Collecting lots of possible alignment axes

[TuggyNE]

So, a recent post in another forum made me think it would be useful to collect a bunch of different oppositional pairs that could define alignment. Each of these should probably fit most or all of these traits:

• Pairs of opposites
• Plausible reasons for choosing each
• Defines a major aspect of a being's life
• Represents some metaphysical or philosophical ideal
• Has strong mortal advocates who may be willing to fight against their opposite numbers
• Strongly influences the cosmos
• Widespread or ubiquitous in the setting
• Can't be easily reduced to a more conventional pair

Most people are familiar with Good and Evil, and Law and Chaos; in the linked post are Pax and Strive (as well as references to some others from published systems like Magic and Tech), and various posters have described things like Funky and Square. How many others can we come up with?

So, here's a list, as best I can figure, of the axes so far.
Fits all listed traits:

• Pax vs Strive
• Magic vs Tech (in some cases)
• Light and Dark side of the Force (in theory)
• Altruist vs Mercenary
• Love vs Hate
• Aggressive vs Defensive (in theory)
• Yin vs Yang
• Art vs Science (?)
• Life vs Death
• Nature vs Artifice
• Productive vs Destructive
• Winter Court vs Summer Court
• Faith vs Skepticism (in some cases)
• Neutral vs Opinionated
• Rose vs Flame
• Energy vs Entropy (?)

Not a pair of opposites:

• Meta vs Natural vs Power

No rational reason to choose one or the other:

• Right vs Wrong
• Zombies vs Robots
• Obnoxious vs Charming
• Divine vs Mundane (?)
• Cheese vs Flour
• Happy vs Sad

Represents no particular philosophical ideal:

• Funky vs Square
• Charming vs Tedious
• Subtle vs Overt
• Sneaky vs Blunt
• Fonzie vs Potsie
• Mary Ann vs Ginger
• Obnoxious vs Charming
• Straight vs Funny
• Introvert vs Extrovert
• Function vs Form
• Affable vs Maniacal

Creates no substantial mortal conflict:

• Funky vs Square
• Instinct vs Analysis
• Charming vs Tedious
• Optimist vs Pessimist
• Fonzie vs Potsie
• Mary Ann vs Ginger
• Obnoxious vs Charming
• Straight vs Funny
• Introvert vs Extrovert
• Passion vs Thought
• Function vs Form
• Personality traits in Pendragon (Chaste/Lustful, Energetic/Lazy, Forgiving/Vengeful, Generous/Selfish, Honest/Deceitful, Just/Arbitrary, Merciful/Cruel, Modest/Proud, Pious/Worldly, Prudent/Reckless, Temperate/Indulgent, Trusting/Suspicious, and Valorous/Cowardly)
• Ninja vs Monk
• Active vs Passive
• Stasis vs Dynamism
• Affable vs Maniacal
• Cynic vs Dreamer
• Wonder vs Wariness
• Internal vs External
• Ego vs Id

Does not majorly affect cosmic structure:

• Funky vs Square
• Open Palm vs Closed Fist
• Paragon vs Renegade
• Kalserens vs Falicians
• Wild vs Civilization
• Glory vs Stability (?)
• Instinct vs Analysis
• Charming vs Tedious
• Optimist vs Pessimist
• Tradition vs Progress (?)
• Long Term vs Short Term
• Subtle vs Overt
• Fonzie vs Potsie
• Mary Ann vs Ginger
• Superman vs Batman
• Total Match vs Complete Opposite
• Obnoxious vs Charming
• Ninja vs Pirate
• Straight vs Funny
• Introvert vs Extrovert
• Nice vs Jerk
• Ninja vs Monk
• Active vs Passive
• Faith vs Skepticism (in some cases)
• Happy vs Sad
• Liberal vs Conservative
• Affable vs Maniacal
• Antihero vs Traditional Hero
• Cynic vs Dreamer
• Wonder vs Wariness
• Internal vs External
• Undead vs Alive
• Ego vs Id

