Devotion - Turning Alignment into a Stat

It looks like the next edition of DnD will get rid of Alignment.

Alignment is such a core part of DnD, going all the way back to Chainmail, it is hard to imagine the game without it. The Sword & Sorcery and fantasy genres that inspired the early campaigns in general are rooted in the struggle of good and evil. I'd like to propose an alternate alignment system that will preserve its place for older fans and make room for new generations to embrace the game. 

This is a system that preserves the idea of alignment while opening up the system for any ideas to come. This should satisfy established players of the game as well as be welcoming to new players who may not hold the same views.

Devotion

Devotion is your character’s life philosophy, cause, or religious beliefs and how devoted they are to it. Your character’s dedication to their beliefs is their devotion stat. This may be used to resist temptation, or to disobey mind control if being forced by dark magics to do that which is contrary to their beliefs. Each character starts with a Devotion stat of 10, this may be adjusted by class, ancestry, level, and behavior.

3-8:     weakly holds to their ideals 

9-11:     moderately holds to their ideals

12-15:    strongly holds to their ideals

16-17:    very strongly holds to their ideals

18+:         near fanatical devotion to their ideals

There may be temporary modifiers to a character’s devotion score. An influential and charismatic leader can increase devotion or even change beliefs.

There are many philosophies in the world. Law & chaos, good & evil are core elements of the swords & sorcery genre. Some want everything to have an order, to obey the will of the gods or of the king. Others want to indulge in anarchy, unbeholden to any man or god. Your character may hold compassion to be the highest ideal. Or you may believe that the god of war is the most powerful and the only one worthy of worship who all should bend the knee to. If the character violates his or her devotion then the GM may penalize them or reduce their devotion stat. Characters may also evolve and develop different devotions through game play.

By default the character is either Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic, but there is no limit to the different possible devotions a character may hold and a player may work with the GM to make one up that fits their character concept. Some example are described here:

Law: the character holds the rule of law to be the highest ideal.

Neutrality: the character does not want to take sides

Anarchy: the character rejects all forms of coercion by force of law, hierarchy, and order.

War: the character believes that conquest and war is the only way to unite the people and bring peace.

Compassion: the character feels deeply for others and wants no harm to come to anyone.

Nihilism: the character rejects all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless and there is no point to the world.

Stoicism: the character believes in reigning in passions. “Fear does us more harm than the things of which we’re afraid.”

Good: the character is morally excellent, virtuous, and holds righteousness as the highest ideal. 

Pious: the character is devoted to the commandments of his or her deity.

Evil: the character is self centered, immoral, wicked, and of ill nature. Of course no one thinks they are evil so they will call their philosophy by another name such as

This was inspired in part by this old post on Alignment: https://dungeoneering.blogspot.com/2010/11/concentric-alignment.html