I'm writing something realism-heavy, and I was wondering how important allignment is to realism-based RPGs. I came up with the following, which is comprehensive but clunky.

Good/Evil
Pure/Corrupt
Lawful/Unlawful
Moral/Immoral
Pacifist/Killer
Stable/Unstable
Conformity/Non-Conformity

The idea was that they would affect how characters interact with you, and also how members of your party would fight along side you (someone with allignment totally different to yours would get jealous if they saw you doing well in battle and get bonuses in combat,) and also how opponents would fight you in battle. Unfortunately, it's probably going to be the most clunky aspect of game, any ideas as to how to retain this feature? Or would it be acceptable to scrap it and replace it with Lawful/Unlawful Good/Evil.

I watched this program the other day which was on the brain, and the presenter noted that if you ask a three year old what 'Out, out, brief candle' means, they'll say it means if you blow on a candle, it'll go out. Their perception is entirely literal - there is no symbological level, no metaphorical level.

What is the symbology or metaphor of the idea of alignment? Or is presented at a starkly literal level for an equally literal intake?

You have a lot of unnecesary things there. I say that Lawful/chatoic and good/evil is all you need. Moral and immoral is the same as good and evil, stable and unstable? That's more of a personality trait, specially since you cannot be neutral about. Corrupt? A corrupt good is evil, so no need for that.

The real question is, do you need alignments in your game? In DnD they are present because they are real tangible forces that rule the cosmos, not even the gods are immune to them. They are the different sides of a major conflict. But what do you intend to play? Does it have such powerful opposing forces that need to be a plater's choice to be on either on side or the other? Will the have a mechanical effect? In DnD 4th ed they are pretty much a left over from previous editions since they only affect your character behaviour, but that's pretty much the same as a personality description box on your char sheet, isn't it?

To the OP,
Your initial idea has redundant dichotomies, which can contradict one another, as was pointed out by another poster.  For example, the good/evil spectrum juxtaposed with the moral/immoral spectrum - can someone be immoral and good? 

If I were making a realism-heavy alignment sub-system, I would crack open the DSM-V.  My first prerogative would be to establish a baseline spectrum of morality and ethics.  From there, I would fill in the gaps with personality disorders or unique philosophies or codes of conduct, such as bushido or some radical religious sect, which guides one towards actions not typically within the baseline. 
It could look something like this:
Basic-Spectrum (akin to chaotic, lawful, or neutral good, as well as true neutral; can have various disorders as long as it doesn't cause their ethical or moral behavior to diverge from the baseline)
Sociopath (lawful evil)
Schizo-affective (chaotic neutral)
Psychopath (chaotic evil)
Bushido (lawful neutral)
Etc.

Hi,

I'm writing something realism-heavy, and I was wondering how important allignment is to realism-based RPGs.

Sorry, I didn't define a lot of those. Moral and Immoral in context (sorry about that) relate to your whether your character will go against their personal beliefs - so if your character believes that 'killing is good' for any reason, but then decides against for convenience's sake, that'd be immorality. Pure/Corrupt was similar, it's to do with whether or not you accept bribes and the like, thinking more about it probably lumps it in with morality/immorality. Stable/unstable is basically stubborness-of-thinking, it may not belong, but part of it is that a character with high stability won't undergo as much allignment shift.

The real question is, do I need them, which as Chris pointed out, I haven't given any context for, once again, sorry. I'm trying not to say too much atm, it'a a fan-based RPG based inside the Whoniverse (less beginner-focused, more realistic, and darker than the Cubicle 7 one), as mentioned before, allignment is there to determine how NPCs interact with you, how opponents on the battlefield respond to you (for example, an opponent of totally opposite allignment to you will probably target you over other players,) and how allies fight along side you (if you're doing better than an ally of totally opposite allignment, they may get a 'jealousy bonus' in combat.)

The rest is unimportant, there will be resolution to encounters without resorting to combat, but allignment probably won't come into that, although a pacifist may get a diplomacy bonus...

