Ok, all this makes sense. Might put out an edit later today which includes some of it.
Stabbitty, I know I'm using objective language. I never intended to judge means in a relative way, only ends. Philosophies are relative, attitude is objective. Half the reason attitudes exist is so people can have a range of alignment based powers even though true evil is now in the eye of the beholder.
I'm not worried about making a philosophical statement either, since the 6 philosophies aren't meant to encompass all of philosophy.
None of this is to say you are wrong.
Tim4488, they could. I never actually say they can't, but I write assuming most GMs will keep pretty much every undead evil and stick to some aproximate equivalent of the bestiary alignments.
You might be right about attitudes, but changing that loses us something important.
Altarlost, BvL&C doesn't seem like a good idea to me. BvL and BvC both seek that balance you're talking about already, but they have different ideas about what constitutes balance. I think that kind of neutrality is also bogus. Never met anybody with those values and politics, just different shades of order and freedom.
It doesn't help that BvL&C is potentially more powerful, since it treats more other philosophies as evil.
No, all alignments are currently equally powerful. Each treats a similar range of foes as evil. BvC and BvL likely both treat demons and devils as evil, since the fiends are most likely CvB and LvB respectively. Creatures who oppose the belief you support are evil.
I think the detailed descriptions of religions not being OGL is more of a reason for me to look them up and provide a list than a reason to change the system to accommodate them.
It sounds like Golarion compatibility is a higher priority for you than it is for me.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask people to choose between law and chaos, because it tells us a lot about how the seek to fulfil their goal. "Just pure Benevolence" seems less like a third way and more like a less detailed description.
I just edited the doc again, re-writing the descriptions of Grim and Principled a little to better reflect what I meant. That's not to say I certainly won't change their role based on the feedback, just that's I'm clarifying what attitude is meant to be right now.
I also put in a line about druid alignments down in the class section.
I think the system could really be helped by having a few example specific faiths/philosophies that fall under these categories, or even example groups or individuals of the categories.
For example, for Live and Let Live (if I've misunderstood how to peg the philosophies please tell me, this is just an example):
Example faith: Cilorian
The cilorian faith is common among the halfling communities of golarion, both nomadic and settled ones. It is faith centered around creation and art, a belief that the value of sentience is truly appreciated in the form of creativity. When everyone in a society has the means and time to create what they want, to share their emotions with others, then that is when a society is truly civilized.
Cilorians pay respect to a lot of different gods, though few worship per se. Shelyn, Desna and Cayden Cailean sometimes have shrines in cilorian communities, but most of the respect and faith is shown through songs and art rather than prayers.
Among the faithful, strict laws are seen as stifling and hurtful, limiting the mind and encouraging corruption; rather, collective decisions are used to keep society functioning and fair. Those seen as hurtful - those restricting thought and mind, either by trying to impose laws or by enacting a hierarchy - are usually dealt with by exclusion rather than violence, though the cilorian faith is by no means pacifistic.
Example group: Whisperwood Wasps
The whisperwood Wasps are a semi-secret, insurrectionary group bent on the destruction of the Cheliaxan government and the freeing of the people from their diabolical tyrants. While they were first formed in Whisperwood, their actions have inspired others and they now have a network of cells across Cheliax. Many are slips or other slaves, others are unusually moral members from the higher castes. Through anonymous agitation and direct action they try to cause open revolt against the diabolical oppression, and they've had some moderate success so far.
Through the experience of living in Cheliax, they've come to the conclusion that hierarchies and laws themselves are what creates oppression, and that those must be ended for the betterment of all sentients in Cheliax. Their goal is not untamed lawlessness though, but rather a society built on free-willed cooperation where willingness is upheld through equality of power.
As said, these are just examples and I might have misunderstood how the philosophies where intended. Please correct me in that case.
As a side note, has anyone else found it peculiar that the extremely authoritarian chelaxian state has a flag very close to that of RL syndicalists? It's interesting since they seem the complete opposite in terms of what systems they advocate, in every means possible. Found it a bit funny, an easter egg perhaps?
Huh. That flag thing is indeed amusing.
Examples of the philosophies in action might be useful, yeah. I'm far from an expert on Golarion, but those are both very good fits.
I'd probably remove the words "a common view and" from Cilorian, as it sounds a little bit BvC, but aside from that, perfect.
