Reframing Alignment For Newer Players

-
Let's not waste time with flowery language. Here's how I'm presenting alignment for my games.

Alignment is not about personal beliefs. It's an abstraction that explains a character's place in a large-scale cosmological conflict.

There are four alignments...

Law- You fight for the side of order, creation, and justice. Adherents can include everyone from a cold-hearted but litigious judge to a devout acolyte or even a scout tracking the armies of Chaos.

Neutral- You fight for the side of balance, preservation, and survival. Adherents could include fey creatures and servants or guardians of nature.

Chaos- You fight for the side of entropy, self-determination, and power. This will include anarchists, slavers, cultists, raiders, and monsters.

Unaligned- You have no place in this conflict. Chances are, you're probably the citizen of a place of Law who benefits from the protections paid for with the blood of Lawful warriors. Perhaps you're weak or infirm. Maybe you're a demihuman or a hermit that just doesn't have any time for this constant bloodshed.


So, that covers the cosmological alignments. Now let's talk about alignments for games that don't use the Law vs Chaos dynamic. These are far more in line with pinning down character motivations and sliding that between Vice and Virtue. These can change with play and can easily help a player decide how a character may act in a given situation.

Enterprise/Greed- Your character is motivated by the accumulation of wealth.

Justice/Wrath- Your character has a deeply rooted desire to right the wrongs of the world.

Fame/Infamy- Your character desires to be known across the land for their exploits, and is willing to put everything on the line to make it happen.

Discovery/Acquisition- There are things you wish to find, either for the sake the discovery or so it may be used for your own purposes.

Protection/Destruction- There's something you either hold to be either sacred or to be a threat, and dealing with this is of the utmost importance.

Dedication/Obsession- There's someone or something that has your undying loyalty, either out of admiration, belief, or infatuation. It'll probably be the death of you.

Probably more I haven't thought of yet.

Comments

  1. casseyMay 5, 2021 at 6:21 PM

    My Husband and I have been together for 3years, we started having issues and we both broke up this years, after our fight over his cheating habits which they all say it's not their fault but I was the one getting hurt for it . I was upset over the whole issue that I had to call for the separation but I felt really bad. The separation really had effects on my daughter who had to live away from her father that I had to think of a way to settle things out and find solution to my husband's awkward behavior. I found out about a spell caster called Dr Adoda on this link ( http://www.dradodalovetemple.com ) who helped me with the problem to make my spouse come back to me and make him stop cheating. Soon, Richard came back to me begging at Sicily where I stayed after our divorce and I told him he has to show me he has changed for me to believe him. He came back twice after that day to Sicily begging me to have him back. Its been 2 months now since my husband came back to me and we have been living together since that day. I believe this man can also help you too in getting your Ex lover back. also you can call him or add him on Whats-app: +2348112825421.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Venger SatanisMay 18, 2021 at 4:54 PM

    Nice!

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Witch-KingJune 9, 2021 at 5:57 PM

    Oof! Aaron you might want to get someone who can monitor the incoming spam comments.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fighting Giants and Other Huge Creatures in D&D

-
Image
(Art by Satoshi Kamanaka https://www.artstation.com/artwork/X0xnL) Battles with enormous creatures should be epic, yes? Some of the most exhilarating fights in cinema, literature, and video games have been arduous, grueling battles between our heroes and these cowering Titans who obliterate entire buildings without even meaning to. Typically, in TTRPGs,  these combats are scarcely differentiated from combats with medium sized creatures that have massive amounts of hit points. Sure, there are size categories that have certain implications, and there are often hard hitting attacks or special abilities. But there's a lot of potential for greatness here that I believe isn't being capitalized on. For the sake of our purposes here, I'm going to be speaking in terms of 5e D&D mechanics, simply because it's incredibly easy to pare down to OSR standards, but is more widely understood. TIP ONE: PARTITIONING HP My first tip is to take that big ol' HP pool and b...
Read more

The Player Experience: OSR vs 5e

-
Image
The Player Experience in 5E vs OSR, a Brief Comparison (Skip to next session if you want the bullet points) In Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons, player characters are heroes. From the very beginning, 5e PCs are well beyond the capabilities of the average populace.  They have above average ability scores, they get a full hit die + CON HP, Spellcasters start with several spells to choose from with multiple castings per day and cantrips they can use at-will. Martial classes start with benefits that put them significantly ahead of 1HD creatures, such as Fighting Styles, Second Wind, Martial Arts, etc. This also says nothing of the many skill proficiencies and expertise. This gap only increases as the game goes on. By contrast, games in the OSR tend to be far less charitable to starting characters. For a basis of comparison, we'll focus on Old School Essentials, as it's a direct retro-clone of one of the most foundational editions in the OSR, Moldvay B/X D&D from 1981.  Wha...
Read more

5e Monster: Aberrant Tapeworm

-
The Aberrant Tapeworm Generic, right? There really is no better way to describe this thing. It's nice and understated, fitting somewhere between somewhat ominous and extremely inconvenient. The Aberrant Tapeworm is a parasite. It's introduced to the host through undercooked meat when animals graze in corrupted fields, but you can change that to whatever. In my campaign, an Inquisitor ate a wild hog that ate some weeds in the field the Inquisitor murdered his wife. While typical tapeworms seek sustenance through absorbing nutrients, Aberrant Tapeworms multiply inside the host, introducing foreign agents into the bloodstream that induce rage and paranoia. People will observe worrisome mood changes in the afflicted, but will often be murdered by the host before having a full grasp on what's happening. As they grow and replicate (over 5-6 days), they maneuver to the brain and sieze control of the host's body. When this happens, they devour organs and use their inherent tele...
Read more