Uncommon in setting mindsets

• Glory vs Stability (in most cases)
• Instinct vs Analysis
• Subtle vs Overt
• Aggressive vs Defensive (often)
• Fonzie vs Potsie
• Superman vs Batman
• Total Match vs Complete Opposite
• Ninja vs Monk
• Affable vs Maniacal
• Antihero vs Traditional Hero
• Wonder vs Wariness
• Internal vs External

Renamed version of a more conventional pairing:

• Light and Dark side of the Force (Good vs Evil, in practice)
• Open Palm vs Closed Fist (Good vs Evil, in practice)
• Kalserens vs Falicians (Chaos vs Law)
• Honor vs Dishonor (Law vs Chaos)
• Wild vs Civilization (Chaos vs Law?)
• Many vs Few (Law vs Chaos)
• Community vs Individualism (Law vs Chaos)
• Control vs Spontaneity (Law vs Chaos)
• Spock vs McCoy (Law vs Chaos, to some extent)
• Gryffindor vs Slytherin (LG vs CE)
• Dogs vs Cats (LG vs CN, loosely)
• Masculine vs Feminine (Yin vs Yang)
• Zombies vs Robots (CE vs LE)
• Organization vs Entropy (Law vs Chaos)
• Cheese vs Flour (CG vs LE)
• Generous vs Selfish (Good vs Evil)

[Yora]

Jade Empire describes Open Palm and Closed Fist at the beginning. It then completely ignores the description and continues as a simple Good/Evil alignment, but the idea is basically Doves/Hawks.

The gentle way avoids confrontation and focuses on deescalation, but has the downside that it could wait too long when decisive action is required and allow a problem to grow too big to be solved.
The hardass way is about direct action and taking control, but has the downside of escalating conflicts that could have been avoided and making people more forceful and ruthless than would have been needed.

[darni]

You can find a lot of discussion about this in this older post

[KillianHawkeye]

Well, there is always blue and orange...

[SowZ]

Jade Empire describes Open Palm and Closed Fist at the beginning. It then completely ignores the description and continues as a simple Good/Evil alignment, but the idea is basically Doves/Hawks.

The gentle way avoids confrontation and focuses on deescalation, but has the downside that it could wait too long when decisive action is required and allow a problem to grow too big to be solved.
The hardass way is about direct action and taking control, but has the downside of escalating conflicts that could have been avoided and making people more forceful and ruthless than would have been needed.

Bioware does it similarly in Mass Effect. It has Paragon and Renegade, which mirror Open Palm/Closed Fist better than Good/Evil. I also think it does it in a more reasonable way. Personally, for the big decisions and many of the smaller ones, I usually agree with Renegade Shepard. Which goes to show one side isn't right or wrong.

Then, of course, there is light side and dark side of the force. Looking at their philosophy, there are actually perfectly valid arguments for both and some of the things in the light side philosophy seem wrong, even. Of course, every movie/game/etc. depicts dark side as scenery chewing puppy eaters and the light side is usually full of self sacrificing noble heros. In practice, it is good/evil. In theory, it could be a lot deeper than that.

[Mx.Silver]

Jade Empire describes Open Palm and Closed Fist at the beginning. It then completely ignores the description and continues as a simple Good/Evil alignment, but the idea is basically Doves/Hawks.
The gentle way avoids confrontation and focuses on deescalation, but has the downside that it could wait too long when decisive action is required and allow a problem to grow too big to be solved.
The hardass way is about direct action and taking control, but has the downside of escalating conflicts that could have been avoided and making people more forceful and ruthless than would have been needed.

What you're describing there is Paragon/Renagade from Mass Effect, which is basically a distinction in approach to the same goal. That is not how Open Palm and Closed Fist are descirbed. The difference between Open Palm and Closed Fist is that they're fundamentally opposed philosophies, both of which place a strong emphasis upon self-improvement.
Open Palm is probably closer to what you'd consider traditional 'good' behaviour - it's about developing and using your strength/wisdom/etc. to help others to resist tyranny. While it does advocate avoiding violence where possible, it is not about opposed to fighting where necessary (most of its followers are martial artists, after all). The traditional 'failure' when following Open Palm is using your own power to control others, to force them to do what you see as being the right thing - effectively becoming the source of tyranny yourself.

