Quote from: Lunamancer on August 10, 2021, 07:25:03 PM

Quote from: RebelSky on August 10, 2021, 12:58:38 PM
How I want to approach Alignment in one of my design ideas is to use it as a form of Archetype. Having an Alignment asks the questions: What and How are you Aligned? To me, this is part personality, part inner strength, part motivation, part moral compass, part attitude, part soul. What is it about you (the character) that truly Defines you, and how you Approach Life and the World?

The standard D&D alignment structure wouldn't work. Palladium's alignments are closer to how I see them, but these don't work either.

Oddly enough, I do exactly that, alignments are archetypes, and I do it with the D&D alignment structure.
LG = positive masculine
CG = positive feminine
LE = negative masculine
CE = negative feminine

And I think what this says is that, no, actually, AD&D style alignments fit archetypes REALLY well. It's just that it's only giving you two dimensions. You'll need a couple of more if you want to get a 16-archetype structure. In my Gothic horror fantasy (or is it fantasy horror?) campaign, I also add the axis of "human" vs "alien" and "believer" vs "pagan." I don't call these alignments, but the axes are there.

Just as an example, if I may geek out about my game world a bit, when it comes to the monk class, I've never been satisfied with the "Oh, that's for oriental campaigns" line. William of Gellone was a Catholic monk known to be formidable with the open hand, so I was determined to make the monk fit my non-oriental setting. What I ended up doing is basing them (aesthetically, anyway) on Eastern Orthodox monks, but for the fantasy element I made them something of "psionicists"--I've always been intrigued about the PHB monk's abilities of mental defense and reasoned, this is a substantial advantage when facing demons & devils. So these monks would be Lawful (masculine) per the PHB (even nuns would fit the masculine archetype), "human" (just like they are a human-only class in the PHB, and here opposed to alien creatures from other planes), and "believers," though I'm not entirely opposed to the possibility down the line of creating a pagan counterpart.

If I wanted to I could then go back and hash out 16 different archetypes. They might not be a perfect match for the Meyers Briggs archetype set, but then again, my understanding is the Big Five model has more scientific backing anyway, so I'm not going to break my back over it.

Care to expand on your gothic horror game and alignment system? Sounds very interesting.

BTW; a good way of conflating western monasticism with psionics is mysticism. There were plenty of hermits and ecstatic saints who could levitate, withstand pain, tame animals, etc.

Quote from: SonTodoGato on August 11, 2021, 06:00:18 PM
Alignment is a very one-dimensional thing. How many people, fictional or real, are considered evil, but felt completely justified in their ways? Who knows what objective good is? In a world with gods and a clear, distinct notion of good... Why are there still "evil" things? They know they're wrong. Do they do evil for the sake of it? If I use a healing spell to cure a serial killer, is it good magic? If I kill the serial killer, am I good or am I just as much a killer as he is? Is genociding a race of "evil" creatures good?

Well, I cited in an earlier post how 1E defines good and evil, and I think the 1E approach answers every one of your points. First, it gives a clear definition. Second, it leaves plenty of room for bad guys with noble causes. And third, there do exist arguments that resolve the absolute vs relative thing, and 1E's alignment system happens to sync with one of the solutions.

I do have to push back on one thing. I think it's over-stated, this case that bad guys believe they're the good guys. Sometimes they do. But I think plenty of them--maybe even most--know full well they're the bad guys. And I think they justify it as a means of hiding their evil. It's not clear to me they sincerely believe their own justifications.

Quote from: SonTodoGato on August 11, 2021, 06:08:18 PMCare to expand on your gothic horror game and alignment system? Sounds very interesting.

Sure. Before I get into the pretentious bullshit, basically I wanted to do Castlevania. Not rip off Castlevania, but do my own thing based in the style of what I think makes Castlevania cool. And doing it while playing core 1E BtB.

I don't want to change the rules, but creating unique content is certainly in-bounds. Tweaking the monsters is something I'm big on. One, because it's a way of reinforcing the themes of my campaign. But also it brings the mystery back into the game for veterans who now have to learn all over again how the monsters work.

The major theme I'm "painting" with is to take stark absolutes of good and evil and twisting, reversing, or mixing them. A few examples.

I've used a good-aligned Ghost, the ghost of a nun, Sister Irena. Those who encounter her and are not of her faith (or at least blessed by a cleric of her faith) are stricken with a holy terror. If you use a Speak with Dead, she can provide clues and information. She also is the keeper of the Sacred Word which unlocks the reliquary that houses the Shard of Saint Athanasius.

The Shard of Saint Athanasius is a relic with powerful healing properties. But the reliquary will strike dead anyone who attempts to open it without speaking the Sacred Word.

I have an evil version of Blink Dogs called Shadow Dogs, which use the same stat block, but I re-skin the blinking to be like a shifting of shadows--imagine if you suddenly turned on or off a second light in the room, it could cause the shadow cast by an object to suddenly move without actually having to cross space. Effectively making it a short-range teleport, just like the blink dogs.

The church of the "believers" is an (objectively) Lawful Good organization that worships a Lawful Good god and a pantheon of Lawful Good saints. But as an edifice of men, it is not immune to corruption. And because it is such a large organization, sometimes the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, and there are Assassins who are not just believers but are employed by the church for their professional services, and I do hold to BtB that requires Assassins to be evil.

Which brings me to part of why I needed the extra alignment-like axes. Because for opposites along one axis to mix, it helps if they have two other axes in common. Good aligned human believers and pagans may ally to fight demons, for instance, which are evil and alien.

QuoteBTW; a good way of conflating western monasticism with psionics is mysticism. There were plenty of hermits and ecstatic saints who could levitate, withstand pain, tame animals, etc.

The philosophy of the monks involves transcending the material world through perfection of the mind and body. This is why they have the mind and unarmed fighting abilities they have. It allows them to be formidable without having to rely on neither blade nor spell book. All three orders of monks wear black robes, which symbolize their death to the material world. Rather, what varies from one order to the next is the color of the scripture embroidered into their clothing. The Good-aligned monks are the Gilded Order whose robes bear Or colored scripture. The neutrals are the Onyx Order, whose robes bear Argent scripture. And the evils are the Rose Order with Gules scripture.