Dungeon Fantasy: "Alignment" Traits

[Christopher R. Rice]

Guys,

I'm working up a model for alignments for Dungeon Fantasy and was hoping to crowd-source some thoughts on what disadvantages (or advantages) might fit into a couple of categories. Obviously, "Honesty" or "Truthfulness" is a "Good" disadvantage in the Dungeon Fantasy view.


Any help would be most appreciated. The categories are:

• Good: loyalty, integrity, altruism, respect for life (specifically or generally), compassion, duty, etc.
• Evil: selfishness, destruction for the sake of destruction, disregard for life, indifference, apathy, cruelty, etc.
• Balance/Nature: harmony, respect for nature, all things in equilibrium, simplicity, detachment from desires, etc.
• Chaos: Emotions, spontaneity/impulsiveness, irreverence, anarchy, freedom, adaptability, resentment toward legitimate authority, arbitrary actions, irresponsibility, etc.
• Law: Honor, logic/lack of emotions in thinking, duty, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, stability, conservatism, traditionalism, etc.

I'm not adverse to other axis being listed if they're cool, just don't make it too complicated. ;-)

[Sindri]

The traditional view of the implicit alignments of Dungeon Fantasy is Good/Evil/Bunny/Squid. What is the Order/Chaos axis based on?

[Dalillama]

Off the top of my head:

• Good
  • Sense of Duty
    charitable
    Pacificm
    Selfless
• Evil
  • Sadism
    Bloodlust
    Bully
• Balance/Nature
  • disciplines of Faith
• Order
  • Honesty
    Truthfulness
    Code Of Honor
    disciplines of Faith
• Chaos
  • Compulsive Lying
    Curious
    Kleptomania
    Impulsiveness
    Trickster

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

Off the top of my head:

• Good
  • Sense of Duty
    charitable
    Pacificm
    Selfless
• Evil
  • Sadism
    Bloodlust
    Bully
• Balance/Nature
  • disciplines of Faith
• Order
  • Honesty
    Truthfulness
    Code Of Honor
    disciplines of Faith
• Chaos
  • Compulsive Lying
    Curious
    Kleptomania
    Impulsiveness
    Trickster

I like this set.
GURPS Honesty is Law not Good.
A Lawful Evil character could certainly have Honesty since that is about obeying the law rather then not lying.

[Dwarf99]

I'd advocate for Dalilama's list as well, but I think the following additions could be made

1. Lecherousness could be Chaotic
2. If you're a monster, the OPH should perhaps be considered Evil, but not the Social Stigma.
3. Criminal Record indicates Chaotic, but may also be evil in conjunction with Enemy or certain Secrets.
4. Add Duty to Order.
5. I'd say Truthfulness could also be good unless you could find a way to weasel out of it by lies of omission, or statements that make certain untruthful implications without literally untrue themselves.
6. You could add Weirdness Magnet to Chaotic, but it doesn't explicitly state anything about how you should act, so it's iffy.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Dwarf99

[*] You could add Weirdness Magnet to Chaotic, but it doesn't explicitly state anything about how you should act, so it's iffy.[/LIST]

I actually had a law/chaos axis, in which Law required you to be Honest and have Disciplines of Faith but chaos didn't have any restrictions...just side-effects.

[NineDaysDead]

Callous might suit Evil. "Legalistic" (PU6:p.9) might suit Lawful Evil

[WaterAndWindSpirit]

Originally Posted by Dwarf99

[*] Criminal Record indicates Chaotic, but may also be evil in conjunction with Enemy or certain Secrets.

Not necessarily. Someone with Criminal Record could have been framed for a crime they didn't commit.

Or maybe you did commit the crime... Say, a dozen counts of murder and stealing a few thousands $ worth of property (or, from your point of view, freeing oppressed slaves and killing those who were oppressing them, which could very well be Lawful (in the alignment sense) if the law you recognize abhors slavery).

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

The categories are:

• Good
• Evil
• Balance/Nature
• Order
• Chaos

I'm not adverse to other axis being listed if they're cool, just don't make it too complicated. ;-)

I don't see Balance and Nature as synonymous, and I've always wondered just where the D&D folks got that idea. I mean, there's "ecological balance", but not much relationship between that and "cosmic forces balance" - yin yang, the four elements, the 2/4 classic D&D alignment extremes, and so forth don't necessarily stand for or against any part of the ecology, so balancing them doesn't seem to go with nurturing the environment.

I do like the Bunny/Squid axis, even if it started as a joke. Placing guardians of the natural order on one end (Werewolf: the Apocalypse style eco-terrorists at the extreme end), most of everyone else from our reality on the moderate end of the Bunny axis, crazy cultists and partially "naturalized" monsters on the moderate end of the Squid axis, interdimensional world destroying horrors at the far end.

If I were doing this, psychics might be encouraged to take Lifebane and possibly an additional limitation mirroring the Druid power limitation, where the penalties are inverse to the Druid penalties.

-----

I'm pretty comfortable with a set of (dis)advantages having hard ties to alignment groups - but recognizing that a further set have "soft" ties.

Hard traits are the sorts of things I'd happily hang game mechanics off of. This would be the list of traits you'd gain by accumulating Corruption as per GURPS Horror, or used to check if you're exploded by the Holy Hand-Grenade of Antioch (must have -15 points or more from this list to fly in itty bitty pieces).

You can also have things like Evil Runes that don't use Dehydrate 6d on Evil people (or Druid runes that turn everyone except appropriately respectful people into deer, or whatever) - traps and curses.

Soft disadvantages can be said to "go well with" being of that alignment, and might be strongly suggestive that you belong to that alignment, and may be used by characters to accuse you of being of that alignment, but don't have the same absolutist nature.
Vows can be good or evil, they're easy to argue as Lawful, but they're also easily Vows to balance the alignments or protect Nature... and you can TOTALLY have someone who's vowed to spread chaos and merriment wherever he goes. Just because he's REALLY committed to being unpredictable and entropic doesn't mean he isn't unpredictable and entropic.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Refplace

GURPS Honesty is Law not Good.

The major problem with GURPS Honesty is the description isn't actually clear on that. It has some elements that suggest it should go with Law, and others that suggest you should act in accordance with Good regardless of what the law is. This is why there is so much debate over it.

To some extent this will vary with how you want to define evil. Not all cultures will agree on exactly what constitutes evil. I have an occasional campaign setting where anything related to one of the seven deadly sins scores you points toward being objectively Evil for purposes of the local magic

And occasionally it will vary with exactly what you are modelling with the particular disadvantage. Nothing much prevents you from having an evil Sense of Duty or Code of Honor, or Compulsive Lying from emphasizing the Compulsive part and going with Law. And there are people would argue that Pacifism requires abandoning your moral duty to resist Evil, and hence is not good, or insist that Bloodlust can be confined to enemies who have actually wronged you, which could move it to balance or even good. A straight up you have X points in this disadvantage list so you are [alignment] may not work as well if your players start with complex motivations and then pick disadvantages to model them rather than the other way around.