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I'd like to see an Alignment system that works through Traits that can be gained or lost. Not everyone is Evil, Good, Chaotic, or Lawful. Someone who's commited their life to either could gain the Trait and be affected by spells or other effects that reference the Trait, but most people probably really shouldn't. It's the way I'm using Alignment, anyway.
And this also is the proper way to use it IMO. Neutral on an axis is the person who has neither traits of said axis.
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This disappoints me. I personally think alignment should have been dumped years ago in both Pathfinder and D&D; I don't like there being an objective measure of morality and people all too often use it to decide how to act in certain situations rather than as a summary of their character's moral compass. Hopefully some clever homebrewer will find a way soon enough.
I think the alignment originated as a statistical short-hand for NPC behavior. NPC who is Good is more likely to do a Good act. NPC who is Evil an Evil act. And NPC who is Neutral, flip a coin. Ditto for the Law-Chaos axis.
Note that this still does not clarify what Good, Evil, Lawful and Chaotic mean. That is up the the Multiverse, aka the GM. They should just make sure to communicate it to their players before they start creating characters ;-)
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Alignment is only a problem when people put the cart in front of the horse, metaphorically. Your RP defines the alignment, not the other way around. Just because I'm LG, for example, doesn't mean I'm not down for some serious hoodrat activities. I think there was a picture floating around that was able to make a convincing argument that Batman is every alignment.
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I think there was a picture floating around that was able to make a convincing argument that Batman is every alignment.
But that one is more of an issue with Batman's characterisation being inconsistent between writers.
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Alignment mainly causes issues when there's a disconnect between player and GM expectations, but that's kind of the same as everything else. If anything I think the takeaway is more that there needs to be good communication between parties about what people are expecting from the game.
Even the classic issue of the paladin who's always about to fall because the GM keeps setting up catch-22s, while ostensibly an alignment issue, is more about an interpersonal dispute or mismatched expectations between player and GM.
The most important thing is just communicating those expectations so everyone is on the same page, regardless of whether you remove or keep or alter alignment or anything else.
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Alignment is only a problem when people put the cart in front of the horse, metaphorically. Your RP defines the alignment, not the other way around. Just because I'm LG, for example, doesn't mean I'm not down for some serious hoodrat activities. I think there was a picture floating around that was able to make a convincing argument that Batman is every alignment.
I agree, but in my experience a lot of people decide how to RP based on alignment. It can be helpful to encourage people to use it properly, but between that and the numerous other issues I have with it, alignment is more trouble than it's worth for me. You do you, though.
Thanks for the link to my previous thread Rysky !
I have to say I am quite disappointed =/ "It's part of the game" really doesn't cut it for me when even devs understand that there is enough clients wanting to remove alignment that they tell themselves "hey ! Let's write an entire chapter in one of our books to allow people to remove alignment !" =(
A little sidebar with some guidelines would have been enough for me...
Alignment is only a problem when people put the cart in front of the horse, metaphorically. Your RP defines the alignment, not the other way around. Just because I'm LG, for example, doesn't mean I'm not down for some serious hoodrat activities. I think there was a picture floating around that was able to make a convincing argument that Batman is every alignment.I agree, but in my experience a lot of people decide how to RP based on alignment. It can be helpful to encourage people to use it properly, but between that and the numerous other issues I have with it, alignment is more trouble than it's worth for me. You do you, though.
The main problem is not only that they RP based on alignment, IMHO. It's that some of your options become unavailable if you change your alignment, so they have to RP based on alignment if they don't want to render their characters useless.
Creative Director
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Alignment is only a problem when people put the cart in front of the horse, metaphorically. Your RP defines the alignment, not the other way around. Just because I'm LG, for example, doesn't mean I'm not down for some serious hoodrat activities. I think there was a picture floating around that was able to make a convincing argument that Batman is every alignment.
This is my take, and one I wish more folks agreed with.
