RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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The alignment system has been a part of the hobby for a long time, and has seen little change from the Good-Evil and Chaos-Lawful axis in many decades. It is so well known that it spawns countless memes, debates, and discussion even outside of the hobby. It is, however, outdated and this play test offers an opportunity to try something different.
While I understand Eric Mona's sentiment that removing something from the game has the danger of pissing off a fandom, we should still use this opportunity to at least try to innovate in this area of the game. If it doesn't work, if it isn't liked, there is still an opportunity to change it back to the way it was before. To keep alignment as it is will be missing an opportunity to do something Mr. Mona and others have said they want to do: facilitate storytelling in inclusive and accessible ways.
Keeping the concepts of good, evil, law, and chaos in the game is still possible without the current alignment system. After all, anything that replaces the current system will have to allow for planes of existence and creatures that are the absolute representations of those concepts. Devils should always be lawful and evil, for example. Spells and items should totally be able to carry auras that tie them to those concepts as well. Those auras help tell a story about the world, and to remove those elements removes something fundamental about fantasy games.
However, alignment for PCs, most NPCs, and most monsters is not nearly as helpful or inclusive as it could be. To start, most games simply ignore PC alignment until it is needed because of a class, spell, or effect. While alignment has the potential of facilitating character development, it is far too broad and ambiguous to inform interesting action. Good generally means that I have other people's interests at heart, but it doesn't actively encourage me to do specific good actions. There is little to nothing there encouraging the player could play directly with or against their alignment, and GMs don't have something specific they can directly challenge unless the player is a paladin.
Alignment as is also doesn't provide as much depth to the game as a similar system could. By limiting the trait to five terms it also limits creative play, and in some cases differences of opinion on what they mean can make them exclusive. While the simplicity of the system is good, it is ultimately shallow in what it provides players. It assumes that all Lawful Good characters are going to share the same opinions on what is both lawful and good, when in reality that will not be the case. As is, it doesn't encourage those two characters to explore those differences in any meaningful way. It also doesn't encourage either to have a difference from the other that can be played with.
Instead, I suggest we remove alignment from player characters and other elements where they are not needed for an aura or direct creature type. Certain classes can still inherit an aura, but other than that the PCs wouldn't have an alignment. What they could have is something more personalized to the character, such a statement of belief or morality, that can be used to inform their action, to be played against in interesting ways, and to be challenged. It could also be something given to NPCs that PCs may have methods of discovery for (sense motive? Detect Morality?)
The system could also have something built into it to encourage active play with the statements or aspects. Something that the GM could use as a guide when rewarding players for role play.
Here are two possible ideas:
Morality
Pick two adjectives that describe your character's moral character. Examples include but are not limited to chaste, honest, greedy, murderous, lustful, reserved, honorable, and kind.
Belief
Taken directly from Mouseguard/Burning Wheel, belief is a statement of belief that informs the character's morality and actions. "It's not what you fight against, but what you fight for that matter."
Both of these could have a reward system attached to them. Playing with, or even against, either could reward the player bonus experience points, or maybe even a bonus to a check. Morality could be something easily integrated into detection spells or the Sense Motive check. Belief would be trickier to put into monsters or NPCs, but it also encourages more thought into who the character is and what they live and die for.
No matter what is used in place of alignment, we need something with more depth and allows more inclusion. Something that has less potential for contention at the table and in discussion. This is a perfect opportunity to experiment and see what could be done. The perfect chance to move away from an old outdated system that has outlived its usefulness. We don't need to remove the elements of alignment completely from the game, but we should at least rethink how they are used and find ways to expand our tools to tell meaningful moral tales.
Now, I understand that this might be coming in too late. That to change how alignment is used would require far too much work. If so, oh well, but I couldn't let this play test pass without adding my voice and suggestions to this issue.
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As a quick thought before I have to go back to work...
There could be two traits involved here.
Alignment, which shows your spiritual attachment to the four fundamentals of the Great Beyond. Most people will not have one. Divine classes are more likely to, but mostly people are unaligned and have no particular predilection towards any particular force.
Allegiance, which shows your commitment to more material concerns. Your loyalties and passions that are the key drives to your character. You could thus be an honorable character, but still think that Law as a cosmic force is not something you want to support either now or in the hereafter.
In hindsight this is a lot like how Fantasycraft does it, so that would be fine too.
Id prefer the easy to ignore system as is (Paladins noted). I think your ideas are great for spurring up discussion on character motives. However, it seems like a complicated addition to a game that is attempting to become easier to enter. I'm not to fond of RP rules either. /not signed
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We have WAY too many alignment threads already.
We have WAY too many alignment threads already.