Closed Fist, on the other hand values personal strength as the end-goal. It sees life as being a constant provider of adversity and that only by facing adversity can one become strong. The purpose of following closed fist is to provide an example of this, and if your purpose requires you to you injure or kill then that's what you do - because it is always more noble to die fighting against adversity then survive by surrendering to it. The traditional 'failure' of following Closed Fist is to forget that violence must always serve a purpose - toying with enemies or killing for pleasure is worthless and pathetic - and that personal strength is something that must always be strived for.

To give an example, an open palm follower would hold a slaver in contempt because slavery is a form of tyranny and would fight to free the slave. A closed fist follower might hold a slaver in contempt because the slaver relies on the strength of his slave rather than his own and would arm the slave so that they could then overthrow their master.
To put in simple terms, Open Palm helps others; Closed Fist teaches others to help themselves.

That's how it's presented anyway, the gameplay itself largely ignores this.

[ArcturusV]

Well, I used to use a few others but people always confused them for Good/Evil or Law/Chaos even if they weren't meant to be, and played with it accordingly.

Like in one of my RPGs there was the split between the Kalserens and the Falicians. Now neither side was meant to be Good/Evil. However the Kalserens were about individualism and the evolution of mankind by teaching each man to rely on themselves and foster their own strengths. The Falicians were about Community, and every member of a society giving up everything they could to help out the worst off, eventually making all people equal for the betterment of everyone.

Eventually this got framed up as Kalserens Evil, Falicians Good. Because of things like if you were injured, a Falician would heal you in return for a promised tithe to something like an orphanage, etc. A Kalseren would toss you a needle, thread, scalpel, and a copy of Grey's Anatomy and tell you to do it yourself.

So I suppose the point is, unless something is almost non-sensical or masterfully done, they tend to put that "good/evil" or "Law/Chaos" axis on stuff. Even if it's something like Aggressive/Defensive. No matter how much I frame it up, they'll still attribute Aggressive to Evil, and Defensive to Good. Even if it's in a situation where say, Aggressive means proactively fixing evil things, and Defensive means retroactively trying to cure the aftermath.

[Tengu_temp]

ME Paragon and Renegade are opposites in that Paragon is consistent, but Renegade is anything but. With Paragon, you can expect acting like a total ace who persuades everyone to do better with sheer charisma and do-goodness. Renegade, on the other hand, has hardcore actions of a badass who has good intentions but won't take **** from anyone, pointless violence and asshollery for the hell of it, and close-minded anti-alien racism, all in one package. And you never know which interrupt is which until you take it.

Personally, for the big decisions and many of the smaller ones, I usually agree with Renegade Shepard. Which goes to show one side isn't right or wrong.

Actually, no. There's only a handful important decisions when Paragon is not clearly the right option. If you end up agreeing with Renegade choices on most things, you should ask yourself why. Because a lot of them are being a petty, close-minded douchebag obsessed with vengeance over long-term gain.

[Silverbit]

Honour vs Dishonour.
The Wild vs Civilisation.
Glory vs Stability.

[NotScaryBats]

How about instinct vs analysis?
Going with your gut being instinct, and stopping to think about something as it's opposite.

[LibraryOgre]

“It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.”
Oscar Wilde

[TuggyNE]

You can find a lot of discussion about this in this older post

Well, there is always blue and orange...

Heh, yeah, I've seen those before but forgot about them while writing this up.

Still, this thread isn't so much about determining the One True Alignment system as it is determining interesting possibilities for alignments in specific games: a slightly different task.

