Character Creation: Difference between revisions
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As a rule of thumb, for simple 'kill the monsters and sell the treasure' scenarios, alignment is not often a critical factor. Less experienced GM's may wish to leave the heavy 'dilemmas and consequences' role-playing elements out of their game, in which case, declaring by fiat that all adventurers have the 'Detached' alignment is the simple and effective course of action. If you have a character who needs fantastical religious and alignment mechanics for Deific powers, refer to the character class for details of how those mechanics will work. | As a rule of thumb, for simple 'kill the monsters and sell the treasure' scenarios, alignment is not often a critical factor. Less experienced GM's may wish to leave the heavy 'dilemmas and consequences' role-playing elements out of their game, in which case, declaring by fiat that all adventurers have the 'Detached' alignment is the simple and effective course of action. If you have a character who needs fantastical religious and alignment mechanics for Deific powers, refer to the character class for details of how those mechanics will work. | ||
There are two | There are ten possible alignments. Each one is defined by various types of behavior. While the behavior of a sentient person is complex, to put it mildly, in game terms this is defined by how closely your character strives to adhere to various moral and ethical tenets. | ||
The first Tenet is whether you character is: | |||
*Detached or Involved. | |||
A Detached character is a person who is not interested in anything to do with Gods or religion or any of that 'social' stuff. Detached is basically an alignment for those players who are not heavily engaged in role-playing, or for those who are true outsiders in their society. Detached characters don't have any extreme positions, and are motivated by whatever advances their personal goals. They are not interested in following laws or advancing freedom at all costs, they are not advocates for doing good deed and they are not interested in doing evil for the sake of evil alone. They aren't even very interested in the abstract working of deities, the 'Celestial Game'. Detached characters just want to do as they wish, and stay uninvolved. Detached is best for players that are not string role-players, who just want to show up, be with their friends, roll dice, and get loot. | |||
If you are not Detached , then you are Involved. An Involved alignment is a lot more complicated than the 'don't bother me, I'm gaming' Detached alignment. Being Involved means that your character is invested in the moral and ethical happenings of the game world. This means that you are interested, one way or another, in how the world views you, and how you affect the world. Now, this is a complex topic, to put it mildly, and philosophers have been arguing about this for ages. In game terms, everything in the Involved Alignments boils down to where your behavior inspiration falls on two complimentary tenets. Those two tenets are: | |||
*Good versus Evil, and, | |||
*Law versus Chaos. | |||
If you are involved in the doings of the game world, then you must decide your characters leanings. There are nine ways that your character can define themselves as Good, Evil, Lawful, or Chaotic, and various hybrids between them all. This is best illustrated with a simple chart, as below: | |||
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Each of | * Looking at the vertical columns to the left and right of this chart, we see there are three Lawful alignments, and three Chaotic alignments. | ||
* Looking at the horizontal rows at the top and bottom of this chart, we see there are three Good alignments and three Evil alignments. | |||
A note to GM's about Alignments. As a matter of practicality and simplicity, we STRONGLY encourage your table of Engaged players toward the Lawful and Good tenets of behavior. Leaving aside the real-life moral issues of evil-ness, long and bitter experience has demonstrated that running capable role-players in Chaotic and Evil scenarios, while enormously challenging and fun, is also very difficult. The very nature of being either chaotic or evil means that it is more difficult to maintain party cohesiveness, and to be frank, keeping smooth play with your typical table of players is often like herding cats, even when they're all Lawful Good. That said, we present every alignment without prejudice, because your fun is your fun. Just be aware, treachery and backstabbing at the game table makes the already challenging job of the referee even more...challenging. Plus, as even a cursory glance at the Bestiary will show, there are LOTS more Evil monsters than Good or even neutral ones, so giving an Evil party enemies to fight requires you to use Patterns...and that is quite deliberate. We're not going to say we're prejudiced against Evil games, but we're not going to deny it, either.... | |||
Each of the Engaged alignments defined in the table above has a loose philosophy and moral code attached to it, though every character will have their own nuances within these guidelines. Players should select alignments that are relatively close to the alignments of the other players in the party, since a party of good characters probably won't want to keep company with a chaotic evil character for very long. For that matter, even mixing Detached and Engaged players can present challenges. It is best to discuss the alignment of your intended campaign with players in advance, and get a feel for what you and your friends want to do. | |||
Here is a brief summary of what the different alignments mean, and how characters of these alignments might uphold their beliefs in role-playing situations. | Here is a brief summary of what the different Engaged alignments mean, and how characters of these alignments might uphold their beliefs in role-playing situations. | ||
:; Lawful Good | :; Lawful Good | ||
::A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. | ::A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. A Lawful Good character believes that the greatest benefit comes from strictly obeying wise and righteous rules. Taxes spent in a fair and generous fashion, abuses discovered and corrected immediately, an absolute minimum of deceptive practices, everything open and above-board, the good of the whole advanced with every action, these tenets and more are the central drivers of the Lawful Good character. | ||
::Lawful good combines honor with compassion. | ::Lawful good combines honor with compassion. But never think that a Lawful Good person is stupid for their high-mindedness. An exemplary Lawful Good character will always have friends, and that can be a treasure vast beyond compare. | ||
:; Pure Good | :; Pure Good | ||