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Maat Mons
2018-11-16, 07:29 PM
Here's my own personal take on reworking the alignment system.

Replace the Law / Chaos axis with the Freedom / Order axis. Chaos is a bit of a loaded term, I think you'll agree.

Replace the Good / Evil axis with the Self-Worth / Martyrdom axis. Good and evil are both super loaded terms.

An excess of Order is totalitarianism. An excess of Freedom is anarchy.
An excess of Martyrdom is self-hatred. And excess of Self-Worth is disregard for others.

Each axis runs from 0 to 14, with 7 being neutral.

Higher numbers represent the more "traditionally" esteemed alignments. Law and Good, under the old system. Order and Martyrdom, under the new one.

Thoughts?

nonsi
2018-11-17, 12:54 AM
.

I'm not saying that your definitions aren't more accurate and less bias, but they're definitely less straightforward terminology-wise and I think they'd probably make things harder for some players.
Also, how do you plan to reconcile your approach with the game mechanics that revolve around the Good<->Evil and Law<->Chaos axes?

Maat Mons
2018-11-17, 01:37 AM
Also, how do you plan to reconcile your approach with the game mechanics that revolve around the Good<->Evil and Law<->Chaos axes?

By removing all such mechanics.

Though, it would be funny if Detect / Smite Evil treated anyone 3 or more points below you on the Self-Worth / Martyrdom axis as "evil."

nonsi
2018-11-17, 01:57 AM
By removing all such mechanics.


That's gonna require A LOT of tweaking.
I considered many times to do away with alignments. I eventually gave up the thought every time. Too much work; not enough gain.

Maat Mons
2018-11-17, 02:14 AM
All right, then let's go with my other idea.

So a Paladin with a 14 on the Self-Worth / Martyrdom axis treats anyone with an 11 or lower as evil. His Detect Evil will tell him they're evil. His Smite Evil with work on them. And killing them won't violate his oaths.

Meanwhile, society, on average, will view 0-4 to be evil, 5-9 to be neutral, and 10-14 to be good. So approximately 40% of the world's good guys will not be good enough to be spared from his blade. And 100% of the world's neutral guys are screwed.

Hmm, this is starting to grow on me.

nonsi
2018-11-17, 02:23 AM
All right, then let's go with my other idea.

So a Paladin with a 14 on the Self-Worth / Martyrdom axis treats anyone with an 11 or lower as evil. His Detect Evil will tell him they're evil. His Smite Evil with work on them. And killing them won't violate his oaths.

Meanwhile, society, on average, will view 0-4 to be evil, 5-9 to be neutral, and 10-14 to be good. So approximately 40% of the world's good guys will not be good enough to be spared from his blade. And 100% of the world's neutral guys are screwed.


Kinda raises the question: "Is he really Good?" (if solidly good characters (10) are "Evil" enough to butcher w/o remorse)

rferries
2018-11-19, 06:11 PM
Interesting take on things. I think it might be better suited for a videogame, where gaining/losing "points" for each alignment is tabulated automatically -in tabletop it might be a headache to keep track of. However that's very personal preference.

Good/Evil/Law/Chaos are flavourful DnD terms, but I do like your alternatives. Here are some other potentially less-loaded terms:

Chaos - Liberty

Evil - Ambition

Good - Altruism

Law - Authority

Blackjackg
2018-11-22, 09:25 PM
I like the idea of a sliding scale that affects mechanics in the way you describe. It really gives the paladin a reason to be especially holy-- the "better" she is, the more people she can smite. It does invite a lot of DM interference with characters' alignments, but that could be negotiated easily at the table.

Of course, 5e has already done away with most of those mechanics. Smite Evil, for one example, already has nothing to do with alignment, it's just more effective against certain creature types. You could throw alignment entirely out the window and the game plays more or less the same.

Speaking for myself, I think the terms martyrdom and self-worth are at least as loaded as good and evil, maybe even more. Altruism and ambition are better, but they don't really represent opposite poles (it's possible to be both highly altruistic and highly ambitious; heck it's even possible to ambitiously altruistic). Me, I'd go for Altruism and Self-Interest.

Anymage
2018-11-23, 02:11 AM
Good and Evil as an alignment axis is very deliberate. There's something to be said for a world with complex shades of gray, but there's also a lot to be said for your enemies being objectively and unambiguously evil so that you can get right to smiting the bad guys. If you want to nix the idea of clear white hats vs. black hats, you might be better off just going with one axis for blue vs. orange and have most people try to find a healthy neutral balance.

Edit: Also, if you're going to try and create a scale with clearer gradiations, it'd help if more points on the scale actually did something. A 14 point scale just because that's how we measure ph doesn't seem like most of those steps have anything making them distinct.

Zombimode
2018-11-23, 08:42 AM
Replace the Law / Chaos axis with the Freedom / Order axis. Chaos is a bit of a loaded term, I think you'll agree.

And Freedom and Order aren't?
If anything they are even more so. Especially with Chaos -> Freedom it's like removing the middle man, as one of the things Chaos is loaded with IS Freedom.

Blackjackg
2018-11-23, 09:35 AM
Yeah, Order/Freedom seems like pretty much a lateral move from Law/Chaos. If anything with those terms, it would make more sense to go with either Law/Freedom as a social or political axis, or Order/Chaos as an organizational axis.

The way I tend to use the axis as a DM and player, I would say Rigidity vs. Flexibility would be a better description.

Also, it just occurred to me that mapping it from 0 to 14 is a bit of an odd choice. Wouldn't it make sense to center it at 0 and go from -7 to 7? Or if you'd prefer to avoid the value judgments of positive and negative, 7R to 7F?