What you're describing there is Paragon/Renagade from Mass Effect, which is basically a distinction in approach to the same goal. That is not how Open Palm and Closed Fist are descirbed. The difference between Open Palm and Closed Fist is that they're fundamentally opposed philosophies, both of which place a strong emphasis upon self-improvement.
Open Palm is probably closer to what you'd consider traditional 'good' behaviour - it's about developing and using your strength/wisdom/etc. to help others to resist tyranny. While it does advocate avoiding violence where possible, it is not about opposed to fighting where necessary (most of its followers are martial artists, after all). The traditional 'failure' when following Open Palm is using your own power to control others, to force them to do what you see as being the right thing - effectively becoming the source of tyranny yourself.

Closed Fist, on the other hand values personal strength as the end-goal. It sees life as being a constant provider of adversity and that only by facing adversity can one become strong. The purpose of following closed fist is to provide an example of this, and if your purpose requires you to you injure or kill then that's what you do - because it is always more noble to die fighting against adversity then survive by surrendering to it. The traditional 'failure' of following Closed Fist is to forget that violence must always serve a purpose - toying with enemies or killing for pleasure is worthless and pathetic - and that personal strength is something that must always be strived for.

To give an example, an open palm follower would hold a slaver in contempt because slavery is a form of tyranny and would fight to free the slave. A closed fist follower might hold a slaver in contempt because the slaver relies on the strength of his slave rather than his own and would arm the slave so that they could then overthrow their master.
To put in simple terms, Open Palm helps others; Closed Fist teaches others to help themselves.

Interesting (especially since they're both, in D&D terms, CG or CN). While they obviously disagree with each other, would practitioners of one ever fight those of another?

Well, I used to use a few others but people always confused them for Good/Evil or Law/Chaos even if they weren't meant to be, and played with it accordingly.

Yeah, that's quite unfortunate.

Like in one of my RPGs there was the split between the Kalserens and the Falicians. Now neither side was meant to be Good/Evil. However the Kalserens were about individualism and the evolution of mankind by teaching each man to rely on themselves and foster their own strengths. The Falicians were about Community, and every member of a society giving up everything they could to help out the worst off, eventually making all people equal for the betterment of everyone.

Eventually this got framed up as Kalserens Evil, Falicians Good. Because of things like if you were injured, a Falician would heal you in return for a promised tithe to something like an orphanage, etc. A Kalseren would toss you a needle, thread, scalpel, and a copy of Grey's Anatomy and tell you to do it yourself.

Interestingly, this is much more Law/Chaos than Good/Evil, but I suppose that's a matter of education.

So I suppose the point is, unless something is almost non-sensical or masterfully done, they tend to put that "good/evil" or "Law/Chaos" axis on stuff. Even if it's something like Aggressive/Defensive. No matter how much I frame it up, they'll still attribute Aggressive to Evil, and Defensive to Good. Even if it's in a situation where say, Aggressive means proactively fixing evil things, and Defensive means retroactively trying to cure the aftermath.

What sorts of framing devices did you try? I'm curious if we can figure out something better.

Of course, any alignment that really does boil down to "Good/Evil" or "Law/Chaos" is kind of redundant, so weeding those out is a good thing.

Honour vs Dishonour.
The Wild vs Civilisation.
Glory vs Stability.

Hmm, the first two of those sound like nuanced variations on Law/Chaos, but the third one is rather more unique. What might an exemplar of stability act like?

How about instinct vs analysis?
Going with your gut being instinct, and stopping to think about something as it's opposite.

Well, that's more a personality trait; it doesn't seem to have any particular cosmic echo, as it were.

“It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.”
Oscar Wilde

Heh. That's another vote for "funky/square", I guess.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

I usually go with a Altruism-Mercenary and Pessimism-Optimism axis.

AM rates how altruistic or egotistic you are. An Altruist will turn down a reward for a good deed, while a Mercenary will take the reward as is, or ask for more if they feel it is deserved.

PO rates how someone views the world around them. Pessimists tend to think about the worst possible outcomes, and Optimists aim for the very best.

Example:

Spoiler

Show

An Altruistic Pessimist, for example, would be Roy Greenhilt or Master Vrook from Knights of the Old Republic. Basically cynical heroes who, despite their unending efforts to save lives and promote freedom and justice, verbally and physically berate, mock and belittle the world around them (Roy's opinion on Elan, Vrook's opinion of you).

