Alignments

[PhilFleischmann]

No, I'm not looking to incorporate deendee-type alignment rules into FH, nor any type of rules at all. What I want is a simple list of "alignment terms" to breifly describe the motivations and likely reactions of monsters, creatures, and characters to the PC's. This is something I feel could have been helpful in the Bestiary and MM&M.

 

I want to not only distinguish between good and evil, but between various motivations and interactions. For example, a troll attacks a small defenseless farming village because trolls are always hungry and defenseless humans are like filet mignon to a troll, who of course sees nothing wrong with eating humans. A band of orcs attacks the village because orcs deliberately want to exterminate all humans whereever they find them. Sure, they might eat a few, but that is just a side benefit. A devil assumes human form and simply walks into the village posing as a common traveling merchant. He then subtly works to corrupt the innocent villagers, and if successful leaves them destroyed or in total misery. The duke of the realm rides through to collect exorbitant taxes and remind the villagers who's boss. He has no compunctions about flogging or even summarily executing any peasant who looks at him the wrong way, but has no motivation to reduce his labor force. A burgler sneaks into the village at night and steals what he can, a few nights in a row until the villagers start to get suspiscious. The burgler knows he can't evade they angry mob forever, so he moves on to the next town.

 

All of these are examples of evil, but they all behave in different ways due to different motivations. What I want is a simple list of "alignments" say, a dozen or so, perhaps with more than one axis (like deendee, with its good-evil axis and law-chaos axis). We might describe the troll as "Amoral Hungry," the orcs as "Racist Genocidal," the devil as "Careful Malicious," the duke is "Tyrannical Greedy," and the burgler is "Careful Greedy."

 

Does anyone have, or can anyone come up with, a simple system to describe the likely interaction with others of a particular encounter (monster, animal, npc) in a two or three-word phrase? Note that "normal animal motivations" doesn't quite cut it. A deer and a wolf both have normal animal motivations, but they will interact differently with a party of PCs.

 

I'm not looking for rules to enforce alignments, or to make them specific ethical groups like religions, or have magic items or spells that only work on particular alignments, or for Psych Lims to reflect an alignment. I'm only looking for a simple set of terms to quickly describe behavior and outlook. Ideally, it should cover monsters, people, and animals, as well as beings with "inherent" alignments such as demons and angels.

 

I know it's a tall order, but if we put our heads together, we can probably come up with something useful.

[tkdguy]

Re: Alignments

 

In the case of the devil in your example, he's evil by nature. Demons and angels are evil and good respectively in our belief system; that's just part of who and what they are.

 

It becomes less clear when you look at the other examples. Why do the orcs want to exterminate humanity? Did humans mistreat them in the past, or are there just not enough resources for both races to coexist peacefully?

 

Trolls are not known for their intelligence in most modern stories. In some settings, they are little more than animals. Perhaps they are carnivorous by nature and eating other races (such as humans) is their role in the area's ecology.

 

As for the burglar, there could be any number of reasons for his crimes. Maybe he started stealing because he was hungry. If he was caught, he was probably jailed for a time and branded as an outcast from society forever. Or maybe he's just afraid of having to go hungry again. Of course, he could just be stealing out of greed or because he finds it exciting.

 

Most of these could be defined in terms of psychological limitations. Others, such as animal instinct or their role in a system's ecology could be described as a physical limitation (although I probably wouldn't give them points for fulfilling their role in nature).

[Snarf]

Re: Alignments

 

Hmm, how about motivation and behavior for a two word descriptor?

 

Instinctive Hungry for animals, Sadistic Tyrannical for evil overlords, and so on.

 

I think working with axes could be problem if you want a really descriptive system. Clearly, there's going to be some problems writing it down if you use more than 2. You could go the route of subdividing 2 axes into hundreds of gradations, but can be kind of limiting.

[The Mad GM]

Re: Alignments

 

If you're going to simplify something that potentially complex, you're going to run into situations that don't fit right. I used to say the alignment for most of my monsters was neutral-hungry, but that was mainly tongue in cheek.

 

I think the sentences you wrote might be more appropriate than some sort of code phrase. "Self-centered control-freak with absolute authority who views others as his pawns but has a tender spot for his daughter," says a lot more than "lawful-neutral with evil tendencies." Even incorporating things like: predator, prey, etc. is too limiting to really have much meaning.

