I'm working on a design for a sci-fi OSR game and I'm wondering if alignment rules are that necessary. I can see them being useful in fantasy games with deities and the like being an ever present factor for the characters, but sci-fi doesn't dip into that pond so much. However, with dark and light themes being a thing (à la Star Wars) I can see where it can come in handy for gauging a character's allegiances.
Do you guys/gals use alignment that often during a session?
When I ran White Star, which has L-N-C alignment, I ignored it. I don't think you need it.
I run Mechanoids and Rifts Phase World, both are by Palladium and use their alignment system. I've found no unusual problems. Players who like alignment, generally continue liking alignment and vice versa.
I've ported Law / Neutral / Chaos into Gamma World with no concern. It's basically Law = pro-civilization; Neutral = selfish; Chaos = anti-civilization. Lawfuls seek to rebuild the world and support growth of villages and towns. Neutrals like their own village or town, but might not care about others. Chaotics like the apocalypse, especially the freedom from civilization.
It's led to interesting roleplay. The Lawfuls can't easily justify destroying a growing village of bandits, even though they are scum because they are creating order out of chaos. The Neutrals are happy to wipe them out to protect the settlements who hired them, even if those settlements are stagnant dead ends. The Chaotics are happy to raid the raiders and take their stuff.
Could you have all that without alignments? Of course, but FOR ME, I find alignment a good, easy and reliable shortcut to fire up conflicts at the table.
Personally, I'm not a fan of D&D-style alignment, regardless of genre, but I do try to get PCs tied in to factions, religions, national loyalties, etc., which is also an effective way to generate interesting conflict and translates well into SF or other genres where absolute morality or clashes of cosmic powers aren't necessarily a thing.
Of course, the downside of this is that it's very campaign/setting-specific. If you don't know what the Cult of Gajo-Eyia teaches, or the Denkhra people's relations with their neighbors, then "this character is a Denhkar acolyte of Gajo-Eyia" means next-to-nothing to you, while "this character is Chaotic Good" is understood clearly, at least in a broad sense, even to someone unfamiliar with the setting.
Quote from: S'mon;1127722When I ran White Star, which has L-N-C alignment, I ignored it. I don't think you need it.
I was usually the same way with D&D back in the day. The only time I ever really paid attention to alignment then was if someone wanted to play a Paladin, and then only if they were planning to do something seriously off kilter with that character's ideals.
I've never run or played in a sci-fi game with alignment, but I can see a possible advantage to doing so. I'm currently in a game that has no alignment and there was insufficient discussion about what the party would be doing during our session zero. Now it is a bit of a mess because some want to be heroes and others cut-throats. Of course a better session zero would have avoided this, but had we chosen an alignment at character creation, it would have certainly raised a red flag and prompted a discussion.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1127725I run Mechanoids and Rifts Phase World, both are by Palladium and use their alignment system. I've found no unusual problems. Players who like alignment, generally continue liking alignment and vice versa.
I've ported Law / Neutral / Chaos into Gamma World with no concern. It's basically Law = pro-civilization; Neutral = selfish; Chaos = anti-civilization. Lawfuls seek to rebuild the world and support growth of villages and towns. Neutrals like their own village or town, but might not care about others. Chaotics like the apocalypse, especially the freedom from civilization.
It's led to interesting roleplay. The Lawfuls can't easily justify destroying a growing village of bandits, even though they are scum because they are creating order out of chaos. The Neutrals are happy to wipe them out to protect the settlements who hired them, even if those settlements are stagnant dead ends. The Chaotics are happy to raid the raiders and take their stuff.
Could you have all that without alignments? Of course, but FOR ME, I find alignment a good, easy and reliable shortcut to fire up conflicts at the table.
I can see that working well in most situations, especially in a Gamma World setting.
Quote from: nDervish;1127732Personally, I'm not a fan of D&D-style alignment, regardless of genre, but I do try to get PCs tied in to factions, religions, national loyalties, etc., which is also an effective way to generate interesting conflict and translates well into SF or other genres where absolute morality or clashes of cosmic powers aren't necessarily a thing.
Of course, the downside of this is that it's very campaign/setting-specific. If you don't know what the Cult of Gajo-Eyia teaches, or the Denkhra people's relations with their neighbors, then "this character is a Denhkar acolyte of Gajo-Eyia" means next-to-nothing to you, while "this character is Chaotic Good" is understood clearly, at least in a broad sense, even to someone unfamiliar with the setting.