I thought about adding this kind of thing before, but I didn't because of word count concerns. I was hoping the system would turn out shorter than it already is. Now that so many clarity issues have been raised, it might be time to embrace a larger, more comprehensive format.
Huh. That flag thing is indeed amusing.
Examples of the philosophies in action might be useful, yeah. I'm far from an expert on Golarion, but those are both very good fits.
I'd probably remove the words "a common view and" from Cilorian, as it sounds a little bit BvC, but aside from that, perfect.
Done! I was kinda aiming for the "hippy"ish concept with the first, and insurrectionary anarchism with the second. Think they both fit quite well. The second one would probably mostly have pragmatic people, the first one could have both pragmatic and principled.
Great. That's the vibe I got from them. I might just have to use these. If I do, I'll be sure to add a credits section.
Anybody have thoughts about the current Grim and Principled descriptions?
No credit needed :)
I could help writing up more if you want, though.
I wouldn't say no! Saves me a job and gets somebody else's voice and perspective. I'll still credit you if I use your stuff, otherwise I'd feel like I was claiming to have written it.
I preferred your old definitions of Grim and Principled, I just didn't like the assertion that grim was associated with evil and principled with good.
I once used an alignment system I found in White Dwarf in the 80's. It had a list of priorities, king, country, race, money etc with each character choosing between 1 and 7. If a character had less than 7 they would make up superstitions, one every x priorities they had picked. The number of priorities mapped to the balance on the L v C scale and the ones chosen mapped to the good v evil scale.
Anyway, one PC created a 1e Elven Assassin that had King, Country and Race as the 3 priorities. She was NE by the RAW but would willingly lay down their life to protect the Elven realm. Other 'short lived' races didn't matter but there was no pleasure in killing them, it was just the best course of action and roleplayed the characteriestics rather than NE. By your system she could potentially BvC Grim as she did all she could to protect Elves and their way of life and accepted she had to do unpleasant things to achieve that.
I see that character as very different to the Joker, demons and devils which take pleasure in causing pain, misery and destruction
Grim is meant to be an extremely broad umbrella. If you think your character and the Joker both seeming Grim is a problem. you're expecting Grim to be something I never intended it to.
The mechanical association of Grim and Principled is the reason why they're in the document. If something has no mechanical effect, it doesn't need rules.
I don't see any reason to replace any other part of the system with Attitude or add new mechanics, so if I took away the association with the old Good and Evil alignments, I'd delete attitude completely.
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While I can see the argument for most things that were evil becoming grim and most things that were good becoming principled, this doesn't hold up for all philosophies. It would be worthwhile to say that many evil things may end up being "non-principled" or "non-grim" for most philosophies, but those philosophies that support such actions (such as using poison) it may not have any requirement of that form at all.
IMO, the ones that required "Good" before should simply drop that requirement (since what "good" means becomes relative). In a select few cases I could imagine that some that are labeled good might be appropriate for a "principled-only" requirement, but I doubt this is the general case. The ones that required "Evil" should probably say "Grim or supporting philosophy", or "non-principled or supporting philosophy".
I dunno. I don't really see why directly replacing good requirements with principled and evil requirements with grim is a problem.
Can you give me a few examples of abilities where it doesn't make sense?
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I dunno. I don't really see why directly replacing good requirements with principled and evil requirements with grim is a problem.
Can you give me a few examples of abilities where it doesn't make sense?
Well, the Assassin PrC (for a CRB example) has "evil" requirement. However, if one's philosophy centered around the idea that the strong survive and the weak must have deserved it, then to you the idea of killing people for money is just fine. Nothing about your principles says its wrong to kill people for money.
To go a step further, you could also have the philosophy of LvB, where law is all that matters. In this country you are one of the many state assassins, charged with killing enemies of the state due to their destabilizing effect on the nation. To become one they have a simple test: kill an enemy of the state, as designated when you apply. If you succeed, you are an assassin, if you fail you are left to suffer any relevant consequences (though the state does not directly punish you). Because of this, the assassin prestige class would actually be a Principled class.
There are probably more examples I could dig up, but the point is that most evil things probably are "grim-only" for most philosophies, but some philosophies would not require it.
Most things don't require good or evil, really, so most examples are going to be classes or prestige classes.
In the case of channel energy I'd probably say that unless you try to declare the energy types themselves good or evil, the use of either is itself neutral and either choice can be made by anyone except in the case where their philosophy or deity explicitly bans it.
