Alignments, and how to use them?

[Morgenstern]

I don't see how it's circumstantial that spells like Castigate are EXACTLY as relevant as your faith makes them.

That your faith has enemies seems circumstantial, that castigate blows those enemies up seems highly reliable. If you have a hammer and some free time, go looking for nails .

[Agent 333]

IIRC there are some spells that help people of the same alignment as you as well as spells like Castigate that help people of opposing alignments. That's AN incentive to take an alignment. In a setting like Planescape I could easily see Alignment requirements for all kinds of feats and expert classes.

Depending on the setting, the GM might feel it necessary for all Outsiders to have an Alignment. And in a highly factionalized setting like Planescape random folk aught to have an Alignment at least half the time (probably not everybody as in a Strict Universe, I imagine some inhabitants of Sigil just want to go about their day).

(Heh, the Spycraft crossover potential just made me think of a Cold War era alignment scheme of Capitalism vs Communism... you could be a Communist in the US, but you'll likely get blacklisted...)

[Catodon]

Having no alignment is a GREAT way to protect against alignment targeting effects

Is there any incentive (other than roleplay) for a character to have an alignment if they're not planning to get Paths at any point? I can't think of anything off the top of my head.

Heh, heh, heeehhh.

I just put "unaligned" in as an opposing alignment for some of my more zealous faiths.

"Sitting on the fence is still a position - and one that makes you darn easy to shoot at."

I wanted alignments to be important in my world so I made a house rule everyone has to have one, the Free Souls (non-believers) are an alignment ( as above) and wrote the importance of faith into my cultures stuff like: those not of X faith have NO legal rights or protection (believes can get away with murdering them!), only X faith can join the elite organisation (Masterclass), those of Y faith are hunted down and executed in this realm, most smith's in the city are X faith, Y faith must pay 5x normal tax, when considering reactions faith really matters every time.

All these kinds of situations where pretty normal during most of human history, we forget because we largely live in relatively enlightened times.

[Krensky]

I wanted alignments to be important in my world so I made a house rule everyone has to have one, the Free Souls (non-believers) are an alignment ( as above) and wrote the importance of faith into my cultures stuff like: those not of X faith have NO legal rights or protection (believes can get away with murdering them!),

Funnily enough, and possibly apocryphal, it was apparently 'legal' for residents of Massachusetts to hang residents of, if I remember right, New Hampshire in the State of Massachusetts until 'recently (ie long after you'd have expected it to be removed from the books).

[Bhurano]

Thanks for the help with this matter.

Your answers helped to clear up that matter. I will pit each god against a demon prince and the gods in some cases against each other.

That will do it for the beginning. When I have more time to flesh things out I will make it even more complex. My players are in for interesting times.

Thanks for the help, it cleared up the single thing I couldn't wrap my head around.

[Agent 333]

I wanted alignments to be important in my world so I made a house rule everyone has to have one, the Free Souls (non-believers) are an alignment ( as above) and wrote the importance of faith into my cultures stuff like: those not of X faith have NO legal rights or protection (believes can get away with murdering them!),

Funnily enough, and possibly apocryphal, it was apparently 'legal' for residents of Massachusetts to hang residents of, if I remember right, New Hampshire in the State of Massachusetts until 'recently (ie long after you'd have expected it to be removed from the books).

Yeah, but then where would they buy their fireworks?

[MaskedBrute]

I wanted alignments to be important in my world so I made a house rule everyone has to have one, the Free Souls (non-believers) are an alignment ( as above) and wrote the importance of faith into my cultures stuff like: those not of X faith have NO legal rights or protection (believes can get away with murdering them!),

Funnily enough, and possibly apocryphal, it was apparently 'legal' for residents of Massachusetts to hang residents of, if I remember right, New Hampshire in the State of Massachusetts until 'recently (ie long after you'd have expected it to be removed from the books).

I believe that was made famous due to the circumstance of a Quaker from Rhode Island (Mary Dyer who kept going back to Massachusetts to preach, despite the fact that she'd almost been hanged elsewhere and the Puritans had banned Quakers from the colony; she was eventually hanged. Essentially the law was that you could be hanged for returning to the colony if you'd been banished or broke certain ordinances (like preaching a religion that opposed that of the Puritans).