I hope that people here might be interested in this topic and could use some ideas from it, I'd be happy to cause a discussion about it
This is an attempt to expand the standard D&D alignment system with something more complex and interesting.
Most western media, including movies, books, games and even religion and politics have their belief system derived from the christian system of "good" vs. "evil".
At some moment in the past, we've created a strong duality between both of them. For example there's Lucifer, the fallen angel, who in reality cannot be seen as "evil" in a strict sense. The Lucifer character itself seems to be a derivate of an even older diety called "Pan", a sheperd who likes the sensual enjoyments, music, wine, etc.
Pan was certainly not evil, but over time the church turned him into the personification of "evil" which has to be fought and destroyed. There's also the christian idea of "hell" vs. "paradise", which is just another expression of the same "good" vs. "evil" game.
We might agree that this is a horrible oversimplification (sorry Christians) of how the world really works.
Most of us probably chuckled and facepalmed when George Bush declared war on "The Axis of Evil", amongst other reasons we just know that the world cannot be explained with such a simple belief.
Yet the western life, most of it's history and the way how we perceive and transmit information is strongly influenced by the notion of good vs. evil.
This system might still hold true for characters in a role playing world derived from medieval christian beliefs, like Tolkin's world and D&D, but even here it might be an oversimplification.
But especially for worlds outside the standard role playing which are not centered around a derivation of the christian hemnisphere, e.g. asian, japanese, chinese, african or any fantasy world outside this standard setting could benefit from a more complex and realistic alignment system.
In fact I feel that most storylines and character development of today's role playing games is rather dull and repetetive. What is the percentage of games where you play the good guy who has to fight the evil invader? Where finally good wins and evil is destroyed?
I think the answer to this question is quite clear and you might agree that since years we have a rather limited and stereotype world of role playing.
From now on, if I speak of ALIGNMENT I refer to "good", "neutral", "evil" found in D&D and other role playing systems.
If I speak of ATTRIBUTES I refer to "strength", "dexterity", "intelligence", etc. which further defines your character.
The alignment is basically the motivation factor of the character. It determines why and what he is doing, e.g. when a good character meets an evil one he might decide to fight it because the other one is ... just evil (you see the oversimplification here?, not to speak of that there is no distinction between the "true" nature of a person and how others perceive him (which might be different!)).
The standard D&D attributes system determines how well a character performs once he decided for an action. We all know how this works, a stronger person might have more success in bashing a door and a character with a high dexterity might be able to dodge that lethal arrow.
However, the alignment is the characters main motiviation and decision making factor.
I've already mentioned the christian belief system and it's strong connotation of good vs. evil, which has a strong influence to all western thinking until today.
I would take an alternative belief as an example to introduce a more complex and interesting alignment system which would allow for storylines far beyond the everyday "good hero destroys evil force" stories.
For example in buddhistic belief there is no fundamental distinction between "good" and "evil".
You personality is determined by the circumstances of your birth. You may be born as a simple person in midst of a simple family with a low level of self awareness. You may spend your life striving for knowledge and understanding and thus elevate your understanding about life.
You may also be going into the opposite direction, you may want to "forget it all", drowning your mind in alcohol, you would develop towards the opposite direction, the loss of awareness, towards ignorance.
Or you might have been born into a spiritual family which provide you a profound understanding of how things work, but in your lifetime you equally might develope into one or the other direction.
This development could rather be seen as a circle than a straight line and would look like this:
-> gain ->
ignorance awareness
<- loss <-
I would say that it's up to everyone personally how he decides which way to go, at which position on the circle a person resides, is purely a matter of his own preference.
With the difference that when he's further near "awareness" he *realizes* that it depends on his own decision *where* he wants to be on the circle and thus is enabled to move on the circle with his own will.
You also might have noticed that you barely ever hear buddhist spiritual persons say that they now decide to do "good" in the world.
It's rather that they realize that they are "trapped" inside the circle of life (and thus the circle of "cause" and "effect"), as they believe that these circles are the materialization of the deterministic human life, they are working on escaping it to reach pure spirituality, liberating themselfes from life's determinism.
The result is that they choose not to do "good" as we know it in this world, but to cease to do anything at all, because doing something would mean "causing" and thus being further trapped in the circle of "cause" and "effect".
I don't think that it's necessary to take the entire buddhist system and build all our role playing games on it, instead I think we could take it as an example that there are working systems out there which do not need the "good" vs. "evil" stereotype.
We could also just borrow a bit to enrichen our world of RPG storylines and character creation, development and interaction.
Having said this we should start with a complete dismissal of "good" and "evil" from role playing and instead introduce something else, but we need to take care not to exaggerate by introducing too much complexity, as this may make character creation too difficult.
We could stay with a system of "duality", one alignment opposes another (opposite) alignment, whereby they exclude each other.
E.g. a character with a strong sense for "freedom" cannot have a strong sense of "safety" at the same time.
We may have a floating point number reaching from -1 to 1 assigned to measure your character between these two extremes.
If an alignment is zero (middle position) it would mean that the character doesn't base his decision on this particular factor.
E.g. if your "freedom"<->"safety" alignment is zero and another character offers you to release you from prison if you tell him the location of the hidden diamond in exchange, then your character may not be impressed by the notion of possible freedom and base his decision on another alignment pair.
This system would make it possible for RPG game characters to gradually change and shift their alignment during gameplay, e.g. if you beat up a NPC enough times he might be more inclined to "safety" instead of "liberty" afterwards.
