Alignment-ectomy in a Pathfinder campaign

[eataTREE]

Alignments, what are they good for? Absolutely nothing (except ruining good story potential and steering everything towards cheesy good-versus-evil plots). Hunh! So I got rid of it, and, thus far at least, the results have been great.

Without alignment it's now feasible for good people to serve bad masters, or vice versa -- my current campaign has the PCs working at the behest of the Inquisition, a repressive faction within a larger, more morally ambiguous official church. Whether they will actually carry out their orders, or if they even ought to, is for them to decide, without benefit of "Detect Good Guy/Bad Guy" abilities to tell them who they really ought to trust. (I provide a "Detect Enemy" spell as a replacement for "Detect Evil", but it has loopholes a mile wide.)

As a GM, in an alignment-free world I'm able to create most characters as a mix of good and bad traits -- you know, sort of like real people. Characters are also able to act badly, then be sorry and act better, then backslide and act badly again -- again, sort of like real people, without worrying that I'm violating some in-game rule. And my players never have to do something "because I'm good/evil/lawful/chaotic", but only out of their natural motivations.

So without further rambling, here is my "no alignment" house rule. Comments, pointing out of glaring holes, etc. welcome.

There Is No Alignment

“The line between good and evil cuts through every human heart.” — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

There is no such thing as alignment in this campaign. You are free to choose an alignment as a description of your character’s general personality and ethos, but this choice has no game-rule consequences of any kind. Good and evil, as they are in our own world, are intangible concepts often found in close cohabitation and whose definition depends greatly on one’s point of view. In this world, good people do bad things, and vice-versa.

This has a number of consequences in terms of the Pathfinder rules:


No alignment restrictions for classes.
As the Paladin class is more-or-less defined by service to a tangible force of Good, it is not available.
Rangers may choose “Human” as a favored enemy without having an Evil alignment.
Abilities that detect, do damage to, or ward against a particular alignment ethos do not exist. This includes spells such as Detect Evil and Protection from Evil, as well as Unholy Blight, Dispel Evil, Holy Word, and any other spell or ability that qualifies what it affects in terms of alignment.
The Lawful, Chaotic, Good, and Evil spell descriptors are removed.
Summoned creatures don’t get the Celestial or Infernal descriptors.
Alignment-neutral versions of some useful spells are provided as replacements. The spell "Detect Enemy" replaces Detect Good/Evil. The spell "Protection" and its variants replaces "Protection from *" spells.

[Totema]

You axed an entire class because you like moral subjectivity better? :smallconfused:

[Dire Moose]

Rangers may choose “Human” as a favored enemy without having an Evil alignment.


I just looked up the rules on favored enemies and there's no alignment restriction with that.

[ArkenBrony]

(I provide a "Detect Enemy" spell as a replacement for "Detect Evil", but it has loopholes a mile wide.)


it makes me think of the HUD in video games, where it'll have a red mark for people who will attack you so you can ambush people without fear of attacking "good guys." I can get behind that as an idea.



Summoned creatures don’t get the Celestial or Infernal descriptors.


do they gain a different template in it's stead?

[Whyrocknodie]

I've done this for years, so has my approval. I didn't ditch paladins however - even though there is no 'alignment' as a mechanic, there are still people who follow that particular code and have the powers to go with it.

The question is, what happens when they violate their code? It should probably be in keeping with however you handle clerics in the campaign, assuming you have those.

It could involve the usual censure and loss of powers if the divine authorities decide the paladin/cleric has gone bad - or it could be that it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever!

The powers are attained by training and discipline, and the divine magic they tap into does not care even remotely how they behave to other pathetic mortals.

[eataTREE]

You axed an entire class because you like moral subjectivity better? :smallconfused:I also axed a different class (sorcerors) because they don't fit into the Romantic vs. Empiricist philosophical divide that otherwise distinguishes arcane magic from divine magic. Some of us take our D&D philosophy seriously :smallbiggrin:.

(Basically, in my campaign, arcane magic is "something you learn", while divine magic is "something you feel"; there are entire cultures who don't really get how one or the other work, and this divide is an important factor in driving world events. Since sorcerors kinda break this theme, I disallowed them.)