A Mercenary Optimist is best represented as Titus Pullo from HBO's Rome, or Post-Romance Haley Starshine. Selfish? Maybe. A jerk? Naw. They look out for themselves, but tend to like to limit the collateral damage to people they don't like.

[Mx.Silver]

Interesting (especially since they're both, in D&D terms, CG or CN). While they obviously disagree with each other, would practitioners of one ever fight those of another?

Yes. The philosophies are opposed on a number of points which can often put practitioners in conflict. For instance, if someone is in need of money then according to Closed Fist they are entirely justified in resorting to, say, mugging someone else. In fact from a Closed Fist standpoint this would actually be a better thing to do than asking for a handout. Open Palm would very much disagree.

[Silverbit]

An exemplar of stability would reduce change, where it harms. They would try to keep the status quo. In combat, they would act like an anti-Cú Chulainn, carefully and methodically blocking every attack, not taking any risks. Any stability magic would probably stop time briefly, freeze opponents in place, or calm emotions.

Kind of like Law, but focused on the lack of change. Glory is easier to separate from chaos though, it being the pursuit of fame, honour and revenge at any cost. Think Achilles or just about any norse saga hero.

[SowZ]

ME Paragon and Renegade are opposites in that Paragon is consistent, but Renegade is anything but. With Paragon, you can expect acting like a total ace who persuades everyone to do better with sheer charisma and do-goodness. Renegade, on the other hand, has hardcore actions of a badass who has good intentions but won't take **** from anyone, pointless violence and asshollery for the hell of it, and close-minded anti-alien racism, all in one package. And you never know which interrupt is which until you take it.



Actually, no. There's only a handful important decisions when Paragon is not clearly the right option. If you end up agreeing with Renegade choices on most things, you should ask yourself why. Because a lot of them are being a petty, close-minded douchebag obsessed with vengeance over long-term gain.

I specifically ousted the major decisions, though. Sure, throughout the game there are tons of small decisions where Renegade is just being a douche for no reason. At the same time, there are a number of places where being Renegade really makes the most sense and, to me, seems like the best thing for the galaxy. The 'bad' is often in hurting people who have already opened themself up to retribution.

Things like not letting people leave alive who are more guilty than the people you have been gunning down in a battle. Or roughly interrogating someone who won't tell you what they know when all sentient life is at stake.

Spoiler

Show

Choosing to not try and take Saren alive, but just set out to kill him. Choosing to value the lives of the human fleet over the corrupt and unwieldy council.

[Kane0]

The many vs the few (or the one)
individualism vs community
Tradition vs progress
Control vs spontaneity
Love vs hate (specifically, which brings forth more power)
Long term vs short term
Subtlety vs overtness

Alternatively, any of the Planescape factions can provide good touchstones for morality viewpoints.

[ArcturusV]

Well here's a For Instance, because I like drawing examples.

In a homebrew setting I had an NPC named Jakar. Now most write him off as Chaotic Evil (Even taking some Alignment Test on WotC's site, answering as him came up as that. Though I don't think he's really chaotic evil. Chaotic Neutral maybe).

He was labeled Evil for being, well, overly aggressive.

Now the Aggression/Defensive thing came in that, among his contemporaries there was a split among how to handle a problem. The problem being that Jakar (And the others) were human, in a setting where Humans were being pulverized and genocided left, right, and center by everyone and everything for a variety of reasons.

Some of his contemporaries thought that what humanity should do is basically lock down. Hole up where they are, and try to ride out the storm, and hope that the overwhelming odds against them, which by all rights were going to crush them 99.99% of the time, would somehow be fended off, or that some scattered humans hiding in the hinterlands would survive.

Jakar was of the camp that aggression was the only way to counter this. That he needed to go around, band together as many humans capable of fighting as possible, and break up attacks on Humanity and kick all the various elves, minotaurs, goliaths, shifters, gnomes, dwarves, etc, etc, etc, square in their nuts (or nearest equivalent), before they stomped out humans.

