Alignment

[Kagashi]

Alignments should not be set in stone. I tend to think of them more as a set of guidlines rather than rules, like the Pirate code...

I guess I have just the opposite point of view. Id much rather see it simplified and not wrap myself around a bunch of definitions and give myself more brain power to role play.

The only time I see Alignments come into play in game mechanics is when something like a rune sword does extra damage to a certian category or something along those lines.

Other than that, the alignments are there to guide your young character in a certian direction, but once a character has been established, the important thing is to not break character, rather than base every decision on weather or not the character will do X or Y depending on what the description of the alignment says.

[Hotrod]

I like your system, but I agree, alignments are more like guidelines. It's a necessary silliness to define a person's moral philosophy in 1-3 words.

[Nemo235]

I like your idea and think it would work well. I'm just throwing this out there for further thought.
This idea is straight from another earlier discussion.

After reading the alignment guidelines and, giving it some thought, I noticed the following ideas.
In order to avoid breaking any forum rules, I'm just going to summarize the alignment descriptions. Not sure how much I can quote directly from the book. The numbers in parentheses beside each heading correspond to the numbers on the lists under the alignment descriptions. If you have any Palladium rule book, you know what I'm talking about.

It seems a character's alignment could be divided into three general aspects:

Aggression ( 3, 4, 5, 6 9 )
How much force is the character willing to use to achieve their goals? This could be a range of complete pacifism, to fighting only in self defense or to protect innocents, all the way to attacking and torturing others just for the sadistic pleasure of it.

Integrity ( 1, 2, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14 )
Would the character ever lie to or betray someone, breaking a promise? If so, to whom? Also, would the hero keep money or items from criminals they have encountered, or found from other sources?

Lawfulness ( 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12 )
Would the character break or exploit the law for any reason? If so, to what extent? Are they vigilantes, believing they are working above the law for greater justice? Or do they actually have law enforcement power? This situation could change in a story, and lawfulness overlaps with the other two aspects of alignment mentioned above.

Since the player is supposed to be in complete control of their character, as the GM all I can do is warn them when they are playing outside of their alignment. If they continue with their actions I have considered either penalizing XP gained or maybe making them play with some minor psychological drawbacks, like neuroses and such, until they either get back in line with their original alignment or change to a different alignment. If they do shift alignment completely, there would be in game consequences like loss of friends, working outside the law, etc.

[Rallan]

Congratulations, you've taken the AD&D alignment system and given the existing alignments slightly different names! Because y'know, the Palladium alignment system's similarities to AD&D just weren't blatant enough already

Anywise, I don't really see the point in revamping Palladium's alignments, because it's easier to just do without the damn things altogether. They're not good for much except pigeonholing characters into heroic/villianous archetypes, so I just don't see the point using them in a campaign unless you're deliberately going for a four-color superhero or swashbuckling high fantasy groove, where heroes and villians are larger than life, and morality really is simple and doesn't have shades of grey.

[Talavar]

You know how you play shades of grey in a Palladium setting? Choose unprincipled, anarchist or aberrant. There you go, the 3 alignments most people in real life are, and the 3 that have the most grey-area wiggle room.

And I think you do need alignments in any setting that has moral absolutes, which Palladium does, namely creatures of utter evil (demons) and pure good (spirits of light).

[Rallan]

Anywise, I don't really see the point in revamping Palladium's alignments, because it's easier to just do without the damn things altogether. They're not good for much except pigeonholing characters into heroic/villianous archetypes, so I just don't see the point using them in a campaign unless you're deliberately going for a four-color superhero or swashbuckling high fantasy groove, where heroes and villians are larger than life, and morality really is simple and doesn't have shades of grey.

Ahh a perfect example of a personality leaning more towards the side of chaos than order. Individuality and the need not to be restricted. Whereas myself, I like the rules, the matrix's, the "pigeonholing" because it provides a framework for me to base either a character or a game off of.

No, I'm an individual leaning towards realism rather than cartoonishly simple morality. Palladium's alignments do not work unless you're running a game with the sort of simplistic, straightforward morality of comicbooks and fantasy novels and two-fisted pulp magazine tales. That's not about order vs chaos, that's about recognising a rule that's clunky, does nothing to improve the game, and obviously only exists because Siembieda didn't discriminate between the good bad and ugly ideas when he converted D&D over to his own houserule system way back in the hazy depths of the late 70s and early 80s.

[Rockwolf66]

No, I'm an individual leaning towards realism rather than cartoonishly simple morality. Palladium's alignments do not work unless you're running a game with the sort of simplistic, straightforward morality of comicbooks and fantasy novels and two-fisted pulp magazine tales. That's not about order vs chaos, that's about recognising a rule that's clunky, does nothing to improve the game, and obviously only exists because Siembieda didn't discriminate between the good bad and ugly ideas when he converted D&D over to his own houserule system way back in the hazy depths of the late 70s and early 80s.