I do have several factions (governments/criminal organizations and such), but even within something like that there can be some good people who just get swept up in the crowd-think and make bad decisions. I can see how just having factions as a determining factor of intentions could get confusing without explanation.
Quote from: Vidgrip;1127772I've never run or played in a sci-fi game with alignment, but I can see a possible advantage to doing so. I'm currently in a game that has no alignment and there was insufficient discussion about what the party would be doing during our session zero. Now it is a bit of a mess because some want to be heroes and others cut-throats. Of course a better session zero would have avoided this, but had we chosen an alignment at character creation, it would have certainly raised a red flag and prompted a discussion.
Yeah, going in would be a good time to know what your "business associates" have in mind.
Thinking more on this, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to include the alignments in the game and let the players decide to use them or not. I don't think I'll spend five pages discussing them in the rules like in the 2E DMG, but maybe a page or two!
Quote from: Jamfke;1127781Thinking more on this, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to include the alignments in the game and let the players decide to use them or not. I don't think I'll spend five pages discussing them in the rules like in the 2E DMG, but maybe a page or two!
Personally, I'd prefer not to have pages of rules included just because. I think that contributes to how systems become bloated tomes. If alignment isn't baked into the system elsewhere, then I'd prefer to just leave it off. People who really like alignment can easily add it in.
I haven't even paid attention to alignment in D&D in decades. Generally I find alignment to be restrictive, unhelpful, contradictory and more likely to lead to out of character arguments that detract from play than actual RP. It's pretty much the opposite of what the books have painstakingly tried convince us for decades--a straightjacket, not a tool for RP. And the evidence of that is in every rule that penalizes characters (usually of specific classes) for not following their alignment "correctly", which is an inherently subjective task, and every spell that's alignment specific, and every magic item that targets specific alignment as well. For something that's just a "RP tool" there seem to be loads of mechanics baked around enforcing it.
Even when you consider players who personally "like" alignment because it gives them inspiration the reality remains that any attempt to enforce alignment beyond just "I personally wanna use it cuz it helps focus my RP" leads to shallow RP at best and pointless out-of-character squabbles about WTF exactly X or Y alignment "means" at worst. My policy when it comes to alignment has become the same as for religion--if you wanna believe in this stuff do it in your own time (for your own RP) but don't expect anyone else to subscribe to it. I also don't include any alignment-specific spell or magic items, or convert them to work specifically against infernal or celestial beings instead.
No. Never. At best, it barely works in D&D. I've never used it in anything else and have never, ever missed it. And I really don't want it in my Sci-Fi.
Quote from: S'mon;1127722When I ran White Star, which has L-N-C alignment, I ignored it. I don't think you need it.
Did White Star do anything interesting or sci-fi specific with the L/N/C alignment, or was it just a D&D-ish cut and paste?
Quote from: Spinachcat;1127891Did White Star do anything interesting or sci-fi specific with the L/N/C alignment, or was it just a D&D-ish cut and paste?
Lawful Star Knights (Jedi) vs Chaotic Void Knights (Sith). It makes more sense in a Star Wars based universe than in most D&D fantasy!
I use the L/N/C alignments. In my upcoming Star Adventurer game, alignment is mostly to guide roleplaying but it has some effects on things like psychic powers or some reaction-based special abilities (like how a certain subclass could have a +1 bonus to reaction rolls with people of the same alignment).
Quote from: S'mon;1127924Lawful Star Knights (Jedi) vs Chaotic Void Knights (Sith). It makes more sense in a Star Wars based universe than in most D&D fantasy!
Did they just make Lawful = Good and Chaos = Evil?
Quote from: Spinachcat;1128119Did they just make Lawful = Good and Chaos = Evil?
Yes, in White Star.
Quote from: Jamfke;1127716I'm working on a design for a sci-fi OSR game and I'm wondering if alignment rules are that necessary. I can see them being useful in fantasy games with deities and the like being an ever present factor for the characters, but sci-fi doesn't dip into that pond so much. However, with dark and light themes being a thing (à la Star Wars) I can see where it can come in handy for gauging a character's allegiances.
Do you guys/gals use alignment that often during a session?