 

Even if you get a generic orc down to: "Has an ancient grudge against men and elves, but is primarily a crude, short-sighted, short-tempered and honorless semi-tribal scavenger who will follow any powerful figure that promises and delivers food, rape, and plunder", you still have to establish the in-game reason for the orcs to be there, perhaps by the motivations of the leader.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Alignments

 

The point of this exercise is not philosophy. I really doesn't matter why the thief steals or why the orcs want to kill all humans*, I just want a simple way to codify how they are likely to interact with the player characters and innocents. Orcs are likely to attack on sight. Hobgoblins, being somewhat smarter than orcs, are likely to attack on sight only if they feel fairly sure of their superior tyactical position. A demon will appear friendly, while planting seeds of distruction. The hermit in the cave will be unfriendly and unlikely to offer help, but could be won over. The traveling merchant will be as friendly as possible, not necessarily out of inherent goodness or altruism, but to make a sale. The troll sees no reason to leave humans alive, because there's always more room in his stomache, and he isn't smart enough to start a human herd. An unusually smart troll might think of breeding humans for food, but at that level of intelligence, he'll probably realize that the humans are tricksy enough to fight back, making a human herd more trouble than it's worth.

 

*OK, it might matter for other reasons, such as adventure and campaign ideas, but that's a separate discussion.

[Blue Jogger]

Re: Alignments

 

The point of this exercise is not philosophy. I really doesn't matter why the thief steals or why the orcs want to kill all humans*' date=' I just want a simple way to codify how they are likely to interact with the player characters and innocents.[/quote']

 

Alignments serve two purposes, IMHO, one is preventing all those holy paladin assassins (what? I was the only one?) and second justifying that good guys kill bad guys (and thus ok) while bad guys killing good guys is just plain wrong...

 

Ok, simply way to codify... Hmm. Ok, one way is to divide the creatures across intelligence... "Unthinking", "Crafty" and "Complex" and then across general nature... "Sadistic", "Uncaring", "Conflicted", "Nice", "Self-Sacrificing". Of course, this may be split into how they feel about their race and about near humans.

 

Ok, Orcs are... lets say... Unthinking brutes that are Sadistic towards the Elves and Conflicted about their own race. "But, Grog!" "Leave him, if he can't make it back, then he will have died in battle!"

 

Something like that?

[cyst13]

Re: Alignments

 

Phil,

 

It sounds like you already know how all of these guys would react to your PCs. Why do you need a superfluous descriptor?

[KA.]

Re: Alignments

 

Phil,

I think that what you may want to do is come up with some key categories, and then come up with levels within those categories, so that you could "rate" something easily.

 

Just off the top of my head:

 

Morality

Good, Neutral, Evil

Religion

None, Moderate, Devout

Greed

Generous, Average, Greedy

Value on Life

Never Kills, Only when Necessary, Loves to Kill

Tactics

Frontal Assault, Situation Based, Always Sneaky

 

You get the idea.

 

The key categories may be different for your uses, but I think this could work.

If you want to try this approach, and post some categories that you want to use, I would be glad to help you refine them.

 

KA.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Alignments

 

The English language comes loaded down with a host of adjectives to use that don't rely on anything as arbitrary as alignment (hey, it's got something like 600,000 words .. bound to be a few good descriptors!)

 

here's a short list:

Psychotic, Sociopathic, Greedy, Sadistic, Cunning, Malicious, Vindictive, Hedonistic, Narcissistic, Honorable, Hungry, Gullible, Tyrannical, Megalomaniacal, Brazen, Masochistic, Vengeful, Cheery, Annoying, Playful, Zealous ..... etc.

 

crack open Roget's Thesaurus and start reading really. That's my advice.

 

for your examples:

Troll = Hungry

Orcs = Malicious, Vindictive

Local Lord = Tyrranical, Sadistic

Thief = Greedy, Cunning

Demon = Sadistic, Malicious, Cunning, Megalomaniacal (possibly), Evil, Narcissistic

 

I see no reason to try and break things down to broad categories personally .. take each on a case by case and just use the right description. Have the local villagers describe their lord as a Tyrannical Bastard and the heroes will get a good idea he's probably not the Benevolent, Philanthropic type.

 

[edit: spelling.. always with the bad spelling...]

[The Mad GM]

Re: Alignments

 

I still think that you don't really gain anything by codifying it versus using a short sentence. You could do as KA suggest, maybe classify the key categories using a thesaurus or a scale of one to ten, but it's essentially a self-limited sentence without extraneous grammar. A good sentence will do a better job. If the players learn something about orcs, they'll hear tales told in an inn or by a sage, not a code.

 

Philosophy or not, the purpose is to determine results of a given interaction: whether the tribe of orcs will band together and attack a village, or only waylay travellers that 'trespass' into their turf, or have the biggest warrior issue a personal challenge to the captain of the guard or whatever. All those are sentences (clauses and fragments), and they stand pretty well.

