Shadowblack: The Awakening - Taint and Alignment

The taint system is something I know I'm going to tweak until the end of time. The idea behind it is that the supernatural is just that, unnatural. It infects, corrupts and ultimately consumes the mind, body and spirit.

In Shadowblack: The Awakening players will generate something called taint. Taint represents how corrupted by "The Dark" the character has become. Generate too much taint and you may find yourself being something worse than that which you hunt.

These next three Articles will explore taint from a story and mechanical side. Hopefully it will relay my vision.

Morality and Alignment

Most people have little resistance to this corruption, often being consumed nigh instantly. When exposed, they quickly die or mutate into monstrosities. A select handful are resistant to the taint. While still corrupted, they are often able to tap into it to become stronger. The most vile gleefully give in to the taint. Their thirst for power quickly becoming too great.

The idea of a dark force that both empowers and corrupts is something I've always wanted to do, and it, along with the Shadow Marks are the backbone of the campaign. If you've ever played in one of my games then you'd know I typically throw alignments out, or at least the idea of Good and Evil.

I've always been a fan of the anti-hero and the sympathetic villain. I'm also a fan of the hero-hero who struggles with his personal demons or nature. Magneto just wants his people to not be oppressed, by any means necessary. Venom and Punisher are simply trying to punish the wicked. Vampire Hunter D and Blade are a dhampyrs (or vompeers or wampires). Even the over-hyped Wolverine is constantly struggling with his bestial nature and dicey past.

However, the idea of picking something so cut and dry as "I'm Good, but kinda chaotic and stuff" or "I'm Evil-Evil so therefor I can do whatever I want" is it takes away any level of depth or thought to the characters actions. I purposefully picked two villains in my example above. In both their minds, Magneto and Venom are not evil, they just don't follow society's rules and do what they feel is required. I think most characters should be built in a similar way.

What troubles me about picking an alignment for your character is, what exactly makes someone good or evil? Is Lex Luthor evil because he is power-mad and obsessed with destroying Superman? But what of all the money he gives to charity, or the fact that in some iterations he is really just scared of what Superman represents (Luthor is the pinnacle of human intellect, but an ant compared to the Last Son of Krypton)?

A Principled character in the Palladium system will never take a life, but their closest comparison in DnD, Lawful Good might without hesitation. Police officers sometimes have to kill in the line of duty. Soldiers often do, and for their respect countries, they are heroes. Those same soldiers can become pariahs if the war is unpopular.

Heroes in action movies often kill, and their morality is rarely in question. Finally, what of the paramedic or fire-fighter who saves the lives of three school children but cheats on his spouse that same night? In short, alignment should never be a static thing. In fact, adventure story heroes should be nuanced individuals who are either staunch in their belief or constantly struggling/doubting/questioning. Since it is typically a hassle to track the minute changes in alignment based on someone's actions, to me it make sense to either eliminate it, or make it very general.

So instead of simply saying I'm a good guy, ask yourself the following questions.

What motivates them?
What would they give anything for?
What would they kill for?
What would they do for love?
What would they won't do that?

What does this mean in Shadowblack?

In the Shadowblack game good and evil are very real things. Or least, our perceptions of them are. Some people have been exposed to a supernatural power and it has left them forever changed. Some people seek out unnatural power and it also affects them. As far as their moral and ethical code go, however, this too is affected by these unseen, but oft interacted with forces.

FATE doesn't have character alignments by default. Even if it did, we wouldn't use them in Shadowblack. A horror game should be filled with morally ambiguous choices, and an extremely upsetting dilemma could be handled with situation aspects and consequences. That being said, certain moral and ethical choices will have an effect on how much taint one has.

I rationalize this as such, fighting for your survival is very stressful. Taking a life, I reckon, is a very stressful experience. Killing someone in cold blood would likely have deep psychological ramifications. All of these things (and other morally questionable choices) wreak havoc on your psyche. You worry about being caught, going to jail, about the lives you've affected. You may even begin to worry if you indeed are a monster. By contrast, someone whose pathology allows them to harm without remorse is already highly susceptible to whatever energy is corrupting your body.

Mechanically speaking, characters in Shadowblack will generate (ie suffer) taint when they perform despicable acts, or things that make them question their ethics or sanity. I will try to nail this down more in our third article.