Hey Different strokes for different folks. While I like realistic games(Cyberpunk2020 comes immediately to mind) I still find systems like Palladium and D&D 3.5 very enjoyable. I have played with alignment systems and without alignment systems. They both have their advantages and their disadvantages. As a student of Psychology I spend my time categorizing human behavior and guess what? All Humans have behavior patterns that can be recognized. An alignment system is just a basic behavioral pattern of the character. Its a guideline into how the character behaves and ties into their justifications of their behavior. As far as improving the game goes it really depends on what game you are playing.

[Talavar]

No, I'm an individual leaning towards realism rather than cartoonishly simple morality. Palladium's alignments do not work unless you're running a game with the sort of simplistic, straightforward morality of comicbooks and fantasy novels and two-fisted pulp magazine tales. That's not about order vs chaos, that's about recognising a rule that's clunky, does nothing to improve the game, and obviously only exists because Siembieda didn't discriminate between the good bad and ugly ideas when he converted D&D over to his own houserule system way back in the hazy depths of the late 70s and early 80s.

You know, a lot of people deride Palladium's alignment system as simple or unrealistic, but I just don't see it. I guess the problem comes if you you try to pigeonhole the behaviours of most people into the "good" alignments, but once you realize that most people aren't good, but are selfish at best, and fall in the categories of Unprincipled, Anarchist, Miscreant & Aberrant, it actually works pretty well.

What it brings to the game is a guideline for a player to help them stay in character. Without an alignment system of some kind, you're going to end up with some players whose characters would seem like erratic sociopaths, killing some & helping others based the potential risk vs. reward.

Just as a point of curiosity, what complex moral issues are you examining that the alignment system just can't cope with?

[Nemo235]

After re-reading your original post, I have to ask: How is the Palladium Alignment system too vague?
It outlines exactly what a character will or will not do.

[Rallan]

You know, a lot of people deride Palladium's alignment system as simple or unrealistic, but I just don't see it. I guess the problem comes if you you try to pigeonhole the behaviours of most people into the "good" alignments, but once you realize that most people aren't good, but are selfish at best, and fall in the categories of Unprincipled, Anarchist, Miscreant & Aberrant, it actually works pretty well.

What's not to see? It's eight very broad, very basic archetypes, with the sort of broad, simple morality that you'd expect from genre fiction. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and it's understandable when you remember that the first two RPGs with this alignment system were the high fantasy Palladium world and the rather silver-age superheroics of Heroes Unlimited.

However, if you don't particularly feel like playing a character who fits nicely into one of eight broad moral archetypes written for simplistic good-vs-evil genre fiction settings, then using Palladium's alignment system is like trying to put training wheels on motorbike. There's just no point, they're not designed to work with that, and they'll just get in your way.

What it brings to the game is a guideline for a player to help them stay in character. Without an alignment system of some kind, you're going to end up with some players whose characters would seem like erratic sociopaths, killing some & helping others based the potential risk vs. reward.

Two problems there. First up, there's virtually only a small handful of in-game things where alignment is important, and there's nothing anywhere in the main rules of any game that makes changing alignment or being bad a handicap. As a guideline for staying in character, it's impotent. There's no built-in incentive to stay in character, there's no automatic penalty for changing alignment, there's not even any coherent guidelines on how to change alignment.

Second up, its a very basic, rudimentary guide. Players who care about playing in character will find it useless. Players who need help playing in character are going to need a lot more than support than Palladium's alignment system can give.

Just as a point of curiosity, what complex moral issues are you examining that the alignment system just can't cope with?

My main beef isn't the moral issues side of things (although that's hellishly simplistic too, since it's very much rooted in a Hollywood version of right and wrong), it's the personality side. Like I said earlier, Palladium's whole alignment system is just eight stock archetypes to choose from. If you want a character who acts as anything other than a protagonist from the pulps of yesteryear, you'll find very quickly that Alignment tells you virtually nothing about a character's personality. Is he disciplined or lazy? Methodical or spontaneous? Brave or cowardly? Confident or cautious? If he's a good guy, is he motivated by duty or compassion? If he's a baddy, is he motivated by necessity, greed, or just for kicks? Alignment will never tell you any of that, because it doesn't go into much more depth than "You're sorta like Luke, he's sorta like Han, and that guy's sorta like Vader".

[Nemo235]

The alignment system is not based on genre fiction or Hollywood movies.
It's based on actual morality. I don't see what's so simplistic about it. Each alignment has 13 or 14 different guidlines to go by that affect many decisions a character makes.