[noob]

Do you allow theurges?(not mystic ones instead the bonus base class who gives you alllllllllllllll the spells if you learn them but split your slots in divine and arcane ones and have two spellcasting stats)

[eataTREE]

The question is, what happens when they violate their code? It should probably be in keeping with however you handle clerics in the campaign, assuming you have those.Well, I'm going for a theme of a morally complex, ambiguous world, and you can't have that if The Management can visibly take away your superpowers for wrong behavior. In human lands, both good, bad, and morally indifferent clerics all belong to the same large organized church, and worship the same gods, and officially they do not have powers in the first place (and the powers that they officially don't have, are not dependent on their moral behavior or their obedience to Churchly doctrines). Of course, all these squabbling factions believe themselves to be doing right, they just have wildly different opinions about what "right" really means.

The upshot is that for all practical purposes nothing happens when cleric types violate the tenets of their faith. Hence the morally ambiguous nature of the human church.


Do you allow theurges?(not mystic ones instead the bonus base class who gives you alllllllllllllll the spells if you learn them but split your slots in divine and arcane ones and have two spellcasting stats)The problem with a Theurge in my world has got nothing to do with alignment, it's that there is no society that understands both kinds of magic. In human nations both the Church and the College of Archmages teach that divine magic doesn't really exist -- there is only arcane magic and "dark deals with evil powers", and you really, really don't want to be suspected of practising the latter. Most of the Church's clergy do not have any cleric levels at all; those that do aren't particularly powerful or high-level, and they attribute their powers to the Gods performing miracles on their behalf. In Orcish lands there is a shamanistic tribal culture that reveres ancestral and natural spirits, and this is the context in which they understand magic. This allows them to become powerful druids and clerics, but they do not really understand or practice arcane magic because it does not fit into their cultural beliefs about what magic is.

So, it would not be strictly impossible to become a Theurge (or whatever build that uses both arcane magic and divine magic), but it would require that your PC leave her own culture for another, and then spend considerable time gaining that culture's trust and learning their ways -- something basically unheard-of at this point in the world's history. This epic achievement would have to be performed by the PC, in-game, over the course of their adventuring career. It wouldn't be allowed as back story.

[noob]

So you would need an epic quest for taking your first level(unless you are in multiclassing or if you want to be something else than theurge)
Why not.

[eataTREE]

So you would need an epic quest for taking your first level(unless you are in multiclassing or if you want to be something else than theurge)
Why not.You would have to start as something other than Theurge.

[noob]

Also the great question is why do all society either have arcane or divine but not both?
A wizard have no fundamental reason to always try to murder the nearest priest(and reciprocally) and it helps a lot to have both divine and arcane spells and so a priest cooperating with a wizard should be something happening often.
Let us say that societies birth with random rules and then end up killed or conquered one that would have only wizards or one with only priests would be annihilated most of the time by one with both and so those with both would end up having a higher probability to survive.
Also it is not that hard to have some tolerance and have both even if there will be some tension one civilization nearly always have a little of everything because there is always curious persons who will do random things and also you can not really prevent that underground sympathetic church of peace because you do not find it and do not even know there is priests but the wizards who will try to search them will find them with their spells and even if you think that "divine magic is like maiming people" you will not want to kill those priests because normal people do not want to kill someone just because of what they represent or use when they did not do anything awful to other people and were quiet in their hidden place then as there is both priests and wizards some sightly open wizards might cooperate with those priests because he spoke to them and knows them(you know the phenomenon with racism: every X people are bad except of the ones I met and spoke with(it happens fairly frequently with racism as being racist does not prevents you from having empathy and from becoming friend with people of the category you dislike)) and then try to do things like fighting for better tolerance because they do not like that their friends are shunned by society.
so in fact I think you need more than just "arcane and divine casters dislike each other because they are not from the same school and believe(you did not gave any reason for this) that when the other category use spells it maim people somewhere or do pacts with horrible entities"
Also why trying to do a variant of the Manichean system but with divine and arcane just right after removing alignment?
I think that nothing short of "a wizard who is at less than 50 meters from a priest cancel with it and both stops existing" can prevent the mixing of both in an society since having both is too much efficient and positive for the society.

[Gideon Falcon]

The alignment system does not preclude a person having both good and evil traits. Alignment is the final approximation of what they really want most out of life- a good person mostly wants to help people, whatever other ambitions may get in the way, a neutral or evil person is more concerned with their own gain or that of their organization, for better or worse, and some evil people mostly want to hurt other people. This doesn't mean they have to be one dimensional, nor do evil people all have to do things 'for the evulz,' it simply expresses their motivations and choices, and provides a guide to future choices, whatever superficial reasons or justifications they assign to it.
That said, there is value in removing the alignment detection spells and such, as it makes it much more difficult to know who to trust. This still doesn't preclude Paladins, so long as you change the detection ability to be more abstract, more showing a vague picture of the darkness within them than just 'evil-dar.'
Still, calling the conflict between Good and Evil 'cheesy,' even if you don't assign cosmic forces to them, is going to make a lot of enemies, and condemns a lot of character motivations beyond the one dimensional 'gold and glory' of typical advenurers.