[Galadorn]

Re: Alignments

 

No' date=' I'm not looking to incorporate deendee-type alignment rules into FH, nor any type of rules at all. What I want is a simple list of "alignment terms" to breifly describe the motivations and likely reactions of monsters, creatures, and characters to the PC's. This is something I feel could have been helpful in the Bestiary and MM&M.[/quote']

 

I agree. I just stick with the Good-Neural-Evil Axis. The Law-Chaos axis seems implicit in Good-Evil-Neutral.

 

I know it's a tall order, but if we put our heads together, we can probably come up with something useful.

[The Mad GM]

Re: Alignments

 

Over the weekend I had a change of heart on the whole idea.

 

If you are thumbing through a basic reference or combat sheet, or thumbing through a book looking for just the right enemy for a situation, or a spreadsheet or an index, it would be useful to have something very breif to summarize. The writeups would still need a sentence, IMO.

[Balok]

Re: Alignments

 

For simple NPCs, I usually just have a sentence describing their role in a particular situation. I also have some idea what the morale is, in case the players use tactics designed to force surrender.

 

For more complex NPCs (by which I mean NPCs the players are likely to see more than once), then I use a three sentence rule: one sentence describes how they react to those less powerful, another for how they react to peers, and the last for how they react to those more powerful. When necessary, I use INT rolls to see whether they classify someone unknown to them properly.

 

For "classes" (which could be generalized to professions or vocations in games that lack classes), I usually replace an alignment notation with a list of do's and don'ts. For example, paladins don't kill the helpless, they do seek to destroy, or at least thwart, the evil -- and so on. D&Ds alignment scale is really just a shorthand, coarsely granular way of expressing this.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Alignments

 

What I want is a simple list of "alignment terms" to breifly describe the motivations and likely reactions of monsters' date=' creatures, and characters to the PC's. This is something I feel could have been helpful in the Bestiary and MM&M.[/quote']

 

Well, in the interests of KISS (keep it simple, stupid) I would propose a table like they had in Runequest. I'm going to do this from memory - knowing it isn't correct but the idea will be there.

 

On the top have three categories like passive, neutral, aggressive.

 

On the side have five categories like enemy, dislike, tolerate, accommodate and friend. For each of these have a range e.g. enemy would have 3-5 passive, 6-8 neutral and 9-18 aggressive.

 

All you have to do is decide for each encounter which of the five categories those encountered best fit and then a quick 3D6 roll provides a tone for the encounter.

 

The table doesn't go into detail of why an encounter would be friendly but it should be easy for the GM to apply and roll and get the tone decided. The reasons for the tone might be easy to explain or very difficult.

 

You might encounter orcs that want to be friendly because they're very hungry and not up to fighting - or because they want someone's help. You might also meet someone from your own Guild that hates you because you outshone them in front of the King and attacks without warning. The table would aid in that.

 

Doc

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Alignments

 

If you are thumbing through a basic reference or combat sheet' date=' or thumbing through a book looking for just the right enemy for a situation, or a spreadsheet or an index, it would be useful to have something very breif to summarize. The writeups would still need a sentence, IMO.[/quote']

Right! That's what I mean. I'd like to look in the HSB or the MMM and quickly see which monsters are the good guys, which are the bad guys, and which are the neutral guys. And for critters without the capacity for good or evil, which ones are docile and which ones a ferocious, etc.

 

And, no, I don't mean to straight-jacket GMs into fixed alignments for every species. You can always have a evil unicorn or a friendly manticore if you want.

 

And with a little more detail added than just "good" and "evil."

 

For "bad" guys, there are (at least) the following types:

Will kill you just for being there

Will kill you only if you irritate it

Will kill you if you irritate it, and is VERY easily irritated

Will kill you to take your stuff (if he thinks you've got good stuff)

Will kill you to eat you (if he thinks he can take you)

Will rob you, but won't kill you if you hand over the loot

Will steal from you via stealth or trickery

Will work against you to cause misery

Will play tricks on you for fun (Puck vs. Bottom)

Will capture/enslave you if it can

Won't lift a finger to help you ("Bah!")

Will charge exorbitantly for help ("Sign here in blood, please.")

 

That seems like all the main categories of "harm." And there's only ten. Great! Did I leave any out? OK, so what are ten good descriptive words for each of the above categories?

[Foxx!]

Re: Alignments

 

Most of these could be defined in terms of psychological limitations. Others' date=' such as animal instinct or their role in a system's ecology could be described as a physical limitation (although I probably wouldn't give them points for fulfilling their role in nature).[/quote']

I agree.