Alignment should be the result of your actions, not the cause of them.
You should be a paladin because you act lawful and good, and thus have the lawful good alignment, not because you have the lawful good alignment and are thus forced to act lawful and good.
That said, one thing that I really enjoy about RPGs is when the players play different types of characters, personality wise. Every time I've run a game without alignments, everyone ends up playing what's essentially chaotic neutral, and that's repetitive and dull.
There needs to be SOME sort of system, I think, in place to suggest and encourage and even reward players for adhering to specific types of personality traits for their characters. Whether or not alignment is the best or simplest... That will depend on the individual person. I'm a fan of it for its simplicity, but it's also baked hard into the very fundamental nature of the structure of the multiverse, both for Pathfinder and for D&D, so that in and of itself is a compelling reason to keep it around.
It also has the advantage of being pre-explained. If you tell someone that they're acting lawful and good, and they've never heard of an RPG, they'll still understand what you said to them. That's pretty nice.
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There needs to be SOME sort of system, I think, in place to suggest and encourage and even reward players for adhering to specific types of personality traits for their characters.
I've been in a lot of games that didn't have such a system and people managed to adhere "to specific types of personality traits": so on this I'd have to disagree with you. And this is with me playing most of my games with people I've never played with before.
Whether or not alignment is the best or simplest... That will depend on the individual person. I'm a fan of it for its simplicity
My main issue with it is that same "simplicity". You can hand 10 people a series of situations and ask them to put the alignment of those situations down next to them and you can get back 10 different sets of answers. There are so few black and white alignment issues that it mostly boils down to all judgment calls and that leads to times when people honestly disagree on the aliment of an action: now if such a disagreement causes lose of powers/abilities to someone that doesn't think they acted out of line and that causes lots of friction.
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Plenty of tabletop RPGs have successfully created rules for establishing character personality other than alignment. I personally don't think removing alignment in any way leads to characters becoming more similar to one another; if anything, having a party without variety among characters should be blamed on the players, not the system. However I agree that personality mechanics can be helpful, I just think that alignment is one of the more flawed ones. Much as I hate to mention one of Pathfinder's competitors on this site, I think D&D 5e's bonds, flaws, amd ideals do an excellent job of this (it keeps alignment, but mainly for flavor and is easy to remove).
The point about the subjectivity of an alignment's meaning is spot on, and one of the biggest problems I have with it.
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From experience in running PF1 games, removing alignment is as simple as rebranding Good and Evil, Law and Chaos to Holy and Unholy, Axiomatic and Entropic (or whatever terms you want to use). Deities and outsiders have an alignment because it refers to the nature of their plane of residence. You could attach alignments to mortals that are connected to the planes too -- in this case, a cleric of a deity that resides in Heaven, say, Iomedae, will always detect as Holy and Axiomatic without exception. You can even play around with sorcerers so that magic will always detect a fiendish or undead bloodline sorcerer as Unholy, even if they have never hurt an innocent and saves a puppy every day. You can apply the same logic to planetouched races.
In terms of regulating behavior, divine classes already have oaths and commandments from their deities to control that, which SHOULD bring them in line with their supposed "alignment". For everyone else, alignment is either their planar connection should it exist, or they count as true neutral.
From experience in running PF1 games, removing alignment is as simple as rebranding Good and Evil, Law and Chaos to Holy and Unholy, Axiomatic and Entropic (or whatever terms you want to use). Deities and outsiders have an alignment because it refers to the nature of their plane of residence. You could attach alignments to mortals that are connected to the planes too -- in this case, a cleric of a deity that resides in Heaven, say, Iomedae, will always detect as Holy and Axiomatic without exception. You can even play around with sorcerers so that magic will always detect a fiendish or undead bloodline sorcerer as Unholy, even if they have never hurt an innocent and saves a puppy every day. You can apply the same logic to planetouched races.
