The alignment test posted by a certain someone, or more accurately the wrongness in the alignments assigned to certain characters by that test, got me to thinking. I can't off the top of my head recall any static morality/personality system in any game that has ever sat right with me. Even most non-static systems don't ring my bell. That being said I happened to have an idea this morning that might make the alignment system in d20 Fantasy a little more tolerable. Bear in mind this is going to be a little rough – I'm pretty much developing it at the same time I write it.
First off that pesky Neutrality goes out the window. So long, Switzerland. There are now four categories, broken into two groups: Law-Chaos and Good-Evil. Players receive 10 points in each category to distribute as they see fit. The only limit is when selecting a class with alignment restrictions. Paladins must put all their points into Law and Good; Druids must a 5/5 split on either the Law-Chaos or Good-Evil axis; Clerics can not have more than a three point deviation from their patron deity in any category; Barbarians don't have to obey alignment restrictions anymore, because the prohibition against Lawful alignments somehow presumes that none of these tribes obey a strict hierarchy. The same is true of Bards and Monks (apparently someone missed the fact that while neither Gandhi nor Buddhist monks who set themselves on fire as a form of protest may have had magic kung fu powers they were extremely disciplined people).
Characters gain and lose points from each axis based on their actions. In order to gain a point in any category a character must perform an action that has an axis rating greater than their rating in that axis; the character than gains a number of points equal to the difference between their current rating and the rating of their action performed. So a character with 4 Evil who performs an act ranked at 6 Evil gains two points of Evil, but is probably now evil enough that she won't gain any points for going around kicking puppies. Losing points is a bit more difficult. The character must perform an act on the opposite side of the axis (so if our puppy kicker is trying to get rid of some of her accumulated evil she needs to do something good) that is greater than her current score on that axis; she may then choose to reduce the opposite axis by 1 point rather than taking her normal increase.
For most characters these ratings only determine how they react to certain spells. A character with more Good points is considered as good for purposes of spell effects etc. Paladins, Clerics and Druids have it a bit rougher. In the case of Paladins each point of Chaos or Evil they pick up results in a 10% failure chance for not only their spells, but for all non-Exceptional class abilities (including Lay on Heads, immunity to diseases etc. It may also mean that his mount fails to respond to his call). Should the total chance ever equal 100% or more the character instantly falls from grace. The only way to regain his class abilities is to both reduce the failure chance to 50% or less and perform an atonement. The 10% chance of failure applies to priests as well; however, should a priest's dissonance ever become greater than 50%, she may, at the DM's discretion, attempt to shift to a patron deity who more closely matches her current alignments. This is not without penalty, however – the character will retain the pre-change chance of failure for a number of weeks equal to the tens digit, (so a character who shifted at 60% will keep this chance of failure for 6 weeks) and any additional alignment shift beyond the three allowed points will be added on top of this chance of failure. This 10% also applies to a Druid's spellcasting abilities, but since Druids receive their powers from nature, rather than from a direct patron, they are able to avoid any penalty so long as either the Law-Chaos or Good-Evil axis is at 5/5.
I'm not going to include sample alignment ratings here. That's a pretty subjective thing, and may vary on a number of factors, including a character's class and patron deity. I won't presume that what I find to be a good or evil act are the same as what someone else would – let alone the same as what a character living in a violent, monster-plagued fantasy world would. I also haven't taken into account prestige classes. I don't like them – they were a good idea, but the execution too often leads to cookie-cutter characters. So anyone wanting to apply the effects of a similar system to prestige classes is on their own.
Looking back over what I've bashed out of ye ol' keyboard I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with it, but I'd prefer something like this to the stock system.
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Comments: 3
The problem is any system of alignment is that it ultimately depends on the DM's interpretation of good/evil/law/chaos.
Now something similar to the White Wolf System might be better. A character follows a path or code, and how far along their path they are dictates the variables. This would allow for a very clearly defined set of behavioral guidelines, and characters that stay true to those guidelines gain certain benefits, while those that don't lose certain benefits.
I've never been terribly fond of the way White Wolf modeled morality either - at least not in the original World of Darkness games. I don't think I was the only one, either, what with Vampire later shifting from just Humanity to the concept of Paths.
Any attempt to model morality and personality through a series of game statistics is going to have problems. It's simply too dynamic. Without even thinking about it I can think of at least four factors that would need to be considered: The views of the society a character was raised in; The views of the society the character is currently in; The character's personal beliefs; and in settings where deities or cosmic forces are not only real, but an active presence the character's religious affiliation needs to be considered (in other settings the fourth category can be rolled into the third one). I include the society the character is currently in because if it happens to be a society with radically different beliefs and practices than what she is used to/able to stomach (if for example they think murder and cannibalism are just hunky-dory, or if she thinks they're hunky-dory but no one else does) she's going to have problems. Pretty much the same thinking I used in my posthuman rpg (which is currently, and may never be more than, some notes) wherein characters who don't have Xeno-psy/sociology training suffer penalties to social interactions depending on how radically different a culture is from their own.
Anyway I'm mostly rambling at this point. I feel perfectly find ditching alignment systems entirely. Some people are rather attached to the idea, even if it just keeps getting weirder (like how at some point the decision to use poison in D&D went from being governed by class to alignment). So I proposed an alternative, which is admittedly somewhat influenced by the idea of Alignment Infraction Points from Hackmaster.
But you are correct. You have the LE Drow who worship a CE goddess who demands a heirarchy but expects everyone to backstab each other. And I can think of perfectly legitimate reasons why a LG person would use poison. Of course, we've already established my thought processes don't always jive with the rest of society, but that's another story.