[DF] Dragonlance

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Palladium has an alignment characteristic though they're more like personaility profiles (of course even in D&D Good v. Evil is morality, Law v. chaos is personaility profile). You get more or less XP for playing your alignment properly.

Chivalry & Sorcery 1e had an alignment characteristic rated from 1-20 measring how in line with honorable and churchly behavior you were. If you let PCs pick their alignment number it was alright as a statement of how they intended to play their characters. The early suggestion that you rolled it randomly on a D20 was pretty much a non-starter. Over 4 more editions it has evolved first to "piety" and then to "spiritulality" which determiens how likely you are to get miraculous aid. You may even track "current spirit" pts now.

Of course all Star Wars rpgs have had thire Light v. Dark mechnisms and their imitators tend to imitate that too.

Lots of more modern games have some sort of "corruption" mechanic. They just don't have the opposite of "corruption".

Sounds similar in some respects to the Resistance roll in GURPS for certain mental disadvantages. I look back at Classic and wonder why allowing higher IQ to allow easier resistance of certain mental disadvantages wasn't seen as a problem. The 4e mechanic is far better as it allows different degrees within the same character.

Daffy Duck in 'Ducking the Devil' (1957) is a prime example of how a GURPS-like mechanic work better than an alignment. After bringing in the Tasmanian Devil in (and admitting "I -am- a coward. A craven scared to death coward" in the process) one of the bills falls into the cage and Daffy goes berserk saying "Its mine, mine, mine." and beats the snot out of the Tasmanian Devil. "I may be a coward but I am a -greedy- littlecoward."

In D&D terms there is simply not enough to put an alignment on Daffy from one 10 minutes short but witha trait system you can give him two traits right after the bat Coward and Greed. Assigning 9 and 6 to the resistance you have a Daffy that behave much the way he does in later cartoons - especially when his greed overwhelms any sense of self preseravation.

Interestingly Sfdebris has a play through on one of the Star War games as a light side Sith shows that "evil" characters can do good things. Before Disney did the sequels there was Kreia who took a deep look at the two sides of the force and found both wanting though in different ways.

Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series is another example of how alignment is setting dependent - the Offices of Death and Evil have very specific behavior requirements of Neutral and Evil but are Zane and Perry really these alignments by the D&D system?