Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

[GreatWyrmGold]

If you want to stick with the Great Wheel cosmology but don't want to stick with the prescriptive-morality that the standard alignment system implies, I'd suggest making "alignments" more like "allegiances". Good and Evil become Light and Dark, two opposed factions of gods and divine servants; Law and Chaos become Order and Freedom, two different philosophies of how to achieve those factions' ends. Most servants of Light by Order may resemble a standard lawful-good archetype, but they don't have to—if they serve a being of Light and Order, they're considered to be in that corner, regardless of their personal ideals or actions.

This brings the cosmic struggle between Good and Evil down to the level of, say, the Cold War—a struggle between groups who are ideologically opposed, but perhaps more similar than they'd like to admit. Whether that's a bug or a feature depends on how you use it and what you hope to achieve.

[Telok]

If you want to stick with the Great Wheel cosmology but don't want to stick with the prescriptive-morality that the standard alignment system implies, I'd suggest making "alignments" more like "allegiances". Good and Evil become Light and Dark, two opposed factions of gods and divine servants; Law and Chaos become Order and Freedom, two different philosophies of how to achieve those factions' ends. Most servants of Light by Order may resemble a standard lawful-good archetype, but they don't have to—if they serve a being of Light and Order, they're considered to be in that corner, regardless of their personal ideals or actions.

This brings the cosmic struggle between Good and Evil down to the level of, say, the Cold War—a struggle between groups who are ideologically opposed, but perhaps more similar than they'd like to admit. Whether that's a bug or a feature depends on how you use it and what you hope to achieve.

Did that, it worked fine.

Diety of necromancy was also the diety of reincarnation and Dark aligned, and all necromancy was Dark aligned, so coming back from the dead was a "dark" thing. Calling up the spirit of old uncle bob to clarify his will was also "dark" and way more common than, say a skeleton army. Of course the sun & law diety's inqusition was going to burn you at the stake for violating the natural order and using "evil" magic.

Many necromancers were nasty zombie army types and many sun priests were nice community oriented healers. But decoupling alignment from morals and making deities non-moral cosmic forces let me have more variety in npcs and setting bits.

[Morphic tide]

I'm not wanting a voluntary allegiance, I just want to decouple the "moral" axis from being prescriptive "Good" and "Evil". I want to keep the Tanar'ri being legalistic dominators, but want that to be consistent instead of abridged the moment temptation plots arrive and make that not the only form of Lawful "Evil". By using Light/Dark, it breaks the opportunity to have Fomorians assaulting Mount Celestia with their own interpretation of communal goods to end up with eusocial insects fighting angels with both being valid Lawful "Good", or Abyssal Druids that are obsessed with competition rather than needing to degenerate to parasitism and decay.

Having Gnolls and Beholders fighting against cyberpunk libertarians right at home in the Abyss while Illithids have enclaves in Baator that are a constant thorn in Azmodeus' side because they pop up every time an Elder Brain dies. A non-Abyssal Succubus remains a Succubus, a Fallen Angel is still an Angel, but there's still aspects that change in response to their turn utterly inherent in changing the Outer Plane they're affiliated with. If a Succubus becomes Lawful, they're still founded on carnality, but shift to being a harsh matron. A Solar joining the forces of Baator is still a beacon of cleansing light, but it becomes a source of domination rather than alms and boons. Aesthetics are mutable, but function has limits.

[OldTrees1]

I just want to decouple the "moral" axis from being prescriptive "Good" and "Evil".

the opportunity to have Fomorians assaulting Mount Celestia with their own interpretation of communal goods to end up with eusocial insects fighting angels with both being valid Lawful "Good"

Sounds like you already know what you are replacing it with, you just need new names? Altruism and Self Interest should be reasonable. Both have a positive connotation with a hidden dark side proportional to the positive connotation*.

* Yes, some forms or extremes of altruism can be dystopian.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Having Gnolls and Beholders fighting against cyberpunk libertarians right at home in the Abyss...

Alright, yeah, that sounds rad. But I'm not sure what you want alignment to be. What is it that unites the gnolls, beholders, and cyberpunk libertarians? Or for that matter, what unites them with the Abyssal druids obsessed with competition. What makes all of these different kinds of people CE/Abyssal/whatever? Why are they living in the same corner of the cosmos?