As far as the rules having little to do with alignment, a look at the Experience Points Award Table from any of the rules will show that's not true. For example:

25-50 points for playing in character when it would have been easier not to.
50-100 points for avoiding unnecessary violence...
50-100 points for a small act of self-sacrifice...
75-150 points for playing in character/playing one's alignment when circumstances or powerful temptation begged otherwise.
Among others...

Granted most of the rewards are for "good" or "heroic" action, but the description could be altered for players with "evil" characters.
So there is a reward for playing within the guidelines of the alignment. And if the player goes against the aligment too much the GM may warn them that it can change.

[NMI]

moved to a more appropriate forum.

[Talavar]

What's not to see? It's eight very broad, very basic archetypes, with the sort of broad, simple morality that you'd expect from genre fiction. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and it's understandable when you remember that the first two RPGs with this alignment system were the high fantasy Palladium world and the rather silver-age superheroics of Heroes Unlimited.

However, if you don't particularly feel like playing a character who fits nicely into one of eight broad moral archetypes written for simplistic good-vs-evil genre fiction settings, then using Palladium's alignment system is like trying to put training wheels on motorbike. There's just no point, they're not designed to work with that, and they'll just get in your way.

Two problems there. First up, there's virtually only a small handful of in-game things where alignment is important, and there's nothing anywhere in the main rules of any game that makes changing alignment or being bad a handicap. As a guideline for staying in character, it's impotent. There's no built-in incentive to stay in character, there's no automatic penalty for changing alignment, there's not even any coherent guidelines on how to change alignment.

Second up, its a very basic, rudimentary guide. Players who care about playing in character will find it useless. Players who need help playing in character are going to need a lot more than support than Palladium's alignment system can give.

My main beef isn't the moral issues side of things (although that's hellishly simplistic too, since it's very much rooted in a Hollywood version of right and wrong), it's the personality side. Like I said earlier, Palladium's whole alignment system is just eight stock archetypes to choose from. If you want a character who acts as anything other than a protagonist from the pulps of yesteryear, you'll find very quickly that Alignment tells you virtually nothing about a character's personality. Is he disciplined or lazy? Methodical or spontaneous? Brave or cowardly? Confident or cautious? If he's a good guy, is he motivated by duty or compassion? If he's a baddy, is he motivated by necessity, greed, or just for kicks? Alignment will never tell you any of that, because it doesn't go into much more depth than "You're sorta like Luke, he's sorta like Han, and that guy's sorta like Vader".

The simplistic "good vs. evil" argument really only comes into it if you're trying to play as principled & the antagonists are diabolic. That'll rarely be the case - most CS soldiers are likely to be in the selfish range, so killing them for upholding the values of their culture is hardly unilaterally "good."

The alignment guidelines, and the threat of a character dropping in alignment, is fairly helpful. Have you seen how a lot of people play CRPGs? I remember back when the first Baldur's Gate came out, tons of people, many playing "good" characters would kill Drizz't in his cameo appearance because he had awesome gear for that point in the game, and there was no negative repercussion to successfully killing him. For a system without any alignment guidelines and no motivation to sticking to that alignment, a lot of players' underlying selfishness will be their characters primary motivation. As to a system of changing alignment, well, it's GM's discretion based on how the player characters act.

It sounds like your "main beef" as you put it isn't with the alignment system at all. It's not an attempt to define the character's entire personality; thinking it is is simplistic. Personal discipline, bravery, confidence: none of these things have to do with morality. A disciplined character can be predominantly good, evil or selfish as easily as a lazy person. And you're right that choice of character alignment doesn't determine or inform on any of those things - it shouldn't. Morality doesn't make up a character or person's entire personality; in a lot of day to day living it would rarely come up at all. But in the situations where alignment does come into play, say if your character encounters CS troops who've been ordered to violently disperse largely helpless D-bees, it helps inform the player's decisions on how their character should react.

[bigbobsr6000]

"A person is as a person does." I don't like alignments either.

EX: A person robs a bank, kills a teller and 2 guards. In fleeing the scene in the get-away car he/she stops risking his/her life to save children from a burning school bus. They still get away. He/she drops the stolen money in various charity buckets through out the city. Later that night helps out at a soup kitchen. After his/her shift kills another person just because it's Tuesday. The next morning, he/she returns to his/her loving family where they are the model parent and pillar of the community from the "business trip". Next trip...???? Well, you get the idea. This person is good and evil, or at least does good and evil at different times.

Next kicker, he/she never does another evil act again and only does good acts. Then what alignment?

I look at "alignments" as a bar graph with no “0” at center as they aren’t any “Neutrals” in life:

Evil Gray Area Good
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

A person’s moral “needle” can range from one extreme to the other depending on the situation. Most rest in the Gray Area. A good mother killing an intruder threatening her family has performed an “evil” act if one believes killing for any reason is evil. Or has acted in the Gray Area where taking a life to defend another is okay as a last resort. Or by killing the “evil” intruder has done a “Good” deed in the saving of her family and preventing this evildoer from possibly harming others.

