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Shator
2013-02-19, 05:16 PM
Some games, like Palladium Fantasy for example, have a sort of "code" for each alignment that is a list of behaviors and actions that sort of define what's in or out of alignment. World of Darkness does this with its various morality systems too. I find these to be handy guides to give some idea of what the game would consider to be appropriate actions for say, a chaotic neutral character vs. a chaotic evil or chaotic good one. Especially when you get to neutral characters without some sort of guideline it gets a bit tricky deciding whether an act would qualify as so good or so evil that they should shift alignment, or whether even when it comes to some more extreme good or evil behaviors that an alignment shift should be a more gradual thing than immediate thing.
Is there any sort of "code" like this somewhere for the standard D&D alignments?

HC Rainbow
2013-02-19, 05:44 PM
Some games, like Palladium Fantasy for example, have a sort of "code" for each alignment that is a list of behaviors and actions that sort of define what's in or out of alignment. World of Darkness does this with its various morality systems too. I find these to be handy guides to give some idea of what the game would consider to be appropriate actions for say, a chaotic neutral character vs. a chaotic evil or chaotic good one. Especially when you get to neutral characters without some sort of guideline it gets a bit tricky deciding whether an act would qualify as so good or so evil that they should shift alignment, or whether even when it comes to some more extreme good or evil behaviors that an alignment shift should be a more gradual thing than immediate thing.
Is there any sort of "code" like this somewhere for the standard D&D alignments?

This Guy (http://easydamus.com/alignment.html)

Whenever my players want to REALLY learn what each alignment means and what their "code" stands for I use this site. It really helps grasp the exact code for each alignment. Things they would and would not do.

It also really opened my eyes to the evil alignments.

That being said I dont follow this word for word but it is a really good reference in my oppinion.. Hope that helps!

ArcturusV
2013-02-19, 05:45 PM
The closest I've really seen is in the Book of Exalted Deeds, and Book of Vile Darkness, which mentions a lot of "Code" stuff for Good and Evil respectively. But they also get some flak for things, including narrow readings which are mutually exclusive to their codes. Like one book saying failing to kill a fiend is an inherently evil act, but also saying that failing to offer mercy and respecting life is an evil act as well.

There's a lot of "Alignment Examples" out there. Including in the Player's Handbook for third/3.5 on how different alignments handle the same situations. But having played Robotech and RIFTS I know it's nowhere near the same. Closest they had was in 2nd edition where alignments were defined a lot more uniformly.

The problem is? It's vague. It's purposefully meant to be vague as well. Unlike earlier editions (I remember this in 2nd), you don't get a penalty for changing alignments outside of a few "no longer can level" classes. (In 2nd you LOST levels for changing alignments)... so it's not really THAT big a deal and should be looked at as a pattern of behavior rather than single instances pushing your alignment around.

Yora
2013-02-19, 09:00 PM
Good: Accept sacrifices for you to help other.
Evil: Sacrifice others to help you.
Law: Stick to your principles and do the rational thing.
Chaos: Trust your instinct and adapt to the individual situation.

That's really everything alignment has to say in that regard.

For actually more complex codes of behavior and guidance to make descisions that are not clear cut, a much better system is Allegiance (http://www.d20resources.com/modern.d20.srd/basics/allegiances.php).
If you have allegiance to a specific leader and in a situation where you are not sure your character should trust and obey him or not, allegiance tells you that your character would probably stay loyal.
If you have allegiance to a religion and in a situation where you are not sure if your religion is right or another oppinion is true, allegiance tells you that the chatacter would probably side with the teachings of his religion.
With Allegiances, you basically adopt a up to three codes that your character believes in, but these codes don't need to be formalized or written down.
If one of your allegiances is to a leader, your coresponding code is that this leader is trustworthy and knows what's best. It doesn't mean that your character will always obey and never have doubts about this leader, but in a situation where you as a player are not sure if the leader is lying or if his oppoinions are wrong, the Allegiance tells you which position your character would be much more likely to take.

Shator
2013-02-19, 09:39 PM
Thanks. I'm thinking I actually will use a alignment tracking system like the one in that link that HC Rainbow posted, I like it.
Some situations of course even if I go by :

Good: Accept sacrifices for you to help other.
Evil: Sacrifice others to help you.

Sometimes it isn't totally clear cut. Characters can sometimes do some nasty things to accomplish what might be good goals (I actually like these situations though they can be tricky to handle). I'm tempted to have that sort of thing amount to "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" situation, but not quite sure.

ArcturusV
2013-02-19, 11:48 PM
Well, that's why I said DnD Alignments are Vague. Take a character I ran, Reman Valarius. Who was in fact Lawful Evil. Told them up front he was. And by the end of the campaign no one doubted it. But towards the middle people forgot he was actually Evil, because he seemed to be a good guy. I mean what was he doing? Helping the girl he loved build a continent spanning Empire of Peace. Uniting warring factions in a common cause against Evil. Trying to stop his supposedly Lawful Good teammate who was bringing about a Demon and Dragon Apocalypse in a mad bid to assume the throne of the Fen Lau Empire. He was pretty much the most favored mortal servant of a Goddess of generally accepted Good, trying to correct the perversion of her doctrine from selfish, abusive behaviors towards Good aligned ideals.