[Morphic tide]

Alright, yeah, that sounds rad. But I'm not sure what you want alignment to be. What is it that unites the gnolls, beholders, and cyberpunk libertarians? Or for that matter, what unites them with the Abyssal druids obsessed with competition. What makes all of these different kinds of people CE/Abyssal/whatever? Why are they living in the same corner of the cosmos?

Because all three are vicious self-interest in the fashion of disregarding structure. The Gnolls are violent cannibalistic marauders, the Beholders are egotists that are either borderline solipsistic or brutal in pushing their exact personal form depending on edition, and the cyberpunk libertarians are generally full "Screw You, Got Mine" Randian types, while the Druid is all in on predation, having rather pointed issues with accepting that pack hunters and herding are prevalent facts of nature.

Basically, they're all flavors of rampant individualism absent any hierarchies beyond personal influence. Cooperation is by raw necessity, the imposition of the strong, or mutual benefit. The AnCap paradise is in a small corner of Ysgard, while the Abyssals are very much cyberpunk conglomerates being harshly limited in totality of exploitation by the fact there's no outside state to guarantee debt, and trying to become one with public acceptance results in your location moving to Hades if not Baator. Lot more Plane-shuffling going on than canon since real ideologies have so many ways they can twist to fit a different Outer Plane from what's initially expected.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Because all three are vicious self-interest in the fashion of disregarding structure. The Gnolls are violent cannibalistic marauders, the Beholders are egotists that are either borderline solipsistic or brutal in pushing their exact personal form depending on edition, and the cyberpunk libertarians are generally full "Screw You, Got Mine" Randian types, while the Druid is all in on predation, having rather pointed issues with accepting that pack hunters and herding are prevalent facts of nature.

Basically, they're all flavors of rampant individualism absent any hierarchies beyond personal influence. Cooperation is by raw necessity, the imposition of the strong, or mutual benefit. The AnCap paradise is in a small corner of Ysgard, while the Abyssals are very much cyberpunk conglomerates being harshly limited in totality of exploitation by the fact there's no outside state to guarantee debt, and trying to become one with public acceptance results in your location moving to Hades if not Baator. Lot more Plane-shuffling going on than canon since real ideologies have so many ways they can twist to fit a different Outer Plane from what's initially expected.

So law/chaos is replaced with collectivism/individualism, while good/evil is...actually, I'm not sure. The only good thing you've identified with anything except D&D monsters is an "AnCap paradise," which mostly makes me wonder what you think the difference between an anarcho-capitalist paradise and a Randian dystopia is.

[OldTrees1]

So law/chaos is replaced with collectivism/individualism, while good/evil is...actually, I'm not sure. The only good thing you've identified with anything except D&D monsters is an "AnCap paradise," which mostly makes me wonder what you think the difference between an anarcho-capitalist paradise and a Randian dystopia is.

It sounds the other way around to me. They replaced good/evil with collectivism/individualism.

Now celestials will argue the good of the many outweigh the good of the one. This leads to the virtue of self sacrifice and the vice of excessive self sacrifice. On the other end you have fiends that focus on self interest. Selfishness being a common vice. But self interest can be a virtue.

That is probably the easiest way to decouple good/evil from celestial/fiends as we know them.

[Morphic tide]

So law/chaos is replaced with collectivism/individualism, while good/evil is...actually, I'm not sure. The only good thing you've identified with anything except D&D monsters is an "AnCap paradise," which mostly makes me wonder what you think the difference between an anarcho-capitalist paradise and a Randian dystopia is.

Well, with regard to the difference between the extremes of Randianism ("Randian dystopia" has the secondary meaning of the society depicted in Atlas Shrugged) and AnCap paradise, it comes down to stability. The cyberpunk Abyssal residents can't do the de-facto slavery expected, but also can't maintain cohesion and stability any wider than the reach of a given strongman. Every person that arrives must be self-interested and disapproving of hard structures, or else they wouldn't have went to the Abyss for their afterlife, which ultimately means the only Anarcho-Capitalist problem solved is the matter of monolithic megacorps owning everything because there's no outside authority to enforce that ownership and nobody's a passive follower who will just sit down and be exploited.

