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SPACER

◀ Rulebooks

Ver. 1.3.1

Alignment

A character's alignment is a rough indication of their worldview and motivations. Alignment is composed of two axes: Moral (Good versus Evil) and Ethical (Law versus Chaos.) Differences in alignment can affect the likelihood on success on various social interaction checks.

When a campaign begins, the GM and each player may collaborate to determine their characters' alignments. The GM may also restrict certain character alignments in order to ensure a good social chemistry within the party - for instance, it's not uncommon for groups to ban evil characters from non-evil campaign settings.

Lawful Good	Social Good	Neutral Good	Rebel Good	Chaotic Good
Lawful Moral	Social Moral	Neutral Moral	Rebel Moral	Chaotic Moral
Lawful Neutral	Social Neutral	True Neutral	Rebel Neutral	Chaotic Neutral
Lawful Impure	Social Impure	Neutral Impure	Rebel Impure	Chaotic Impure
Lawful Evil	Social Evil	Neutral Evil	Rebel Evil	Chaotic Evil

Outside of this spectrum sit unaligned creatures, which do not possess sufficient intelligence to understand ethics or morality.

Effects of Alignment

Click on each alignment to see its mechanical modifiers.

The rules in this section do not apply to player characters. The GM may use these alignment rules as a system of governing the actions of NPCs during interaction, but these rules can never influence the actions of a player character.

When making requests, persuasion attempts, or other charisma-based checks during social interaction, the GM may choose to set a penalty or a bonus based on the difference between the involved characters' alignments. This is largely up to the GM's judgment.

The more Lawful a character is, the more likely they are to accept a request that aligns with their personal beliefs, and to decline requests that go against their beliefs. A Chaotic character has no strongly-held system of beliefs, and so is unaffected by this rule.

Good characters are more likely to accept requests for help, even if there is no reward in it for them. Evil characters are less likely to accept any form of request unless they can personally benefit from it.

Alignment Difference Penalty

In addition to the social modifiers of each alignment, the GM might include a further bonus to social contested checks based on the difference between the alignment of the requested action and that of the target character. This bonus is +1 for each step in one of the cardinal directions along the 5x5 alignment chart that the two differ. For example, if a Lawful Good character is asked to do something by a character that is Social Evil, they gain a +5 bonus to contest the check (4 steps vertically and 1 horizontally.) Characters may be able to use deception to conceal their true alignment.

Player Character Alignment

As a result of rule zero, the Alignment rules can never control a player character's decisions. However, if a player character repeatedly acts in a manner inconsistent with their alignment, the GM may change it.

The GM may collaborate with each player to determine their character's alignment, but ultimately they make the final decision based on the character's origin story and actions. The GM should always inform a player when their character's alignment is at risk of being changed, and when it changes. This is not always a negative event - it's quite common for a character's alignment to shift as they expand their knowledge throughout an adventure. There is no penalty for changing alignments.