Alignment II: Complications and Excuses

Revisiting my musings on the D&D concept of alignment ten years ago, I stand by the observation that conceptually, it's a mess. Is alignment:

* A force that guides great destinies, setting mortals and monsters at opposite ends of the cosmic chess board?

* A political ethos that rules the morals of states and societies, and those who follow them?

* A style that shines through in the tactics and personality of individuals?

I made these observations about the Law vs. Chaos dimension, originally. But on reflection, they also apply to Good vs. Evil. I missed that originally because people in Western culture, raised on Western stories, will believe that good and evil nature goes through and through. Good people live in good realms and follow good faiths of good gods. Evil people likewise stick to their zone.

But storybook morality falls apart in the real world. Cruel and power-seeking worldly systems can and do serve noble ideological goals. A society supposedly dedicated to tearing down the universe can sweeten its appeal to the outcast by giving them kindness and understanding. Kind and power-hungry individuals can each find their place within those systems.

Yes, the three levels on the average reinforce each other. But the really interesting cases are those where the morality of ultimate ends, worldly means, and individual character fall out of ... alignment.

Think of a repurposing of the I Ching hexagrams, not a system to define characters, but a way to generate possibilities. The first three are the three levels of GOOD --- and EVIL - - : cosmic ends, worldly means, and personal character. The second three do this for LAW --- and CHAOS - -.

Using a site such as this one we first get:

- - EVIL END
--- GOOD MEANS
--- GOOD PERSON
--- LAWFUL END
--- LAWFUL MEANS
- - CHAOTIC PERSON

Here's someone who, like most in their society, upholds a cosmic order where the strong rule and everyone knows their place. Although the gods of this order are cruel, the church and state who serve them are set up to cushion the blows as much as possible, seeing the diabolic as the only effective bulwark against forces that would utterly wreck the world. Despite their strictness in rule, the powers that be find it expedient to hire less constrained agents. Such a one is our hero, who believes in rules -- for other people -- but is otherwise good-willed and magnanimous.


--- GOOD END
- - EVIL MEANS
--- GOOD PERSON
- - CHAOTIC END
--- LAWFUL MEANS
- - CHAOTIC PERSON

Here is a harsh contradiction -- a lawful evil social order served by a chaotic good person while the order itself serves a chaotic good metaphysical cause. Can anyone believe in all three layers simultaneously? Does this example break down and force us back into the seamless view of alignment?

No, not necessarily. Consider, through the dark arts of social psychology, the many ways in which people deftly reduce the cognitive dissonance from incompatible elements of their belief system. The ease with which people go from hugging their dog to dining on pork, or the ways belief systems put qualifications around "respct for human life", prove that excuses and rationalizations are everywhere.

We can put all of them to use in our example.

• Means-end separation. The dictator is only taking charge to preserve the dream of freedom and benevolence! When its enemies vanish then the true end state will be possible! (But the enemies never vanish, do they...)
• Denial of responsibility. The system is too big to change, I can try to make it better from within, if I didn't do this someone worse would.
• Advantageous comparison. Say what you will about our kingdom, over there they have it much worse!
• Euphemistic labeling. Come with me to the Cells of Liberation where the truth will be extracted from you in the Palace of Joy.
• Selective moral concern. Oh yes, it may seem that we are mean and oppressive, but only to subhumans / criminals / malcontents who deserve it. To our loyal people we are liberal and fair!
• Straightforward fingers-in-ears denial. What? Nonsense! We don't torture people. I don't know what you're talking about. Those are all lies spread by our enemies.

None of these excuses are ironclad, and each of them can be toppled over time. Then you have personal evolution or a social revolution. But the fall of a tower of mutually reinforcing rationalizations should never be taken for granted. Its tensions and dynamics contain the seeds of situations much more intriguing than the storybook goodie/baddie distinctions that alignment by-the-book encourages. 

Next and finally: Everyday morality and alignment.

Alignment I: It's A Relationship

A decade ago I dedicated a number of posts to thrashing through alignment in the D&D family of games. A few complicated half-baked systems emerged in these pages. But in the actual play of games I've run since then, I've never had players write down their alignment. Let me show you how it works instead, from my online game this year.

The atmospheric "burning bridge" from Dragon Age -- looks well burnt!

The adventurers, seeking a prophecy at a Dervish shrine, had to cross a magic bridge. The span gave protection from fire through black ashes that floated up from the chasm below and stuck to the person on the bridge. The amount of ashes was in proportion to the virtue of the person. This was relevant to the next magic bridge, which roasted its passengers with flames.

Judging this strange place was uncontroversial. Everyone remembered the characteristics that had emerged over by then six months of weekly play. Some characters had shown benevolence and moral prudence, attracting a full coating. Others had shown the deficient magnetism of their moral compass by constantly urging mayhem, torture, and murder. Sparse were their ashes indeed! 

And this discrepancy set up one of the more touching moments of the campaign. A virtuous lizardman sun-priest embraced a questionable armadillo-folk* entertainer, and this act of compassion transferred half of his protection to the sinner, allowing both to pass scorched but alive.

Indirectly, my example illustrates the first and most useful point about alignment. It is not a rule, but a relationship.  I treated the rewards of virtue as judgement from an implied spirit of the bridge. The spirit had total access to past deeds, and its own concept of sin and virtue. Would a different spirit have decided differently? Possibly!

Do you, the GM or designer, sometimes need to make benefits or malisons depend upon player behavior? You can avoid the many pitfalls of a universal rule by stepping into the role of a supernatural judge with its own agenda. For example, if you feel the powers of a paladin need a limitation on behavior, you can make level advancement conditional on a "performance review" with an angelic tutor. Play it out as you would for any other non-player character in a mentor role.

Alignment in the environment is another story. You can have spells that detect, defend, and attack the forces of good, evil, law, and chaos. But only by becoming a lich or a saint can a player-character register in this world of essences.

This brings me to two ideas from my earlier musings on alignment. They have endured in my game-running, not as rules, but as principles, lurking in the background. I'll cover them in the next two posts.

Alignment is inconsistent - but so is morality

Neutrality is everyday morality

Stupid Good: The Case For Custom Alignments

It so happens that in my campaign that the party:

* contains a priest of Ygg, God of Knowledge At Any Price;
* has been fighting demons sprung from a painted canvas, who claim fealty to Lord Fraz, Princeof Deception;
* has also antagonized a hierarch of Pholtus, lawful God of Blinding Light,a narrow-minded and fanatic sect familiar to Greyhawk canon.

