New and (hopefully) Improved Alignment System

heres my proposal for a revamped alignment system. it still uses the same alignment titles (good, evil, law, chaos, neutral) but kinda affects the way that they can be treated.

*WARNING! THIS IS VERY LONG*

Alignment
In as much as I think that the alignment system that is the mainstay of Dungeons and Dragons, I do feel that the strict system of dualist alignment is fundamentally flawed. Not so much in the dualism (or rather triplism) that bothers me, so much as the strictness of this code of ethics, which is why I propose a looser system of determining a character’s moral code. In order to create simplicity, I will refer to the good vs. evil aspect of alignment as “ethos”, and the law vs. chaos aspect of alignment as “logos”. Under the current alignment system, you pick both an ethos and a logos, both of which determine (or are supposed to determine) the player character’s actions. For example, a character whose alignment is listed as Chaotic Good, should oppose rules and tend to shy away from leadership and should do whatever is necessary to oppose the machinations of evil and to serve the greater good. This sounds great, but this is very restrictive, because the character must exemplify both of these characteristics and should make all decisions based on this set alignment, and any variance from there could result in a shift in alignment. While this shift is not that bad for many characters, it can be very dire for others. Paladins and rangers lose all their powers if they drop out of their specified alignment restrictions, and clerics may lose their divine abilities if their stray too far from the alignment restrictions of their deities. While I agree that alignment restrictions are important and vital to making sure that the party paladin isn’t slaughtering helpless villagers without consequences.

This is why I propose a new way to deal with alignment, one in which the consequences can be just as dire, but are a bit harder to be subject to, giving the player more freedom to roleplay a character. Under my new system, the player essentially picks one alignment, either an ethos or a logos, that is the main determinant as to how a player chooses to react to a situation. This is what will be known as the Major Alignment. The player then chooses a secondary alignment, either a logos or ethos, to be known as the Minor Alignment. Obviously, a character cannot pick a major and minor alignment of the same ilk (logically a character cannot be a Chaotic Lawful, or Good Evil).

In order to continue, one must first make sure that the alignment options are understood, in as far as they will be discussed for the purposes of this discussion. The ethos of Good is diametrically opposed to the ethos of Evil. Good generally embodies self-sacrifice and putting the needs of others before the needs of self, while Evil usually is characterized by self-serving actions and motives, including the destruction of the lives of others. As with traditional alignments, there is also Neutrality which either strives to maintain the balance of Good and Evil or doesn’t bother itself with matters of ethos. Similarly, the logos of Law is the polar opposite of the logos of Chaos. Lawful characters strive to create order, like society, tend to follow rules and authority lines. Chaotic characters dislike order feeling that it hinders them from being their ethos and tend to buck authority. Again, a character may choose to be Neutral in regards to the dichotomy of Law and Chaos.

In reference to the difference between Major and Minor alignments, is the same as the difference between compulsions and tendencies. A major alignment trait determines how the character feels that he or she must react in a certain situation and will not unless under extreme circumstances. A minor alignment trait is how the character would prefer to act in a situation, but he or she is in no way required to act in such a manner. An example of this difference could be as follows: a Major Lawful character will do whatever in his power that he can do in order to maintain the rules and order of his society, most likely even willing to give up his life in order to maintain the order, while a Minor Lawful minds the authorities, keeps the rules and tends to fit in well with society, but this does not mean that he is willing to make great sacrifices in order to keep Law supreme. In short, Major alignments see their alignment as the way of life, while Minor alignment characters just see that as the way that one should live their life but they aren’t dogmatic about it.

When a player should choose the alignment of his character, he should decide what he wants his character’s primary instinct to be in a situation (chaos, evil, good or law) and then he should decide the general leaning of those actions. Again, the character picks either a logos or ethos as his Major and then must pick one of the other category as his Minor. The character must choose at least one Major alignment and no more than one Minor alignment. He may choose, if he would like, to make both his logos and ethos as Major alignments, which would essentially be similar to the old alignment system. A character cannot choose both alignments to be Minor because this would basically allow the character to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, with nearly no consequences.