Just some thoughts, feel free to use and abuse at will, Big Bob………………….

[bigbobsr6000]

In fantasy role playing that person can exist because anything is posible in fantasy role playing. If not, then it isn't fantasy. It is just another boring game that limits what a character can do.

But those people do exist in our society. A few serial killers are often a respected person of the community, goes to church, gives to charity, helps his neighbors, tortures and kills people, plants a rose garden, helps the local school, etc.

[Nemo235]

Sounds like the Miscreant alignment.

[Talavar]

In fantasy role playing that person can exist because anything is posible in fantasy role playing. If not, then it isn't fantasy. It is just another boring game that limits what a character can do.

But those people do exist in our society. A few serial killers are often a respected person of the community, goes to church, gives to charity, helps his neighbors, tortures and kills people, plants a rose garden, helps the local school, etc.

The setting is fantasy. Character behaviour should at least attempt to be somewhat representative of human behaviour. No rational person would do those things (now, someone with numerous psychological disorders, sure, but that's another topic).

Alignment can change, of course: someone who was once a brutal killer can reform; a good person can snap, or be slowly worn down by apathy and cruelty.

The alignment of choice for the character that does evil in the pursuit of good is aberrant. Even an aberrant character wouldn't rob & kill indiscriminantly just to give to charity however.

As to serial killers, well, they fall back into that psychological disorder area again - but they are evil. The ability to convincingly act good at times does not make one good, not when you're out methodically killing victims that happen to trigger your psychotic obsession at other times. The best a serial killer could really hope for in way of alignment - maybe one who only kills criminals, or others the view as harmful to society - is aberrant.

A mother killing to defend her family hasn't committed an evil act - very few philosophies consider that evil (though yes, a couple might), but not the legal codes of most countries or most religions. That's a poor example of a moral grey area. A mother sacrificing one child so that another might live - that's a grey area.

People really need to look at the selfish alignments - that's where the moral grey area really is. Self interest is the name of the game for most people, whether that's the prospect of reward for good actions, or avoiding the possibility of punishment for bad - whether it's from the law, the peer group or the religion. For selfish people, it's all dictated by the carrot and the stick. "I want that guy's stuff" vs. "If I kill him or steal it I'll get in trouble." Which one wins? Depends on the situation, on the likelihood of success, and going undetected, versus the severity of the punishment.

[Rallan]

The other problem with alignments is that they never really bring up motive, except in broad Hollywood terms (like distingushing between "murder" and "self defense"). Can a guy be Diabolic if he's never done anything bad and always acts like a pillar of the community to try and fit in? If you have a psychotic episode, should your alignment be changed to reflect your actions? What happens when ridiculously extreme circumstances cause a character to do something they'd never otherwise do? How do you objectively determine whether torturing a guy to death because he's the enemy and you're obediently following orders is better or worse than gunning a guy down in an argument over a card game? What alignments can and can't perform an assisted suicide?

[Talavar]

The other problem with alignments is that they never really bring up motive, except in broad Hollywood terms (like distingushing between "murder" and "self defense"). Can a guy be Diabolic if he's never done anything bad and always acts like a pillar of the community to try and fit in? If you have a psychotic episode, should your alignment be changed to reflect your actions? What happens when ridiculously extreme circumstances cause a character to do something they'd never otherwise do? How do you objectively determine whether torturing a guy to death because he's the enemy and you're obediently following orders is better or worse than gunning a guy down in an argument over a card game? What alignments can and can't perform an assisted suicide?

The difference between murder & self defence is a broad, Hollywood term?

Alignment isn't about motive; it's an indicator of moral behaviour. Could a person be diabolic who'd never done anything evil? No. But he could become diabolic, by doing evil things.

If a character in extreme circumstances goes against his moral indicator, then the alignment should change slightly to reflect that. Same deal with a psychotic episode, as any good character that experienced such would probably be wracked by guilt, or at least altered by the experience.

There is no objective better or worse between following orders to torture someone to death or killing someone over an argument, but there is a significant differance. The one "just following orders" is probably anarchist, if the consequences of disobeying orders is what drives him, or aberrant if it's the importance of duty & the chain of command that drives him; the argument-killing could be any of the evil alignments depending on the exact situation.

As to the morality of assisted suicide, a topic that most of the world religions debate on, do you really expect Palladium books to have a complete listing? "Assisted suicide is good in the following situations, and evil in these others?" No religion/philosophy/morality has an explicit list of every situation and circumstance that defines what action or reaction is good or evil in said situation.

[Rallan]

The difference between murder & self defence is a broad, Hollywood term?

No what I meant is that, much like Hollywood, morality in Palladium's books rarely gets much more subtle than the difference between murder and self defence.