As for the Good/Evil replacement...

It sounds the other way around to me. They replaced good/evil with collectivism/individualism.

Now celestials will argue the good of the many outweigh the good of the one. This leads to the virtue of self sacrifice and the vice of excessive self sacrifice. On the other end you have fiends that focus on self interest. Selfishness being a common vice. But self interest can be a virtue.

That is probably the easiest way to decouple good/evil from celestial/fiends as we know them.

Basically this, yes. It's the Good/Evil replaced here, not Law/Chaos. It's a fine line, but can work well as a difference between means and ends, as well as degrees of obligation. Baator isn't rampantly individualist, they're an unholy amalgamation of every top-down authority system run for the benefit of the leader in one form or another, because Azmodeus is In Charge and thus has a very nearly insurmountable home-field advantage.

A major thing to note would be leveraging alien psychology like Heinlein did in Starship Troopers, wherein Communism was claimed to not be functional by human nature, followed by introducing non-human enemies that it was, in fact, functional for in the Bugs: Baator, Hades, and the Abyss suck for the standard races... Because humans, elves, dwarves, and so on have psychological needs and beliefs ingrained by the conditions of societies able to survive D&D nonsense rendering them a poor fit.

Gnolls and harpies don't find issues with the Abyss not because they've never had the chance to civilize, but because they, and most of the other "savage" races one expects to be Chaotic Evil, have considerably greater innate abilities than the standard races leading to rather little need to, and by extension little want. Illithids just have issues with who's in charge in Baator, the basic structure of it makes perfect sense for their blend of wholesale slavery and nigh-eusocial behavior.

[Cluedrew]

What constitutes "fair" and what is "cheating?" Obviously, "cheating" can be defined as going against agreed-upon rules, but do you go with the letter or spirit of them?

The Trickster: "I'm not cheating, I never agreed to your rules in the first place."

I would argue that "good" is less vague than "fair," and that's precisely why it is something you can design something with agreement on the broad strokes around.

I am going to agree but for a slightly different reason: The word fairness actually covers several different concepts. This is just kind of an organizational difference but it does mean you could have an alignment axis that measures someone's primary value of fairness (say opportunity to reward).

[Segev]

The Trickster: "I'm not cheating, I never agreed to your rules in the first place."

And how that's seen is also context-dependent (which is why I love the example). While it sounds, on its face, like the trickster here is pulling a fast one (i.e. being "unfair"), consider if a group of bandits swing into a farming village and declare that the farmers will face them in a game of stab-ball, which is a game with well-defined rules that very clearly give many advantages to the bandits due to their skill sets, equipment, and physiques compared to the farmers'. Anybody not showing up to play or watch will be killed by the bandits.

When the game day comes, the farmers do not play by the rules and maim or kill most of the bandits in the process. "That's cheating!" whine the bandits, to which the farmers reply, "We never agreed to your rules in the first place."

I am going to agree but for a slightly different reason: The word fairness actually covers several different concepts. This is just kind of an organizational difference but it does mean you could have an alignment axis that measures someone's primary value of fairness (say opportunity to reward).

This would require more thoroughly exploring what the different concepts it encompasses are, and clearly delineating them. But it could be an interesting conversation.

[Quertus]

And I'm not sure what you're trying to convey with your post.

Nor what you're trying. At first I thought you were trying to point out how you could make any character trait into any of the four categories (which, yes, but that's not really relevant to my point, nor is it 100% true, some of those are really stretching), but then I came across this:

and thought "Hey, this is the outline of an actual character." Obnoxious and secretive, but good-hearted and selfless.

Looks like you got it (well, other than the fact that the "obnoxious" is probably a response to the *style* in which I wrote the information, rather than to the information itself). Since page 1, I've been trying to ground any proposed systems I thought that I understood with 3-4 sample characters, to help at least myself see what each system does - and, perhaps more importantly, *doesn't* - say about each character.

Speaking of, "collectivism/individualism, ???/???" Is not a system I understand yet. Is there even a proposed second axis?

However, even if you view this as an outline of a character, I'm not sure… a) how much it captures the most important facets of the character, or b) what the value of having that information on the character sheet would be.