I've never used alignment anywhere but D&D with one exception. Although the Palladium system largely wasn't anything to write home about the alignment system from Palladium was a neat idea, a bit different from the gartner-ish Law/Chaos, Good/Evil of D&D. I grafted that onto Rolemaster for a game at one point.
Instead of the good/evil and law/chaos it has 7 basic personality types
Principled (essentially lawful good) - Boy scout types
Scrupulous (essentially chaotic good or neutral good) - Maverick with a heart of gold
Unprincipled (primarily self-serving) - Lovable rogue, e.g. Han Solo
Anarchist (self-serving) - Untrustworthy rogue, roughly equivalent to chaotic-neutral
Aberrant (honourable evil) - Likely violent and ruthless but honourable.
Miscreant (lawful evil) - Evil, manipulative, scheming, for example Littlefinger.
Diabolic (chaotic evil) - Violent psycho with little regard for consequences.
See here - https://imgur.com/gallery/DmKvb
Because it views alignment as more of a personality trait rather than some abstract good-vs-evil concept it could be used outside of sword-and-sorcery without looking too much like D&D-in-space. I've never bothered with Alignments in sci-fi games but if you think it would add to the game something like the Palladium alignment system might work for you.
I would suggest that alignment makes sense in games where those concepts -- order, chaos, good and evil -- are tangible, real forces in your cosmology and campaign world.
In games where the lines get blurry and they're moral and ethical questions, not something 'real', you can probably discard them in favor of some form of a reputation system.
I think in Star Adventurer, most Jedi and most Sith would be Lawful, probably.
Quote from: Jamfke;1127716I'm working on a design for a sci-fi OSR game and I'm wondering if alignment rules are that necessary. I can see them being useful in fantasy games with deities and the like being an ever present factor for the characters, but sci-fi doesn't dip into that pond so much. However, with dark and light themes being a thing (à la Star Wars) I can see where it can come in handy for gauging a character's allegiances.
Do you guys/gals use alignment that often during a session?
Why not replace it with loyalties, and maybe motivation?
You're loyal to your country, world, cause, etc.
Why did you embark into adventuring? Riches, Revenge, Loyalty, Fear (to be captured by the Empire for instance).
Quote from: S'mon;1127924Lawful Star Knights (Jedi) vs Chaotic Void Knights (Sith). It makes more sense in a Star Wars based universe than in most D&D fantasy!
Only if you buy into the Jedi propaganda :eek:
I don't mind Alignment for Fantasy DnD, but don't use it in Space RPGs.
If there were a re-issue of say "Spell jammer" a sort of Scifi/Fantasy DnD RPG (for 5e), I'd use alignment though.
It would depend on the setting. Obviously, in a star-wars style space-opera, ethical alignment is an important element of roleplay. In a game that's more hard sci fi it might be less important.
The way we use Alignment at our table is its a tool for the GM for the NPC's views and how they react to the world around them. Players pick what Alignment they feel their characters are most of the time so its just a simple POV guide line that can and will shift over time for some and not so much for others. Just because a CE player decides to follow the laws while they are in town don't mean he's now LE. He's just playing it smart. A Freedom loving CG person can do evil things or lawful things if needed but their overall POV will be CG.
I think people tend to have a strict shallow view on Good and Evil thus making Alignment's a Strict POV that you must toe the line or else! zealot mentality which its not. Its just a RP tool mainly for the DM and the Players to use to assist in guiding them to have a base POV to start your character off with. Nothing more, nothing less.
Traveller-style space game? No. Star Wars? Maybe, though you'd probably want to use an explicit light/dark side system and some kind of dark force mechanic, instead of the nine-point axis. Alternatively, the d20 Modern allegiance system is a good way to create factions without a strict Us Good/Them Bad divide, and would be easy to adapt.
http://www.d20resources.com/modern.d20.srd/basics/allegiances.php
The thing about Light Side/Dark Side in Star Wars is that in the context of the setting there's kind of a tricky gray area that may tip even good people over to the dark side through temptation or even simple loss of temper. So its hard to tell exactly were the Light Side ends and the Dark Side begins (until its already too late...). The way that the old West End Games Star Wars RPG used to handle it was a good way, though, since doing "bad" things would get you Dark Side points, which could be spent to gain bonuses to your actions, but if you did, you'd start tipping over to the Dark Side. So it added an element of temptation, since giving into the Dark Side had its benefits, but it would start corrupting you, even if done for "good" reasons.