I agree with what stabbity said above, tried to say that before but failed to articulate it properly.
That is why I suggested principled to be equal to lawful and grim/pragmatic to be equal to chaotic in terms of requirements, letting good/evil be determined by support/opposition of benevolence.
Grim is meant to be an extremely broad umbrella. If you think your character and the Joker both seeming Grim is a problem. you're expecting Grim to be something I never intended it to.
In one of your earlier revisions you had grim described as somebody willing to break their own moral code to serve a greater purpose whilst a principled person wouldn't break their own moral code.
There was no mention of whether that greater purpose was good or evil and I thought that was a fantastic concept.
What is missing is a set of philosophies that are inherently evil. The two vB ones could just as easily be self centred/uncaring as presented - and I could easily see a used car salesmen and the like as CvB Grim - they don't care about the customer or the company image, they just want to hit their target and will sell the car to anyone naive enough to buy it even though they know it's a lemon.
The Joker, Anti-Paladins, demons, devils and the Assassin examples could all be principled but their philosophies are abhorrent to most people. They are not just versus being benevolent they are actively depraved.
Taking Depraved as D you could have
DvL Principled (Demonic)
DvL Grim (Cruel)
DvC Principled (Diabolic)
DvC Grim (Despotic)
I... don't see the need for an "evil" philosophy spectrum really. Then we get pretty much back to the whole standard spectrum, which Mortuum is trying to get away from. The whole system judging thing.
I think CvB and LvB are perfectly fine as "evil" philosophies. The joker would be CvB or CvL, demons are CvB, devils are LvB and assassins can be a little whatever (the alignment restriction on assassins where already kinda weird and didn't really mesh well with their abilities).
Assassins, even supposing the current requirement of "kill someone for the purpose of joining", could easily be CvL, LvB, or CvB - possibly even LvC though that might be harder to argue.
I really don't see the need of another spectrum. I mean, what's the difference between "demonic" and "survival of the fittest"? The difference between "I love torturing and hate the law so I'll torture people when I want to" and "I love torturing and no law should be able to stop me so I'll torture people when I want to"?
Look at the description of CvB:
"these characters believe that people have the right to do what they want and take what they can, even if that means taking the power and freedom of others."
That's demons, right there.
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Yeah, I'm also in the "no need for direct conversions" camp. Doing so just invites people to go "Oh, so that's the evil/good alignment for this variant."
My leaving evil and good without explicit definition you truly shove the world into a set of grays. Some may be darker or lighter, but it is very rarely black or white.
Personally, I'd even strip the aligned subtypes from outsiders and just put a note that says "always follows X philosophy, listed in more detail elsewhere" then put the appropriate descriptor (such as LvB) in their "Alignment" field. This further removes any given philosophy from being presumed evil (or good, for that matter). They can still be avatars of all that is evil, but they don't have a sign on them saying that's it's because of the "vB", because it wouldn't be because of that.
Ilja, Stabbity, thanks for your comments. I wasn't trying to get a direct correlation, although I realise that's how it looked and I'm very keen on the idea relativistic alignment rather than absolute alignment system.
I've found the text v3.0 and v3.5 Books of Vile and Exalted Deeds to have some excellent thought-provoking commentary in the nature of good and evil and have wanted to incorporate it for a long while but couldn't get away from the absolute alignment system. Mortuum's idea has sparked something that I think is very good indeed and certainly for the spectrum of 'good' it seems to cover it.
What I still think is missing is the spectrum of evil. Responding and expanding on Ilja's quote of CvB is the phrasing 'even if'. To take my car salesman example he would sell a clapped out old banger to a teenage driver who has saved really hard for it even though he knows it's going to be in the scrapyard within a month. He's done it because selling cars is his living and it is up to the buyer to be aware of what they are buying. Had the teenager instead had a little more money he would have sold him a better car instead. The point is, there's no malicious intent. Similarly a lot of thieves steal propery, not to be malicious but because they don't care. Even murder could fall into this category to stop the victim reporting the crime - these all fall into the it's you or me and I choose me.
The depraved philosophies I proposed cover the 'I get pleasure out of inflicting chaos, pain, misery etc. on others just for the sake of it'. It's not a question of survival but of fun. The car salesman would never dream of mounting the pavement on his way home just to get kicks out of watching terrified pedestrians run for their lives; or even just revving the engine at a crossing to startle somebody crossing who isn't paying much attention.
