Additional Thoughts on Alignment

In case you all haven't seen it, Tim Brannan has been doing a super fun exercise with the O.G.R.E.S. games over on his The Other Side Blog dealing with conversions of old characters of his from other RPGs to the O.G.R.E.S. systerm. We talked about including those over here directly, but since they do include other companies' copyrights, we figured keeping them separate from our official channel is probably a good idea.

Still, I can point you to where they are, so check them out!

The reason I bring them up is that Tim does something interesting with Alignment in there. It's not something I believe he's thinking about, but it's intriguing nevertheless, and actually ties into something that I worked on with Troll Lord Games for the Reforged Castles & Crusades and Amazing Adventures lines, where Alignment has been re-termed "Disposition."

Art by Bradley K. McDevitt. Used by Permission.

The Order of Alignment Matters

You'll notice that sometimes Tim orders his alignments as light/dark first, and others good/evil first.

This actually matters to the way you present your character. Or it can, anyway. I've talked a good bit about alignment as a descriptor rather than a limiting factor in how you play your character. If you pay attention to the order in which you place your axes, this takes that to the next level.

How does this work? It's simple. Whichever axis you place first is the one with which your character more deeply identifies. While on its face a Light Good character and a Good Light character are largely the same, the Light Good character prioritizes their extrovert and open nature over their good morality. That's not to say they are "less good," it's just that their choice to seek the spotlight, to be at the forefront of decisions and discussions, and the enjoyment of the day are more apparent to others.

A Good-Light, character, on the other hand, comes across to others as deeply moral far more noticeably than their status as an extroverted person.

The O.G.R.E.S. games briefly touch upon the idea of incorporating a third axis, that of law (or order) and chaos, but sort of leaves that dangling. If you do choose to experiment with three axes, this can present an incredibly detailed descriptor of your character's personality, particularly if you pay attention to the order in which you present the axes. A Good-Light-Law character is different than a Law-Good-Light character, and both are different than a Light-Law-Good character, for example.

Anyway, short blog for today. Just some additional thoughts about how Alignment is a solid shorthand descriptor of who your character is and how they see the world. As always, thanks for reading!

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