So, can you explain what value you see in me writing "Obnoxious and secretive, but good-hearted and selfless" on my character sheet?

[Morphic tide]

Speaking of, "collectivism/individualism, ???/???" Is not a system I understand yet. Is there even a proposed second axis?

It's to replace the Good/Evil axis to cut the prescriptive morality from D&D's Great Wheel, but keep the Cosmic Alignment functionality of afterlife planes having inherent philosophical biases drawing like souls to them. The distinction from Law/Chaos is, as previously mentioned, a bit hard to pin down solidly but works well as sticking to Means versus Ends as it is in D&D canon; Upper Planes have the end of maximizing communal goods, Lower Planes have the end of maximizing personal gains, while the Planes of Law have governing rules as the means and the Planes of Chaos have singular actors as the means.

...I'm not sure how to put it because it's a half-formed mess for me, as well, and I am not remotely educated in philosophy or ethics to hammer out consistency.

However, even if you view this as an outline of a character, I'm not sure… a) how much it captures the most important facets of the character, or b) what the value of having that information on the character sheet would be.

I'll admit that it's a bit off-topic for the thread because it's about finishing the divorce of D&D alignment from actual morality. Someone pinging as Abyss-aligned could be a baby-eating rapist, but could just as well be a ruthless merchant, or even a dedicated artist or athlete to the exclusion of most other concerns in their life. Not meaning much in roleplay terms is the point, opening the Upper Planes to actually having horrible people in them (generally the buying-their-own-hype cult leaders and other such malicious in action but well-meaning figures) and the Lower Planes to having solid places to live, while giving a much stronger reason for dedication to a Deity because it guarantees you an actually specific afterlife instead of rolling the dice on exactly what region you end up in. A well-respected tribal warrior who died fighting for his people ending up in Ancapistan is not going to like his afterlife.

Asmodeus is a better stick against bureaucratic corruption than most religions IRL have, anyways. "Everlasting suffering" in the abstract is one thing, being informed you'll be tortured for centuries until you have no sense of self left and you're reduced to raw tyrannical impulse, then most likely sacrificed in a heartbeat in an everlasting war waged primarily for the sake of the guy in charge preoccupying and removing his rivals, is another. Particularly when it's a very bluntly provable fact.

[OldTrees1]

Speaking of, "collectivism/individualism, ???/???" Is not a system I understand yet. Is there even a proposed second axis?

However, even if you view this as an outline of a character, I'm not sure… a) how much it captures the most important facets of the character, or b) what the value of having that information on the character sheet would be.

It's to replace the Good/Evil axis to cut the prescriptive morality from D&D's Great Wheel, but keep the Cosmic Alignment functionality of afterlife planes having inherent philosophical biases drawing like souls to them. The distinction from Law/Chaos is, as previously mentioned, a bit hard to pin down solidly but works well as sticking to Means versus Ends as it is in D&D canon; Upper Planes have the end of maximizing communal goods, Lower Planes have the end of maximizing personal gains, while the Planes of Law have governing rules as the means and the Planes of Chaos have singular actors as the means.

...I'm not sure how to put it because it's a half-formed mess for me, as well, and I am not remotely educated in philosophy or ethics to hammer out consistency.

Hmm. I might be able to describe a non messy version. However this will cause some alignment shifts.

• When a moral agent in D&D talks about morality are they thinking about it in terms of the good of the group or the good of the individuals?
• Likewise when a moral agent in D&D talks about morality are they thinking about it in terms of principles / rules or are they evaluating each situation independently?

Those 2 questions form your ends and means axes without biasing labeling.

Formians frame the question as "What rules would be for the good of the hive?" (Lawful Collectivist)
Modrons frame the question as "What rules are prescribed?" (Lawful Neutral)
Inevitables frame the question as "What rules ought one never break?" (Lawful Neutral)
Devils frame the question as "What rules are in your best interest to follow?" (Lawful Individualist)

[Morphic tide]

Hmm. I might be able to describe a non messy version. However this will cause some alignment shifts.

• When a moral agent in D&D talks about morality are they thinking about it in terms of the good of the group or the good of the individuals?
• Likewise when a moral agent in D&D talks about morality are they thinking about it in terms of principles / rules or are they evaluating each situation independently?