I really like a lot of what you have done here. I think intent and perception definitely matter when talking about alignment.
My main issue is that the multiple philosophies don't streamline very well with the current Good Evil Axis. Perhaps once I was used to it then it wouldn't be an issue, but right now having to either write a philosophy or even look one up for every single NPC seems a little taxing. I like the system very much, I just would like something a little simpler for these interactions. I can see many creatures, especially humanoids, becoming "something else" on the spot as a means of saving time when determining if they are good or evil.
Edit: I also did feel that there should still be some group for "I get chemical rewards for hurting people" mentality. Hugo describes it pretty well under the heading Depraved.
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I really like a lot of what you have done here. I think intent and perception definitely matter when talking about alignment.
My main issue is that the multiple philosophies don't streamline very well with the current Good Evil Axis. Perhaps once I was used to it then it wouldn't be an issue, but right now having to either write a philosophy or even look one up for every single NPC seems a little taxing. I like the system very much, I just would like something a little simpler for these interactions. I can see many creatures, especially humanoids, becoming "something else" on the spot as a means of saving time when determining if they are good or evil.
Edit: I also did feel that there should still be some group for "I get chemical rewards for hurting people" mentality. Hugo describes it pretty well under the heading Depraved.
I think having Depraved as just another choice in the belief list would make it too easy to select "BvD" for most good guys and "DvB" for most bad guys rather than putting any real thought into it, and it also essentially leads to you having good and evil under different names. (EDIT: Also, all other beliefs are things the believer considers or at least can consider "good", the new belief would have to be able to fit that description.)
You would have to make something that isn't just the opposite of benevolence to make that work. Perhaps having something called Hedonism instead of Depravity. Hedonism would be more general, referring to the belief that the ultimate goal in life is to enjoy oneself. The Depravity attitude would be covered under HvB.
This would explode the number of philosophies to 12, though.
How about simply unprincipled for the more sadistic types?
Either that or keep the good/evil benevolent/malevolent whatever axis, but the philosophies act in tandem with them to define what good means to that character. While a lot of people think they are doing good things, probably most people, there are many out their who don't care that they are evil. They are bad and they know it.
Hedonism could easily be selfish and not so inherently evil and is more of a chaotic tendency.
I don't think BvD is a valid choice as one is inherently against the other but there could be a grey scale from light to dark along ther lines of:
B - Benevolent - goes out of way to help people
vD - Against Depravity, normal - doesn't go out of way to help people but tries not to harm
vB - Against Benevolence, selfish, uncaring, nasty - doesn't care about other people
D - Depraved - goes out of way to harm people
This would bring the list of philosophies to 10, being:
BvL - Liberty and Tolerance
BvC - Harmony
LvD - Social Responsibility (New)
LvC - Propiety (potentially omit, or lighten to be social responsibility)
LvB - Authoritarianism
CvD - Individualism (Changed existing definition)
CvL - Anarchy (Replaced existing definition - potentially omit altogether)
CvB - Survival of the Fittest (potentially darken slightly)
DvL - 'Burn the World' (new)
DvC - Tyranny (new)
Two of those philosophies could potentially be omitted bringing it down to 8.
The darkest philosophies wouldn't necessarily be the easy ones to give the bad guys. DvL would want to destroy the world, even for themselves and would be reserved for the truly, madly evil creatures like demons or The Joker, Orcs and the like would probably be the darker CvB. Similarly many creatures like Hobgoblins are probably LvB rather than DvL, they don't rule through fear.
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I am intrigued by this proposal. The alignment system has indeed felt a bit....ehhhhhh....cliche? I dunno. Having a slightly more relative system that still presents clear dynamics is a welcome idea. I can picture the three philosophies on a rock-paper-scissors type triangle, with each philosophy picking one and beating another. the principled-to-grim thing looks more like a sidebar, or....wait. I got it. How about a visual description?
picture the aforementioned triangle, each point being B, C, and L, clockwise from top. Now a hex of circles in the middle. Now imagine each circle has formats to fill in either a slash, X, or fill in. This would represent:
GRIM(the slash, for moral flexibility)
NEUTRAL(the X, representing first preference)
PRINCIPLED(the fill, representing dedicated)
Each circle will be slightly clockwise or counterclockwise from each letter, representing which philosophy you oppose. So in this example, by X'ing the circle to C's right, you would be picking neutral CvL. Draw it out if you like, can't very well make a depiction here because of Paizo.com's weird spacing. Once established, it seems a very elegant and simple way to depict your entire outlook with a mark, two marks, or a little scribbling in.
