Aaron Parr’s Alignment Hex Tool
At the end of the discussion Parr came with the idea of mapping hexes to specific alignments, if your setting assumes that the pantheon exists. This means, in a specific area of your hexcrawl a god or an aligned pantheon holds control over it (could be denoted through a coloured hex number number), determining what can be done here from a magical perspective (this was my reading of the idea). Parr did state that this would work best if the game assumes a Three way Alignment System - a system where there is a Law, Chaotic, and non-aligned alignments. From this I came up with the following:
- If you use a system with schools of magic, you may want to map them within the alignments (examples magic school alignments: Life, Necromancy, & Transmutation schools of magic are Chaotic aligned, while Mind Magic, Alchemy, & Illusion is Law aligned, and the rest is non-aligned).
- Aligned magic gets a penalty when used in the opposing alignments hexes, while getting a benefit when used in their own hexes.
- The determination of the hex’s alignment comes from the worship in said hex. This could make clerics and magic-users become agents of their respective pantheon, trying to expand the domain of the alignment.
- Magic schools of a specific alignment might get more powerful the more hexes they control.
This does create the risk of making your hexcrawl a game of advanced Risk. But I do feel it was a good idea to bring alignments into the game in a more grounded way.
Numerology Alignment Hex Tool
Proposed by Zak Sabbath, in relation to Parr’s wish to make alignments more gameable, was that hexes with a specific number were aligned to specific deities. The example by Zak was that the Cheetah God had sway in every Hex ending in 1. This simple idea got my head spinning, for if anybody knows a bit about Numerology have an idea of where this is heading. This would be more a setting building tool and used in combination with other ways of using alignments to get player affecting effects. But here is what I came up with:
- Gods have specific numbers assigned to them, and those numbers hold magical properties. (Example: Cheetah God has the numbers 04, 13, 24, & 30)
- Those numbers are aligned to one of the alignments, and therefore so are the gods.
- Every hex that has an combination of the specific number is controlled by that deity. (Example: The Cheetah God holds say in 04,04: 04,13: 04,24: 04,30: etc.)
- The deity can be called upon in those areas, granting them an entrance to the plane of your players.
- These hexes might be points of interests and hold great treasure or juicy adventures.
In any case, I found this to be a very cool way to create points of interests and ways to involve setting and mechanics. It is not strictly a way to alignments, and it can be used without them as easily.
Moorcockian Alignment
Inspired by the tragic hero Elric of Melnibone, and his misfortune with the Higher Lords of Chaos. I present the Moorcockian Alignment system. I use this whenever I run my own campaigns. In this Alignment System it is not the players who are aligned, but the world itself. The whole plane is under the protection (at best) or controlled directly (at worst) by either the Higher Alignment of Chaos or Law. Some planes might be Contested, where the forces of the Higher Alignments fight each other for the control or destruction of the plane. Their depiction is in your hands, and could be anything from cosmic abominations to powerful beings on a distant plane. The key here is to remember that the players are entities of their own with their own goals and therefore not fated by their allegiance to the Higher Alignments. Features of this system:
- You determine what the planes alignment is, roll a d3:
- (1) Law
- (2) Contested
- (3) Chaotic
- There are different states of Alignment control, you can roll a d6 to determine it:
- (1) Passive Control - The Gods few access points to the plane and can only be called on.
- (2) Active Control - The Gods have active agents on the plane to sway it to their side, or maintain control on it. They have more access points, but still only be called on.
- (3) Direct Involvement - The Gods can enter the plane at specific times, and are involved directly in the affairs of the plane. They have more agents.
- (4) Godly Outpost - The Gods control the plane as an outpost, having one of their lieutenants run the place.
- (5) Godly Stronghold - The Gods have reformed, or created this plane for their own twisted sake, it is run by one of their generals.
- (6) A Gods Plane - The God resides on this plane, if you can call it that.
- Contested Planes are or were battlefields of the Alignments. For the condition of a plane roll a d6:
- (1) Preparation to War - The plane is not an active combat zone for the alignments, but it might change soon.
- (2) Factions formed - The Alignments have been called and now have created factions for their purposes.
- (3) A Battlefield - The Alignments are at war with each other.
- (4) Cataclysmic - The War is at a cataclysmic point.
- (5) Victor - The war has recently ended with one of the Alignments winning, now reforming the plane to a different state of control (roll between Godly Outpost, Stronghold, or A Gods Plane).
- (6) Dead - The war dragged out so long that it left the plane dead and the Alignments lost interest in it.
Both Alignments are apathetic to the lives of mortals. They only help them because they have an interest in doing so, but this varies based on the degree of control and who is in control of the plane.
Alignments as Player Attributes
The last idea I could think of was having alignment as attributes for player characters. These attributes could be used in a manner to give the PC’s leverage when dealing with social encounters. People, who are aligned similarly as the PC, might act favourably if the player succeeds in one of the Alignment rolls that are relevant.
The Attributes might impact a Honour system where you assign either your Law or Chaos modifier in there, giving you a social save score that opponents in the same alignment needs to roll over (or under) to prove you wrong in the eyes of others - I can see this as a fantastic way to play nepotic aristocrat games. If they aren’t in the same alignment as the peers, they gain a penalty.
Finally, I have decided on a name for my d4 system! The results from the vote is out and it was a tie between Irregular and Caltrops. So naturally the game’s name:
My decision on just agglutinate the two names is because I think it sounds good. Nothing more then my subjective opinion here. I will call it IC in the future, thou.
Last thing in today’s post will be about IC’s compatibility. For anybody who has seen the draft of the game knows that it borrows heavily from Daniel Sell’s Troika!, and the subject of compatibility has been spinning around in my head while writing it. So here is what I plan to do to tackle it.
Player Characters are already quite compatible with Troika! Content, the only modification you have to do is to place the Special into the Experiences section, and reduce all skills to 1. The rest is the same. The only trouble I see is that backwards compatibility (From Irregular Caltrop to Troika!) is a bit more messy, as you would need to add specials and increase the different skills to Troika! Ranks. However, it should be durable.
I plan that enemies are going to be highly compatible with Troika!’s. This will make it easier for content to be made available for both systems, and every derivative system of the same base.
The Attributes might impact a Honour system where you assign either your Law or Chaos modifier in there, giving you a social save score that opponents in the same alignment needs to roll over (or under) to prove you wrong in the eyes of others - I can see this as a fantastic way to play nepotic aristocrat games. If they aren’t in the same alignment as the peers, they gain a penalty.
Finally, I have decided on a name for my d4 system! The results from the vote is out and it was a tie between Irregular and Caltrops. So naturally the game’s name:
My decision on just agglutinate the two names is because I think it sounds good. Nothing more then my subjective opinion here. I will call it IC in the future, thou.
Last thing in today’s post will be about IC’s compatibility. For anybody who has seen the draft of the game knows that it borrows heavily from Daniel Sell’s Troika!, and the subject of compatibility has been spinning around in my head while writing it. So here is what I plan to do to tackle it.
Player Characters are already quite compatible with Troika! Content, the only modification you have to do is to place the Special into the Experiences section, and reduce all skills to 1. The rest is the same. The only trouble I see is that backwards compatibility (From Irregular Caltrop to Troika!) is a bit more messy, as you would need to add specials and increase the different skills to Troika! Ranks. However, it should be durable.
I plan that enemies are going to be highly compatible with Troika!’s. This will make it easier for content to be made available for both systems, and every derivative system of the same base.
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