Quote Originally Posted by Eldan View Post
Isn't that very analogous to law and chaos?
Perhaps, if you want to look at it that way. its viable, but personally I see "individualism" as more than just chaos, and "community" as more than just the rules they set down. Light unlike Law, has an actual goal and vision of a better world but is more idealistic and less about reason, Dark unlike Chaos has a direction and a sense of pragmatism to its methods. Light is likely to have more empathetic individuals while Dark is likely to have more logical ones, while I see Law as the logical one and the Chaos as the empathetic one in that conflict.

But I've got a different system I came up with recently:

The Functional Axis:
This first axis is the most important one. It is limited to the three alignments detailed here and measures how well someone balances their beliefs with reality. Most people are assumed to be Balanced, a large minority assumed to be Void and a rare few people are assumed to be Insanity.

Insanity:
Your beliefs blind yourself to reality. Whether your megalomaniacal, a complete zealot, an absolute monster, or delusional, this alignment means your completely crazy, unreasonable and stupid. You take whatever you believe too far and try to force it upon all the world without any regard for the consequences of your actions. You are completely sure that your always in the right, never reconsider or feel regret or guilt for anything you do, and never swerve from your beliefs. This alignment is not recommended for PCs and should probably not be allowed to be taken by them at all.

Balanced:
You are a healthy reasonable person who balances their beliefs with the reality of the situation as well as can be expected. You remain aware of the changing situation to see whether its good idea to really push your beliefs or not, and you cooperate well with others and their beliefs most of the time. You also acknowledge that your beliefs are not perfect and that sometimes you can be wrong and are willing to learn from your mistakes.

Void:
Reality has crushed your beliefs. You are a broken, hollow person in despair or depression who seeks to find happiness and wholeness once again. You still on some unconscious level, believe in your Outlook alignment, but only in a jaded, depressed hollow sense, seeing it as a foolish thing you still cling to despite knowing its fake and worthless. Reality looks like a bleak and desolate place to you. Despite this most people with this alignment continue to live on and function in society. It can sometimes be a bit of a fight to get back to being Balanced once again, but may not always come out of it with the same Outlook Alignment they had before. While PCs are allowed to take this alignment, be sure that everyone in the group is okay with it as some may not want to play with a depressed character like this.

The Outlook Axis:
In contrast, the Outlook Axis is pretty much infinite in what alignments you can choose. The alignments here all describe your outlook on life and what you consider ideal about yourself. Thus you can come up with pretty much almost anything and put it in as an Outlook Axis alignment as long as it can reasonably interact with the three functional axis alignments above.

Here are some examples:
Lawful Good:
A Balanced Lawful Good person is virtuous and restrained, do all that they can to help others while acknowledging that not all rules are legitimate nor can all evil be defeated within the rules. They strive for a civilized virtuous society regardless, knowing their ideals are unreachable at least in their lifetime.
Insane Lawful Good people are complete zealots and extremists,trying to kill all that they perceive as evil mindlessly without nuance or restraint.
Void Lawful Good has lost hope that their virtues and laws can truly change the world for the better, continuing to only hold to their beliefs out of defiance of the darkness around them.

Logical Independent:
A Balanced Logical Independent thinks out of their own rational self interest and plans for the long term and thus takes into account their friends emotions and the situations where being selfless benefits them as well. As well as being aware they can't plan for everything and acknowledging they can fail.
An Insane Logical Independent is utterly obsessed with themselves, coldly using everyone around them as pawns for their goals alone and denying any action they don't see any logical reason to do and unwilling to budge from their own intricate well thought out plans, and are known to be control freaks
A Void Logical Independent is convinced its that there is no rationality or independence in the universe, depressed that they can't truly be a rational independent person in a world of random meaninglessness, only continuing in their beliefs to keep themselves sane and focused on what they want to gain some sort of benefit at all.

