Boxes of alignment tracking.

[alhoon]

For many years I have used a kind of revised system from the "Death Triumphant" Requiem rules to track the alignment of my players and NPCs.

I use Boxes of alignment to further categorize the alignment.

Good and evil are made of 4 boxes each, while Neutral is made from 5 boxes (in order to allow Neutral characters with really no tendecy towards good or evil)
The same applies to law and chaos axis

So the good-evil axis looks like this:
[][][][] [][][][][] [][][][]
Good neutral evil

Players decide where their characters start while I usually don't allow people more good than 3rd good, or more evil than 4th neutral counting from the left.
When a character does something that seems to me as either exceptionaly good behavior or bad according to his alingment, I ask for a corruption or redemtion check.
These checks are 1d10 rolls. A player that must make a corruption check must roll more than his current box (counting from the left). If the character rolls a number greater than his box, he feels guilt and remorse. If a character rolls a lower number he has muted his guilt and corrupted a step. The character moves one step (box) towards evil.

So a character that is 3rd good and steals money, rolls a corruption check. The player must roll 4 or more in the roll to avoid corruption. If he or she rolls 3 or less, the character moves to 4th box.
A character that is 2nd neutral (6th box from the left) and injures a merchant's guard in the highway to rob the merchant must roll 7 or more in the corruption roll to avoid corruption. If that character instead risked his life to save the merchant from a werewolf attack, he should roll a redeption roll. If the character rolled 7 or more in the redemption roll he would move to the 1st neutral box (5th from the left)

Remember that the further a character falls in corruption, it is easier to loose corruption rolls. However, for his morality to be further damaged, a character must do progressively evil acts.
While a character that is 3rd good would need to roll corruption checks for most evil acts, an 2nd evil character (that is 11th box) would need to roll a corruption check only for the most hineous crimes, like killing someone that has never harmed the character in any way for seer entertainment. 2nd evil assassins that kill such people for the money they get do not risk further corruption. The dark powers are still unforgiving however . . .


The point of this system is to better track alignment shifts and the moral evolution of the character.

[ScS of the Fraternity]

Neat system - I like the simplicity of the boxes - each failed die roll increases the next DC by 1.
A trick to try out on character sheets might be to use a paper clip and to draw the spectrum on an edge. That way the score can be shifted very easily back and forth without marking up the paper with pensil.

[alhoon]

Indeed that makes easy tracking, but remember that corruption and redumption checks aren't something that (at least in my games) happens that often. While in the course of ten sessions there would probably be three to five corruption and/or redumption checks a character's alignment isn't something that changes within a day or two.

Since you liked the system I'll provide a few more details:

There are circumstances that change the DC of the roll. For example tieflings are easier to corrupt => +1 to the check. A good character that out of (even righteous) anger burns alive a helpless villain to "punish" him. Immediately a box is lost and the corruption check is for the second box etc.

A natural 1 always fails and a natural 10 always succeeds.

For a character to be considered exalted (From the Book of Exalted Deeds) he or she must be 2nd good or better.
A starting paladin character starts at 2nd good.
If a Paladin drops to 4th good or worse, he or she loses the paladin status.

The system helped me with new players. It improved their RP. While a player may do a blunder out of his character morality (we all do) the corruption roll lessens the impact on the character but also serves as a reminder for the player.
Also I once had a campaign where one of the character goals of a player was to improve his character's alignment from 4th neutral to 3rd good. That would happen as the character would leave behind gradually his old morals and through friendship, companionship and the guidings from a good church would evolve to a good man.

[Coan]

For a new Planescape game Grimmith Mi is DMing he's created a grid system to determine where you lie alignment wise. It's simple but effective by showing you how extreme you are and if your character could shift over into actions of a different alignment without some large reason if you are near another grid block.