Yes, these could be summed up in basic D&D alignment terms as Neutral, Chaotic and Lawful respectively. Or in AD&D terms as Neutral, Evil and Good.

But a different, um, alignment of forces occurred to me. Ygg stands for knowledge, the two other cosmic adversaries obfuscate and deny it. Once this "second axis of alignment" has been sketched in, other possibilities fall into place- the holy mystical force that stands for Knowledge Good, the merciful and cruel Oblivion personifying Stupid Neutral, and the Luciferian figure who brings humanity Knowledge Evil.

This kind of thinking is much more satisfactory to me than the usual second axis of Lawful/Chaotic tagging on after Good/Evil. I mean, it's really not clear whether Law/Chaos is supposed to be about:

* a cosmic force for the organization of matter and energy?
* a political philosophy of social organization?
* a matter of personal style separating staid bankers from wackadoo Malkavians?

Best Lawful buds for life!

This makes it the weak axis, more suitable for explaining why elves and dwarves, or demons and devils, distrust each other. I mean, since when does Jehovah team with Asmodeus to fight elves, Zeus, and Demogorgon?

It's far more interesting to cast out the Lawful-Chaotic axis and create your own cosmic alignment struggle, for a campaign, region, or episode.

HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN COSMIC ALIGNMENT STRUGGLE

Step 1: Fill in the blank with some THING interesting: "_________ is a good or bad thing, depending on how you look at it."
Step 2: Think of ways you can be for and against this THING.
Step 3: Now personify "good" (morally upright)and "evil" (morally corrupt) variants on both the pro-THING and anti-THING forces.

Example: THE SEA is a good or bad thing, depending on how you look at it.

You can be for the Sea by celebrating its life. You can be against it by celebrating ... dryness, the creation of new lands, ice ages ... so ...

The Good defender of the sea is the mermaid goddess SHAI, who tends the dolphins and whales and bargains with land-creatures for fish using a great random wheel of coral.

The Good opponent of the sea is SAINT COURVAL, who represents the dominion of wood over water. Ship hulls, docks, stilt houses are her domain, she blesses the salt-thirsty mangrove's roots, and her exorbitant ambition is to plank over the whole surface of the sea.

The Evil defender of the sea is the predator DAGON, half squid, half shark, bringer of the tsunami, begetter of the hurricane.

The Evil opponent of the sea is THULIS, Ice Demon, Wind of the Arctic Pole and Presence of the Ice whose lust is to roll forward the glacier, gather up the seas in piles of ice, and lock up the tides forever.

See, players like to think in terms of good and evil - the bright knight versus dark demon is a fantasy cliche. This cuts good and evil down to size - while the distinction looms large in players' minds still, it's just a lifestyle choice within a larger and more clearly defined struggle over the way the world should be. So, strange bedfellows and moral dilemmas are more compelling and believable than if you have your second axis based around, "Say, I rather admire the way you carry out completely unacceptable actions in an orderly and predictable manner."

Really interesting things happen when you insist on treating these alignments on a par with good and evil. Players have the option to cast their lot with one side or the other or remain neutral. Spells can detect friends of the sea, items can only be wielded by friends of the land, But if you don't want to give alignment such powers (anyway, I don't in my own campaign), the system can still be a structure for the world and its struggles.

Players Align Characters Through Actions

Since I got back into role-playing almost 5 years ago I have never used alignment in a game. It just seems ass-backwards -- writing down a promise to do some abstract things on your sheet, in a vague terminology, and then arguing about whether the specific things you do add up to that vague promise or not. If you're not arguing about your alignment, you're either doing your alignment or ignoring it, either of which is equivalent to what a player does in my games anyway, depending on whether or not they have a clear character concept.

To paraphrase Gygax, "character background is the first three levels" and in the same spirit, alignment is what you do with your character. Player alignment. Not the semi-jokey kind of schemes that lay out how players tend to behave towards each other, the GM and the game structure. One of those appears below.

By now several of these sectors are as mythical as the catoblepas (has anyone ever actually seen a "scenery-chewing thespian" player?) but this will do to illustrate what I am not talking about. I am talking about observations made over the years as to how players, when not constrained by alignment, tend to play their characters. Player-determined alignment is real but, going beyond what I wrote several years ago, it doesn't correspond to any alignment scheme used in D&D or in the most fervid, hair-splitting heartbreaker. It's a characterology all its own, that deserves its own terms, put together in opposing pairs.

Impulsive: The player can't stand boredom and pushes the character to propose reckless plans, start fights, and generally see what they can get away with. Their action will usually account for half the party's failures and half their successes.


Strategic: One kind of leadership role, this player moves very cautiously, often is found physically restraining other characters, and wants time to think things through. Not a rules lawyer, but the most likely to consider the rules as part of the plan.

Exuberant: Another kind of leadership role, the player runs the character as a striding, swaggering bag of charm; not so much reckless as eager to please the crowd with the best move, the best solution. The crowd, by the way, includes the GM.

Quiet: This player may be introverted, unsure, or just enjoys watching the game play out around them. They respond when spoken to, are often asked to run point or guard the rear or cast a spell, but rarely propose anything on their own. There is a lot of middling GMing advice written about trying to draw this player out but I find that acknowledging their existence in small and meaningful ways works best.

Dark: This player, through their character, expects the worst of what's around them, and so feels justified in doing the second-worst. This can take many forms and is not always the stereotypical dark elf assassin, but distrust, avoidance and sneak attack form part of their usual counsel to the rest.

Naive: The player enjoys portraying an overly trusting person, whether a fool or just really kind-hearted, to lighten up the grim, heavy, paranoid world of adventure. They're such a perfect patsy for the usual DM array of sympathy traps that you almost feel bad springing them on such an obvious mark.

Obsessive: What the "thespian" stereotype gets wrong is that real acting is hard, ham acting is self-policing, and usually players who want to play their character to the hilt open up a can of spam based on one obsession, be it food, wealth, combat, sex, religion, or hate. They use it more as a running gag than an excuse for soliloquies. Really, there's enough irony in the water these days that if the room isn't laughing heartily, they'll turn off the shtick real quick.

Eccentric:  Kind of the mirror twin of the obsessive but coming from an opposite place, this character sends out a lot of random signals but there's a difference between playing weirdo and playing impulsive - the impulsive player is trying to accomplish something and sometimes succeeds but the eccentric is just trying to make a style point, like Nerval walking a lobster. Truth be told, though, frame-breaking jokes are so common among everyone that this one's "wacky" in-character pronouncements get mistaken for out-of-character banter half the time. White Wolf did a good job of writing niches for this kind of player into their games.

