Fractured Mind's Phantom Alignment

[anlumo]

Hi,

The Spiritualist's description on the phantom says “A phantom has the same alignment as the spiritualist”, which makes sense there.

The Fractured Mind archetype is supposed to have a part of himself projected into that phantom. This makes the whole thing a lot like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde without the chemical aspect of the Alchemist, or like the protagonist from some other high-profile movie from 1999 I don't want to spoil.

However, why does this phantom have to have the same alignment as the PC? The PC might be a nice person (lawful good) who bottles up a lot of vicious thoughts inside, which eventually erupt into a physical manifestation that is evil to the core (chaotic evil). Both are bound together by the Etheric Tether.

Wouldn't that be great (and very challenging) to play as a PC?

[Tacticslion]

I think it could be, but the reason for the design decision was probably, "We don't want to force people into playing evil characters, and we want to subtly discourage folks from felling forced into narrow character archetypes*, but simultaneously expanding their view of alignment."

In other words, there are two benefits to doing it this way, though I don't know how intended they are.

One: often, people have a view on alignment: that it's a straight-jacket that fills in a bracket that you must follow in all ways. Having this dichotomy could help break that

Two: often, people will feel culturally pressured into making something that follows a specific feel or focus. By mandating same alignment despite other differences, this creates "room" for these otherwise unknown character archetypes, with the presumption that compromise will be worked out with a given GM, locally; simultaneously, it helps give a distinctive and different feel to the game from other works. I actually think, after much perusing, that this might be a driving motivation for many different designer decisions around Paizo, consciously or not.

But that's just speculation.

If your GM wants to allow you to play that way, and you want to play that way; or you're the GM and a player wants to play that way; there is nothing wrong with that, so long as everyone has a good time, over-all. :)

* OOC-term, not a game-term.

[QuidEst]

I'd find LG bottling up righteous anger to be a more interesting character, honestly. Or maybe they're forcefully repressing their fear, and it manifests with all the rationalizations for caution, like greater good in the long run by playing things safe now. Perhaps it's not a repressed emotion, but one that's regularly exercised. As a GM, I'd consider removing the alignment match for a good concept, but 'secret evil side' would probably be a nuisance at the table. I'd be more convinced by 'secret selfish neutral side'.

[anlumo]

QuidEst wrote:

As a GM, I'd consider removing the alignment match for a good concept, but 'secret evil side' would probably be a nuisance at the table. I'd be more convinced by 'secret selfish neutral side'.

Yes, this would probably work better with LG vs. CN. The friendly, self-abandoning person who secretly has a bottled-up selfish side.

[QuidEst]

Doesn't even need to be CN. LN and TN can be every bit as selfish, and there's not much reason for the selfish side to embrace chaos over order.