Ditching Alignment

[joewolz]

Oft asked, but a question I need some help with:

Can I ditch alignment in C&C without affecting too much?

Some background is in order I suspect.

I'm finally starting a C&C campaign, based in my world of Malbatil. It's based on the Thirty Years' War but is a little darker. Originally, I wanted the setting to be a Ravenloft domain, but decided I'd just make my own world. The wiki I linked to above is incomplete, so if there's anything goofy or missing please forgive me, it will be filled in as we play.

The primary monsters will be undead, although any links to descritions of nifty non-sentient battlefield monsters is appreciated. If anyone gives a crap about my setting, I'm more than willing to start a thread on it.

So, is ditching alignment going to adversely effect my 17th century dark fantasy game?

[serleran]

There aren't too many things in C&C that directly relate to alignment, and of those, they can generally be converted to something else, like Faction, or Allegiance, or whatever else, without it having some kind of moral/ethical megaversal PoV. For example, if you wanted to, you could swap Alignment for some sort of "group affiliation" wherein, say, assassins, are always "evil," but its more because they're part of the Guild. So, you'd have some spell that can detect that, so you'd have Detect Faction which allows the caster to determine the presence of anyone not of the same as his own; those who are unaffiliated always detect. Or, if this seems too much, just remove the "alignment" effects like protection from, detect, and whatnot.

[Maliki]

I think ditching alignment would pose no problem at all. It is often overlooked IMC after character creation anyway, except for Paladins and Clerics. I always told my players that it didn't matter what alignment was on their character sheet, I always went by their characters actions to determine their alignment.
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[moriarty777]

Certain campaigns I've played in the past used alignment more as a guideline or tool to help with playing the character. Nothing so strictly adhering of course...

Within C&C you'd just have to consider a couple of spells and abilities... The Paladin is pretty specific in terms of alignment restrictions but that pretty much is the only case. It can still be used as a guideline and if the Paladin 'strays' from his path... he loses certain abilities.

Moriarty the Red
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[babbage]

There are a few spells which would either have to be modified or removed, such as Protection from... and Detect.... There may also be some items that have alignment restrictions, particularly intelligent weapons. Also, although clerics receive their abilities from their deity - and as long as they are close to their deity they won't suffer - paladins are always lawful good. They are supposed to represent the epitome of a divine knight. The biggest problem they face is that if they don't stick to their high ideals they lose their abilities. If you can devise a mechanism to keep this, then sure - alignment can be ditched.

[Jason]

Drop it. It's easy enough to do.

[joewolz]

babbage wrote:
There are a few spells which would either have to be modified or removed, such as Protection from... and Detect.... There may also be some items that have alignment restrictions, particularly intelligent weapons. Also, although clerics receive their abilities from their deity - and as long as they are close to their deity they won't suffer - paladins are always lawful good. They are supposed to represent the epitome of a divine knight. The biggest problem they face is that if they don't stick to their high ideals they lose their abilities. If you can devise a mechanism to keep this, then sure - alignment can be ditched.

Those are good points. I think I can keep the intelligent weapons as good or evil, that can be roleplayed, the protection from... type spells I redirect to specific creatures or individuals, as well.

[Scurvy_Platypus]

Dropping or keeping Alignment depends on what role it's serving in the first place.

1. If you're using it as a method of restricting/controlling player's actions, then no you can't really drop it. Not without replacing it with something else at least.

2. If your world operates on the basis of a relatively "objective" morality, then it's kinda hard to drop it also.

For example, waaaaaay back in the yesteryears of gaming, it was frowned upon to play evil characters. The idea of an entirely evil party? That was some serious business. It didn't stop people from doing it, but you were told flat out that characters weren't merely larger than life, but Heroes. Quite honestly, the alignment system was much more of a guide/restriction on a player's allowed actions, than something that the characters worried about. An exception to this being the whole Alignment Language thing. The existence of an Alignment Language argued that Alignment actually did have a bearing on the way the world worked.

Another example of course is the Detect Good/Evil and Protection from Good/Evil spells. The fact that those spells function argues for the existence of something more than an arbitrary and relative standard of Good. Paladin alignment restrictions (and other alignment restrictions) could also argue that, although I'm sure a number of people would disagree.

The whole issue of Gods is a tangentially related thing. There's no real room for unbelievers in a world where the gods operate/interfere on a consistent basis. Sure, you can have those strange folks that won't worship a god, but that's spiritual suicide. I mean, there's no doubt about it. _Something_ is going to happen to you when you die. There's enough ghosts, undead, spirit/soul magic floating around... it's not like you don't have proof of some sort of spiritual afterlife, or the fact that there are beings that are interested in your soul for whatever reason.

On the other hand if your world is one where a person's morality isn't as easily detected by magic as a lie, and morality is rather fluid and subject like the real world... dump alignment. It just messes things up. Of course if you do that, it's harder for characters to justify slaughtering Orcs, Kobolds, Goblins, and all the other favorite fodder. After all, if they aren't actually _evil_ it means the people doing the slaughtering are at least somewhat racial bigots.

The problems show up when people want to play as if morality (Good/Evil) is in fact an absolute/objective and measurable thing, but then they try to use subjective "well, in _this_ situation, it's ok because..." waffling to get around the implications of their actions.

It should go without saying that the above is my own personal opinion, and I'm pretty sure that others don't agree with at least parts of it. That's ok for me, and I don't feel the need to try and convince you that I'm right. I'm just pointing out that keeping or ditching something like Alignment does have a potential effect on the philosophical workings of the world.

[joewolz]

Good post Scurvy_Platypus, thanks. Like I said, monsters in my world are almost all either undead or abominations (or rather, bestial monsters). The only humanoid races in existence are elves and humans, and of course half-elves.

There are no orcs, kobolds, or anything like that...just bad people, so to speak.