Klepto Adventurer:
A Balanced Klepto Adventurer while taking loot from dungeons and killing monsters, can restrain themselves from attacking innocent villagers, be social in civilized lands while enjoying their thrills and the loot they gain from their jobs.
An Insane Klepto-Adventurer is your typical murderhobo, killing anyone that moves aside from shopkeeps and inns and interacting with no one outside of combat, utterly committed to nothing but slaughter without thought for consequence
A Void Klepto-Adventurer continues killing and looting, but the exercise has become repetitive and hollow to them, seeing their lifestyle as pointless and endless, but continuing on because they know nothing else.

Dank Memelord:
A Balanced Dank Memelord loves to joke and have fun, ribbing their follow companions with japes and teasing, but knows when to get serious and focus when the chips are down. They seek to bring laughs and joy to the world, but don't make jokes they know are annoying or hurtful.
An Insane Dank Memelord is utterly random and incomprehensible, trying to make jokes every second without ever being serious or useful at all and just completely annoying.
A Void Dank Memelord makes weak jokes to hide their own depression within themselves, trying to put on a mask of smiles to hide their pain and get through their own darkness.

Free Rebellious:
A Balanced Free Rebellious seeks to give freedom and equality to everyone and change the status quo for the better, but recognizes that people need stability in their lives as well and while the FR may break the rules, they do so to put something better in their place.
An Insane Free Rebellious rages against the status quo with revenge and distrust for the people in power, destroying all order and restriction and reducing all societies into anarchy in their crazy crusade, killing any noble or form or elite they see as having too much power over others.
A Void Free Rebellious while continuing walk free and independent, has come to believe that its useless to try and change the status quo and nothing they can do can change the systems or oppression that surrounds them.


.....And so on. Be creative, come up with whatever works. Why design it so that one axis is limited, and the other is unlimited? Simple. the Functional Axis measures whether how healthy and reasonable you are as a person, but its not a linear scale: the Balanced and Void alignments are both functional in a way, the Void one is just less healthy and going through a rough phase of their life. Insane however represents someone is who is broken, someone who taken whatever they belief way too far and now does nothing but try to fulfill it, and its possible for both Void and Balanced people to become Insane but Void is a little more likely due to their mental state.
This makes sure that there can be disagreements between a Void and Balanced person even if they have the same philosophy, because the Void will doubt whether its actually true and be more jaded or depressed about it. While both will oppose a Insane person even if that insane person has the same basic Outlook alignment, giving a lot of potential for someone to meet their villainous foil who embodies a dark version of their own philosophy.

While the Outlook Axis, is unlimited, because what people believe and hold themselves to is similarly unlimited. The Outlook Axis is important because it provides the potential for both conflict and cooperation between people of different outlooks, by making sure people are reasonable in their Balanced state, while also acknowledging that reasonable people can have disagreements over this or that, while still opposing someone completely crazy or threatening.

Basically? Insane alignment is there to catch all the "Stupid X" alignment stuff right from the start, so that the GM can say "no you've gone Insane" and stop that right in its tracks without needing a big morality debate. why? because the Outlook Axis has to be defined and agreed upon by player and GM as to whats reasonable and balanced for it and if the players breaks their own Outlook's rules well....that tells you all you need to know, doesn't it?

While Void is there to be a roleplaying opportunity. it represents the low points in peoples lives and them having to struggle with their own beliefs against the reality of the world, and can also be used as a transitional alignment, where instead of a paladin falling, they just go into Void about their own beliefs and code they uphold, struggling to find meaning and happiness in it now they have failed it, or it has failed them, and can either represent a low point where they return back to being Balanced and sure, or a transition into some completely new belief that they think is better.

while Balanced is just there to be an alignment where you don't have to worry about Void stuff and still have reason so you don't fall into stupid Insane stuff.

In general this alignment supposed to provide order to peoples viewpoints and how interact with them, while also providing a lot of flexibility for what stories you can tell with it so that people with subjective opinion can debate with each other without coming to a clear answer because some issues are grey and muddled, yet still find people that are clearly wrong that they can fight.