 

 

Right! That's what I mean. I'd like to look in the HSB or the MMM and quickly see which monsters are the good guys' date=' which are the bad guys, and which are the neutral guys. And for critters without the capacity for good or evil, which ones are docile and which ones a ferocious, etc.[/quote']

Isn't this covered in the monster details under Ecology, Motivation, Society, etc?

 

Cheers

[badger3k]

Re: Alignments

 

Several game systems in the past (IIRC Pendragon, probably others) used a system of 10-20 characteristics. They ran in pairs (like Humble/Proud, etc), and were given (or rolled) a 1-10 range. For example, a score of 7 in the Humble/Proud characteristic would mean that the character tends towards pride more than humility. They were used to give guidelines for the characters actions, and in Hero they can be used to set up Disads (say a score of 10 (proud) is a Total psych lim, while a 7 might be nothing or a lesser level. I don't have Pendragon (or Elric either, which may be the other one), but I've seen similar systems in other games. If I can find the system, I'll post the pairs if that'll help.

[Brilliant Helm]

Re: Alignments

 

One thing that hasn't be mentioned, to my knowledge, is the use of "vs. evil only magic items." I think this could justify a moral limitation of it's own, like Galadorn said.

 

The reason I don't think a Psychological Limitation covers all the basis, is that all "crazy" people are not evil. But all evil people might be said to be crazy.

[Trencher]

Re: Alignments

 

I suggest this:

For "bad" guys, there are (at least) the following types:

Will kill you just for being there Maniac

Will kill you only if you irritate it Brutal 10p

Will kill you if you irritate it, and is VERY easily irritated Belligerent 15p

Will kill you to take your stuff (if he thinks you've got good stuff) Greedy 5p

Will kill you to eat you (if he thinks he can take you) Predator 0p

Will rob you, but won't kill you if you hand over the loot Despotic 0p

Will steal from you via stealth or trickery Sneaky 0p

Will work against you to cause misery Malicious

Will play tricks on you for fun (Puck vs. Bottom) Mischievous 5p

Will capture/enslave you if it can Powerhungry 10p

Won't lift a finger to help you ("Bah!") Uncaring 0p

Will charge exorbitantly for help ("Sign here in blood, please.") Devilish or self serving 0p

[Ghostkat]

Re: Alignments

 

Coming into this late, but I recently found a cool document that's all about game design and stuff. It takes a big hollistic view, and while meant for the online style rpg, brings up quite a few perfectly valid points for PnP games..

 

I'm just posting this in hopes a lot of folks find it useful.

 

---------

 

Beyond Good and Evil Stuff

 

One of the classic misconceptions about games, role-playing games in particular, is the definition of Good and Evil. Evil tends to be misused horrifically, applied to everything from a brainless NPC monster to a guy who lives to kill players for no reason. The scope of a true definition of "evil" is beyond the scope of this document, but suffice to say that real evil does not exist in a commercial game. If it did, the game would be too disturbing to support a viable subscriber base, and would probably violate a lot of laws. In game terms, as well as in real life, one can define "good" as being in accord with your own interests, and "evil" as being opposed to them. This is a inaccurate use of good and evil, but it's the way these terms were used to exhort children to march across the desert to take back the holy land (before they were sold into slavery), so it works just as well as any other.

 

So disregarding good vs. evil as a possible source of conflict, you have some realistic and perfectly viable choices for player (and NPC) motivation:

 

* Nationalism

* Religion

* Economic Interests

* Social Power

* Fame

* Personal Achievement

 

Why should you, as a designer, care about the distinctions between realistic motives and the hackneyed good vs. evil concept? Because it lends credibility to your world. Monsters don't attack humans because they're "evil," they attack because they want more lands and recources (Economic Interests), they want to impress their own leaders (Fame/Social Power), they are mad because the humans did something bad to them (Nationalism), etc. A player can theoretically find out why the monsters are doing what they do, which is a quest in itself. This helps to flesh out your world, makes it more immersive, and helps it to stand out from the pack of other games where monsters just stand around and attack players because their algorithms tell them to.

 

From the player standpoint, it also helps to define players' roles in society. A paladin who goes out to drive back the hordes of monsters that threaten the local farms is doing it for reasons better than "being good"; he is doing it to defend his homeland (Nationalism), to insure that his people get enough to eat (Economic Interests), and because the church has decreed that he must (Religion). A player who aspires to a noble title with lands and holdings does so to become rich (Economic Interests), status (Social Power/Fame), and just to say that he's the Earl or whatever (Personal Achievement/Fame). Understanding the motives of your players and their characters (hoping against hope that the characters are being roleplayed to the degree that they have motives of their own) is key when designing content, goals, and quests that you hope they will be undertaking, and making goals appropriate to each of these motivations attractive and fun enough for players to want to pursue them.