Now as to how this fleshes itself out in game play. I will use the Lawful Good Paladin as an example because the penalties are fully described and outlined in the rules as written. Under the traditional system, if the paladin knowingly committed an evil act, then he lost his powers or if he knowingly committed a chaotic act, he lost his powers. This makes it virtually impossible for the player of this character class to make any real decisions on his own without jeopardizing those abilities. Under the newly proposed alignment system, the paladin (although he must still remain lawful good) can choose to be Major Lawful and Minor Good or Minor Lawful and Major Good (represented as Lg and lG, respectively). As an Lg paladin, he is firm on his convictions about maintaining order in society, but has a little more freedom in the manner which he maintains order; an lG paladin holds strongly in his belief in the supremacy of goodness, but may feel it necessary to step outside the lines to bring about the greater good. Basically, an Lg paladin feels that it is acceptable, on occasion, to step outside the lines of good in order to uphold the truth of law and an lG paladin feels that it may be necessary to break the rules in order that the good might be upheld.

In order to determine when an alignment shift is necessary or has been precipitated, the DM should look at the severity of the “offense” (that is the action that is characterized by an opposite alignment ethos or logos) as well as whether the offense was committed against the major or minor alignment. This section is obviously ultimately determined by the DM’s perception, but a general rule of thumb would say that one severe offense or a handful of lesser offenses against the Major alignment would cause an alignment shift, while it would take a few severe offenses or a consistent series of lesser offenses to cause a shift in the Minor alignment.

let me know what you think. this is still kind of a work in progress. i want the good, bad and ugly.

i think that you are tring to fix something that isnt really broken, and also that you may have put a little to much time into this...that being said you are a frigin genious.

:smallbiggrin: i actually just kinda brewed this up yesterday, and put it into words today. but thanks.:smallbiggrin:

oh, btw, examples from oots of new alignments.
while both roy and miko are listed as Lawful Good, roy is definitely lG (emphasis on good, minor in law) while miko is Lg (emphasis on law, minor in good).

Hmm... seems to me like it just requires players to flesh out their character's personality a little more instead of picking a stereotype and running with it. Is that really a system change? Doesn't sound thorough enough to be one, but I like it just the same.

*bump*
i was hoping to get a little more criticism on this. i dont think ive thought of everything, it still feels like im missing something necessary for game play. any thoughts?

Your Lg looks like "LN, tendencies towards Good".

And given the ability to choose Nn as your Major, what happens? You strongly don't give a crap about Law vs Chaos, and weakly don't care about Good vs Evil?

True Neutral. always a pleasure to play.

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Originally Posted by XtheYeti

i think that you are tring to fix something that isnt really broken, and also that you may have put a little to much time into this...that being said you are a frigin genious.

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Isn't broken? A system that tries to explain the human spirit in two words isn't broken? I, for one, think it's an absolutely terrible system that should've been destroyed within one rule update of its creation.
To the comment on True Neutral, it isn't ever written Neutral Neutral, that I've seen. It's just Neutral. You're neutral in all respects. I assume that would carry over to this, too.

As for this system, I think it's a little better at giving shades of grey than the wizards system, but unless you go for a complete overhaul, that inherently flawed system cannot be fixed. For one, even you use upper and lower case, you're still using two words to express a person, now with an adjective each. Essentially, a four-word description to establish a person's entire ethical belief system. This is a problem.
Additionally, Chaos and Law. Chaos and Law are not opposites. Chaos and Order are opposites, Law and Lawlessness (you could use Anarchy as it sounds better than Lawlessness, but Anarchy is technically a society without leaders, so it theoretically could have laws) are opposites. It would be like replacing the evil alignment with mean. While Mean and Evil are associated, they are not inherently and irrevocably connected. There can be Chaos as a result of too many laws, after all. Think of a Totalitarian government that tried to control every facet of someone's life but had nowhere near the power to do so. It would be utter chaos.
This problem is most obvious in the Monk class. Monks are not inherently lawful. In fact, if one looks at Chinese history, the various temples, Shaolin especially, have a rather blatant tendancy to not follow the laws or emperor inherently, just because they are laws or because he's the emperor. They'll follow them if they're sensible, which is more of a Neutral Good philosophy, but if the law told them to do something against their beliefs, they probably would not do it. The reason monks aren't Neutral is because they're one of the more famously orderly people in history. Quiet, reserved, disciplined, and very orderly. Since Wizards has a bit of confusion about just what Lawful is supposed to typify, they're grouped within it so it makes more sense as an alignment. But,then, if my monk with Vow of Peace objects to a law within his kingdom that he is to execute a criminal, does he lose his monk class? That's stupid. It makes absolutely no sense.
Your system would fix this problem from a practical aspect; simply take lawful as the minour alignment, but from a sheer idealogic idea, it's broken.
That's really no problem on your alignment system, though, and it can't be fixed without a total overhaul, so I don't really know why I went to all the trouble of typing that out, come to think of it.