Those 2 questions form your ends and means axes without biasing labeling.

Formians frame the question as "What rules would be for the good of the hive?" (Lawful Collectivist)
Modrons frame the question as "What rules are prescribed?" (Lawful Neutral)
Inevitables frame the question as "What rules ought one never break?" (Lawful Neutral)
Devils frame the question as "What rules are in your best interest to follow?" (Lawful Individualist)

This works well, though it'd be more like 10-30% of Formians moving towards Celestia as the Lawful Neutral majority fulfil their roles in the hive as an end in its own right, much as the sadism of the canon Baernoloths is an expression of Pure Evil for its own sake. The majority of each given group ought to stay where they are, but Outsiders changing Planes ought to be seen as a natural extension of the ambiguity of sapient philosophy and reality being much more complicated than Planar absolutes, rather than some spectacular aberration.

It also deals with the "Lolrandom" issue of Chaos, making it so the lack of structure is a matter of independent evaluation rather than simply lacking reason entirely. The solipsism of Limbo is thus not it lacking reason, but it demanding finesse. There will be no checklist, you have to keep what's actually there in mind, and quite literally so to keep ground under you and your feet on that ground.

[Quertus]

(note: edited *twice* for tone, because I'm *terrible* at tone)

Ow my head… so… the new alignment is… a meta-question? It's the form that the question takes?

OK… and… um… the value of having that in the game, the value of writing that on the character sheet, is… ?

It's not seeing what value these proposed changes add to the game. I kinda see all the hilarious questions it opens up about outsiders, but those feel like they'd be better explored in fiction, or discussion boards, than in a game. Of course, I always saw the original implementation of alignment as being a detriment, so there is that.

Am I missing anything, or is it pretty pointless to write things like,

"What rules or outcomes are in the best interests of the universe?"

"What outcomes are in my best interest to pursue?"

"Huh?"

…on their respective character sheets?

Or is this strictly an aid for world-building more interesting outer planets (and should thenceforth be removed from the game)?

[OldTrees1]

Ugh… so… the new alignment is… a meta-question? It's the form that the question takes?

OK… and… the value of having that in the game, the value of writing that on the character sheet, is… ?

It's not sounding any more useful to the game than alignment originally was (which is to say, a detriment), except for all the hilarious questions it opens up about outsiders. Which I think is better served in fiction, or discussion boards, than in a game.

Am I missing anything, or is it pretty pointless to write things like,

"What rules or outcomes are in the best interests of the universe?"

"What outcomes are in my best interest to pursue?"

"Huh?"

…on their respective character sheets?

Or is this strictly an aid for world-building more interesting outer planets (and should thenceforth be removed from the game)?

The tone of this post does not encourage me to answer your questions.

The value of playing the game in a way that best fits what your group is looking for in the game, is because it best fits what your group is looking for in the game. Once I try to get past your unfortunate tone, it sounds like you are struggling to see why you would value this model and thus are questioning if anyone would value it. This is my attempt at fleshing out what Morphic tide was looking for.

If you have further questions with a better tone, I might try to answer them deeper.

[Morphic tide]

OK… and… the value of having that in the game, the value of writing that on the character sheet, is… ?

It's not sounding any more useful to the game than alignment originally was (which is to say, a detriment), except for all the hilarious questions it opens up about outsiders. Which I think is better served in fiction, or discussion boards, than in a game.

It's less useful for determining roleplay off the Alignment entry on the character sheet (not that putting "Evil" on it is liable to do anything productive...), but is more useful to having options the moment anything to do with the afterlife or Outsiders come up because it makes it so the characters can legitimately consider using the stuff of the Lower Planes. It's a matter of clearing issues of D&D cosmology while keeping it recognizable on broad levels to continue running much the same campaigns if you want without shackling the campaign to the original premise of Outer Plane functions, not something for an arbitrary system or setting.

Since D&D has Alignment as an actual mechanical object, with considerable amounts of worldbuilding for most official settings surrounding it and quite the pile of rules text, we can't throw away the two-axis system unless we want to get into rebuilding basically everything from the start. Even just pruning the Good/Evil absolutism like I've poked at invites a pile of issues because you need to furnish the Abyss with livable Layers, figure out the problems of the Upper Planes, rethink vast sums of work around Undead, work nuance into all the Always Evil cultures to reorient them around varied flavors of the Evil substitute and its interaction with Law/Chaos...

