but only after absorbing the output of such a Talent.

Alternativelly, the SW Universe is simply a mess. But, if we look into the old Expanded Universe (now renamed Star Wars Legends - thanks Mickey...), we'll find this : Electric Judgment (or Emerald Lightning) was a Jedi variant of Force Lightning, devised during the late years of the Old Republic. It apparently wasn't based on intense emotions.

While George Lucas had a really black & white view of the Star Wars universe, many other authors created a great many shades of grey to that (for further reading, please look a the Je'daii Order, the four aspect of the Force (Living, Unifying, Cosmic, Physical), the Potentium and the Jensaarai).

Back to the "optional alignment". My main issue with (3.PF's) alignment is the fact that each aspect regroup far too many concepts. As an example, Law is supposed to represent discipline, personal honor, law, tradition and half a dozen other concepts. Big problem appears when a character has diverging attitudes with thoses concepts. Tectorman's monk is on example; a character whose goal is to improve society by legaly removing obsolete traditions is another. He's loyal because he follow the law, and even aim to better the law; but he's also anti-loyal because he opposes tradition.

So, my personal view is : optional or not, alignment for starfinder shouldn't follow the pathfinder way. Alignement has the potential of being a great tool; has is, it is merely mediocre.

President, Jon Brazer Enterprises

Bluenose wrote:
most people are going to not fit exactly into any alignment category.

Agreed. And I much prefer alignment to be removed entirely. However, I've made my peace with alignment for those that do like it and want it to stick around (whether out of short hand description or because of tradition or whatever). Having said that, I just don't care for it as a mechanic. Sword that does fire damage, hurts goblinoids, takes off someone's head, can attack ghosts, all good. Sword that hurts bad people, ehhh, I'm less cool with. Why should it hurt someone that cheats on their taxes the same way as someone that is a genocidal maniac? I just can't see that. For me, that just means, I don't play classes with alignment as a significant part of what defines the class (aka paladins).

But now we're talking SF, a genre with much less good and evil stories. If anything they have more Law vs Chaos stories in them, but even then they are not a whole lot of those. Firefly, a show cited as a major influence for Starfinder, is frequently described as Law vs Chaos (Independents being chaos, Alliance being law). However, I prefer to think of it as Neutral vs Chaos or possibly even Chaos vs Chaos. The Alliance allows the border worlds to be the way they are. If they were a lawful society, they would first send in the troops to impose martial law and build up an infrastructure similar to the core worlds. Maybe it is a question of resources or priorities, but their grip is too loose for me to see it as iron strong Lawful. Infact their clear priority to retrieve River to the ruination of all else tells me they are Chaotic. Again, perhaps, they first tried all other (aka more lawful) options before sending in an Agent (i.e. bounty hunter, relying on warrants, etc.) but their willingness to go all the way to Agent-dom to get the job done, tells me they are comfortable working with both lawful and chaotic sides, which is pretty much the definition of neutral.

In either case, SF stories about one's outlook on life giving them powers beyond that of a mortal man are not exactly common. Dune could be an exception to this. Paul Atreides did not have powers that Muad'Dib did possess. Was it his outlook on life that changed, possibly. I think it has more to do with eating a steady diet of worm poop and constant practice. A monk, sure. And a Pathfinder monk must be lawful. I disagree with that, but I do see the logic since constant practice and regimented order are not common marks among chaos. But again, this is where I agree that an alignment chart does poorly in describing people. I person can have a regular regiment of going to the gym, going 10 rounds with a punching bag, and then spending the rest of his day extorting people for money.

Like I said, I'd prefer no alignment, but I am cool with alignment being kept as long as there is no mechanical benefit or penalty to it.


UnArcaneElection wrote:

Even, though he absorbs both of Count Dooku's Force Lightning attacks, he does have the ability to use Force Lightning, whether using the absorbed energy or his own to do it

He doesnt have such ability, no more than a 13th level wizsrd who cast Spell Turning has the "ability to use Blasphemy" against a 13th lvl Evil Cleric.

He has the ability to absorb snd deflect force lightning, which is a defensive Skill. He doesnt have the sbility to cast them because (as quoted above) such thing require a thirst for power, lack of compassion, snd acceptamce of the consequences. Something Siths can do, but Yoda is not willing to.


I feel that the father you get away from the fantasy view of black and white you will find out that there is more shades of grey to consider. I have done away with alignment in all of the campaigns I have run since d20 modern has came out and have used the allegiance system. Alignment is still in the the allegiance system but it doesn't dominate if it was just itself. This would free up those classes that require a alignment to have different options to be defined by, such as a Paladin that has an allegiance, basically a marine that has been in the military for his whole career, to his country instead of a set lawful good. His powers, spells and abilities would come from his belief in his country and all that it does for others countries as well as it's people. As for the Monk it would allow them to properly do the many different philosophies of martial arts that was taught throughout the world. As for the Druid they would have an allegiance to nature instead of neutral. Allegiance isn't perfect but it is better than Alignment for anything that isn't fantasy or black and white.


gustavo iglesias wrote:
UnArcaneElection wrote:

Even, though he absorbs both of Count Dooku's Force Lightning attacks, he does have the ability to use Force Lightning, whether using the absorbed energy or his own to do it

He doesnt have such ability, no more than a 13th level wizsrd who cast Spell Turning has the "ability to use Blasphemy" against a 13th lvl Evil Cleric.