In terms of regulating behavior, divine classes already have oaths and commandments from their deities to control that, which SHOULD bring them in line with their supposed "alignment". For everyone else, alignment is either their planar connection should it exist, or they count as true neutral.
This is perfect!
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That said, one thing that I really enjoy about RPGs is when the players play different types of characters, personality wise. Every time I've run a game without alignments, everyone ends up playing what's essentially chaotic neutral, and that's repetitive and dull.
And here I am with my alignment-less campaign where I have the equivalent of a Loyal Good with Chaotic Weird moments Iomedian, another Loyal Good Sarenite, a Chaotic Neutral and a Neutral Good/True Neutral. I think you stumbled into the classic problem of "my players act like chaotic neutral because they started playing back when playing a gold-hungry chaotic mercenary/adventurer was seen as the norm or learned how to play with people with this mentality" too many times and it painted a dark image of alignment-less games for you. (or maybe not, my intent is not to judge you or your players, but that's something I noticed about other groups after reading a bunch of RPG debates/horror stories)
Since Golarion has so many gods/half-gods/fake gods, and since people in Golarion have solid proof about the existence of gods, religion would be a good driving force for most characters who will still follow their god's precepts.
I sadly can't argue with the "it is harcoded into the multiverse" argument since the rules are mainly based off Golarion, even though I prefer a home setting.
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Every time I've run a game without alignments, everyone ends up playing what's essentially chaotic neutral, and that's repetitive and dull.
That sounds more like a player issue than anything else... Especially considering most RPGs don't have alignments, it'd be weird if people defaulted to chaotic neutral style characters.
There needs to be SOME sort of system, I think, in place to suggest and encourage and even reward players for adhering to specific types of personality traits for their characters.
Wait, when does Alignment do that?
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Alignment is only a problem when people put the cart in front of the horse, metaphorically. Your RP defines the alignment, not the other way around. Just because I'm LG, for example, doesn't mean I'm not down for some serious hoodrat activities. I think there was a picture floating around that was able to make a convincing argument that Batman is every alignment.This is my take, and one I wish more folks agreed with.
Alignment should be the result of your actions, not the cause of them.
You should be a paladin because you act lawful and good, and thus have the lawful good alignment, not because you have the lawful good alignment and are thus forced to act lawful and good.
I absolutely agree with this. But the conclusion that I come to is that if people are doing this, then there is no reason to force fit their character's attitude into an alignment grid and write it down on their character sheet.
Either the players are going to follow their alignment for their character, or they aren't. Writing it down isn't going to change that.
I am a big fan of the anathema system. It is a lot more specific. There aren't as many arguments about what the various lines in a particular anathema mean. Anathema are for the most part chosen independently of a character's class and abilities. (in broad strokes at least. I can play a barbarian without worrying about a troublesome anathema that applies to all barbarians. Once we get the rest of the champions, I expect that class will be the same.)
Also, the anathema system has better teeth in it. Sure alignment violations could cause loss of class features. In fact, that could be abused through things like cursed items. If the GM wanted to change your alignment, then the GM could change your alignment - and cripple your character as a result. And for nicer GMs, they very rarely applied penalties for alignment violations because alignment is so vague. Is the fact that one of the players is playing a NE bard really worth punishing the player playing a paladin for (knowingly associating with an evil character)? Even if that bard is generally working for good and completing good things with the rest of the good party? Should we instead punish the evil bard player for alignment violation? At least that wouldn't cause loss of class features. But at the same time, the bard does engage in petty theft, fraud, and slander at every opportunity. Can we really justify changing his alignment to NN on his character sheet?
With anathema these questions don't even come up. Other questions do, but they should be easily answered (as far as I can tell). But alignment seems too inexact.
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Alignment is only a problem when people put the cart in front of the horse, metaphorically. Your RP defines the alignment, not the other way around. Just because I'm LG, for example, doesn't mean I'm not down for some serious hoodrat activities. I think there was a picture floating around that was able to make a convincing argument that Batman is every alignment.This is my take, and one I wish more folks agreed with.