Quote from: VisionStorm;1130327The thing about Light Side/Dark Side in Star Wars is that in the context of the setting there's kind of a tricky gray area that may tip even good people over to the dark side through temptation or even simple loss of temper. So its hard to tell exactly were the Light Side ends and the Dark Side begins (until its already too late...). The way that the old West End Games Star Wars RPG used to handle it was a good way, though, since doing "bad" things would get you Dark Side points, which could be spent to gain bonuses to your actions, but if you did, you'd start tipping over to the Dark Side. So it added an element of temptation, since giving into the Dark Side had its benefits, but it would start corrupting you, even if done for "good" reasons.
We're the Jedi, we're the good guys, don't mind the army of slave soldiers. *mystic gesture* You don't need to worry about them.
I don't think alignment serves much purpose in space.
Quote from: Jamfke;1127716I'm working on a design for a sci-fi OSR game and I'm wondering if alignment rules are that necessary. I can see them being useful in fantasy games with deities and the like being an ever present factor for the characters, but sci-fi doesn't dip into that pond so much. However, with dark and light themes being a thing (à la Star Wars) I can see where it can come in handy for gauging a character's allegiances.
Do you guys/gals use alignment that often during a session?
If you need Alignment in a space opera game, then you should just go back to playing D&D.
Quote from: Jamfke;1127716I'm working on a design for a sci-fi OSR game and I'm wondering if alignment rules are that necessary. I can see them being useful in fantasy games with deities and the like being an ever present factor for the characters, but sci-fi doesn't dip into that pond so much. However, with dark and light themes being a thing (à la Star Wars) I can see where it can come in handy for gauging a character's allegiances.
Do you guys/gals use alignment that often during a session?
The question you have to ask yourself is "Are Good and Evil real things in this universe?".
If Good and Evil are not just abstract concepts people use to rationalize actions taken by individuals or groups, but rather actual things, true things due to the presence of a creator or creators that set the rules, then alignment is not only appropriate, it's a requirement in my view.
If, on the other hand, Good and Evil are simply words, concepts created by mortals to describe situations they experience, then alignment is unnecessary.
As for alignment coming up during play, it certainly does in most D&D worlds, since I subscribe to the whole Planescape cosmology.
Quote from: jeff37923;1130343If you need Alignment in a space opera game, then you should just go back to playing D&D.
Plot Twist: Alignment also sucks donkey balls in D&D! :eek:
Quote from: VisionStorm;1130457Plot Twist: Alignment also sucks donkey balls in D&D! :eek:
That reminds me of the old joke:
You dont come here for the hunting.
Quote from: BronzeDragon;1130426The question you have to ask yourself is "Are Good and Evil real things in this universe?".
If Good and Evil are not just abstract concepts people use to rationalize actions taken by individuals or groups, but rather actual things, true things due to the presence of a creator or creators that set the rules, then alignment is not only appropriate, it's a requirement in my view.
If, on the other hand, Good and Evil are simply words, concepts created by mortals to describe situations they experience, then alignment is unnecessary.
It's a matter of personal taste, of course, but I have felt the opposite. In the games that I've played with palpable Good and Evil, the ones without alignment mechanics were much more interesting. These were games where demons and even sometimes angels made appearances. When one may be facing an angel, it's a lot more tense and difficult if the players have to think about "Have I been Good?" rather than looking on their character sheet for that slot.
Alignment mechanics simplify Good and Evil into simple tags. I feel like that's more for a game where Good and Evil is a feature in the background that the game isn't going to dig into.
Quote from: jhkim;1130612it's a lot more tense and difficult if the players have to think about "Have I been Good?" rather than looking on their character sheet for that slot.
Alignment mechanics simplify Good and Evil into simple tags. I feel like that's more for a game where Good and Evil is a feature in the background that the game isn't going to dig into.
I've always made clear to players that the alignment they select on the character sheet is what they are
at the start of the campaign. Their
actions determine if they remain that alignment or end up changing it. The only person who knows the true alignment of each character during play is the DM, unless it comes down to a situation where things that shouldn't happen, do (i.e. a Paladin tries to use one of his powers and fails, finding out his connection to his patron god is severed due to alignment change).