Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

[Herbert_W]

So knowing full well it would reduce the depth/complexity, how about each character just prioritizes Care, Fairness and Loyalty from most to least important. Should be quick and easy for most players to get their heads around and get on with the game.
I think Sanctity wouldn't really translate well into something like D&D, though Loyalty to the group and Respect for authority could be split into their own separate values (but as noted i'm a sucker for the rule of 3's).

The issue that I see with dropping moral foundations from the game is that, if you do so, then a character who values those foundations is indistinguishable rules-wise from a person who has no values at all. You'll unintentionally send the message that people who hold those values IRL are not good people (and yes, sanctity, authority, and liberty might seem like an odd combination of vales - but I do know someone who thinks like that, so it's not inconceivable that one of your players will.)

On the other hand, if you split this into a G/E replacement (which is what you seem to be describing, as you listed all of the foundations that relate to beneficence) plus what I assume would be a L/C replacement then you add unnecessary complexity. You also add unnecessary judgement, by implying that all of the foundations that you group together a law-like or chaos-like do not count as good-like.

I'm proposing this system as an alignment replacement. That means that it could replace both the G/E and L/C axes with a single unified system.

Sanctity doesn’t really strike me as a means of determining good/bad or right/wrong any more than tradition or external authority does, you’re just offloading the process elsewhere.

But i get your point, not everyone shares this point of view.

Yes, exactly. The main point of moral foundations theory is that different people can have different ideas about what it means, fundamentally, to be right or wrong.

As an aside, I think that sanctity fits very well into DnD, given that what is true in the game is based loosely yet largely on what was believed (or what modern people think was believed) in medieval times. It makes perfect sense that a rogue who steals from temples in order to feed their street urchin friends would be very unpopular with the gods, or at least with some gods. They certainly value care and would therefore count as good under a classical alignment system, but the disrespect for sanctity that they display would make it entirely appropriate that they could be affected by holy word and the like despite being good. Sanctity allows this sort of consequence to be represented mechanically. It's also the only moral foundation that we can say that the creation of undead universally and indisputably offends. (Care? Nope, you might use undead minions safely if you're careful and can offset any magical negative energy pollution with positive energy, depending on the campaign. Authority? That depends on whether the authority you follow prohibits the use of undead, which not all do. Loyalty and fairness? Not really applicable. Liberty? Not applicable if the undead are mindless.)

Sounds a lot like Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws.

You could make it work like that, but I think it'd be mechanically simpler to roll everything into a set of something like Ideals. This is an alignment replacement, after all. We need a simple way to answer the question of "When this particular cleric casts blasphemy, who gets hurt?"

So, maybe it's time to hash this out into a ruleset. Here's a rough draft:

A character's ethical values, and how well they measure up according to those values, are determined by their relationship to six ethical principles: care, loyalty, authority, liberty, fairness, and sanctity. These are not mere abstract concepts in the world of DnD; they are metaphysical principles which are just as real as heat, light, and matter. A creature's ethical status can be detected by magic and determines how they are affected by certain spells.

Write down each of these principles in the order from those which your character considers the most important to the least. This list of values should serve as a guide for your character's behavior - or at least, to what they think that they ought to do. Not everyone can live up to their own standards, after all. You can refer to this list for guidance as to what your character would do when facing a difficult ethical decision, where different principles call for a different course of action. If you find that your character consistently chooses a principle that's lower on the list, that's OK - that just means that your character's values have changed. At the end of a session, you may reorder the list to suit the values that your character has demonstrated through their actions.

For each principle, your character may be opposed (O), neutral (N), or supportive (S). A character who has not regard for an ethical principle, acting against it whenever it suits their interests, is opposed. Being opposed to a principle does not necessarily mean that you go out of your way to act against it, simply that you disregard it when it suits you. A character who opposes care may steal from others and engage in wanton violence, for example. However, this does not mean that they will do so recklessly - a character who opposes a principle may nonetheless be restrained by social expectations and by law. Supporting a principle means that a character is willing do, and does, put effort into acting in accordance with it that goes significantly above and beyond what an ordinary person would be expected to do. Being nice to your friends does not mean that your character supports care or loyalty - supporting care means working to help the needy regardless of their relationship to you or lack thereof, and supporting loyalty means being willing to defend your friends even at great risk your yourself. A neutral character is neither supportive not opposed, but rather somewhere in-between.

The majority of humans and humanoids are neutral. Most people would say that they support a variety of, or even all, of these ethical principles - but they lack the commitment to be truly supportive of any of them.

A character may only be supportive of up to three principles at a given time. Normally, these will be the top three principles on that character's list of values. (If they aren't, then it's probably time to re-order that list.) This is because different ethical principles can sometimes be in conflict with each other; fully supporting a principle requires being willing to choose it over at least some other principles as well as choosing it over one's own self-interest.

In most campaigns, player characters are expected to be at least neutral with regards to care, fairness, and loyalty. This is a pragmatic requirement that minimizes the likelihood and severity of conflict between players. It also minimizes the havoc that the party could wreak upon the DM's carefully-constructed campaign world. Campaigns where this restriction is relaxed are known as evil campaigns.

Here's an example of how a spell like holy word might work:

This spell, when cast, is charged with an ethical principle chosen by the caster. If the caster does not have a patron deity then this must be a principle which the caster supports; if they do, then it must be one which their patron deity supports.

Creatures which oppose this principle suffer the full brunt of this spell's effects, creatures which are neutral suffer a reduced effect, and creatures which are supportive suffer no effect.

By symmetry, it's easy to extend this to blasphemy:

This spell, when cast, is charged with opposition to an ethical principle chosen by the caster. If the caster does not have a patron deity then this must be a principle which the caster opposes; if they do, then it must be one which their patron deity opposes.

Creatures which support this principle suffer the full brunt of this spell's effects, creatures which are neutral suffer a reduced effect, and creatures which are opposed suffer no effect.

Alternatively, it might be simpler to have these spells target every applicable principle instead of choosing just one. However, that brings up weird edge cases - what if a creature supports one of the targeted principles while opposing two of them? Covering these edge cases would require unwanted complexity. I prefer this system, where casters may need to choose which version of the spell to cast as appropriate for the particular enemies that they are facing when they cast it.

Once could easily imagine spells that use this system in more creative ways. For example, there might be a spell called detect enemies that detect creatures which the wizard who wrote the spell considers to be enemies; players who find the spell and wish to make use of it would need to experiment in order to determine what sort of creatures are in fact detected. Even if they know that the spell works based purely on alignment, that could still be an interesting challenge, even if just because they need to seek out creatures of different alignments in order to test it.