Can't claim to have solved all the issues presented, and perhaps it's not terribly important to the discussion at this time, but maybe that's a noteworthy contribution? the idea came to me as I was thinking on the system, and I felt I had to get it out there. It's gotta go on a character sheet sometime, eh? In my mind's eye, at least, it seems a simple and elegant way to denote your attitude and philosophy with a single visual depiction.
Course, nothing says you can't just write PCvL or GLvB, but....that's boring...and a visual diagram makes reference easy!
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:O lots of replies! I'll try to answer them all.
Daynen, the beliefs are a triangle, yes. I imagined putting an arrow somewhere on the edge of it pointing from your supported belief to your opposed belief to represent philosophy, with attitude represented on a separate sliding scale.
Hugo and Sitri, hedonism isn't a capital P Philosophy using the language of this system. It's not upholding a belief or opposing one, it's just something people might like. It can be represented by not taking a Philosophy at all, but it's also compatible with every single one.
My take on alignment has nothing to say about what a character's idea of a good time is. If you get your kicks by murdering people at random, you probably don't stand for Benevolence and you're likely Grim, but that's
I'm afraid there will never be an inherently evil belief in this system. Hurting people is generally not a philosophical goal and adding Depravity would be redundant.
Your vD philosophies are all just different names for existing philosophies and your Dv's are all existing philosophies with their motivations removed, reducing them to mere descriptions of behaviour rather than philosophies.
Jim, you're not alone in that, no, though I am not a Mass Effect player. "Lawful" in this system means supporting law OR opposing chaos. I have considered changing the name of the law belief to Order to help clarify this, but I can't think of a good alternate name for Chaos. Discord and Disorder both seem inappropriate.
Sitri again, I don't think this system should make it harder to assign alignments except for the fact that it's new. Attitude won't matter a jot for most monsters and can be set to reflect their abilities, leaving you to pick one of the 6 philosophies or decide not to assign one, which is 7 options instead of the previous 9.
Hugo again, on the topic of Exalted Deeds and Vile Darkness: I don't appreciate the philosophy of those books, cool though much of their content is.
They are the antithesis of what I'm aiming for here.
Making yourself fat to get tougher and scarier is evil? Please. The stuff in Vile Darkness about ugliness, torture, human sacrifice and cruel magic is exactly the kind of stuff that made me want the Attitude system in the document. You could use it for good or ill, unpleasant though it might be. Meanwhile, the vows, pacifism and forgiveness of Exalted deeds are just the kind of stuff that fits well under Principled. The books seem to focus on what characters will or will not do and make unwarented assumptions about why.
I see them books as akin to Adam West Batman. They're great fun, but I wouldn't call them thought provoking. They seem to be written on the basis that all good guys can be best buddies and that sex is wrong unless its performed in the party approved manner.
If you were to use those books with this alignment system, they might get very interesting indeed. I'll have to look into that.
Stabbity, leaving the outsiders as representations of plain old good and evil seems inconsistent. Half the point of this system is that "plain old good and evil" don't exist in it. Re-introducing them as characters in the form of outsiders would also be re-introducing objective morality measured in terms of similarities to angels and deamons.
As far as the Grim/Principled descriptions thing goes, I think you're still focused on the old definition which caused this debate in the first place. I didn't make Attitude to have a measure of how closely a person sticks to his alignment, I made it to have a measure of how dirty he's willing to get his hands.
Do you think the system would really benefit from having a dedicated measure of how rigidly people stick to their beliefs? I'm not sure how much it brings to the table.
Do you think renaming principled to Noble or something would help make more sense? I'm beginning to think it might. Saying Principled just implies so much that it shouldn't.
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I think opposing words for lawful/chaotic would be Order and Freedom - like benevolence, they have generally positive connotations, though they are sometimes (often) at odds. Someone who is "chaotic" thinks freedom is the most important thing, someone who is "lawful" thinks order and stability is the most important thing, and someone who is benevolent thinks the well-being of people is the most important thing.