Alignment should be the result of your actions, not the cause of them.
You should be a paladin because you act lawful and good, and thus have the lawful good alignment, not because you have the lawful good alignment and are thus forced to act lawful and good.
That said, one thing that I really enjoy about RPGs is when the players play different types of characters, personality wise. Every time I've run a game without alignments, everyone ends up playing what's essentially chaotic neutral, and that's repetitive and dull.
There needs to be SOME sort of system, I think, in place to suggest and encourage and even reward players for adhering to specific types of personality traits for their characters. Whether or not alignment is the best or simplest... That will depend on the individual person. I'm a fan of it for its simplicity, but it's also baked hard into the very fundamental nature of the structure of the multiverse, both for Pathfinder and for D&D, so that in and of itself is a compelling reason to keep it around.
It also has the advantage of being pre-explained. If you tell someone that they're acting lawful and good, and they've never heard of an RPG, they'll still understand what you said to them. That's pretty nice.
I think Good energy could instead be called Positive energy, and Evil energy called Negative energy. I believe that is how D&D does it. It makes sense because there actually are positively and negatively charged particles, so expanding that into entire energy types makes sense.
As far as spell effects like Detect Evil and Protection from Evil, you can think of them as warding off or detecting malicious intent. And it would thus work on any "alignment". If someone wants to harm you, steal from you, etc, they have malicious intent towards you.
It doesn't matter if they are a Paladin and you are a demon or if the rest of the PCs, no matter their alignments, are also attacking you, "Protection from Malice" should protect against all of them if they mean to do you harm. It would thus not help against a hungry tiger (neutral alignment) who just wants to eat you. It doesn't care who you are, it has no grudge against you, it's just hungry.
If they are a shopkeeper and you are a customer and they are trying to get you to buy fake/shoddy (or cursed) goods at extravagant prices. The "Detect Malicious Intent" spell would only tell you if the shopkeeper is knowingly trying to sell you a cursed or fake/shoddy item, if he doesn't know then it tells you nothing. If he honestly believes it to be worth a 1000gp because he thinks the gems are real, it detects nothing. If he is suspicious that they may or may not be real, it could possible detect his uncertainty, but then it's up to the PCs to dig deeper and see what he's uncertain about...
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Positive/Negative and Good/Evil are already energy types (with associated planes) and the Positive isn’t wholly Good and Negative isn’t wholly Evil so that wouldn’t make sense.
Also I’m pretty sure “Protection from Malice” would be too good, less we just use it like Sanctuary.
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Positive/Negative and Good/Evil are already energy types (with associated planes) and the Positive isn’t wholly Good and Negative isn’t wholly Evil so that wouldn’t make sense.
Also I’m pretty sure “Protection from Malice” would be too good, less we just use it like Sanctuary.
Well, Sanctuary literally can prevent hostile creatures from attacking but it requires that you not attack either. Protection from Malice would give you a bonus to AC and saves (more if someone is trying to control your mind or attacks from summoned creatures). If I were to make such a change, you're right, it should work similar to Sanctuary: I would say that if the person/people who are protected makes any attacks/hostile actions, the targets they are attacking would gain the spell's benefits as if they were the ones protected and then the spell would end for the attacker.
I can't seem to find the product page for the Gamemastery Guide.
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Here ya go :3
Thank you!
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It also has the advantage of being pre-explained. If you tell someone that they're acting lawful and good, and they've never heard of an RPG, they'll still understand what you said to them. That's pretty nice.
It is my firm belief that Alignment originated as a shorthand for NPCs' likely actions. If a NPC is Good there is a better than half probability that their next action, or maybe even their entire course of action, will be Good. Same for all components. And Neutral could go either way.
And mortal weaknesses and imperfect understanding add uncertainty to the mix.