I wonder why... It's almost like people either LOVE or HATE it. :P
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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Alignment isn't without its uses and merits, but as a tool for informing PCs on what their behavior should and should be it falls flat and lacks nuance. It has more potential for contention than other aspects of the game. It should be kept for creatures, items, and spells that need alignment related auras. It should be used when it helps to tell engaging stories.
I just don't see a reason to keep it tied to players and NPCs anymore. It doesn't even need to be replaced, but the merits of keeping it as is no longer outweigh the drawbacks and issues.
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I like it as a descriptive tool, but not as a proscription of how a character should behave.We have WAY too many alignment threads already.I wonder why... It's almost like people either LOVE or HATE it. :P
it's almost like it has the most variety of interpretation of any other rule or system. that range from barely matter if it does at all ,to derails the game into a morality argument.
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I like it as a descriptive tool, but not as a proscription of how a character should behave.We have WAY too many alignment threads already.I wonder why... It's almost like people either LOVE or HATE it. :P
If only mechanical elements weren't intrinsically tied to a "descriptive tool"... Sigh...
Myself, I don't mind alignment for groups [races, cities, unions, ect] to give a rough/general idea of outlook. It's when it's used for a singular entity that is fails to reflect the complex personalities of PC's and NPC's in it's black and white, 2 axis terms.
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I'm sure it's already been considered, and they decided to keep it. I also think it will upset too many people.
The best option at this point, instead of railing against it, is to try to make it better.
That would also have the bonus effect of having a decrease in "should this paladin fall" theads.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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I'm sure it's already been considered, and they decided to keep it. I also think it will upset too many people.
The best option at this point, instead of railing against it, is to try to make it better.
That would also have the bonus effect of having a decrease in "should this paladin fall" threads.
I am sure you are right. I'm really hoping though that we can see a change this time around, even if it a small one.
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That deppends heavily on how they are changing PCs to NPCs to Monsters...
Ultimately, many effects directly deal with this, If there is protection against good/evil, but PCs/ NPCs dont have this? Then what? Same goes for smite evil and so on and on. Dectect now doesnt return anything?
Personally im against putting players "outside" the set of rules other creatures have. If the monster can be tested and objectively good or bad, than so can the PC. They arent above the forces of the universe.
And im also against removing these options from the game entirely, which means, i side with keeping it for everyone.
It assumes that all Lawful Good characters are going to share the same opinions on what is both lawful and good.
No it explicitly doesn't. 1) LG characters can take non-LG actions and still remain LG, which is measurement of overall moral value, which one action doesn't necessarily impact. 2) There perfectly well can be multiple courses of action that all can count as LG. The idea that existence of 2-axis moral measurement means all personalities and moral distinctions are boiled down to 9 options is not supported by rules. Alignment is gross measurement, and just as you can simplify cardinal directions to N/S/E/W does not mean there are only 4 unique directions the wind can blow.
You yourself wrote that Alignment is broadly ignored by the game except as especially invoked. So likewise with Touch AC. This does not mean we need change Alignment. Your proposals for Morality and Belief are not incompatable with current system, anybody can incorporate such concepts in their own roleplaying. Nobody is compelled to roleplay according to fixed concept of Alignment, Alignment is inherently meant as measurement of how they are roleplaying, it is not what they are roleplaying. The Alignment rules do not proscribe how players choose to roleplay their PCs. Alignment is simply how the Universe views one's soul. Other judges can use other metrics, i.e. Up is Good and Down is Bad, and for that Judge and all who follow them, characters are Good or Bad according to that metric, no matter if their thoughts and motives may be very different.
About only case contrary to that is unwilling Alignment change, but that is ultimately a judgement call no different than if Alignment were removed and instead we had unwilling Greediness or unwilling Murderous Vindictiveness. It is still judgement call and one can still be Greedy or Murderously Vindictive in general while choosing different course of action from another Greedy/Murderously Vindictive person. "Because I had to take a s+$* I didn't feel like robbing that man". "That man's clothes reminded me of my favorite opera singer, so I decided I wouldn't murder him this time". Alignment is not a compulsion effect to act according to narrow set of guidelines.
I would really like to see Alignment replaced with something akin to Allegiance from d20 Modern.
Every character gets three short statements of moral principle.
"Information wants to be free."
"I always keep my word."
"Blood for the blood god!"
The various flavors of divine parasite can get class bonuses from picking "alignments" based on class options. Every PC gets some kind of reward for playing up to their alignments, and some mechanic for changing alignments that they betray too often.
No more arguments because the GM expects a Paladin to act like a Silver Age superhero while running an Iron Age scenario.
Like... if each "alignment" were rated like a trait in Cortex Prime, and you added it as a bonus to a d20 roll (under certain circumstances)... nobody's going to flip a table over their d8 being downgraded to a d6 the way they do about... losing 90% of their PC's class abilities.