So with this scheme in mind, there's really no reason to write it on the character sheet, because it's what the player does. But for a GM, rolling a d8 or two to come up with personality elements for an NPC that's easy to play because you have the examples all around you - that's another matter.

Does Clerical Magic Mean You Know God?

When writers put on their brainy caps and work out the naturalistic consequences of a world built around the

D&D game rules, one common assumption is that the metaphysical world is known and familiar. You can tell who is really Lawful Good, at least if they're clerics or paladins, because they have their special spells. They can talk to their god and summon angels, and from this people gain tangible evidence of the world after death and the consequences of moral acts. As a result, everyone believes in religion; bad guys just pick a different team. And everyone can trust "working" clerics and paladins to be morally good. If they were corrupted somehow, they would lose their mojo. Oh yeah, all this and ... alignment detection too. Or better yet, alignment language.

The more I think about such a world, the more profoundly unsatisfying it appears, as a place to imagine and adventure in. I'm not even talking about limitations on the cleric player's actions, which I criticized last post.

I'm talking about a world that lacks:

• Dissension on moral issues within a religion
• Venal, self-interested priests
• Bad priests hiding within a good religion
• Outsider prophets who are persecuted by their own religion's conventions
• Uncertainty and debate about the ultimate nature of the universe
• People who act immorally in the here and now because there may not be an ultimate reward or punishment. 

Because of the oppressive obviousness of Truth in such a world, faith is not really faith, any more than believing in maple trees is faith.  Evil now needs an extra sales pitch - a devil convincing you that if you sin really flamboyantly, you'll get in on the ground floor of Hell's Fun Times.

You may as well cut these passages out from the scriptures of a less transparent world:

• Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 1:11)
• But the Pharisees said, He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils. (Matthew 9:34)
• And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation. (Mark 8:12)

On the contrary, in my world, clerical magic is a mystery. It uses the standard invocations and rites of religion, but not every ordained minister who uses those invocations and rites will get the magical effect, and not every time - it is prophetic, not priestly. Regardless of whether the magic is reliable or ineffable, though, it ultimately does not depend on keeping up a certain standard of behavior. This is because:

1. The Mind of (a) God is vast, and contains many contradictions. A certain level of dissension in the Church reflects this, and reflects nothing more than the divine totality weighing arguments and coming to decisions. Almost all acts that are not inherently unholy - merciful or strict, generous or stingy - can be justified as a reflection of the Divine. Sufficient will, and the belief that one is holy, are enough to fuel prophetic magic.

2. A prophet sometimes has to break with conventional morality in order to send a lesson to the flock. What appears to be sin, violence, looting, lust ... can instead be a rebuke to a world consumed by these sins on a much higher level.

3. The above justifications come handily to those who cross the line into the foul and unholy. The Devil is a great deceiver; he will gladly step in to duplicate the healing miracles and exorcisms of one who has strayed from the path. If the player keeps their in-game benefits, what matter where they come from? Any discomfort at the slight stench of sulfur attending those miracle cures is entirely a matter of role-playing. Live for today, for there is no game after your character dies!

Monte Cook, as usual, can't be satisfied with a pat answer either. In the middle of Ptolus - a setting where clerics, by the book, dwell in every temple, and magic and the gods appear obvious and real - he leaves open this possibility:

The people here have come to listen to a new elf philosopher named Waeven Iosanil (male expert8), who is telling everyone who will listen that the gods are not truly divine, but only powerful entities, not unlike great wyrm dragons or powerful angels. The only true divine being is the world itself, this radical speaker claims. (p. 337)

Even if this elf is completely in the wrong, he opens up a strong breeze of freedom in the metaphysics of the setting. He allows for the possibility that the self-evident is actually false - and with this come the free will and uncertainty that makes for an interesting and complex game.

Wizards' Law, Dabblers' Chaos, Clerics' Free Will

OK, Blogger looks to be back.

So - I don't agree with the designer explanation for why magic spells require a roll to succeed in Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. I mean - if it makes for a fun, wacky game, great, but I'll pass on the table lookups. And as I explained last time, part of the appeal of the traditional magic-user class to its core player type is its heavy reliance on strategy rather than chance.

Is there really a Dying Earth pedigree for random spells? Yes and no. Robin Laws' Dying Earth game has a much more involved analysis of those stories and novels. There, games can work at three levels of magic, each named after a Dying Earth character. The "Cugel" level is named after the famous rogue and similar dabblers in magic, prone to random fizzles and backfires. The "Turjan" level is named after the competent wizard-hero, whose spells work unerringly like formulae. The highest level is named after the wizard of the late novellas, Rhialto, who has mastered Turjan-like magic but deals with even more powerful, free-willed creatures known as sandestins.

I think he knows what he's doing...

It's a flaw of the D&D philosophy: The concept "Chaos" confuses free will with randomness. Understandably so, because other beings' free will gets simulated through randomness - reaction and morale rolls, primarily. But there's a world of difference in concept between each of these three views of magic: stumbling through half-understood procedures, confidently applying known laws, respectfully entreating free-willed entities.

This last view in particular I consider true to the idea of the cleric or priest. Whether addressing a terrible demon, the spirits of nature, or the Pancreator and heavenly choir, the divine miracle-worker should not go in with the complete assurance that prayers will be heard. To be meaningful, faith requires uncertainty.

I'm OK with "clerical spells" as a simplification, but I just feel that if you're going to involve random elements in spellcasting, do it for classes who are conceived of as bumblers - mountebanks, high-level rogues, gnomes and so on - and to those who deal with faith. And yes, how exactly randomness works for those two should be different...

More on this later.

Church World

The Universe
Between Heaven and Hell lies this Middle World, suspended in the Formless Void. The Lord of Heaven made the World, but suffered the Devil to rebel and keep the fires of Hell for all who make the Devil's choice. While the Devil and his infernal court form part of the Lord's plan, the free will of men is no less dangerous for spawning Demons, who lurk in the Void, awaiting the chanting of their names in ritual. There are other worlds and powers - Faerie, the Halls of Heroes, the ancient gods of the fallen Empire - their influence fading as the Revelation of the Church spreads.

