Alignments in Theril

In the world of Theril there is no intrinsic concept of absolute good and evil, as it is presented in other settings. But then how would spells and effects like protection against evil or detect evil and good function?

In the setting instead of your abstract measure of good and evil being tested by such spells it is your opinion on three important questions that can be measured; is it right to adhere to order, is it right to hold the individual above the collective, is it right to destroy what you consider foul. For each question you can be for, against or neutral and spells and effects that once targeted the traditional good v evil or law v chaos axis can instead can test a particular question, and effect a particular non-neutral opinion.

Note that none of these questions necessarily have a 'right' or intrinsically 'good' answer. Those who are for order could be noble paladins or cruel tyrants,those against it freedom fighters or brutal hordes. Those who are for Individuality could be the wise sage who seeks their own path or the selfish thief who considers only themselves, those who oppose it the town guard or a leader who strips the free will of their people. Those who are for destruction could be an order of knights sworn to rid the world of the undead scourge or the blood thirsty horde who wish only to see the world burn, those who oppose it could be peace-bound monks, or an entrenched council who refuse to throw away old ways.

Those who are neutral on a topic are people who either have no strong opinion on the matter, have rapidly changing opinions on the matter, or who have contradicting views on the matter.



A bit of a short one today, don't worry I'll make up for it in the comment.

Alignment systems in RPGs are often quite controversial and I don't particularly want to get involved in such arguments. As always playing in Theril doesn't impose that you use an alignment system any more than 5th edition does. It does though require you throw out the concept of intrinsic good and evil, another potentially controversial stand.

I have an issue with intrinsic good and evil on a philosophical level, as well as on a game play one. Take any always evil entity, then killing such a creature is always good, but what happens when your in a situation when it really doesn't look like it; confronting a child of that entity, the entity is causing good things to happen despite having evil intentions, etc. It also, I feel, removes something from the game when your PC can just march around wantonly killing everything in their sight because they are good aligned and the things they are killing are evil. If I heard on the news that a band of 4 people are going around indiscriminately killing things just because they have a different view on a matter I certainly wouldn't call the 4 people 'good guys' or 'heroes'.

Now of course there is no right way to play, this alignment system works for me, but it may not work for everyone. Some people just like to play their crawls where they don't need to think about if their doing the right thing, others might agree with my stance on the issue but disagree with my solution entirely. But I hope you all at least got something out of reading my treatment of the issue.

Risking a flame war, I invite anyone who is interested in discussing my alignment system to do so, I'd be interested in suggestions on how I could tweak it.