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Originally Posted by Yakk

Your Lg looks like "LN, tendencies towards Good".

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Its supposed to, thats how the system is defined.

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Originally Posted by Yakk

And given the ability to choose Nn as your Major, what happens? You strongly don't give a crap about Law vs Chaos, and weakly don't care about Good vs Evil?

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Originally Posted by Rainspattered

To the comment on True Neutral, it isn't ever written Neutral Neutral, that I've seen. It's just Neutral. You're neutral in all respects. I assume that would carry over to this, too.

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Agreed with Rain on the neutral issue. it is written as True Neutral, however i do allow Nn or nN in my campaigns. This is because neutral != passive. Neutrals can be just as active as goods or evils, or lawfuls or chaotics. So a Nn character would be very stalwart about maintaining the balance of logos, making sure to counteract any action that is extremely lawful or chaotic. Same goes with a nN, but in reference to good/evil.

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Originally Posted by Rainspattered

Additionally, Chaos and Law. Chaos and Law are not opposites. Chaos and Order are opposites, Law and Lawlessness (you could use Anarchy as it sounds better than Lawlessness, but Anarchy is technically a society without leaders, so it theoretically could have laws) are opposites. It would be like replacing the evil alignment with mean. While Mean and Evil are associated, they are not inherently and irrevocably connected. There can be Chaos as a result of too many laws, after all. Think of a Totalitarian government that tried to control every facet of someone's life but had nowhere near the power to do so. It would be utter chaos.

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Sort of. Law in this case means orderly, adhering to a code of conduct and ethics. This is why monks are lawful, so are paladins, but that barbarians are not. Its not that barbarians dont have rules that they follow, its just that they arent hard, fast, kick-you-out-of-our-society-if-you-disobey-them rules, they are more free form. (incedentally, i limit my barbarians to "not lawful" rather than "chaotic"). And granted any extreme can cause its opposite. too much chaos becomes predictable, too much order causes confusion, too many efforts to do and be good can become oppressive. (so this doesnt work with evil, because more evil = more evil, but 3/4 isnt bad).

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As with traditional alignments, there is also Neutrality which either strives to maintain the balance of Good and Evil or doesn’t bother itself with matters of ethos.

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So if you are strongly N, can't you say "I really really don't bother myself with matters of ethos", or is a strong N always a balance freak?

balance freak. minor n is for i dont care. but there is never an adventurer who doesnt care about something one way or the other (or the middle) which is why players are required to pick at least one major and no more than one minor alignment. npcs can be nn, but pcs must be either Nn or nN (in the specific case of true neutral).

Yeah, if Law means Order in your system, then it's good. I'd go so far as to change the word but I'm a semantics freak, so that's probably totally unnecessary. :smallwink:

law and order (tuesdays on nbc. sorry couldnt resist) are roughly equivelant in my setting. those who like law generally approve of it because of the order that it brings to their society. Chaos and anarchy (or rather, un-law) are also roughly the same. Those who like chaos generally dont like to have rules imposed on what they can and cannot do. this is not to say that chaotic societies dont have rules, they are just a lot more lax about what constitutes breaking them.

I really like your alignment system. It makes it more flexible and less rigid. I'm a bid ADnD player, not too big into the 3rd edition, and within those rules changing alignment resulted in serious consequences. Now as DM I used my discretion and just ignored certain aspects. Especially since most of the PC's I play with tend to ignore alignment. But this way helps to reconcile that.

I think Im a fan of your system. Think, as I have only read 1/8 of your very long origional post (thanks for the heads up, too) and about 1/2 of the replies. In the next campaing I run, we shall use this,not to define the PC's, but lable them. That's the key, you're not Lg, or nE or whatever, you act it. (execptions of cause to the likes of Devils, Archons andd so forth who actually ARE their alignment, but, I dont want to DM a group of outsiders: way too hard!)

Nah... real fan! Read it all, love it. Love the example of the paladin... and will sugest this to my current group as soon as game day comes round (we spent all night on a side quest for our paladin becouse he killed a Celestial Charger that was stopping us save the world)