Bacxk to the original questions, now that's cleared up.

Hi,

Actually, we need even more context than that.

- What do the alignment mechanics DO?  Are they just guidelines for the player?  What happens if you play outside of your selected alignment?  Does it change over to reflect your behavior? Does the GM just go, "No, you don't do that."?  Do you lose character ability (i.e. Lose a character level?")

- Do you get points or bonuses for following alignment?  Does it work with certain abilities or skills differently?  Are certain abilities/skills limited to certain alignments?

- What do these alignments cause a group of players to do with their characters?  What "realistic" things come of it that would be fun? Do they conflict over it? In what way? Just talk? Fight? Kill?  In what situation?

People with different views at a dinner party conflict very differently than people on a jury together conflict differently than 2 people trapped in a bunker trying to decide if they need to fire a nuclear weapon because they're not sure if that's a radar malfunction or an actual bomb coming down.

What kinds of situations are people expected to have in your game, and how do your alignments shape that?  And how does that increase the fun, and presumably, the realism as part of it?

The ideas on your axises are pretty clear- but what do they mean for a group of people playing?  That's the context we need.

Chris

the major problem with alignment systems is that the terms used are subjective...  what does good really mean?

the important thing is to define the terms and interactions in the book.

for example is used morality:

- heroic
  generous
  gallant
  loyal

- selfish
  observant
  treacherous
  greedy

- malevolent
  tyrannical
  destructive
  insidious

each one is defined and each is different enough to easily distinguish between.

Alignment - great for sparking philosophical debate. For actually knowing what to do next in a game, as in who can or can't do what, and who does or doesn't decide what - not so great. You don't want a whole bunch of questions on what to do next to keep playing a game, yet that's exactly what it generates.

Chris, answers to your questions

They really don't do anything other than what I previously outlined, which is what makes me think they may be unnecasary. Playing against alignment will only increase immorality.

There may be some bloodlust and execution bonuses for killlers, and some charisma and stealth bonuses for pacifists, but that's it.

Other than the jealosy thing, interactions between players are up to the players, but it would be appropriate for them to argue and withold items.

Heh, something that lept to mind is if you supposedly have alignments, but they don't really do anything. What does happen, however, is that players all secretly write down what alignment their character (not the player, the character) thinks another character is. At the end of the campaign you all compare each character thought of the other...and no doubt, the lack of syncronisity between some characters perceptions.

Other than the jealosy thing, interactions between players are up to the players, but it would be appropriate for them to argue and withold items.

Yeah, I'm leaning towards scrapping alignment after this convo, thanks for the questions, made me consider the issue more than just glancing at it and thinking it's kinda cool. As awesome as jealousy and hatred woulda been.

I hope this isn't too late to reply to.

If you want realism I don't think you can include an evil alignment.  Consider that people often champion good (by whatever definition they use) but no one champions evil.  They do evil because they either disagree about what is good, or because they've decided they don't care about doing wrong to reach some other objective.  People don't do evil for its own sake, so they're never aligned with evil itself.  The idea of an evil alignment is something that comes up in D&D because they use Tolkien as a primary source, and Tolkien created a world that had largely objective and easily identifiable evil.  He was trying to create an epic saga, and in the epics there is a lot of very straight forward good vs evil. 

Corruption is a similar problem.  To be corrupt is to be changed in some way contrary to your purpose.  That assumes, first off, that you have a purpose.  It's troublesome in an rpg because you could simply change your perceived purpose, leaving you corrupt to that purpose and not corrupt towards your current purpose.  Plus you could always have more then one purpose, as well as a host of other problems. 

I agree, although I wouldn't say that all Tolkienien characters are easily identifiable as good or evil. Gollum/Smeagol and Tom Bombadil come to mind immediately, as does Denethor, and temporarily misguided Boromir to a lesser extent

You know I've never heard Bombadil added to that list, but now that I think about it that kind of indifference could certainly be argued evil.