[Qwertystop]

Yeah, I don't see how removing the Alignment system does anything to stop flat characters. Alignment is descriptive, not proscriptive; if a character seems they should be acting one way and their alignment is consistently against it, their alignment should change. This feels like removing the system because misinterpreting it leads to problems.

I would agree with removing the Detect spells.

Another possibility: if Good and Evil are fundamental cosmic forces, maybe they don't line up perfectly with mortal morals (and Law and Chaos with mortal ethics). Different groups can still have different morality systems entirely separate from an energy that only roughly correlates with certain acts.

[Gideon Falcon]

Yes, exactly! Flat characters are not made by the alignment system, they're made by people who aren't interested in complex characters. Your motivation should never be 'because I'm this alignment,' your alignment is supposed to be because of your motivations. Removing the alignment system just means the PCs don't have to be CN or CE to excuse their antics.

[Amechra]

Oh, I miss the good ol' days, where Alignment indicated which cosmic team you were batting for, and not really attached to your moral and ethical choices.

Because Moorcock.

I mean, heck, you've got creatures made of alignment. That come from places that are partially made of alignment. You can shoot people with concentrated made of alignment.


Actually, one thing that could really mess with people's heads is to have Alignment in the game, as well as all the spells and stuff...

However, Alignment is pretty much immutable - you are born with a specific Alignment, which is determined (mostly) by heredity, though there are environmental components and similar stuff. The only time it can be altered is if you are playing with stuff that is made of the alignment, like summoning archons/casting Blasphemy/visiting Limbo. And those changes are heritable - you could be Chaotic Evil because your great-grandpa messed around with Ba'atezu when he was a lad.

And Alignment doesn't determine your behavior on anything but a cultural level - if you are a nasty person and Chaotic Evil, it's probably because people treated you like something nasty for something that isn't your fault.


To extend the metaphor: imagine that the line that said Alignment on the character sheet said Blood Type instead. Imagine if only people with O+ blood could become Paladins, and because of that exalted code, everyone treats people with O+ blood as if they were wonderful heroes.

But those people with B- blood? Hey, the Paladins gain powers that hurt them a lot - there has to be a reason for that, right? So clearly everyone with B- blood is a total jerk, and shouldn't be allowed in polite society.


I've kinda wanted to run a mostly Urban game where the Alignments are decided by whether or not you live in a city or not, and whether or not you are Human or not (the god in charge of Alignment was racist).

Humans are de-facto "Good", while Monsters are de-facto "Evil". Those that live in the "proper" civilization are "Lawful", while "savages" are "Chaotic". The characters will have been taught from birth that this is right and true...

Won't it be a shock when they walk outside and see how complicated the world really is?

[Mechalich]

Yeah, I don't see how removing the Alignment system does anything to stop flat characters. Alignment is descriptive, not proscriptive; if a character seems they should be acting one way and their alignment is consistently against it, their alignment should change. This feels like removing the system because misinterpreting it leads to problems.

I would agree with removing the Detect spells.

Another possibility: if Good and Evil are fundamental cosmic forces, maybe they don't line up perfectly with mortal morals (and Law and Chaos with mortal ethics). Different groups can still have different morality systems entirely separate from an energy that only roughly correlates with certain acts.

I don't think the detect spells need to be removed necessarily, just altered. I would simply say the 'ordinary beings do not have alignment auras' so the detect spells only detect them if they are actively engaged in good/evil/neutral actions serving the respective cosmic forces, not just standing around being - essentially, allowing for an alignment uncertainty principle to exist most of the time. Beings with set alignments: outsiders, undead, and clerics, would remain detectable.

And yeah, D&D good and evil generally don't wrap up well with mortal ethics, because the 'neutral' zone includes creatures and mindsets that are so foreign to the humanoid experience that they defy easy comprehension. My personal favorite example: Formians. They will absolutely landscape your world and turn you and everyone you've ever met into mind-slaves and negotiation is impossible. Not evil.

The edges of the neutral zone are often difficult to determine and philosophically vague, depending on circumstance, context, and intent, and people living in D&D settings should understand this.