Order and Freedom probably work better. In fact, I think I'll probably change them in the next edit and make the entire thread so far illegible to newcomers :)
"LvC? What the hell does that mean?"
Working on outsiders now. Will do core gods next.
Haha!
Though I still think principled/grim have weird consequences. Someone who is principled CvB and think all weak people should die, no exceptions, would be seen as "good" by the system, while if someone who is grim BvC and think that "People's right to live stand above all other concerns" while their grimness means that they might sometimes ignore that rule if killing one person (say a rampaging mass murderer) would save loads of people, that person would be considered evil by the system.
I don't think there's any need to tie attitudes to alignments, alignment prerequisites can be more or less dropped simply, leaving attitudes as just descriptors of personality rather than as a rules mechanic with weird side effects.
And I also feel that principled/grim goes a bit into the whole system judging thing. Principled is generally seen as something positive or at least neutral, while grim is seen as something negative. Principled/pragmatic seems more fitting.
Sorry if I come of as bashing your system - that is not the intent, I think this is a fantastic idea, just needs a little polishing and has some rough edges here and there.
No, you don't come off as bashing. All this is very helpful and appreciated.
I think we still see Grim and Principled in different lights, which might still be down to problems with descriptions as much as anything.
My intention is that Grim and Principled are different kinds of strength, unwillingness to compromise on different aspects of living by your ideals.
Grim is meant to be less huggable and it's meant to seem evil if you don't look hard. It's not meant to be any more or less at its core.
Principled is not my idea of better. Hell, it could even be called cowardly at times.
I see what you mean though and I am thinking hard about it.
LazarX, I know what you mean, but that's not my real aim. Check out the system goals. I never say "shades of grey", but I do say "retain compatibility with existing mechanics".
The system I've come up with would be very well suited to a setting with grey and grey morality, but that's not its sole purpose.
Changing Principled to Noble now. I was thinking about Watchmen just now and Rorschach is 110% principled by the dictionary definition, but he's not by the current system definition. I'm changing the name of the Neutral Attitude to Moderate, so everything can have a different initial.
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Stabbity, leaving the outsiders as representations of plain old good and evil seems inconsistent. Half the point of this system is that "plain old good and evil" don't exist in it. Re-introducing them as characters in the form of outsiders would also be re-introducing objective morality measured in terms of similarities to angels and deamons.
As far as the Grim/Principled descriptions thing goes, I think you're still focused on the old definition which caused this debate in the first place. I didn't make Attitude to have a measure of how closely a person sticks to his alignment, I made it to have a measure of how dirty he's willing to get his hands.
Do you think the system would really benefit from having a dedicated measure of how rigidly people stick to their beliefs? I'm not sure how much it brings to the table.
Do you think renaming principled to Noble or something would help make more sense? I'm beginning to think it might. Saying Principled just implies so much that it shouldn't.
Whether you use the subtypes or not, having a listed philosophy for the outsiders will effectively give them a default "alignment". And changing their philosophy overall seems like a bad move. They're supposed to represent that which is beyond redemption and without worth, and is considered so by even more unsavory types. It might be better to say "this situation not handled" if you're afraid of introducing black and white situations. Keep in mind that no matter how depraved they are, there will be at least one philosophy that finds their stuff treating these outsiders as "holy".
Back to Grim/Principled: From the character's perspective, "how willing they are to get their hands dirty" is exactly equivalent to "how willing am I to violate my beliefs". If they didn't believe it to be a bad thing, it wouldn't be seen as getting their hands dirty. At best I could see it including "How willing am I to violate the beliefs of others" as well, but whether it includes that would depend on whether or not they oppose benevolence (if they do, they probably don't care).
One of the things I liked about this idea is that it meant that no matter what the PC did, as long as they didn't say "my character changes his mind about X belief" we wouldn't have to change their alignment, just their attitude. And attitude didn't affect a whole lot, so it should hopefully not result in mid-game arguments like "Holy word shouldn't hurt me!"
Then again, I usually feel that it's just easier to strip out alignment entirely and say "tough luck" if people want alignment-based effects.
On a side note, if one is trying to make outsiders more gray in terms of alignment, it's probably easier to make good outsiders less likeable than to make evil outsiders more likeable. If a lot of good outsiders are "grim"/practical and that leads to the deaths of a lot of people "for the greater good", and if others are so principled that that leads to the deaths of a lot of people by inaction or impractical action, that instantly makes demons/devils feel less extreme.