Which he did somewhat successfully, and is the reason more or less that humans still exist in that setting. He was painted as evil however for his aggression, bloodshed, and xenophobic behavior (Regardless of justification), and for the fact that in said setting he pretty much invented Necromancy as the modern people know it, raising those killed in battle to join his army and sapping the strength out of enemies with negative energy effects.

Still I have yet to have a player in that setting not look at Jakar as he gets described in the history, or as they see his actions the couple of times they were there to witness it, not paint him as "evil" but merely "Aggressive". Which was more his theme. Aggression in that Pissed off Mother Bear had her Cubs Messed With sort of way. And despite the fact that the defensive types probably would have lead to humanity dying out in a generation or two, they are hailed as Good, rather than craven and evil/neutral, as it was usually people NOT fighting to hold the walls who were adherents of the "hold the wall" philosophy.

[EccentricCircle]

In one game I ran they discovered that Drow society had no concept of good and evil, but considered alignment to be Law vs Chaos on one axis and Sneakyness vs Bluntness on the other.

[Jay R]

Spock / McCoy is the logic / emotion axis.

Gryffindor / Slytherin is the heroic vs. self-centered axis.

Fonzie / Potsie is the cool vs. blah axis

Mary Ann / Ginger is the farm girl beauty vs. cosmopolitan beauty axis.

Superman / Batman is the combination of the natural power vs. developed power axis, and the light vs. darkness axis.

[Sith_Happens]

Dogs vs. cats

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Dogs represent giving, and are associated with ideas such as loyalty, sociability, and unconditional love. No matter what, dogs want to be with you and make you happy. They seek you out when you're home, wait for you when you're away, and always seem to brighten your day in the process. "Dog people" are known to go to their dogs to the park, where they interact with other like-minded people and their dogs.

Dogs do have a darker side, however, as they are often associated with roteness and complacency; they tend to fall into a simple routine or set of behaviors and are content to live their whole life as such.

Cats represent taking, and are associated with ideas such as selfishness, reclusiveness, and unpredictability. More often than not, cats want to be left alone. That's not to say you can ignore them and their needs however; attempt to do so and you will quickly find your vases knocked over and your toilet paper shredded. "Cat people" often express a preference for the company of their cats over that of other humans, and can extreme cases go into complete isolation.

Cats do have a lighter side, however, as they are often associated with variety and exploration; they have a wide set of behaviors and tend to be much funnier on the Internet.

-------------------------------------------

While seeming on the surface like a mere personality clash, the ideological struggle between dogs and cats is very much embedded in the cosmos themselves. So much so, in fact, that the reconciliation of the two is thought by experts to be a foremost sign of apocalypse.

[DonDuckie]

WARNING: I love the alignment sytem.

I'm playing around with some homebrew and I intend to have a thrid axis:

Right vs. Wrong

I don't know how to do it yet but it is inspired by the whole alignment debate(at least how I see the debate(and I know 'debate' is a generous term)):

Is killing one to save many Good? probably not... but is Right? maybe...
See; it's just as vague as the others

The way some people play paladins, "You must do as I say because I'm LG" would be LG-Wrong, whereas living altruisticly and upholding law and tradition, without imposing your own morals(in the form of additional restrictions) on friends/innocents, could be LG-Right.

I don't have it worked out - at all... but an axis that spans the different behaviors within an alignment. "I'm TN so I don't care" is Wrong, "I'm TN so I weigh both sides and deside for my self and purely based on this specifics of this situation and myself" could be Right (or Neutral)

Also: What the deal with anti-paladins: "You absolutely have to be Chaotic" and "If you do Good willingly, you lose your powers." ... just silly ... So this class would have the additional restriction(if I ever had an anurism and allowed it in my game): She must be Chaotic Evil Wrong, as in "I'm CE, so I can't love a person, I must hate everything, even hate itself, and the fact that I hate hate itself, and facts in general, and hating, and not hating... AAARRGGGG" "And that this smiley is called smallbiggrin, it should just be grin..."