The World
In the centuries since the Revelation and the fall of the Empire, the Church of the Lord has become the religion of nearly all civilized kingdoms and most of their inhabitants. Vast and sprawling, the Church has a complex hierarchy and a system of devotional Orders. Within the Church all tendencies can be found: the tolerant, the fanatical, the merciful, the severe, and sometimes the decadent and corrupt. At its best, the Church acts as the arm of the Lord on earth to fight the Devil and other dark forces. Among those forces, some would include those dwellers of remote and inhospitable regions who still follow the pagan Old Way, or who worship the old hero-gods.

Alignment
Beings can be either Good, Evil or unaligned. Beings from Hell, the Void and undead beings are unholy, and Evil if intelligent; beings from Heaven are holy, and Good if intelligent. The Church promotes Good but contains many who have fallen from that standard.

To maintain a Good alignment, a being must uphold five principles by avoiding certain actions:

Life: Don't kill or torture a helpless sentient being.
Kindness: Don't harm, disrespect, or steal from a peaceful sentient being.
Courage: Don't back away from a fight against Evil that you can win.
Justice: Don't let crimes against Life and Kindness go unpunished.
Generosity: Don't hoard wealth; do what you can for your own security, then give to others.

A being is allowed a "flaw" - ignoring one of these five precepts at will - without losing Good alignment; such is the mercy of the Lord. If the being then breaks an additional precept, his Good alignment is in doubt.

To be unaligned rather than Evil, a being must refrain from two less restrictive actions:

Life: Only kill or torture a sentient being who would have killed or tortured you if it could.
Kindness: Don't harm, disrespect, or steal from someone you have a social tie to (adventuring party, village, guild, however defined)

Breaking these precepts puts unaligned status in doubt.

The rules about being in doubt about one's alignment are the same as in Pantheon World. For members of the Church, Atonement can come only through a high ranking priest of the Church, who may additionally impose a penance of wealth, pilgrimage or service.

Spellcaster Classes
To certain of His servants the Lord gives miraculous powers. These are priests; robed spellcasters, not trained to fight in armor. They observe the ancient sacerdotal taboo of never using a blade to cut or pierce. Evil priests serve the Devil and demonic forces, but some may have also infiltrated the Church. The Devil in particular sometimes gives his servants powers in imitation of the Lord's miracles. These can be told apart only by the uses to which the wicked priest puts them.

Priests of the Old Gods and Druids of the Old Way also gain powers from the spirits of the earth, and are less restricted by weapon taboos.

Militants are demi-priests of the Church trained to arms. Thus they are better at fighting, and train using armor and edged weapons (though their code of valor requires they not use missile weapons). They cast spells as a priest one less than their own level, but still get a bonus 1st level spell at level 1 if they have high Wisdom.

Priests and militants follow the spell rules from Pantheon World priests, but with different lists of spells. These spells and restrictions on the various Orders of priests and militants of the Church, as well as the followers of evil and the Old Ways, are detailed in the following table (next post).All priests of the Church must maintain a Good alignment, or be denied their spells and powers until they atone (or turn to the Devil for replacements).

Pantheon World

The Universe

Pantheon World lies suspended in a ring of planes and demi-planes representing the various combinations of alignments. It is there that the gods and demons dwell, and conduct their ceaseless, shifting struggles, with the nations and heroes of the World as pawns. Scholars can also muster evidence for a near infinity of other planes and gods, but the anchor points of the cosmos for all are the eternal truths of Alignment: Good and Evil, Law and Chaos.

The World

Kingdoms and empires, cities, races and fiefdoms, each take their side in the great struggle. The main war is between Good and Evil, but if the other side presents no seeming threat, the Lawful and Chaotic tendencies tend to fight within each alignment. Forbidden to enter this plane, the Gods work through magical powers they grant to their human servants, and through lesser planar beings that can pass the gates of the world.

Alignment

Unaligned people live by the morality of natural law. The first duty is to help, treat fairly, and not harm those you have personal bonds with – as a member of a village, warband, family, or adventuring party. The second duty is to respect the inherent authority of the leaders and traditions you are bonded with.

The two dimensions of alignment – Good/Evil and Lawful/Chaotic – reflect moral thought beyond natural law. A being might have one alignment (for example, Lawful, or Evil), or two compatible alignments (for example, Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil). Mortals and supernatural creatures can have alignment, but only the latter (including undead) can be holy or unholy.

Good: This alignment extends the duties of care and justice from one’s personal associates to all living beings. It is forbidden to harm or steal from peaceful beings; to kill or torture a surrendered foe, except in certain justice for an individual crime; and to fail to fight Evil when you can win.

Evil: This alignment disdains the first duty of natural law, believing that each individual should look out for themselves. Any mutual aid is at best a temporary arrangement, oaths are to be broken, and bonds of passion and ambition are rightly stronger than the family or friendship. As an adventurer, Evil is not a recommended alignment to have in an adventuring party; you can play that way, but sooner or later, you will end up dead or on your own after one betrayal too many.

Lawful: This alignment requires its character to obey and respect, in this order: his or her own religion; his or her own political leader, if not opposite in Good or Evil; then any Lawful religion, and any Lawful political leader, if not opposite in Good or Evil. Lawful Good beings also have a duty to care for weaker beings who are Lawful and not Evil.

Chaotic: This alignment believes that individuals are to be judged by their acts, not their position in some social hierarchy. The king is only respected if he is competent; the elder only if she is wise; and by the same token, the poor and outcast are not to be despised. A Chaotic person only follows orders if they conform with his or her moral code, or with self-interest if Chaotic Evil. 

A player whose character is about to act against alignment, including the natural law of the unaligned, should be warned first by the DM. If the action is carried through, the character is in a state of doubt, and cannot advance in levels until he or she either carries out an act of atonement, or changes alignment. Atonement can be had with a donation of gold pieces equal to at least 10% of one's current experience points, a service done to reverse the original action, or an arduous pilgrimage or quest as required by the religion or leader offended. Any alignment change after the first carries an unrestorable loss of 10% of current experience points.

Spellcaster Classes

Magic-users, including specialist mages, function as in Sorcery World, but work from a spell list from which Black, White, Gold and Brown spells are excluded, and cannot learn those spells. Some non-player character magic-users, however, study Black sorceries, or otherwise bend the rules.

The priest class uses magic differently. Restricted by the same table of spells per day per level as the magic-user, those spells are not memorized ahead of time, but cast at will from a list of allowed spells according to one's religion, requiring a holy symbol. Each spell by name may still only be cast once a day. A good night's sleep preceded and followed by an hour of prayers is enough to restore full spell capacity to a priest. Exceptional Wisdom gives bonus spells to the priest in the same manner as exceptional Intelligence to the magic-user.

