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Vorpal Pete
2007-03-16, 07:15 PM
I've seen a couple references in posts on this forum about playing D&D without alignments, or at least toning them way down. I tried googling it, but I couldn't turn up anything. Can someone point me at one of those discussions, or summarize it here? Thanks!

headwarpage
2007-03-16, 07:50 PM
I've been thinking about doing something like this for a game in the future. I think it should be possible to just drop alignment from the game, if that's what you want to do. Spells/abilities/effects that rely on alignment would need to be removed, or possibly adjudicated on a case-by-case basis.

I've also considered a system wherein only outsiders and their servants (divine spellcasters) have alignments. The average person doesn't use alignment at all, and even divine spellcasters wouldn't actually have it on their character sheet. But outsiders would be aligned, and clerics, paladins, and anybody else who gets powers from a deity would be treated as sharing their deity's alignment only for the purpose of determining whether spells/abilities affect them. For instance, Steve is a cleric of a CG god. He is treated as Chaotic and Good for mechanical purposes, regardless of whether his personality/actions are Chaotic or Good (though he must conform to the expectations of his deity to retain his powers). My thought is that this variant would make 'affects evil/good/lawful/chaotic' abilities like Smite Evil less powerful, since there are far fewer aligned creatures. However, 'affects non-good/non-evil' spells like Unholy Blight would be more powerful, since most creatures would be non-evil (since they have no alignment).

Whatever you do, explain it to your players beforehand and make sure they understand what you're going to do and that they're ok with it. You might also ask them for input on how they'd like to see things handled (beforehand, not when determining whether their character dies or not). But make sure they want an alignment-free game before you go ahead and implement sweeping changes.

Dhavaer
2007-03-16, 09:20 PM
Alignment and Planar Politics (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33243)

Also, you might consider checking out the d20 Modern Allegiance system.

Matthew
2007-03-18, 02:07 PM
Yeah, I would second Dhavaer's linked Thread for this sort of approach, as you cannot get away from Alignments entirely in D&D because of the mechanics that utilise them.

Roderick_BR
2007-03-18, 04:46 PM
As far as rules go, it's not hard.
Monks, druids, bards, barbarians, and PrCs: Ignore all alignment restrictions.
Paladins: His code of honor can easily replace the alignment system.
Spells/powers: They would be a lot more powerful, since they would have no restrictions. A paladin's Smite Evil would be just Smite, damaging anyone. A Protection from Good/Evil/Law/Chaos, would be just Protection, giving the bonuses against anyone. Alignment domains would need to be reworked, or simply dropped.

However, alignments, the "good vs evil" stuff, is what makes D&D... D&D, and not just some medieval fantasy game. You can remove it, but it takes out half the fun in playing D&D.

It's like removing the Humanity rules from Vampire the Maskerade (and they actually did it by making those path things, and it screwed the game)

headwarpage
2007-03-18, 06:21 PM
I don't think you lose anything by dropping alignment. It's just a mechanic. You can still have a great "good vs. evil" game if you want to. That guy over there summoning demons isn't any less evil just because there's no place to write 'Evil' on his character sheet. Conversely, the people fighting him aren't any less good.

It's a mechanic. Dropping it doesn't lose you anything in terms of roleplaying or fluff.

belboz
2007-03-19, 01:17 AM
This has, indeed, been talked about on a number of other threads here--a search should bring them up.

It's definitely possible to drop alignments from D&D, but it's *not* as trivial as saying, "well, we'll just replace them all with allegiances". Alignments are worked into the mechanics of D&D in a number of places, and Roderick's system for dealing with them, I think, makes alignment-based abilities far more powerful--and makes critters that rely on things like, say, DR/good far weaker, both potentially unbalancing your game.

Something else you might want to search for (on this board) is the concept of Anathema. I'm afraid I don't remember who came up with it, but it's a very nice replacement for Alignment in many of its mechanical uses (e.g., depending on your god, Smite Evil might become Smite Undead, Arachnids, and Scalykind, or Smite Thieves, Believers-in-X-opposed-god, and Goblinoids.)

Oeryn
2007-03-23, 11:16 AM
I'm actually running an alignment-free D&D game, here on the boards. There was some fiddling I had to do, with certain spells and effects, but it wasn't too hard, and we've been having a good time with it. It's on its' third thread, and nothing's gone wrong, yet.

It's freed me up, as a DM, to an amazing degree. The fact that the paladin can't just "ping" everyone to get an idea of whether or not they're a "bad guy" makes things a lot more dangerous, and a lot more fun.

I highly recommend it.

Vorpal Pete
2007-03-23, 01:04 PM
Do you list the changes you made, rules-wise, somewhere? For example, do you just discard spells that work on alignment? Do you compensate paladins for losing their pinging ability?

I think you're right - it doesn't seem like it would be catastrophic to the system. I'm just interested to see how you did it.

Oeryn
2007-03-26, 02:11 PM
I'm not sure I have a place where I've got all the changes written out, that I can easily share, but I'll look.

Basically, I took out all the spells that work on alignment, and the abilities as well. Just totally scrapped 'em. There's no way for a character to cast a spell, or consult an item, and figure out if a person is evil, or good, or neither. There are going to be obvious exceptions, if and when they run into things like demon lords, or something like that. But anything obviously evil will be pretty much that, obvious. Spells to discern what the general temperament of a giant, cloven-hoofed, bat-winged, flaming-skull-headed engine of doom is, just aren't necessary at that point.

I beefed up the Lay On Hands for paladins, in order to compensate. There are no undead in the world I'm running, but you could probably add to Turning to help make up the difference, if you wanted to give it a shot. I grew up playing 1st Edition, and so I've got two Editions of extra spells to bolster the spellbooks with, too. One of my high-school DMs was a prolific rules-modifier, and I've got some of his old spells that I can use to beef up spell lists, if they get cut too short.

The game I'm running is low-magic, at least for now. So that helps, because the spell loss is minimized, and easily replaceable, but I really think the system doesn't need alignment to function. In my opinion, the alignment system was originally intended as a roleplaying aid, then became a crutch. When WOTC took over, and "Magic: The Gathering"-itized D&D, it became a lot more integral to the mechanics of the RAW, but it still lifts out pretty easily.

I'll try to find some of the stuff I have typed up about the various rule changes. You can also check out my game (in my sig link). There haven't been any problems with the lack of alignment. In fact, I think it's exactly the opposite. Instead of just saying, "I'm playing a LG cleric", the players have to roleplay the characters out, and the others have to actually think about each other, rather than just react based on alignments. It really has deepened the experience, so far. Not to mention the possibilities it opens up on the DM's side.

I know I've been kinda vague, about some of the mechanics, but my players don't know how this is gonna play out, and I want to keep some of it a secret, for as long as possible. If you wanted to PM me, I could go into a little more detail.