Ok, I have put up some guidelines for the outsider races. For the most part, the "evil" outsider races are represented as both anti-Benevolence and Grim. This is not because those two have anything to do with one another, but because these outsiders come from a game written with the old alignment system, where those two were strongly associated.
I have suggested that they are probably only a cross-section of the kinds of outsiders that exist, with the other combinations yet to be discovered.
I have mostly tried to keep their identities intact, only changing Agathions and Deamons significantly, as they were previously embodiments of absolute, objective good and evil, which are hopefully dead in this system.
The [Dark] and [Bright] subtypes have been renamed [Grim] and [Noble]. It seemed simpler that way.
Stabbitty, I disagree that dirty and and against beliefs are identical from the character's perspective. A character who believes that killing a person in cold blood is right will still instinctively recoil at the violence and have to overcome their own distaste until they become desensitised through exposure, for example.
Many Christians believe that it's just for sinners to burn in hell, but how comfortable do you think they'd be if they were made to watch, let alone participate?
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Ok, I have put up some guidelines for the outsider races. For the most part, the "evil" outsider races are represented as both anti-Benevolence and Grim. This is not because those two have anything to do with one another, but because these outsiders come from a game written with the old alignment system, where those two were strongly associated.
I have suggested that they are probably only a cross-section of the kinds of outsiders that exist, with the other combinations yet to be discovered.I have mostly tried to keep their identities intact, only changing Agathions and Deamons significantly, as they were previously embodiments of absolute, objective good and evil, which are hopefully dead in this system.
The [Dark] and [Bright] subtypes have been renamed [Grim] and [Noble]. It seemed simpler that way.
Stabbitty, I disagree that dirty and and against beliefs are identical from the character's perspective. A character who believes that killing a person in cold blood is right will still instinctively recoil at the violence and have to overcome their own distaste until they become desensitised through exposure, for example.
Many Christians believe that it's just for sinners to burn in hell, but how comfortable do you think they'd be if they were made to watch, let alone participate?
Attempting to categorize acts as inherently dirty/not-dirty might be difficult and heads back to objectivism. Are you sure you want to tread down that path? It sends the system from being very explicit and well-defined into vague territory that could lead to similar arguments that the original alignment system did, like some DM arguing that the paladin should fall for killing someone since it's always a Grim act.
If you're okay with that, then more power to ya, but my main problem with the core alignment was its vagueness and I was hopeful this system might head down a more explicit path. I guess I'll either adapt it or just remove alignment entirely.
I am not ok with vagueness. Not a bit ok. I agree that there's a problem here and though I don't think it's quite as serious as you seem to, I would like to solve it somehow.
I just changed Law and Chaos to Order and Freedom. This should confuse the hell out of people.
If anybody can find a problem with the outsider notes at the end or an incorrect reference to Law or Chaos, I'd love to hear about it.
EDIT: Note that Paladins cannot fall for committing Grim acts, only for committing an evil act, by their own standards (which may well be Grim, but that's not the important thing about it).
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I am not ok with vagueness. Not a bit ok. I agree that there's a problem here and though I don't think it's quite as serious as you seem to, I would like to solve it somehow.
I just changed Law and Chaos to Order and Freedom. This should confuse the hell out of people.
If anybody can find a problem with the outsider notes at the end or an incorrect reference to Law or Chaos, I'd love to hear about it.
Well, you have a few choices.
- You can make grim/noble have multiple meanings (which may lead to arguments if you follow 2 things from noble and 1 from grim or visa-versa.) This may not work so well in relation to "killing things is dirty" because, well, much of the game is killing things, so that would essentially kill the Noble guys.
- You can leave those "dirty" acts outside the scope of this alignment system entirely.
- You can add a new axis that represents these "dirty" acts.
Personally, I'd go with the second one and leave them out. The first option, however, is probably the worst as it makes the core pieces vague. The third option.. well I'm not sure what purpose it would serve, but you could probably come up with something.
Actually, how about option 4: Leave the "dirty" things outside of the alignment axes, but have a section describing those sorts of acts and how they tend to make people act in an uncharacteristic fashion, often resulting in people violating their own beliefs and going Grim. The acts themselves, however, are neither grim nor noble, they simply usually cause people to take uncharacteristic actions.