[tkdguy]

Re: Alignments

 

I was just rereading a GI miniseries COBRA Reborn. This one has Cobra Commander saying why he's starting Cobra. According to him, he lost his business via legal issues. Then his wife divorced him and took his son away, when he was down. This Cobra Commander claims to be a patriot; his motives are (he says) to remove the corruption from society and give power back to the people. Whether or not he's telling the truth remains to be seen.

 

Destro is also seen as fighting against the English, who persecuted his ancestor, but he knows that he's out for profit.

[AngryBug]

Re: Alignments

 

Perhaps (!?) I'm naive, but isn't the whole reason the D&D alignment system works so well it's simplicity? Trying to come up with a chart that shows every complex facet of how a character or monster will interact with others seems needlessly, ummmm...., well, complex.

If you're talking specifically about some sort of heading for monsters in sourcebooks, perhaps having a short description of general characteristics like "Animal, Predator", "Reclusive, Dangerous when Cornered" or "Greedy, Amoral" might be enough shorthand to let you know whether it is worth reading the particulars in more detail, without needing to create a whole system for charting every conceivable combination.

If you're talking about figuring out how NPC characters will interact with PCs, that's what background, personality and/or Psych. Lim.'s are for. Isn't interpreting those for your own campaign just part of being a GM? And what ever happened to picking the NPCs and creatures you need/want for your story and working backwards from there to see how they fit in?

I mean no offense by any of this , and I freely admit I may be missing your basic point, but I just don't see what the payoff would be for creating an "interaction chart".

[Metaphysician]

Re: Alignments

 

Perhaps (!?) I'm naive' date=' but isn't the whole reason the D&D alignment system works so well it's [i']simplicity?[/i] Trying to come up with a chart that shows every complex facet of how a character or monster will interact with others seems needlessly, ummmm...., well, complex.

If you're talking specifically about some sort of heading for monsters in sourcebooks, perhaps having a short description of general characteristics like "Animal, Predator", "Reclusive, Dangerous when Cornered" or "Greedy, Amoral" might be enough shorthand to let you know whether it is worth reading the particulars in more detail, without needing to create a whole system for charting every conceivable combination.

If you're talking about figuring out how NPC characters will interact with PCs, that's what background, personality and/or Psych. Lim.'s are for. Isn't interpreting those for your own campaign just part of being a GM? And what ever happened to picking the NPCs and creatures you need/want for your story and working backwards from there to see how they fit in?

I mean no offense by any of this , and I freely admit I may be missing your basic point, but I just don't see what the payoff would be for creating an "interaction chart".

 

I have to agree here. The D&D alignment system ( in its current iteration ) is the best possible shorthand for a person's overall morality and behavior. Yeah, its coarse, but anything more precise would be much better dealt with as background story for the character in question.

 

Note: Yes, I do mean "current iteration." Previous editions were much less desirable. In the 3rd/3.5 version, however, they cleared up the two biggest problems: the relativism/absolutish question and the true neutral bugaboo.

 

1. The Books of Vile Darkness and Exalted Deeds make it quite clear: believing you are doing the right thing does not make it right, and the ends don't ultimately justify the means. A person can do an evil act because they believe its for the greater good or that they had no other choice, but its still an evil act. If the character is good-aligned, they will seek atonement of some kind. OTOH, neutral-aligned characters can follow the idea of the ends justifying the means, as long as they don't go too far. . .

 

2. True Neutral is no longer some abstract "seeker and preserver of balance," at least not by default. The vast vast majority of people with neutral alignment are simply people who don't care overmuch about greater concepts like good, evil, law, and chaos; they just live their lives.

[Citizen Keen]

Re: Alignments

 

The two word alignment system seems to work.

 

The second word is the character's motivations.

The first word is the character's method.

 

Second Words:

 

Malicious - Wants to Cause Pain

Greedy - Wants to Benefit Self

Destructive - Wants to Destroy

 

First Words:

 

Careful - Patient and Cautious

Wanton - Careless and Impulsive

Tyranical - Significantly more powerful

 

I'm sure you could come up with more. It boils back down to deendee:

 

Morality, and Ethics. What you want to do, and how you do it. The greatest philosophers in the world have reached the same point.

[Markdoc]

Re: Alignments

 

A friend and fellow DnD player defined good and evil succinctly years ago:

 

Evil people will kill good people if they feel they'll make a profit thereby

 

Whereas:

 

Good people will kill evil people whenever they can identify and catch them.

 

 

cheers, Mark