Goblin Squad Member
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I was trying to consider how alignment would work. In RL good and evil does not really have a meaning because it is very relative. Lawful and chaotic do though. There has been some in the debates so far who claim sociopaths would be evil, I disagree...they would be chaotic. Lawful means you function well within whatever ruleset you choose, not necessarily meaning you function well in the ruleset for the society you live in. An example of this would be Richard in the Sword of Truth novels when he was living with the evil society. He did not follow the rules of the society, but I would definitely still claim he was LG because he did follow a ruleset.
Chaotic characters on the otherhand do not follow any social ruleset. Sociopaths may also be evil, but their definition as sociopaths only dictates their chaotic nature.
One huge difference between RL and PF world is the existence of a pantheon of gods which personify the various alignments in a very real and tangible manner. Therefore, using this difference we can specify that being of a given alignment MEANS that you embody the beliefs and goals of the deity of that given alignment. This removes any ambiguity or call for relativism. I agree that a separate relative "reputation" system which is entirely social based would be ideal instead of trying to build that into the alignment system.
So, how would such an alignment system work? I imagine the best way would be during character creation you would either take a simple personality quiz or select an area on a sliding scale. Once you have a general area of belief, you would be shown the options in that area and choose choose a deity to worship. In my opinion, in a world where gods are actually active and able to even hold two sided conversations, those who choose not to follow a deity are meta-gaming and placing their players worldview over their characters. This said, I do think "no religious preference" should be an option and you would be neutral.
Strengthening you alignment (which perhaps results in more divine favors) or changing your alignment happens when you do missions for other deities. This introduces the idea of passive missions.
Passive missions are missions that every player has and just cannot see. An example of a passive mission is "kill 10 followers of x". Completing this mission moves ones alignment away from that of x and/or gains divine favor with gods at war with x. This mission is passive, but may also actively be taken from clerics of gods at war with x. "Activating" a passive mission by taking the mission allows you to track it.
This also presents an interesting idea about Player given missions (I will also present this idea in a unique thread). Clerics, as devout followers of any deity, should be able to give missions to others based upon the desires of their deity (for instance activating the passive missions, but also more complex missions). As a cleric, the player should have a good idea of the desires of their deity and should be able to pass those on to other players with the reward being divine favor or alignment shifting/strengthening.
** I want to clarify by ruleset I mean a code of honor or ethics dictated individually or by a society. And because someone will argue it *cough*, the lack of a ruleset is not in itself a subset of rulesets any more than a "not chair" is a chair.
**Also for the sake of argument, a group of sociopaths do not a ruleset make. I can arbitrarily define a similarity as the lack of similarity, but it does not really mean anything.
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I'm not wanting to launch any alignement debate, but
Kit, I have generally agreed with you so far but not here. The gods of Golarion hold their alignments because of the beliefs they hold; they do not hold those beliefs because they are of a certain alignment.
To give an example, if you become more Chaotic Neutral, are you becoming more like Gorum, or like Calistria? If you then become more good, are you following Cayden Cailean, or Desna? What happens when followers of Pazuzu (CE) attack followers of Lamashtu (also CE)?
I have always held that alignment is a description of general tendencies, not a determiner of them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Kit, I have generally agreed with you so far but not here. The gods of Golarion hold their alignments because of the beliefs they hold; they do not hold those beliefs because they are of a certain alignment.
To give an example, if you become more Chaotic Neutral, are you becoming more like Gorum, or like Calistria? If you then become more good, are you following Cayden Cailean, or Desna? What happens when followers of Pazuzu (CE) attack followers of Lamashtu (also CE)?
I have always held that alignment is a description of general tendencies, not a determiner of them.
Oh I agree with you...but, they do embody their particular ruleset and alignment within the pantheon. This provides us a foundation to use in creating absolutes in order to build mechanics since this is not likely to change.
True about the people of similar faction attacking each other. I imagine there would be no passive missions unless two factions were at war...so nothing would happen.
@ Silph I am not sure what you mean by good and evil have to be objective. Good and Evil are not good and bad. They are labels for actually forces within the PF universe. It does not matter if Asmodeous and his followers thing that are right or wrong, good or bad, they are still Evil by definition.