I don't see 4 as functionally very different to what we have now. It seems to be mostly a matter of emphasis.
If I separate Attitude from the mechanics of Good and Evil, I will remove them entirely. That's all they do, mechanically, and this is a set of mechanics.
I did not say killing was grim. I said killing people in cold blood or assisting in the eternal torture of a soul would be Grim.
The system is not as free of other absolutes as you seem to think, either. It also treats Order, Freedom, Law, Chaos, Benevolence and what qualifies as apathy or making a stand as objectively quantifiable.
Stabbitty, looking at my last post it seems aggressively blunt. Didn't mean to be rude there.
EDIT: Removed alignment restrictions on the Barbarian and Monk. I never agreed with them before, but they don't seem appropriate at all given the breadth of the Philosophies.
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I don't see 4 as functionally very different to what we have now. It seems to be mostly a matter of emphasis.
If I separate Attitude from the mechanics of Good and Evil, I will remove them entirely. That's all they do, mechanically, and this is a set of mechanics.
I did not say killing was grim. I said killing people in cold blood or assisting in the eternal torture of a soul would be Grim.
The system is not as free of other absolutes as you seem to think, either. It also treats Order, Freedom, Law, Chaos, Benevolence and what qualifies as apathy or making a stand as objectively quantifiable.
While the beliefs may be objective, they are written without emphasis on how those beliefs are used, allowing a lot of subjectivity without having to argue system rules. It works because it's what YOU believe that matters and what you BELIEVE that matters, it doesn't matter what anyone does (yourself or otherwise), your philosophy remains the same.
As I currently see it, your philosophy represents beliefs and your attitude represents acts. Acts are always tricky and probably prone to argument, so the less vagueness the better. The more you pile on as possible Grim or Noble acts, the more vague it gets. Anything you ever put on that list that isn't hinged on the belief/philosophy, however, starts to smell of objectivism.
Even killing in cold blood is inserting subjective elements as though they could be objective. Is it cold blood if the person looked at you funny? What if they stole from you? What if they slapped you? Or punched you? What if they stabbed you? What if they did these things to a family member instead of yourself? At what point does it go from "cold blood" to an acceptable killing? You would have to define this very carefully and probably have to frame it in terms of philosophy to make it work, and even then it might be hairy. These are things that people struggle with intensely even in modern times.
I wouldn't bother having the system try to cover things like "Eternal torture of the soul" as it feels like it's trying to cover extremes that people can agree on without having a system do it for them. Categorizing that with anything would almost certainly have people jump right back into using it as good v evil. Heck, I'd even prefer it if true evil and true good are beyond the understanding of the world itself (because keep in mind that alignment is a property of the world).
You're dead right, of course.
I have just made another minor edit which softens the language used to describe Grim characters. It changes little, but it no longer insults them or implies they are selfish when they don't follow a Philosophy.
Still not completely satisfied.
Hugo again, on the topic of Exalted Deeds and Vile Darkness: I don't appreciate the philosophy of those books, cool though much of their content is. <snip>
I was specifically referring to pages 5-9 of the BoVD and 5-11 of BoExD when referencing those sources. I pretty much agree with you regards much of the rest of the content.
I'm afraid there will never be an inherently evil belief in this system. Hurting people is generally not a philosophical goal and adding Depravity would be redundant.
Your vD philosophies are all just different names for existing philosophies and your Dv's are all existing philosophies with their motivations removed, reducing them to mere descriptions of behaviour rather than philosophies.
I think that's the fundamental point I disagree with you on. The very foulest creatures and BBEGs are motivated by inherently evil philosophies, as are some of the great fictional antagonists and some of the worlds's worst criminals - most of home are locked away in prison hospitals for mental illnesses. In effect it feels as though your system covers the normal range but is missing something to describe the darkest, abnormal motivations and you are trying to cover that by exception rather than include it as a patr of your overall system.
Well, the descriptions you gave of the D-related philosophies were definitely all things that are supposed to be included in existing philosophies.
You may have a point that I don't cover doing wrong things for the sake of their wrongness, but that's outside the scope of philosophies, which exist to say what characters think is right.
If anything ever gets introduced to represent doing things you know to be wrong for kicks, it will most likely be a twist on the attitude system or something new altogether.
I will have to look up those pages later.