Basically focusing on the cosmology side rather than a useful moral description. That's for roleplay, D&D hasn't ever really had useful foundations for RP mechanics like a fleshed-out ethics system, and such can't really ever manage to be accurate unless you're playing with Philosophy majors so why not just call it quits at fixing the prescriptive morality problem and doing justice to the results?

[GreatWyrmGold]

Looks like you got it (well, other than the fact that the "obnoxious" is probably a response to the *style* in which I wrote the information, rather than to the information itself). Since page 1, I've been trying to ground any proposed systems I thought that I understood with 3-4 sample characters, to help at least myself see what each system does - and, perhaps more importantly, *doesn't* - say about each character.

[...]

However, even if you view this as an outline of a character, I'm not sure… a) how much it captures the most important facets of the character, or b) what the value of having that information on the character sheet would be.

So, can you explain what value you see in me writing "Obnoxious and secretive, but good-hearted and selfless" on my character sheet?

First: It's really weird to interject a criticism about someone else's proposed morality subsystem in the middle of your criticism about mine.

Second: I see two ways that something like a trait/ideal/bond/flaw system would be useful.
It requires the player to think about their character as a character in its own right, rather than just being their avatar. This is true of any alignment system (and one of the few things I feel the standard D&D alignment system provides), but something like the TIBF system focuses on actual character traits and not just broad ideological alliances.

It also conveys to the DM what the character's most important traits are. If their trait is plucky, then the DM knows to expect them to mess around cheerfully. If their ideal is "No one should suffer so" and their bond is "It is not for land or wealth, but for the hearts and souls of men that we fight," then the DM knows the character cares more about helping people in need than material rewards, and that this core desire is what drives them. If their flaw is "Keeping secrets is a form of protection," the DM knows that this desire will drive them to hide things from the party if they think the party would be better off ignorant.

And as I said at the beginning:

Anyways, I'm promoting the Trait/Ideal/Bond/Flaw system not because it's the best for every situation and need, or even because it's the best at what it does (the categories are a bit ambiguous and lack specificity), but because it does something useful for every story, no matter the plot, tone, or context. (Also, because everyone here should be at least vaguely familiar with it.)

(Emphasis present-mine, not past-mine.)
The specific categories of Trait, Ideal, Bond, and Flaw aren't important. If I were designing the system from scratch, I'd pick different categories. Maybe Goal, Motivation, and Dread—what you're fighting for, why you're fighting for it, and your greatest fear. I think that's more interesting (and digs deeper into who the character is) than personality quirk, abstract belief, personal connection, and bad personality quirk.
But TIBF is familiar to anyone who's played 5e (or at least looked at a character sheet), and the important part of my argument was discarding broad moral labels for specific character traits.

[Quertus]

tone

Huh. My tone was intended to convey my complete confusion (which you seem to have understood without my tone), as well as a reminder of who I am / who your audience is (I never found any value in the original alignment system). Apologies if my tone conveyed something else.

(Edit: made an attempt to change the tone of the post. Any better, or am I still tone deaf?)

roleplay

I mean, it's a fair cop that "roleplay" is the most important thing to me, but even I recognize that it's not the *only* thing.

If someone wanted to replace "AC", and people came up with ideas like "DR" or "floogle", and I asked what the value of these alternatives was, I wouldn't expect anyone to respond, "it doesn't help with roleplay".

So, I mean, while it's great and all that my "first love" is being addressed, I feel compelled to point out that, throughout this thread, I really haven't *expected* the answer to the value of any of these systems to be "role-playing". Further, it was intended as a completely open question.

is more useful to having options the moment anything to do with the afterlife or Outsiders come up

because it makes it so the characters can legitimately consider using the stuff of the Lower Planes.

It's a matter of clearing issues of D&D cosmology while keeping it recognizable on broad levels to continue running much the same campaigns if you want without shackling the campaign to the original premise of Outer Plane functions,

These seem to answer my question quite well. Thanks!

