Alignment

A discussion that springs up in Dungeons and Dragons time and time again is the whole alignment debate. When you try to put things like morals and ethics into an almost black-and-white structure for a game, you come up with problems.

In my campaign I've tried to clarify the differences between alignments without changing the rules or interfering with what players have already learned about alignment. For example; when Samulus executed the injured, defenceless bandit who had tried to run from the PCs, he earned an "evil point". When Sten attempted to heal the bandit that had given up, he earned a "good point". So far no one has earned any chaos or law points. The way I'm handling alignment change is thus: characters start with two alignment scores both between 1 and 100, one score is for law/chaos, the other is for good/evil. A Lawful Evil character would have starting scores of 75/25, a Chaotic Neutral character would have scores of 25/50. When a character performs a good, evil, lawful or chaotic act, their alignment changes accordingly. Up for good/law, and down for evil/chaos. A score of 100/100 would be a pure Lawful Good character who almost never goes against laws or traditions, and always tries to help others. A character with a score of 30/52 would be a Chaotic Neutral character but we can see that they have performed some lawful acts, and one or two good acts. Perhaps they started out as a True Neutral character but acted in such a fashion that their law/chaos alignment dropped into Chaotic territory.

That's how I'm handling alignment change anyway. For the definition of alignment I'm asking a simple question. What would the character go out of his/her way to do? This is how I'm defining alignment. If a fighter would go out of his way (perhaps detouring on his journey, or spending precious time) to help break slaves free from an orc war camp then we can safely say that he is a Good character.

If a wizard would go out of his way (by using up valuable materials, spells, or resources perhaps) to burn a village down after the local elder council insulted him, then we can probably assume that he is an Evil character.

If a Ranger is willing to go out of her way (maybe by helping out to a greater extent than normal, or by using her rare abilities) to ensure the tax collector tracks down the peasants who are trying to dodge paying their lord's rent this month, then we can say that she is most likely a Lawful character.

If a cleric goes out of his way (by putting himself at risk) to hide the outlawed adventurers in the cellar under the temple, we can assume that he is a Chaotic character.

Of course, not everyone would repeat this sort of action all the time and so we still have neutral characters. While a Good character would go out of his way to help people more often than not, and an Evil character would go out of his way to harm people more often than not; a Neutral character might do both, or neither, establishing a middle-ground. And because the best stories involve the protagonist(s) learning and changing because of their experiences, I have tried to implement the alignment changing system outlined above. I think it will work.

The question that lies before me now is: will Samulus, the PC mentioned above, turn out to be Evil because of a lack of Good acts? How will that work? If he commits many selfish acts (Evil), bypasses situations in which he could make a choice one way or another (Neutral), but only acts kindly (Good) very rarely, he will eventually end up being an Chaotic Evil character, not a Chaotic Neutral character. Will that work? Will Samulus actually be Evil? I suppose I'll have to see. It will be a challenge for Samulus' player to role play, and a challenge for me to adjudicate when the time comes to decide. The other two PCs, Elysia and Sten, are hovering closely to their original alignments (Chaotic Neutral and Neutral Good respectively).

Another point to make about this system is gradual neutrality. If Samulus doesn't perform any outlandishly lawful or chaotic actions or a long time, can I still say that he is Chaotic Neutral? Should I add/subtract points towards neutrality when a character doesn't perform an act that swings them one way or another? You see, these are the problems you face when you try to put ethics and morality into nine labelled little boxes.