Now... that's what he did. And it LOOKS good. But as part of establishing the "Empire of Peace" he promoted Regicide against "Duke Fatass", the ruler of one nation who was standing in his way (And who's daughter was the aforementioned love). He tricked, bound, and manipulated leaders of several different nations/tribes/organizations to give him unswerving loyalty, and used his Bardic Connections to spread Reman-centric propaganda which got accepted as fact in the public consciousness. Pegged events only kind of, stretching the bonds of responsibility, on the scapegoat of his former teammate and used his "Crimes" (Quite a number of them actual crimes he committed, a few fabricated), to rally his fledgling coalition/empire foundation in a unifying war. And used the religious doctrine/divine gifts to make sure that key figures remained tied to him and his divine patron to cement his power, and the spreading of the True Faith (brought to you by legendary holy artifacts he uncovered) as a means of controlling the empire. His love became the figurehead for the capital of his empire, a way to legitimize some power of his own as the spouse of the rightful bloodlined Queen, to create a power bloc that he didn't have to worry about any of his thralls possibly being able to take out of his control.

And they were happy to let him do this.

Except the "Lawful Good" (I use quotes because he was in no way really Lawful Good. Maybe True Neutral or Neutral Evil) person who swore a blood oath of vengeance against me for "pulling a watchmen" on him and making him out to be some global scale villain that rallied the world in peace.

Currently we're going to run a sequel to that campaign. His Lawful Good character is trying to bring me up on charges to a court... even though I pretty much rule all the courts in the land and no one in authority thinks I am anything but a good (Sometimes Misguided/Ignorant due to his hatred of Psychics... Evil Villains hate Mindreaders after all).

So the alignments are vague. They don't really have the clear cut codes like Palladium. I mean in the course of my "Evil" campaign I also did a metric ton of good. Destroying Demons and their Summoners. Freeing entire cities from Orc and Troll slavers. Getting the Toshis to stop killing one another and focus on the actual (non-Reman) evil doers running rampant through their land. Recovering artifacts of an obviously Good deity. Banishing a rampaging Demon Prince manifested on the mortal realm and his chosen mortal champion (I beat the Champion by taunting him oddly enough).

HC Rainbow
2013-02-20, 07:12 PM
Thanks. I'm thinking I actually will use a alignment tracking system like the one in that link that HC Rainbow posted, I like it.
Some situations of course even if I go by :

Good: Accept sacrifices for you to help other.
Evil: Sacrifice others to help you.

Sometimes it isn't totally clear cut. Characters can sometimes do some nasty things to accomplish what might be good goals (I actually like these situations though they can be tricky to handle). I'm tempted to have that sort of thing amount to "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" situation, but not quite sure.

Glad my link helped. I love using that as a guideline for alignments but not as a restrictor. I feel they have really grasped the basic concept of the alignments, but again there are many things a lawful good character can do that in all honesty isnt really good.

Thialfi
2013-02-21, 10:50 AM
I really liked those alignment descriptions.

I have always argued that good requires altruism. I have also believed that evil need not be treacherous. Evil can have loved ones for whom they would willingly sacrifice almost anything.

Your alignment is not determined by how you treat friends. Rather it is determined by how you treat strangers and what you would do to get what you really want.

OverdrivePrime
2013-02-21, 12:02 PM
I really liked those alignment descriptions.

I have always argued that good requires altruism. I have also believed that evil need not be treacherous. Evil can have loved ones for whom they would willingly sacrifice almost anything.

Your alignment is not determined by how you treat friends. Rather it is determined by how you treat strangers and what you would do to get what you really want.

Totally. If you ever want to gut-check someone's alignment, watch how they treat service workers. If your date treats the waiter like pond scum, or talks down to the guy offering to shovel your walk, avoid a second date. Unless you like playing in the deep end of the alignment pool.

Mighty_Chicken
2013-02-22, 07:52 AM
What you guys think about cruelty?

I want to use something like an allegiance system: players don't need to pick anything if they want to. But their actions, or contact with certain magic/places/objects, will make them impregnated with evil, good, lawful, or chaotic energy. So detect alignment magic will still work, it just won't be so relevant; and anti/pro-alignment effects will still work, but in a less reliant way.

So it's pretty easy to know what kind of actions would make you good, right? Basically sacrificing, giving a damn about people well being, altruism. And evil would be destructive selfishness. So most people would be comfortable at neutral - reasonable selfishness.

But I also thought any thing like torture, dismembering, and nasty deaths would be evil. Not like, "do once and change alignment" evil because I'm not using alignments. But somthing that if done repeatedly would mark you with evil energy (regardless of how you really feel about this, because I don't want this to be a hidrance to RP, just a mechanics thing).

The problem is, as I'll DM a semi-historical seafaring campaign...

a) Medievals were pretty nasty with punishments. Most of you must know stories of how blasphemers, murderers and traitors were dismebered alive. It is hard to believe, but it was done in a rather unpassionate way, just as modern capital punishment.

b) You're in the ship. The men rebel. What you do? You kill the leaders (because if you kill everyone, you don't have enough men to travel), and you either give them nasty deaths, or do nasty things with their bodies and let them there until they rot, or either.

Both things were commonplace. Do you think such things would be Evil? If they aren't (because they're just the law), why isn't giving nasty deaths to enemies during a battle Evil?

Maybe sadism, the motivation, should be evil, but not "cruelty" itself?