That could work as a method for players that go for mechanically weaker/harder options.On an unrelated note, if I were running a Star Wars game, I'd steal Frank's adventure karma idea and make Dark Side stronger (lightning and stuff) but penalizing a character with negative karma which would be occasionally used to get the character temporarily under the GM's control and Light Side handing out positive karma which the players could use to wrestle the control of the environment away from the GM.
The more that players take the easy mechanical route (play Dark Side, evil, steal the evil sword of supreme power); the harder it is for them to stray from it. This is done by limiting the character's choice, or perhaps even having the character commit acts that are in line with what they have previously been doing.
While characters that take the harder mechanical route (play Light Side, good, use your father's sword) are able to enforce more of their own choice on what happens in game. Which could seriously include powers like "Tell the DM to go fuck his bullshit railroading. This lets you wreck campaigns. You need a 2/3 Vote from other characters with white marks; this costs 5 white marks."
Black and White
The decisions you make every second, every day, every month. These determine if you are a good man, or not.
In many tabletop games, killing people is easy.
Mid level adventurers can wipe out dozens of enemies that were a challenge for starting adventurers, and in a group, mid-level adventurers can potentially wipe out hundreds of such enemies (thousands if the situation is right, and some planning takes place).
So, the question is, why don't they just do so whenever it's convenient?
Because evil acts tend to influence a character into performing more evil acts. It's a path of blood that gets deeper the further you go along it, and after a while you figure that it's better to keep going forward, and hope that there's a shallow part, or that you can rise out of it. This is almost never the case, but still people think it's possible.
Conversely, why do some people intentionally sacrifice themselves in order to perform an act that will help others, and often will harm no one?
Because good acts tend to influence the world around the character doing good acts. People will seriously copy you, if they see you performing a good act. This is why paladins or knights lead troops, they can inspire by their own action. Inspired people do anything a lot better than uninspired people.
So... a system of black and white marks should be set up; certain types of acts generate white marks, certain acts generate black ones.
Now, a character records black and white marks on their sheet; each type of mark can be used to activate special abilities from a list (any character can use the abilities on either list, so long as they have the marks remaining to do so). Also, marks can be used to buy each other off, reducing the total that a character has. This is done at a rate of 1 mark spent, to reduce the total remaining marks in your other pool by 2.
Black Acts:
Lying/Deception:
-Wielding non-obvious weapons (any item that does not look like a weapon counts; the wizard with his quarterstaff is blacker than the knight with his sword drawn; a wizard wielding a club, crossbow or a dagger is different, those are weapons, or at least they aren't pretty innocuous)
--Wielding concealed weapons (ex. rogues with daggers)
---Using unseen attacks of any kind (this ranges from being invisible to your target, to using a blade poison. They are both effects that cannot be seen, but can harm their target greatly)
-Ambushing enemies (specifically attacking in the surprise round, but not when the first round of combat starts and some people are flatfooted; this is like unseen attacks, but not as bad)
(0)*Lying for the benefit of an other , and for no harm
-Lying for no self-benefit, and for no harm
--Lying for benefit, and for no harm
---Lying for benefit, and with harm
Doing no good:
-Ignoring the problems of others
--* Using Mind Control abilities [This is combined with any act that a controlled subject does; so a subject killed with mind control counts as both
Stealing/Theft:
-Theft (only applies to the living, the dead own nothing)
Harm:
-Choosing to commit a self-beneficial act that you know might hurt an other creature (I'm seriously contemplating including stuff like zombies and stone golems when I say thing)
--Choosing to commit a self-beneficial act that you know could hurt an other creature
---Choosing to commit a self-beneficial act that you know will hurt an other creature
---Choosing to commit any act that you know will harm an other creature [Yes, this gets added onto nearly everything, yes, it's going to make people very black if they're not careful]
---Attacking creatures that cannot defend themselves (baby kobolds yes, but CR 1/2 Orcs vs a lvl 10 fighter = fair game, the orcs can run away; using fly vs enemies that can't reach you also works
White Marks:
+ carrying weapons that are obviously weapons
+++ choosing to help others weaker than yourself, for no benefit (white marks don't count)
++ choosing to help others weaker than yourself, for benefit
++ attacking enemies that are armed and ready to fight
++ sparing the life of an enemy
+++ freeing any creature from a lack of choice (this shouldn't be increased or adjusted, freeing a 10,000 year old stone golem's inner elemental by killing it is just as good as freeing a person enslaved that morning).
[plus some others]
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With this sort of an alignment system, "Paladin" and "Blackgaurd" are more of a title than a class. Wizards can be Paladins, just as Sruids can be Blackguards. I'm considering having healing (duh, white), harming (black), outsider-blasting (both), and group (white) and self (black) buffs.
Some grey powers costing both white and black points might also be an option, since sometimes Good and Evil need to work together in order to stop Team Outer-realm.