A priest must take on and maintain the alignment of his or her religion. A priest in a state of alignment doubt cannot use magic until he or she has atoned, or set out in good faith on a quest of atonement.

The colors of magic available to a priesthood range between one and three, balanced by differences in allowed weapons and armor. Priests may not learn the major first-level spells from the magic-user table.

Each DM will no doubt enjoy creating or adapting a particular pantheon for their campaign world, and each deity within that pantheon can have a priesthood - or multiple orders of priesthood. The following table gives a small sample pantheon based on some of the Greek gods. Note also that classes such as "paladins" and "druids" can be simulated in this system by variations on the priesthoods.

Next: The priests and pantheon of Pantheon World.

Sorcery World

This is the first of three worlds, three sets of minimal setting assumptions that support three different uses of my spell lists. The rules are compatible with most old-school clones and systems, and are capable of "mix and match" to some extent between worlds. I'll present them with minimal explanation and have a word about them afterwards.

Oparian Flaming God Human Sacrifice Ritual -- © 1918, ERB Inc.

The Universe
You dwell on a mote of order, floating in a sea of Primal Nothingness and dancing in a web of a million planes of existence. The Lords of Law hold their palaces in idealized, peaceful outer planes, and seek to defend the world against the Lords of Chaos. Those dread entities swarm from a myriad of hells, and seek at all times to relax the laws of nature and logic, making the world less predictable.

The World
Humanity is a cruel infant, crawling on the ruined pavements of the world's former masters. The Lords of Law and Chaos are known; some ignore them, some worship them, some strike bargains with them in the delusion they are equals. Those races, empires and kingdoms that follow Law or Chaos differ in style, but Law is not a guarantee of kindness or justice. Indeed, the extreme of Law is as harmful to human progress as the extreme of Chaos is to human well-being.

Alignment
The alignments of Law and Chaos exist, as well as unaligned status; unholy and holy status is also important for certain spell effects. Demonic creatures from the hells of Chaos, as well as intelligent undead, are always Chaotic and unholy, while the unintelligent undead are merely unholy. The servants of the Lords of Law are Lawful and holy.

Mortal beings can take on Lawful or Chaotic alignment, but these represent strong oaths and commitments to one side of the cosmic struggle, with no restrictions on behavior except this: Lawful and Chaotic beings do not associate with or aid beings known to have the opposite alignment, unless forced to. Breaking this restriction makes you unaligned. A being can change alignment twice in a lifetime, after which any further changes are to unaligned status, as he or she is proven forever inconstant and faithless.

Religions
The Lords of Law and Chaos are worshipped, as are numerous other godlings, demons, and unaligned Powers. Should one of these deities deign to speak to humanity - if indeed the deity exists, for many of these cults are frauds - it will send an avatar, who can only exist on this world for a short amount of time. These summonings are responsible for much of the strange sorceries that fall outside the list of spells commonly available to players.

Being a priest is not a character class but a social occupation, like being a mercenary or merchant. Priests in a religion, or those pretending to be priests, wear distinctive garb and often study sorceries related to their deity's interests. They are often bound to a particular temple or subject to a hierarchy.

Spellcaster Classes
There is one main spellcasting class, the magic-user. Elves (using Basic-derived rules) are a class with moderate fighting abilities and the spellcasting abilities of a magic-user one level lower. Magic-users can be of any alignment, reflecting the debate as to whether sorcery is inherently Lawful or Chaotic.


The standard magic-user can know all spells from the complete, twelve-color list; by "known" it is meant that a known spell is written down in the caster's possession. Spells known start with a randomly determined power spell (roll d10) and two standard spells, plus one standard spell per bonus point from Intelligence. On gaining a character level, the magic-user gains an additional random spell of a level he or she can memorize, assuming time spent in a suitable training location. Spells may also be gained by exchange with other magic-users.

How many spells per day can be memorized is found in the Magic-User Spell Allowances table. Memorizing a full complement of spells for the day takes two hours, regardless of level, and requires study from one's spellbooks or scrolls where known spells are kept . Each spell memorized at any one time must have a different title; there is no duplication of spells allowed. Once cast, a memorized spell is expended and that "slot" may not be refilled with another spell until the magic-user has had a good night's sleep.

A magic-user with exceptional Intelligence can memorize additional spells - at +1 bonus point an additional 1st level spell, at +2 the 1st level spell plus a 2nd level spell when of high enough level to memorize such spells, and at +3 a 1st, 2nd and 3rd level spell.


Specialist magic-users have attended a school or studied in a priesthood dedicated to one particular color of magic. The cost of this is they are unable to know, memorize or use spells from some of the other color. The benefit is that they automatically learn all spells of their colorwhen they reach a level at which they can use them. Some specialisms have alignment restrictions.

Starting specialists also begin with a random 1st level standard spell from one of the other allowable colors (roll until one comes up). They gain another random usable spell of the highest level they can cast when they reach a character level that does not give them a new spell level.

Finally, there are benefits to specializing that apply to the effects of certain spells. These benefits, and the colors not learned for each specialism, are shown in the Specialist Schools table.

Next post: tables and spell listing for Sorcery World.

Player Alignment

Here's part of one of the great comments from poster limpey, that had me rethinking my last post:

> If it were ME (not my fantasy character), I would tend to want to show mercy, but maybe that's just my 'real world' morality intruding into fantasy world ethics.

See, limpey had earlier described a system where players get bonus xp for fulfilling their character's alignment particularly well, and lose xp for breaking alignment. I had an initial allergic reaction - hadn't I posted not long ago that I don't like xp rewards for role-playing?

But then I remembered my own take on moral psychology. According to one book that's been very influential on my own thinking, emotions like guilt, sympathy or shame are hard to control for a reason. These feelings are morality enforcers. They provide an incentive to act in a way that helps other people and most times will only pay off in the long term. After all, why doesn't the first level magic-user cast sleep on all his colleagues in camp after their first big haul, slit their throats, and make off with the loot? Fear of punishment can't be the only reason. The real reason most people don't try stuff like that, sleep spell or no, is that they like these people and they would feel bad even contemplating doing it.