He has the ability to absorb snd deflect force lightning, which is a defensive Skill. He doesnt have the sbility to cast them because (as quoted above) such thing require a thirst for power, lack of compassion, snd acceptamce of the consequences. Something Siths can do, but Yoda is not willing to.

He may or may not have the ability (or merely just the inclination) to use Force Lightning on his own. But what we do know he does have is the ability to take an incoming Force Lightning and negate it or redirect it. And even if he redirects it, he has 360 degrees by 360 degrees of directions to send it, only one of which is occupied by a living person. And once he's taken that Force Lightning (regardless of who originally created it) and attempted to use that power to harm another, then why is he not just as culpable as if he'd created it his own self?

Because there are extenuating circumstances to that event. We are allowed to recognize that Yoda's target is a Sith Lord, who requires nothing, literally nothing, be left on the table in order to defeat, and so Yoda gets to use Force Lightning and still be good.

But alignment having mechanical rules just results in the recognition of those self-same extenuating circumstances be entirely based on someone's whim. If my afore-mentioned Monk is the most disciplined guy who ever did live (the only aspect of the Monk fluff that cares about being lawful), but is otherwise not lawful or even actively trying to be the most chaotic jerk who ever did live (aspects of being lawful that the Monk fluff doesn't care about), then I'm playing that character sitting under a Sword of Damocles hanging over my head, which is very stressful.

This is supposed to be a Saturday afternoon diversion, what you do to get away from the stresses of the week, not add to them. Alignment being anything more than a descriptor and having any rules at all associated with it is a stress ulcer waiting to happen.


gustavo iglesias wrote:
UnArcaneElection wrote:

Even, though he absorbs both of Count Dooku's Force Lightning attacks, he does have the ability to use Force Lightning, whether using the absorbed energy or his own to do it

He doesnt have such ability, no more than a 13th level wizsrd who cast Spell Turning has the "ability to use Blasphemy" against a 13th lvl Evil Cleric.

He has the ability to absorb snd deflect force lightning, which is a defensive Skill. He doesnt have the sbility to cast them because (as quoted above) such thing require a thirst for power, lack of compassion, snd acceptamce of the consequences. Something Siths can do, but Yoda is not willing to.

It's pretty clear in the scene that he absorbs the first Force Lightning attack and THEN casts his own, so he isn't doing just reflection (unless he secretly can warp time too, but then Count Dooku should have been toast even with his trick of threatening Yoda with the death of the nearby people who were down and out).


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I suspect ditching alignment would make game play easier/smoother.

In addition to potentially eliminating all the ethically/morally aligned spells (saving space!) it would also free up the ability to tell stories where 'there is an uncertainty' as to 'who is the good person' without causing problems for the players.

Is it better to have a rigidly enforced mechanical structure that prohibits flexible thinking or have the ability for flexible thinking that may or may not adhere to any particular given structure?

This is the *future*-time of Golarion's corner of the 'Verse. It could even be chalked up as 'a result of the hyperspatial flux' or whatnot, even.

It'd also be one of those things that could be a game-changer for the paradigm, and something that would truly set Starfinder apart from other d20 systems.


Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

I suspect ditching alignment would make game play easier/smoother.

In addition to potentially eliminating all the ethically/morally aligned spells (saving space!) it would also free up the ability to tell stories where 'there is an uncertainty' as to 'who is the good person' without causing problems for the players.

Is it better to have a rigidly enforced mechanical structure that prohibits flexible thinking or have the ability for flexible thinking that may or may not adhere to any particular given structure?

This is the *future*-time of Golarion's corner of the 'Verse. It could even be chalked up as 'a result of the hyperspatial flux' or whatnot, even.

It'd also be one of those things that could be a game-changer for the paradigm, and something that would truly set Starfinder apart from other d20 systems.

Although my preference is for keeping alignment unchanged, it wouldn't really bother me if it's disappearance was a feature of the setting (rather than just a mechanical change). If absolute morality vanished along with Golarion or something.

I think the Golarion universe without alignment is a significant difference (if you embrace alignment as indicating the existence of objective moral forces beyond sentient beings rather than trying to use it as a proxy for real-world morality, which is where I think the problems arise).

Silver Crusade

2 people marked this as a favorite.

I think it would be interesting if aliment in Starfinder the OTHER unchained option where only outsiders from the aligned planes had alignment. Where mortals are shades of gray, but outsiders embody ideals of good/evil/chaos/law/what have you. It could have the benefit of keeping alignment while also lessening its impact on the way characters are portrayed and handled by players or GMs in reference to what is in or out of character for a PC.


What about characters that have aligned auras as one of their class features?

Silver Crusade

GM Rednal wrote:
What about characters that have aligned auras as one of their class features?

I'm not sure how it's relevant. Auras are a sign of their faith in a specifically aligned deity rather than a reflection of their own alignment, and I'd place deities squarely in the "Outsider" camp. Even if some of them were mortals once :-P

1 to 50 of 66 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Starfinder / Starfinder General Discussion / Suggestion for Alignment All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.