Alignments

Alignments dominated gaming for a long time, but these days they're on the decline. Now currently in gaming there are three major schools of thought when it comes to morality in gaming

1. The traditional Alignment: as seen in DnD, Palladium Games
2. The morality stat: as seen in WoD
3. Nothing whatsoever: seen in Call of Cthulhu and becoming more predominate in gaming.

I think that the problem that I (and probably a lot of people) have with traditional alignments is that they control how you play the character, at least in theory. If you're character is Lawful Good in DnD or Principled in Palladium there are actions that your GM/ST can call 'Bullshit' on and prevent you from doing or at least alter your alignment which is what happens most often, much to the chagrin of many a Paladin. The problem is that I've seen a lot of games crippled and a lot of arguments started by this alignment system. In spite of how much time DnD books spend trying to define their terms like lawful and chaotic, there are a lot of gamers who still have different interpretations of the terms. If you've been playing with the same group for long enough this is less of a problem. Sooner or later, you all get on something of the same page. However, it has been my experience that regardless of what character or class we play, MOST gamers tend to navigate every character they play with same moral compass. Yes, sometimes we manage to do something quite different, but the bottom line is that it takes a concerted effort to achieve that effect.

I like the morality stats of the WoD. I'm talking about Humanity (or other Paths/Roads in Vampire), Gnosis, Wisdom, and the like. The great thing about these is that you can do anything you want with your character as long as you're willing to pay the price. Each morality has a well defined hierarchy of sin and if you commit an action that would be sinful based on your morality score, you have to make a test or it goes down. The lower your morality goes the more deranged your character becomes.

The other option is to just not even worry about it. In DnD 4e many characters are 'unaligned' and I've been seeing a lot of campaigns for the past few years that don't worry about alignment unless you're playing some kind of priest of holy warrior and even those are trending more to a code of behavior than an actual alignment. Now, on the surface there really isn't a difference between a code of behavior and an alignment, but there is. Probably the best example that I can come up with is the movie Kingdom of Heaven. Just about all of the major players in that movie are knights. They are all bound to the same basic code of behavior, but look at them. If you tagged an alignment to the characters they would not all be the same alignment.

I think the best example that I can come up with to differentiate between a code of behavior and an alignment is the classic “I promise I won't kill you.” If a knight or paladin makes that statement, what is he promising? Is he promising to protect the man or that the entire party will spare him or, is it fair game for the rest of the party to put a shellacking on the guy as soon as the Paladin turns around?

The benefit of a WoD style morality system here is that as a GM you can set a limit for clerics or paladins. As a GM you can say “If your Humanity drops below a 7, you lose your powers”. I think this is more fair than a lot of games I've seen in the past. First of all, because there's an obvious line in the sand and you can look at the hierarchy of sins to make sure that you're character is doing the right thing. The other thing is that it takes the “1-strike and you're done” out of play. I've met a lot of gamers over the years who BRAG about how many paladins lose power in their games. These gamers are proud of it. It's really not fair to put your player's paladin in a spiritual bind and then strip their character when they fail the moral equivalent of the Kobayashi Maru.