It then occurred to me that in a character-driven game there is no system, other than alignment or something similar, to take the role of these emotions. After all, there is nothing in the game to reward real-life pleasures like getting drunk or getting laid, which is why house-rules for carousing are ever-popular. Without these rules, a perfectly rational player of D&D, seeking to maximize his or her character's gain, should never drink enough to lose control. So wouldn't the same rational player need the punishment-reward structure of alignment rules in order to behave morally through their character?

This reflects a long-standing cultural anxiety about games, drama, fiction: that by entering an imaginary space, people will learn to let go their moral hang-ups about sex, gore, violence, witchcraft ... and then take their new-learned immorality back to the real world. An early illustration expressing this concern is, in fact, the header of this blog.

Gamers who are religious believers, secular ethicists, or just trying to run a group including kids they're trying to raise right, have obviously gotten over moral anxieties about the act of gaming. But they might very well wonder - "how do I make my game a positive moral force?" How can the game be a sounding chamber for morality, and not its opposite?

Now, I'm not sure that alignment rules for all are the answer to this. When alignment rules are vague, antisocial players will bend them to their own will, playing a paladin in a holier-than-thou way that is as surefire a way to annoy other players as if they were playing a party-robbing thief. And when alignment rules are specific, loopholes will be found, and morality becomes just another set of rules to exploit.

But with all the Old School recovery of "player skills" why not take a look at "player morality"? Unlike boozing or debauchery, the player can feel what the character does in the game, when it has moral consequences. This is most likely to happen when players are immersed in the game, rather than taking a cynical, manipulative approach. What's more, veteran gamers keenly appreciate the need to avoid players who run their characters completely amorally. This suggests that players in a good game will have some kind of moral sense that carries through to the running of their characters - will flinch from playing out torture just as they would flinch from actually doing it.

I'm not super happy with the system I outlined last time, where neutral players still have to live by a couple of scraps of the Good and Lawful codes. It seems clunky and at odds with the idea that neutral players should be free and unaligned. I thought at the time that only Evil players could be completely free - without reckoning with player morality. Now, I offer this view of Neutrality:

A Neutral character is not constrained by codes of alignment. His or her moral judgments and feelings are supplied by the player. The Neutral's intuition and personality can range from kind and honest to sneaky and self-promoting. But the Neutral has enough concern for others to stay in a group without being kicked out - something that Evil characters lack, and therefore something that makes them unsuitable as player characters.

Those who are familiar with Christian theology might recognize something of the virtuous pagan in this Neutral - a person who follows his or her view of natural law (read "player morality"), which might turn out well or poorly. The Christian in this scheme, however, is saved through knowledge of God's laws (read "the principles of Law and especially Good"). Now eternal salvation doesn't really figure in to the D&D game. But more pragmatically, remaining true to a Lawful and/or Good alignment should be especially important to those receiving benefits directly from heaven - clerics and paladins, if they exist in your game.

All right. Next up: alignment, spellcasting classes, and spell list seeds for Sorcery World ... where Good, and Christianity, have not come to pass.

Limits of AD&D Alignment 3: Solutions

Well, you could just not have alignment for player characters. Sure, you can have an affiliation that boils down to a cultural background and reminder - raised in the Church; follows Odin; reveres Chaos. And you can have morality. Your characters' actions have consequences in the eyes of others, after all. Even when nobody is watching there might be a certain karma for really heinous actions. The moral workings of our world are contested and uncertain. Why should the world of adventure be any different?

But okay, in some settings you really need the behavior of holy people to be exemplary in some way in order for them to deserve their magic powers. As I suggested before, a more specific set of principles seems in order.  Most importantly, these principles need to be ranked in some order, to give a guideline for resolving the kind of conflicts I outlined last time.

Should the principles be about what you should do, or what you should not do? I lean toward "shalt nots," although really some commandments can be phrased either way. They're more likely to keep characters out of trouble - no spending your last copper for food on alms, or suicidal cavalier charges. Being forbidden from doing something also feels less restrictive than being commanded to do something. Yes, religions often require actions like prayers, religious attendance and so on, but these actions are probably best assumed to go on in the background whenever the opportunity occurs.

Finally, I am assuming that the main fight between alignments in this setting is between Good and Evil, with Law being an additional social source of behavioral restrictions on good and evil alike.

COMMANDMENTS OF GOOD - most to least important

Life: Don't kill or torture a helpless sentient being.
Benevolence: Don't harm, disrespect, or steal from a peaceful sentient being.
Crusade: Don't back away from a fight against Evil that you can win.
Justice: Don't let crimes against Life and Benevolence go unpunished.
Generosity: Don't hoard wealth; spend what you need for your own security, then give to others.

COMMANDMENTS OF LAW - most to least important

Honor: Don't break your given word.
Chivalry: Don't use trickery when you fight.
Restraint: Don't indulge pleasures wantonly. Food is for surviving; drink is for tasting; sex is for commitment; wealth is not for wasting.
Legalism: Don't break the law or let lawbreakers go unpunished. 
Obedience: Don't disobey or disrespect your superiors in society.


With these ten commandments in hand, we can see that it's ridiculous to require Evil and Chaotic characters to do everything exactly the opposite, like the Bizarro planet or Opposite Day. Evil, quite obviously, gives freedom to ignore the moral emotions - sympathy, remorse and the anticipation of remorse - that drive ordinary people to do Good things. Chaotic alignment, where separate from Evil, gives freedom to ignore the sense of honor and shame that drives Lawful behavior.

It might be interesting to have particularly Evil or Chaotic characters or beings pick one commandment they feel compelled to violate; the sadist revels in Anti-Life, the Anti-Crusader picks a special fight with the forces of Good, the Unrestrained Chaotic is a compulsive libertine. But that's about as far as it reasonably goes.

So what about Neutrals? They have some moral feelings, but not enough to compel them to do the right thing always. The most reasonable way to show this, I think, is by having Good/Evil Neutrals personally pick one or two of the Good commandments as Scruples that keep them from being completely Evil, and likewise for Law/Chaos Neutrals and the Law commandments.

Finally, people who hold to the difficult paths of Law and Good might just be required to follow all five of their alignment's commandments, or all ten if they are Lawful Good, choosing one set to hold supreme. However, at a small cost to complication but a huge benefit to characterization, players might also be able to choose one commandment that they can ignore as a Foible while still maintaining their alignment, for each set of five.

We're just about ready to step into my three template worlds, each with a different system of magic, alignment, and religion. So hang on - all this theory is soon about to burst into practice. In the meantime, you can let me know if there are any moral principles I left out of the Commandments, and in general what you think of this way to handle alignment.