It would also allow complex characters with complex motives for their actions.
An otherwise friendly person might tell on you to the guards for being drunk last night, because he is more inclined to "safety".
You maybe could steal horses with a character inclined to "freedom" and "impulsiveness" without him being evil in traditional sense, although he may regret his actions for his high level of "awareness" later on.
I thought of some possible alignment pairs which I'd like to present here for discussion:
"freedom" vs. "safety"
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"Those who give up their liberty for more security neither deserve liberty nor security." - Benjamin Franklin
A character is inclined more towards "freedom" if he thinks that free action and decision as well as self government is important to him.
He may be more inclined towards "safety" when he thinks that he cannot decide for himself, he needs a guide and protector.
Example:
You meet the daughter of the city governour. She really likes you and one day you invite her to travel along with you. For her, this would be a dice throw against her "freedom" vs. "safety" alignment.
If she has a high "freedom" value, she most likely comes with you because she can't stand the limitations at home anymore, if she has a high "safety" alignment she might be just too afraid and stays.
"egocentric" vs. "empathy"
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A character inclined towards egocentrism bases his decisions on fulfilling his own needs and wishes, a person with high empathy would try to satisfy the needs of others and try to think of how they would perceive your decisions.
This one is quite self-explanatory, but here an example anyway:
You're riding through a canyon together with that lovely daughter of the governour. You realize too late that this canyon is a deadly trap, some outlaws want you and the daughter for ransom.
You both spur your horses and you make a narrow escape from the canyon, but as you look back you realize that the lovely lady hasn't quite made it.
To go back and safe her would mean trouble for you both.
This would be a throw against "egocentric" vs. "empathy".
If you are inclined towards egocentrism then you would probably abandon her, realizing that you greatly overestimated the beauty of that lady and many mothers have lovely daughters anyway.
"self controlled" vs. "impulsive"
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If you are inclined towards "self control" then you would act slowly, but well thought.
You would be able to suffer longer from unbearable circumstances and would maybe not always tell the truth.
However, you are more focused and calm, thus gaining peoples sympathies.
An inclination towards "impulsiveness" could gain you a big but truthful mouth, but bringing you and others in danger once in a while because you just can't help it. ("Sorry, I've had to slap that judge because I couldn't bear this injustice!")
Example:
Back in town you are sitting together with the governour in the pub having a beer and some chit-chat. He is unaware of what happened and that it was you who in first place "kidnapped" his daughter.
You are already pretty drunk when suddenly the door swings open and the outlaws come to sit right next to your table.
You need to throw the dice against your "self controlled" vs. "impulsive" alignment pair.
If you have high self control you may just excuse yourself as you are very sleepy and have to get up early in the morning, thus going home and avoiding danger before the outlaws recognize you.
If you are inclined towards "impulsive" you just can't help it and yell at one of them thus causing a brawl and finally to realize the governour that it was you who caused all this trouble.
"knowledge" vs. "ignorance"
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A character inclined towards "knowledge" doesn't have to be wise or intelligence per se, that's what WISDOM and INTELLIGENCE attributes are for.
A person with high inclination to "knowledge" may be as dumb as a brick but his aspiration is to learn and increase knowledge and understanding.
He prefers decisions that gain him knowledge, he is curious and open to new things and ideas.
Inclination towards "knowledge" can be metaphorical, spiritual, scientific or be just plain curiosity. ("I just *need* to know what's behind that closed door!")
A person inclined to "ignorance" stays in his comfort zone and avoids the unknown. This keeps him mostly out of trouble but also delays or inhibits his character development.
Example:
Back in your room you just can't sleep, because thinking of that the outlaws are together with the governour in the pub seems pretty dangerous to you, the chance is high that they might reveal the truth about what happened.
Also you can't stop thinking of the daughter, you notice that she wasn't that ugly after all.
Is she dead or still alive? What happened?
But you know, it's dangerous to go back and try to find out.
A dice throw against "knowledge" vs. "ignorance" follows, if you are inclined towards knowledge you go and find out.
If you are inclined towards "ignorance" you go to get a big jug of wine from the receptionist and drink yourself into sleep.
"dominant" vs. "recessive"
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This determines if you are trying to persuade and dominate others or if you permit that they do the same to you.
It determines if you want to be in control or if you allow others to control you.
Example:
You suddenly wake up and realize that the gevernour is standing in the middle of the room shouting and yelling at you.
Apparently he found out what happened to his daughter and you seem to be really screwed.
The governour is not particulary strong, you throw the dice against "dominant" vs. "recessive".
If you are highly dominant you grab the governour by his arm and shout back, telling him to shut up, if not he will regret his words.
You manage to intimidate him, thus giving you the chance to escape, turning you into an outlaw for the rest of your life.
If you are highly recessive you are frightened by his screaming, you beg him pardon in an attempt to calm him down, he grabs you by your arm and hands you over to the guards.
Later at the court you were able to prove your innocence, the governour forgives you but assigns you to a mission to rescue his daughter from the outlaws.
For sure this list is not exhaustive or may not be practically in all aspects, it is just a suggestion and some material to start with.
If someone feels like picking up from here to complete a character system, please do so, I would be really curious to see such a system in action!
If you are interested in this topic please comment, I'd be happy if I could fuel a discussion and I would be even more happy if we could finally break with this boring "good" vs. "evil" stereotypes.
have fun,
vitaminx
