Alignment
Alignment
Good morning. Its been awhile. January and February were extremely busy months as #zinequest3 launched. I kickstarted a small story telling game during that time, and the last few months have been spent getting it all finished and dealing with fulfillment. That's why its been quiet around here as of late. More on that game later.
For the past couple weeks or so however, I've been back at work with RedHack. And I feel I've got a lot accomplished. The game feels like its starting to come into its own as I'm getting a playtest document together. I hope to be able to show previews of that in the next few weeks. Anyways, what am I rambling for? Today we're going to talk about how Alignment works in RedHack.
Where I Started
D&D 3.0 was the first table top role-playing game I played, but I didn't get into very deep and don't remember anything to do with alignment when we played it the couple times that we did. My first broad interaction with alignment in role playing games was when we spent 4 years playing Palladium's Fantasy RPG, Second Ed.
Back then we didn't speak in accents or funny voices when we played, but I feel we roleplayed a lot, making decisions for our characters in ways that we felt our characters would make them. See this video from Matt Colville for more on that capital 'R' roleplaying. Palladium's system didn't mechanize alignment per se, but did offer tangible examples of what a character of a certain alignment would or would not do.
Perhaps it was because we were naïve kids at the time and didn't know any better, or perhaps we thought it was fun, but we never took these alignments to be punitive or restricting. When we made characters we chose an alignment because the descriptors matched the way we wanted to make decisions for our characters. That was the roleplaying. And for the most part, I believe we stuck to making decisions for our characters to match, or changed alignment. It helped that Palladium's experience system gave a 50xp bonus for 'playing in character' each session. Whatever that meant.
I make this point because of the recent discourse concerning alignment in RPGs -D&D 5e mostly, and how it doesn't really serve a purpose, or how it is used as a punitive means for DMs to force players into a certain behavior set. I've played in bad groups over the years and I'm aware these DMs exist, but I think alignment can work. If its mechanized.
So that's what I've set out to do with RedHack.
Law vs Chaos
With RedHack, I'm not really interested in a Black & White 'good' and 'evil'. There's a place for that sort of game, but the type of experience that I would like this game to have, and the table behavior that I would like to encourage through the mechanics aren't 'good' and 'evil'. Also 'good' and 'evil', in my opinion are easier alignments for a GM to start being restrictive and punitive with. A GM to say, "You cant make that decision, 'cause only good/evil characters would do that." is something I never want said by a GM playing this game.
So I went back to 1981 again to see what Tom Moldvay had to say on the situation. And I did some research into different OSR scenes to see how Law vs Chaos was handled. Surprisingly, there were many - many, different interpretations of how Law vs Chaos fit into a dungeon delving role-playing scenario.
I wanted something that played at a cosmic level, something that almost explains how the world works. I ended up stumbling upon this blog and liked what they had to say about Law, Chaos and Neutrality. Essentially, the tl;dr version is that choosing an alignment is making a conscious decision to side with the cosmic struggle of law or chaos. Or to make the decision to side with either. And -like the Matt Coville video above, its about motives. Characters aligned with Law are motivated to act in ways that benefit someone else, especially a group. Characters aligned with Chaos are motivated to act only in ways that further impower themselves. Characters that are Neutral are more worried about finding food and shelter so that they and theirs can survive another day.
I like this idea, mixed with a bit of fate/predestination, especially because its not about 'Good' and 'Evil'. This theme is lightly touched upon in the current Loki show on Disney+. Possible tiny spoilers, but I'm not going into plot details, just broad statements. In it the Time Keepers oversee 'the Sacred Timeline', like gardeners taking care of their garden. They are the ultimate authorities of Law in the multiverse 'pruning' any branches of Chaos that spring up so that everything is nicely woven together 'as it should be'. This however doesn't take into account however how it subjugates the peoples of the multiverse and removes all free will from them. There would be arguments for the Time Keepers being both 'good' or 'evil'. But I like how they are sturdy overseers of Law in the context of alignment.
Mechanizing Alignment
Here's what I'm working with currently for the playtest.
Alignment
Is you character aligned with cosmic forces of law or chaos? Or have you aligned yourself with family, friends and looking after what's important to make a living? Your character's alignment describes the ends and justification for a character's actions.
Testing Alignment
Your alignment begins listed at a rank of 3/6. You don't often test alignment in this game, but it may come up from time to time. Whenever there's a crisis in game of a character's alignment, players will have to make a hard decision to either benefits themselves -playing into chaos, or act for something bigger -playing into law and the betterment of others. This crisis always costs the character something - a friend's respect, one's own blood, or personal power.
The GM will never ask for an alignment test, this decision is purely up to the players, an alignment tests should never be for punitive reasons.
If the result of the test is a success, the character will act within their alignment. If they fail, they act in contraction to their alignment. Either way the player earns a check towards alignment.
Players earn a point of XP at the end of a session for making the alignment test.
Tapping Alignment
Situations will arise during play where a player feels their character's actions are playing into their alignment. When this occurs the player should speak up and explain the situation to the table. If the table agrees that the justification behind the character's actions is the fulfillment of their alignment, the player may tap into their alignment for one test.
- Spend a point of resolve
- Gain a point of exertion
- Add your alignment rank to the skill rank for the test being made.
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