Limits of AD&D Alignment 2: Behavior

The other problem with alignment in AD&D is not so much about the structure of Good/Evil and Law/Chaos, as it is about the use of alignment. As I outlined previously, a number of AD&D classes (some adapted from the OD&D supplements) traded game benefits for alignment-based restrictions upon the behavior of characters of that class.

Some of these restrictions make sense when two assumptions about the spiritual universe both come into play in a campaign:

1) Certain kinds of magic, like a cleric's spells or a paladin's powers, are derived directly from God, gods or other divine powers;

2) Those divine powers themselves have a value-based alignment, and consciously uphold and represent it through the magic granted to mortals.

Break either one of those assumptions and alignment in a campaign can exist blind to behavior. But if a cleric by her behavior breaks her god's core values, it's only right that her god, if aware and in charge, should refuse to let sacred power be used by such a person.

Cartoon by David Sipress, Boston Phoenix

Now alignment, as we have seen, is great for describing a character's values and motivations. But the real devil in the details comes when DMs try to translate those values and motivations into concrete actions. When do your actions uphold your alignment, and when do they violate it? Veterans of the game are familiar, by experience or hearsay, with these advanced difficulties and dilemmas:

• Team alignment vs. alignment principles. Having defeated the orc lair, you are the custodian of three kneeling, disarmed cowards, their wretched females and puling young. Do you show mercy as a Good person should? Or slay them all, ruthlessly pursuing the agenda of Team Good against Team Evil? Perhaps you trot out a rationalization - "It is mercy to end their miserable existence!" How seriously should you take your principles in time of holy war? Is the survival of a great champion of Good (yourself) worth a little ethical slippage?
• Conflicting alignment principles. Looking back at the Schwartz value diagram, the three "self-transcendence" values that correspond to Good - benevolence, justice, and equality - often clash. Does a Good person spread benevolence equally, target it where it will do the most good, or give it to the most deserving? How much should justice, in a Good society, be merciful or harsh, when benevolence to a murderer is cruelty to the victim's family? And should a Lawful knight follow the traditions of his people, or the command of his reformist monarch?
• What does it mean to be Evil or Chaotic? Is an Evil character merely free to pursue her own selfish interests liberated from any concern for others? Or must she actively refuse to cooperate, actively commit acts of cruelty, even at the expense of the ambition and power she craves? Likewise, must a Chaotic character act crazy and stick it to the Man at every turn, or is that alignment merely about seeking personal freedom from obedience, conformity, and tradition? 
• Do I follow my alignment at the expense of an enjoyable game? If the extreme answers to the above question are true, then what place does an Evil or Chaotic character have in a game that is best played in a cooperative spirit? For that matter, if a Good character is in a group with Neutrals who slay  and pillage when expedient, doesn't ethics dictate that their ways part - or at least that the Good character should endlessly harangue and undermine the efforts of the party?
• What does it mean to be Neutral? Do you simply not care about alignment concerns, acting on a variety of motivations as it suits you? Do you have some minimal amount of compassion, setting you apart from Evil, but not enough to make you truly Good? Are you an opportunistic neutral, siding with the winning team? Or do you take an active part in ensuring alignment balance, siding with the losing team, and making sure to commit a carefully balanced schedule of Good, Evil, Lawful and Chaotic acts? Doesn't that last one make you kind of like the person who felt she had to sleep with men on even-numbered days and women on odd-numbered days in order to count as a bisexual?

The answers to these questions are not supposed to be easy. They are hard moral questions even in real life. Discussing them might be interesting and enlightening in a more free-wheeling situation. But when a DM has to answer them fairly in order to decide whether to to strip a player's character of his major powers, or a player has to guess how to behave in order to avoid such a fate, the exercise becomes less fun and more arbitrary.

I'll let the problems stand for a while, and next post, consider a number of ways they might be solved without completely throwing out the idea of divinely directed sacred magic.

Limits of AD&D Alignment 1: Teams

The main problem with the two-axis alignment system is that it’s used for two things it isn’t great for: as a way to describe conflicts and coalitions (the “team” use of alignment) and as a way to regulate specific behaviors, rather than describe general motives (the “code” use of alignment).

Let’s look at the team use first. We all remember those stirring moments in our own AD&D campaigns where the High Elves teamed up with the ogres and demons to defend the cause of freedom against the Lawful empire of paladins, devils, goblins and dwarves ...

Uh, what? Unless you were playing in a very unusual campaign, individuals and countries usually formed alliances along the Good-Evil axis, not on the basis of Law and Chaos. Making the alignment diagram work more like this:

Here, the main fight is between Good and Evil, and Law and Chaos are just disagreements in how to pursue your side's agenda.

Now, there are other fantasy settings that squash the diagram the other way, going Moorcock rather than Manichean:

For example, the Warhammer world pushes the fight of Law against Chaos to the front. Chaos is pretty much always evil and represents the corruption and magical alteration of the very universe. The people who fight it may be kind or cruel, cooperative or selfish to various degrees, but those differences are on balance less important than saving the world from a tentacled, fiery ruin.

(And there is no Chaotic Good there because Chaos means very different things in AD&D and Warhammer; in AD&D it means you believe in loose social organization; in Warhammer it is the crawling crud from beyond the edge of the world. But that’s a topic for another time.)

So why the one big axis with a few lesser choices within each side? Quite simply, it’s how real-world multiplayer conflicts work. In a three or more player game, two players who team up or even just truce have a definite advantage, defeating in detail the other ones. Unless those team up themselves. Either way, the game quickly resolves into either a two-sided game or a two-player game. Players may waver or switch sides, but a true three-way or four-way fight is very unstable and short-lived. 

This strategic wisdom, perhaps, is reflected in people’s fictional preference for stories with two sides, instead of a multitude of conflicting interests in an ever-shifting web of intrigue. I know you’re thinking now about the wildly successful World of Darkness and all its faction-rich progeny, but these are the exceptions that prove the rule. Players approach those games first as a way to choose an identity for self-expression, and the kind of conflicts that occur build themselves around that. Not to mention, you know, how all those clans line up into the Camarilla and Sabbat.

Some of the contributors to my previous post’s comments, and a number of recent original settings for “old school” gaming, look on alignment as just a way to show which "team" a character belongs to in a two-sided world struggle. Indeed, the Team Alignment approach is a very easy way to handle this thorny but traditional trait in a D&D game. 

