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Allegiances and Character Alignments

Rather than a strict alignment system of law and chaos, good and evil axioms, we prefer a system of allegiances, much alike that which premiered in the d20 Modern setting. Here's all the information you need to know to use allegiances in your own campaign, and reason for why we like it so much more than the traditional alignment system.

What Has Come Before
How many times have we seen a variation of the following situation?

In a mature game, such moral and ethical quandaries do occur. They add depth and become defining moments for characters, they often play a pivotal turning point in the direction that the story will take. Experienced dungeon master's enjoy opportunities to present such situations because they require a choice and the player's thoughtful consideration of what their character would choose to do.
    Such a situation also illustrates a fatal weakness in the traditional system of alignment that is used in classic Dungeons & Dragons role-playing. The nine alignments formed by the axioms of Good versus Evil, and Chaos versus Law, crossing at the point of neutrality, do not handle this kind of situation well at all. There's no room to define how important these philosophies are compared to other things which a character is personally invested in.
    Is a particular character more Lawful than Good or more Good than Lawful? Which laws does a character abide by when traveling in the wilderness or foreign lands? What if the laws of their guild conflict with the laws of the land that they live in? If the Lawful Good aligned knight of a King is ordered to murder the King's bastard son which law will he obey, the command of a King or the Law of the Land as decreed for many generations, or does he forsake his vows of fealty to the king because it is morally wrong to murder a man who has done no wrong? Variations on these questions are frequently argued in role-playing forums and in philosophical venues. Alignment, as presented in the Dungeons and Dragons game, begins to become an obstacle rather than a tool for making decisions. It is too rigid and not adaptable to such situations.

Allegiances: A Constructive Alternative
In the real world, people make important decisions with great consideration to the beliefs and organizations which they value. Do I move my family to another region for a better job opportunity? Do I intervene when I see a person being victimized by a thug? Do I lie to discredit a member of my sports team and thus improve my chances of becoming team leader? In the first situation we might be deciding whether we value our community more than our job. In the second we might ask ourselves whether we value our own well being over that of someone else. In the last we may ask ourselves if we would trade our ethics for leadership and prestige.
    Each of these situations ask us to decide what is more important to us. Each situation might be resolved if we knew ahead of time where our allegiances lay. If our allegiance to our family, friends, and community are more important than our job then we won't move to another region. A strong allegiance to lawfulness or goodness might give us enough bravery to intervene and risk injury to ourselves when we see someone being harmed by a villain, rather than remain safely distant from the crime. If our allegiance to our ethics is greater than our desire for promotion then we choose not to lie and discredit our team member. Alignment cannot answer all of these questions; where does law, chaos, good, and evil factor into a decision to leave a community for job opportunities?
    Some allegiances are stronger than others. A person with great religious strength will may consider what their faith asks them to do before they consider whether it is good for their country or even their friends. Conversely, a military leader might make concessions which will cause in the deaths of his unit, because he values his country more than the lives of his soldiers. His country and the lives of his soldiers are both important, but one is clearly more valuable to him. It's a tough decision, but these situations do occur.
    Correspondingly, a character in a role-playing game has a hierarchy of values which guide how they make day to day and even difficult decisions. Alignments do not entirely disappear, but instead they become philosophies which a character values. These philosophies might be more, or less, important than other things which they character values: their church, their country, their self, their companions, their family, or many other institutions, recreations, and beliefs.
    Allegiances, thus, are an active system for making decisions, rather than a passive and abstract system like alignment. It is a super-system which encompasses and improves upon the old alignment system.

How it Works
A character can have any number of allegiances. Ideally, each player should list at least five of their most important allegiances and arrange them in order of importance. Later, while role-playing, a character makes decisions based upon this list, starting at the top and most important allegiance. If that allegiance doesn't apply, then they move on to the next allegiance, until they know what their character would do. Some allegiances are very broad, such as an allegiance to a religion, while others are very narrow, such as an allegiance to gardening. A character with a narrow allegiance might seek out opportunities to pursue their allegiance when not already occupied with other allegiances to fulfill. A character with an allegiance to self chooses to do what most benefits their own self before considering any less important allegiances. A character might have an allegiance to an abstract notion, such as bravado; such a character pursues the more valorous, brave, and impressive option when faced with a decision that his more important allegiances do not apply to.
    The top three allegiances of a character are their primary allegiances. The distinction is important. Most decisions a character makes should be covered by their first three allegiances. If a character is constantly faced with situations to which their primary allegiances do not apply, then it is probably time to re-prioritize what they value. This brings up an important aspect of allegiances: they can change. A king dies is replaced by a ruthless tyrant that the player character opposes and their character's allegiance to king is replaced with a lesser allegiance, or perhaps redefined as an allegiance to their country instead. A characters primary allegiances should change only rarely, but their other allegiances may change over time, even dramatically.

Old Meets New: Making the Switch and Adjusting Game Mechanics
So you've decided to replace that alignment system with a useful and flexible allegiance system, but what about spells and mechanics in your game that specifically target creatures with particular alignments? What about paladins who, in canon rules, must be both Lawful and Good? These problems are easily solved. Characters with an allegiance to an alignment among their primary allegiances (their top three) are clearly aligned with that philosophy and they are correspondingly affected by spells such as protection from evil. Characters who have a non-primary allegiance to the philosophy of Good, Evil, Chaos, or Law only faintly radiate that philosophy and they are not affected by such spells or affects.
    Creatures whose alignment is Always Lawful Good or Always Neutral Evil typically have philosophical primary allegiances. Creatures whose alignment usually falls under a philosophy will probably have at least one philosophical allegiance, while those which often are aligned a particular way may have no particular philosophical primary allegiance.
    Dungeon Masters may additionally rule that certain organizations, such as churches, may be tainted with philosophical teachings, thus a character who has an allegiance to the Church of Arden may be required to also have an allegiance to the philosophy of Good.

Our Embattled Hero Decides
This article began with an example wherein a Lawful Good paladin is faced with a terrible dilemma: to serve his religion by murdering a man or to uphold the law and remain true to his ethics. Questions of whether his god supports the action can be answered by augury, divination and commune spells, so we won't worry for the moment about whether the character would lose their paladinhood for deciding one way or the other. Our hero has the following allegiances: Good, Church, Kingdom, Local Law, family, Adventuring Companions. It is well known that the current Senator Garagos is a corrupt man, replacing him might be a good thing, but it is clear that allowing Senator Prailus ro rule will do harm to a good church. In this dilemma, our hero must examine his other allegiances before making a decision, since his philosophy of Good does not clearly provide a solution. Only slightly less important than doing what is good, our hero also is strongly allied to his church. His allegiance to local laws of the area he resides in and to his kingdom are secondary to his allegiance to the church. Though it is a troubling decision, the player decides that his paladin will act against Senator Prailus, even if it means killing him when no other option presents itself.

Had our hero's allegiances been arranged differently (Good, Local Law, Church, Kingdom...) then no doubt this decision would have been made very differently.

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