Zombimode
2018-11-23, 09:59 AM
Also, it just occurred to me that mapping it from 0 to 14 is a bit of an odd choice. Wouldn't it make sense to center it at 0 and go from -7 to 7? Or if you'd prefer to avoid the value judgments of positive and negative, 7R to 7F?

7 is "neutral" on the PH-scale (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PH).

Blackjackg
2018-11-23, 10:35 AM
7 is "neutral" on the PH-scale (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PH).

Ahhhhh, that explains the title which had thus far been mysterious to me.

Maat Mons
2018-11-23, 05:07 PM
Speaking for myself, I think the terms martyrdom and self-worth are at least as loaded as good and evil, maybe even more. Altruism and ambition are better, but they don't really represent opposite poles (it's possible to be both highly altruistic and highly ambitious; heck it's even possible to ambitiously altruistic). Me, I'd go for Altruism and Self-Interest.

I was thinking "martyrdom" implies only that the person sacrificing himself believes his cause is just. "Altruism" doesn't seem to account for the possibility that a person might ignore his own well-being in favor of advancing a cause that is, in every objective sense, harmful to... well, everyone.




There's something to be said for a world with complex shades of gray, but there's also a lot to be said for your enemies being objectively and unambiguously evil so that you can get right to smiting the bad guys.

Yes, I know. We all want to enact violence and then feel good about ourselves for it.

But you don't really need an alignment system of any kind to make that happen.




blue vs. orange

Everyone knows that cyan is the opposite of orange. (And red is the opposite of blue.)




Also, if you're going to try and create a scale with clearer gradiations, it'd help if more points on the scale actually did something. A 14 point scale just because that's how we measure ph doesn't seem like most of those steps have anything making them distinct.

Well, it's the only context I could think of where any specific number was associated with "neutrality."


Wouldn't it make sense to center it at 0 and go from -7 to 7? Or if you'd prefer to avoid the value judgments of positive and negative, 7R to 7F?

Also, as an added bonus, the number 7 is associated with perfection. And I consider neutrality to be the "correct" alignment. So assigning the "perfect" number to the "perfect" alignment appealed to me.




And Freedom and Order aren't?

Yeah, Order/Freedom seems like pretty much a lateral move from Law/Chaos.

If anything they are even more so. Especially with Chaos -> Freedom it's like removing the middle man, as one of the things Chaos is loaded with IS Freedom.

I've never heard anyone describe something as "chaotic," and mean it in a positive way. But I routinely hear "freedom" being treated as desirable.

"Law versus Chaos" sounds like the kind of name a lawful person would come up with for the axis. In the same way that a chaotic person would call it "Freedom versus Tyranny."

I'm trying to come up with names that don't clearly indicate which option the guy coming up with the names thinks is "right," and which he thinks is "wrong."




Rigidity vs. Flexibility

If that were the scale, my mind would never leave the gutter.

Bohandas
2018-11-23, 05:51 PM
Here's my own personal take on reworking the alignment system.

Replace the Law / Chaos axis with the Freedom / Order axis. Chaos is a bit of a loaded term, I think you'll agree.


I think the issue is more that "law" is a loaded term. The word has a much more specific meaning than what it's supposed to represent in-game.

rferries
2018-11-24, 02:47 AM
I think we need some ground rules before establishing terminology.

1. Will this alignment system only apply to a character's perception of their own actions? This is a more "shades of gray" system - few people believe they are truly evil. Not necessarily a bad thing, though it obviously involves rewriting/refluffing protection from evil, the [Good] subtype of angels, and any other objective mechanics.

2. Alternatively, will there be an objective "right" and "wrong" in this system? In this system, Good and Evil are goals and Law & Chaos are ways of obtaining those goals, and we're really just changing the terminology.

Also: Does anyone remember seeing a graph similar to this one? Someone on the forums had a much better version ages ago but I've forgotten and want t orecreate it.




Moral Axis (pick one)

Ethical Axis (pick one)



[Good]

[that's how society works.]


I do...
[stuff]
because...
[that's how life works.]



[Evil]

[I feel like it.]

Maat Mons
2018-11-24, 03:40 AM
Well, when I came up with what I wrote, I was thinking of the Aristotelian doctrine that all extremes are bad, and people should seek a happy medium in all things.

However, I wanted to acknowledge that not everyone agrees on where the happy medium is. So I figured I'd make the average views of society count as neutral, and track which direction any given person leaned, relative to that baseline.

So, for example, nearly everyone agrees that society needs some rules to function. Likewise, nearly everyone agrees that people need some degree of freedom. Since laws and freedom are, in a sense, opposed, every society has tried to find a balance between the two. And not every society has come up with he same answer for where that balance is. Moreover, each individual in a society might have a different notion of how well his society is doing at finding that balance.



I definitely don't want there to be a right or wrong alignment.



One of my goals was that each term in the system should be something you can imagine a real (relatively sane) person advocating. I've definitely heard people say "it's alright to be a little selfish sometimes." But "selfish" seemed like something everyone would immediately consider bad. So I looked at the advice that was being given to people who legitimately didn't believe they deserved to be happy. And one of those things said was that these people "needed to recognize their self-worth."

I also considered pulling from Ayne Rand's teachings sine, from what little I know, she considered charity wrong. But all I really came up with from browsing Wikipedia was "self-reliance," which seemed to have a lot of overlap with freedom.



I don't really like that "pick one" table. It seems to portray some of the alignments as a failure to live up to some other ethos, rather than as beliefs unto themselves.

Anymage
2018-11-24, 01:45 PM
Question. Why try to keep the two axis system, instead of just taking something like Moorcock's pure Law vs. Chaos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_and_Chaos) system where most rational people try to advocate Balance. If you want Alignment to be a cosmic thing where all extremes are bad, why have two conflicting pairs when one conflicting pair works just as well?