Team Alignment shows that a being has decisively chosen one of the sides in the Great Fight – or was just born that way. It shouldn't be easy to change, especially not if there are rules in the game that care about alignment. But really, those rules should mostly be there to smite the extra-special Team members who are magical, or have made themselves so, not the poor mortals who happen to swear by one name or the other.

Team Alignment doesn't reflect the motivations or enforce the behaviors of individual characters. Sure, the teams have colors and mascots that play on long-standing moral ideas. The White and Silver Unicorns meet the Red and Black Bats on the Fields of Armageddon. 

So much the more interesting, then, when the self-styled paladin of Law behaves in a corrupt and selfish manner, or the Chaos-born creature shows pangs of conscience. Perhaps appearances are only skin deep, and the only divine justice for the wicked archbishop's sins awaits him in heaven? For Team Alignment, the ambiguous labels "Law" and "Chaos"  fit better than "Good" and "Evil," which are full of expectations about how people on each side should act.

So what's missing from Team Alignment? For some people, nothing. For others, the very moral dimension it gleefully casts overboard. This leads us right to the next failure of alignment that AD&D walked into: the problem of regulating behavior.

E. Gary Gygax, Social Psychologist

For my 100th post please allow me to cross the streams of my professional and hobby lives.

Gygax's view of values and morality, Players' Handbook, 1978:



For most of my readership this needs no explanation (but please look here if it does.)

Now. The major model of human values  in psychology research today is Shalom Schwartz's circular model, developed in the mid-1980's. The methodology is a questionnaire where people are asked to rate which principles they personally hold most and least important in life. The position of those principles (values) on the circle is derived from statistical analysis of how answers tend to be similar or different across respondents.

While people and countries differ in which values they hold important, values that are close to each other on the circle usually are ranked high or low together. Likewise, values opposite to each other tend to have a negative relationship, so that people who value one set of principles highly, usually value the opposing set of principles less.

By now there are hundreds of studies using this model (including some from my own lab) conducted across scores of different countries. In the diagram below, the smaller labels are more specific values, larger labels describe groups of values, and the 4 labels on the corners represent the largest-scale value groupings.

So on one axis are "good" people who put helpfulness, justice and equality first, versus people who put their own achievement and power first (Gygax's core definition of evil, although later editions leaned more toward a caricature of evil aligned beings as intentional sadists). The other axis separates "lawful" people who put social order and humility first, from "chaotic" people who put freedom, new experiences, and pleasure first. Hmmm.

It looks like Gygax got at least a seven-year head start on psychology here, with a model of human motivational ideals pulled out of his head that gives basically the same results as hundreds of international surveys.

So the two-axis AD&D system is a great model for capturing the main ways people and countries are different from each other in their guiding principles. Why, then, do so many old-school revivalists disdain alignment, or reduce it to a simpler system? Why does 4th edition D&D seriously simplify the alignment diagram, making lawful a subset of good and chaotic a subset of evil?

I have a few possible answers - that is, reasons the two-axis alignment system often doesn't work in games - which I'll try to describe in the next couple of posts.

Alignment-Free Paladin

Something I wrote in my previous post got me thinking ....

A paladin bound by twelve clearly defined behavioral commandments similar to the one about accumulating treasure, for example, would work a lot better in play. Cut loose from the alignment system, that class would have the additional interest value of varying just how far you can get from Lawful Good and still play within the rules.

So let's say that instead of having to maintain a Lawful Good alignment, the paladin must abide by these rules and goals - and importantly, when two of these conflict, to follow the one higher up (lower numbered) in the list.

1. To fight against the forces of Evil and/or Chaos (Good and Law)
2. To aid and protect the weak and oppressed (Good)
3. To show mercy to the vanquished and the weak (Good)
4. To fight fairly and without ruses in personal combat (Law)
5. To tell no lies (Law)
6. To betray no oaths (Law)
7. To promote and uphold the religion of your deity (Law & Good)
8. To avoid indulging carnal lusts (Law)
9. To avoid excesses of drink or feasting (Law)
10. To respect and obey the clergy of your faith (Law & Good)
11. To obey and serve your feudal superiors (Law)
12. To hold no wealth that cannot be carried on a mount until you become the lord of a castle (Good?)

It's the ordered nature of this list that is important. Under this ranking, the fight against Evil can justify departures from all the strictures below it. This is the kind of paladin that sees it as justified to toast orcs with oil, kill evil prisoners, or trick an evil priest. He'll still be a self-righteous asshat when fighting bandits or neutrals ... or does he have to be? As long as he doesn't personally partake in torture, he has lived within the letter of the law. He can just go off and pray as you slaughter those baby lizardmen.

"Such a shame ... if anything should happen to that pixie kindergarten ..."

The door is even open to a hypocrite paladin, someone who keeps a couple of useful, shady associates around to do unbidden "jobs" outside the letter of the paladin code. After all, is this much different from the PC paladin who travels with a pack of chaotic good and neutral folks? Certainly, adding the requirement "to only associate with those who themselves follow the Paladin's Code" means you are either in for a solo adventure or a very monochromatic party.

By such easements and accommodations a paladin can find herself sliding from Lawful Good to Lawful Neutral. Or, if the fight against evil requires disobedience of superiors and carnal dalliance, from Lawful Good to Neutral Good. And see, I like paladins to have different alignments. For the DM to wield the alignment whip, as I argued last post, is something that can take a lot of energy and spontaneity away from the campaign. If class benefits depend on rules of behavior, I would prefer those to be written out as specifically as possible, while keeping alignment as a mirror of the character's action.

There is also another way to handle paladins who let others do their dirty work, one that doesn't involve bad angel dreams. True knights are not just a moral, but a social elite. What kind of gossip gets spread about paladins that hang out with thieves and go tomb raiding? What kind of duel challenges, anathemas, and snubs might follow?

Of course, a DM wishing a different kind of paladin can swap around the priorities. Perhaps now, the strictures about kindness (2 and 3) take precedence over the fight against Evil. Now we have a character who must practice fair play for all, even orcs. Or put chastity first and you have a paladin who won't sleep with the witch even if this means she'll wreck a whole village in spite.

Two more points to ponder:

1. Can different paladins have different rankings of the points of the Code?
2. Can version(s) of the Code serve as a more general method to define, regulate, or even replace alignment for everyone, not just paladins?

I'll get back to that second point once done with the nuts and bolts of Sacred Magic, when I'm ready to unleash my thoughts on metaphysical settings and alignment in general. You might guess, however, that my answer will be a resounding "yes."