[nedz]

Masculine/Feminine — AKA Yin-Yang

[ReaderAt2046]

I've been working on a world that defines everything in terms of the two opposing forces of the Rose and the Flame. The Rose is that which adds, the force of growth, creation, and life. The Flame is that which takes away, the force of destruction, death, and unmaking. Both are held to be essential to the functioning of society. To quote a philosopher, "Without the Flame to burn it away, the Rose grows upon itself and becomes twisted and cancerous. Without the Rose to replace what it burns, the Flame burns away all its fuel and dies."

To provide some practical examples: medicine and agriculture are considered Rose-aligned, while law and war are flame-aligned.

Also one interesting quirk of this culture's law is that the King is always a fire-mage and the Queen always a rose-mage. (this has to do with their different legal powers and responsibilities. For example, war and law are some of the most flame-aligned of activities, so the king has total authority over the armies, courts, and police.) However, magical proficiency, though gender-aligned, is not gender-specific (i.e. about 75% of rose-mages are women, and about 75% of fire-mages men), which means that you occasionally get a male Queen and a female King. They are always married to each other, so they do have to be opposite genders.

[nedz]

Art/Science

[TuggyNE]

I've been working on a world that defines everything in terms of the two opposing forces of the Rose and the Flame. The Rose is that which adds, the force of growth, creation, and life. The Flame is that which takes away, the force of destruction, death, and unmaking. Both are held to be essential to the functioning of society. To quote a philosopher, "Without the Flame to burn it away, the Rose grows upon itself and becomes twisted and cancerous. Without the Rose to replace what it burns, the Flame burns away all its fuel and dies."

To provide some practical examples: medicine and agriculture are considered Rose-aligned, while law and war are flame-aligned.

Also one interesting quirk of this culture's law is that the King is always a fire-mage and the Queen always a rose-mage. (this has to do with their different legal powers and responsibilities. For example, war and law are some of the most flame-aligned of activities, so the king has total authority over the armies, courts, and police.) However, magical proficiency, though gender-aligned, is not gender-specific (i.e. about 75% of rose-mages are women, and about 75% of fire-mages men), which means that you occasionally get a male Queen and a female King. They are always married to each other, so they do have to be opposite genders.

Now that's what I'm talking about! Awesome.

Interestingly, Wheel of Time has a vaguely similar setup with the Flame and the Void, except backwards. (Well, actually it has a lot of slightly different thematic echoes with male/female, saidin/saidar, flame/void, Flame of Tar Valon/Dragon's Fang, Creator/Dark One, and so on and so forth. But you know what I mean. )

[Blightedmarsh]

Zombies Vrs Robots

Or to put it another way the singularity verses the virus.

Two mutually opposing and implacable forces ripping each other to shreds and destroying everything in their wake. Humanities continued survival is dependent of a delicate balance of terror; if one side where ever to win we would be extinguished in a heartbeat.

[EccentricCircle]

WARNING: I love the alignment sytem.

I'm playing around with some homebrew and I intend to have a thrid axis:

Right vs. Wrong

Interesting. I've considered a similar concept, although not adding a new axis, just making the good and evil axis circular with two more categories, Greater Good beyond good and Neccersary Evil beyond evil.

[SowZ]

Interesting. I've considered a similar concept, although not adding a new axis, just making the good and evil axis circular with two more categories, Greater Good beyond good and Neccersary Evil beyond evil.

That sort of takes any interest in classic Good and Evil away, though, because now Evil is always for evils sake and Good is always for goods sake, which I fine kind of boring.

[Jay R]

You might take a look at the virtues and vices in Pendragon.

They are complementary, and always add up to 20. (If you have a cowardice of 7, then you have a Courage of 13, for instance.)

But they change based on your actions over the year. If you continue facing foes instead of running, Courage will go up, and Cowardice will go down. But if you routinely run, then when you try to make a stand you are more likely to fail the morale roll.