If I come up with any questions later, after I've *digested* this answer, I'll get back with you. But that does sound cool for world-building, for character-facing, and for opening up more options (as opposed to Milo looking at Hogwarts and only seeing one PC house).

not something for an arbitrary system or setting.

Since D&D has Alignment as an actual mechanical object, with considerable amounts of worldbuilding for most official settings surrounding it and quite the pile of rules text, we can't throw away the two-axis system unless we want to get into rebuilding basically everything from the start. Even just pruning the Good/Evil absolutism like I've poked at invites a pile of issues because you need to furnish the Abyss with livable Layers, figure out the problems of the Upper Planes, rethink vast sums of work around Undead, work nuance into all the Always Evil cultures to reorient them around varied flavors of the Evil substitute and its interaction with Law/Chaos...

Basically focusing on the cosmology side rather than a useful moral description. That's for roleplay, D&D hasn't ever really had useful foundations for RP mechanics like a fleshed-out ethics system, and such can't really ever manage to be accurate unless you're playing with Philosophy majors so why not just call it quits at fixing the prescriptive morality problem and doing justice to the results?

I'm not sure it would be that tough, but… not having to rearrange the planes is a decided bonus (in addition to keeping sacred cows).

criticism

Not sure that that's what I was trying to convey. Critique? Confusion? Maybe. But definitely not criticism - I don't *understand* it well enough to criticize it.

The only thing i was criticizing was the *original* alignment system; the rest, my stance was more, "here's what I see… where am I wrong, and where is this going?".

It requires the player to think about their character as a character in its own right, rather than just being their avatar. This is true of any alignment system (and one of the few things I feel the standard D&D alignment system provides), but something like the TIBF system focuses on actual character traits and not just broad ideological alliances.

I'm not sure if that's an *absolute*, but I'll grant that it makes it more likely, and puts the user in a better mindset for such ends.

It also conveys to the DM what the character's most important traits are.

At least what I read of the 5e implementation, that was not true.

If this is a *goal*, then one can discuss how to achieve such a goal, or how well a given system accomplished that goal.

Of course, it is always possible that TIBF succeeds at this goal, and my experience is attributable to user error.

If their trait is plucky, then the DM knows to expect them to mess around cheerfully. If their ideal is "No one should suffer so" and their bond is "It is not for land or wealth, but for the hearts and souls of men that we fight," then the DM knows the character cares more about helping people in need than material rewards, and that this core desire is what drives them. If their flaw is "Keeping secrets is a form of protection," the DM knows that this desire will drive them to hide things from the party if they think the party would be better off ignorant.

And as I said at the beginning:

(Emphasis present-mine, not past-mine.)
The specific categories of Trait, Ideal, Bond, and Flaw aren't important. If I were designing the system from scratch, I'd pick different categories. Maybe Goal, Motivation, and Dread—what you're fighting for, why you're fighting for it, and your greatest fear. I think that's more interesting (and digs deeper into who the character is) than personality quirk, abstract belief, personal connection, and bad personality quirk.
But TIBF is familiar to anyone who's played 5e (or at least looked at a character sheet), and the important part of my argument was discarding broad moral labels for specific character traits.

OK, when you put it like that, it makes a lot of sense.

I personally look at it backwards, and would notice (and possibly investigate) the moments when such a hypothetical character *wasn't* cheerful, or when they seemed to be freely sharing information. That, to me, is when, as GM, I'll consider that the players might have found the content to be Important - or when, as a player, I'll suspect that the game's afoot.

[Segev]

Ugh… so… the new alignment is… a meta-question? It's the form that the question takes?

OK… and… the value of having that in the game, the value of writing that on the character sheet, is… ?

It's not sounding any more useful to the game than alignment originally was (which is to say, a detriment), except for all the hilarious questions it opens up about outsiders. Which I think is better served in fiction, or discussion boards, than in a game.

Am I missing anything, or is it pretty pointless to write things like,

"What rules or outcomes are in the best interests of the universe?"

"What outcomes are in my best interest to pursue?"

"Huh?"

…on their respective character sheets?

Or is this strictly an aid for world-building more interesting outer planets (and should thenceforth be removed from the game)?

This, again, seems to me like it's confusing what "objective" means.

