New Alignments

[1pwny]

Good and evil are all relative terms. In a small world of constant warfare, where individual values are constantly pitted against each other, there is no time for philosophical debates of “good” or “evil”. Instead, they are divided into other alignments,

	Malefical	Fickle	Benevolent
Loyal	Psychopathic	Follower	Paragon
Wavering	Murderous	Self-Serving	Kindhearted
Dishonest	Traitor	Mercenary	Wanderer

As mentioned before, this alignment system is made for a cruel, harsh, world. There is no “lawful” or “chaotic”, but you may see some resemblance in certain categories.

Definitions:
Psychopathic: Scarred mentally from an early age, you found yourself empty. You hated all those that thought they could understand you, so you killed them. However, your leaders saw great potential in you. After vigorous mental training, you have come to realize that serving the village will give you plenty of strength... and victims.

Follower: You do what your superiors tell you to do. But not because you have no free will of your own. You acknowledge that they are in charge for a reason, and you yield to their superior experience and power. You will do what your leader tells you to do, as long as it makes sense.

Paragon: You are looked up to by all those around you. You follow orders, as far as you can, while at the same time never losing your morals. If the mission is to “Capture Dead or Alive”, you will try your hardest to capture them alive.

Murderous: You don’t know when it happened, but at some point it just clicked. Killing people is fun. You will follow orders, as long as you get some people to toy with afterwards. However, you are not hesitant to leave a place that won’t let you kill.

Self-Serving: You do what is best for the most important person in the world: yourself. You can follow orders, as long as you can see the “What’s in it for me?” reward. Killing is... unsavory... but can be necessary.

Kindhearted: You're just one of those nice people that gives money to the hobos lining the streets. You will always try to protect life, and avoid unnecessary pain. If that means going against orders, so be it. Life is more important than words on a page, after all.

Traitor: You don’t care. That’s what it boils down to. Whatever it takes to kill, to get that rush, is something you will be willing to do. Stabbing people in the back (both literally and metaphorically) is what puts a spring in your step.

Mercenary: You have long since learned not to trust other humans. You only work for your own benefit, and never stay on the same side for long. Unless that side is paying you more than the competitors. The only thing you believe in is money.

Wanderer: Long since disgusted by most organized civilization, you have taken it upon yourself to live the lonely life of walking endlessly around the continent. You smash drug rings, defeat corrupt business leaders and feed children in the slums. Betrayal is fine, as long as you can save more people.

[Jakodee]

Somewhat of a refluf, but much more fitting none the less.

[Leviting]

I really like the scale of loyalty, as opposed to law. It just seems to make more sense, as rebel armies are inherently both lawful and chaotic at the same time in the old system.

Sadly, this system pegs me right around follower. Even though that is probably totally true. (I might be a paragon at best, but the "model human" and "alive" part mess that up)

[OblivionBlade]

Definitely much better than the original alignment system.

Loyalty makes much more sense than lawfulness, as stated in the prvious post, and how a chaotic leader would have lawful followers.

I'd rename "traitor" to "savage", as traitors need to originally have an ally to betray.

[Cloud]

Huh, sadly I don't have much to say that's constructive, but overall I think this is rather awesome.

It might be annoying to use a traditional D&D game (where alignments are tied to the nature of beings and planes, the extremes of Law and Chaos I feel are hit the worst) but for many other games it would fit quite well, and heck even in D&D this still works great for the alignment of mortals.

[toapat]

Huh, sadly I don't have much to say that's constructive, but overall I think this is rather awesome.

It might be annoying to use a traditional D&D game (where alignments are tied to the nature of beings and planes, the extremes of Law and Chaos I feel are hit the worst) but for many other games it would fit quite well, and heck even in D&D this still works great for the alignment of mortals.

honestly theres a huge number of problems with the Law-Chaos Axis. ranging from the fact that Law and good are defined using the exact same morals, while Chaos is itself defined moreso as an anarchist then anarchic. Chaos is random, but Chaotic is actually very orderly. theres also the problem that the Good -Evil axis is Good/Not as Good/Self Centered as opposed to Beneficial/Self Serving/Destructive

Fickle should be on the Loyalty axis as the neutral setting, and the neutral for The Benevolent - Malefic scale should be neutral. Benevolent should be replaced with Altruistic (because being Nice shouldnt be a law of the alignment)

[Cloud]

...I mostly just meant that Limbo certainly isn't the personification of dishonesty or Mechanus the personification of loyalty. Which may or may not be a problem in your game.

For mortals and the like I certainly agree that the law-chaos axis is extremely flawed and the new alignments suggested fit much better, as much as an alignment system that draws boxes for humans to fit into can or can't.