Objective morality doesn't say anything about "what is positive for the universe." It simply states, "This is Good, and that is Evil, and that is Neutral." Possibly with gradations. "Good, in general, results in X," is an objective and provable statement in a setting with objective morality. Whether X is something you value is...inherently subjective. Or, rather, it serves as the point for making subjective determinations. There are objectively better and worse ways to achieve your goals, based on what those goals are and what you have at your disposal. What your goals are, however, is going to be yours to determine.

[OldTrees1]

Huh. My tone was intended to convey my complete confusion (which you seem to have understood without my tone), as well as a reminder of who I am / who your audience is (I never found any value in the original alignment system). Apologies if my tone conveyed something else.

Starting with "ugh" tends to imply disgust or at least exasperation in my experience. Combined with your question pattern it left the impression of wanting to discourage a response.

However since your intended tone was one of confusion, I will return to your questions.

PS: Morphic Tide was my audience in that case. Remember the audience is not monolithic.

Ugh… so… the new alignment is… a meta-question? It's the form that the question takes?

OK… and… the value of having that in the game, the value of writing that on the character sheet, is… ?

It's not sounding any more useful to the game than alignment originally was (which is to say, a detriment), except for all the hilarious questions it opens up about outsiders. Which I think is better served in fiction, or discussion boards, than in a game.

Am I missing anything, or is it pretty pointless to write things like,

"What rules or outcomes are in the best interests of the universe?"

"What outcomes are in my best interest to pursue?"

"Huh?"

…on their respective character sheets?

Or is this strictly an aid for world-building more interesting outer planets (and should thenceforth be removed from the game)?

First, yes it replaces the Good/Evil answer axis with another meta question axis (like Law/Chaos). Morphic Tide's objective was to remove the Good/Evil axis while keeping the axes about philosophy. The main benefit here has 2 aspects: 1) You can stop arbitrarily labeling angels as moral. 2) The GM does not need to decide if something is moral/immoral.

Second, by replacing 2 vague axes (Good/Evil is very vague and Law/Chaos is often confused/contradictory) with 2 more detailed axes, it becomes easier to classify positions and thus also easier to see nuance within a space. The Lawful Collectivist Angels and the Lawful Collectivist Formains have similarities but also significant disagreements. You could already do that with the old alignment system but it might be easier under this system.

Now personally, if using this system, I would not treat it like a statistic. Instead I would leave it as worldbuilding with the denizens of the outer planes have strong disagreements on these two aspects of the shared question. However that worldbuilding is important enough to those outsiders than it would be relevant during interactions.

So how does this impact the PCs and how does it impact the players? The PCs would be engaged in a campaign that would invokes one or more of those debates as one of its themes. This would pressure the PCs to reach a conclusion themselves as a way of deciding what to do. The players on the other hand get to watch (with the option for the PC to participate) outsiders debate (sometimes with violence) philosophy.


Now is this something you would like? Maybe, maybe not. It would be like Planescape but with more moral nuance and less alignment baggage.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Not sure that that's what I was trying to convey. Critique? Confusion? Maybe. But definitely not criticism - I don't *understand* it well enough to criticize it.

It's weird to put anything about one thing in the middle of a thing about another thing.

I'm not sure if that's an *absolute*, but I'll grant that it makes it more likely, and puts the user in a better mindset for such ends.

If an alignment system doesn't force players to think about who their characters are at least a little, what kind of alignment is it describing?

At least what I read of the 5e implementation, that was not true.

If this is a *goal*, then one can discuss how to achieve such a goal, or how well a given system accomplished that goal.

Of course, it is always possible that TIBF succeeds at this goal, and my experience is attributable to user error.

It's possible that I'm using circular logic here, but it seems to me that any trait (or bond/ideal/flaw) a player decides to put on their character sheet is one they think defines their character.

OK, when you put it like that, it makes a lot of sense.

I personally look at it backwards, and would notice (and possibly investigate) the moments when such a hypothetical character *wasn't* cheerful, or when they seemed to be freely sharing information. That, to me, is when, as GM, I'll consider that the players might have found the content to be Important - or when, as a player, I'll suspect that the game's afoot.

Times when a character isn't acting like you expect them to only work if you have some kind of expectation. Knowing a character is usually cheerful/secretive and noticing when a character is dour/sharing information are two sides of the same coin.