Don't Do It...Don't Do It...Gonna Do It (For My Players Who Seemed Both Confused and Sure): F'ing Alignment

That's more than 9 points.

 

Alright, I've got the Post-Punk Coldwave Darkwave Playlist Vol 301 playing in the background, it's much much too late to start tippy-tapping about random RPG subjects, and I'm burned out a bit from playing chess and putting together a jump-box. So, of course, ready to tackle one of those subjects. One of those eye-rolling subjects, like what are hit-points, and how frickin' heavy are old school gold pieces, and how much is Random Corporation X running thing Y into the ground.

Well, I am sort of joining in with that rite-of-passage of bloggery: making an opinion. And it's going to be on the nine-point alignment system. For me, it's been one of those things I always have left in my D&D games, always want to make sense, think it makes sense within the implied settings of D&D-land. But also, it always vaguely bothers me. 

At one point I found Palladium Fantasy, and thought I would not never no more need no other fantasy system (gosh! that must have been at least 500 years ago, or in the 90s at any rate). Among the many things I liked about the Palladium RPG was the alignment system, which to my mind made a lot of sense. Principled and unprincipled, be a jerky miscreant, or scrupulous to a fault, I liked the descriptive choices, rather than what seemed to be the intrinsic internal moral arrow of D&D's alignments. 

Even with the overarching atmosphere of a Great Game, as exemplified by Moorcock's multiverse, permeating the fabric of the game, the rigid feeling 9-point alignment always raised more questions, it seemed, than guided many players into a compass for role-playing. And I read a lot of Moorcock. Obviously. His ideas still permeate all of my game-worlds. I even currently have precepts from The Dreamthief's Daughter as sort of scriptures for adventurers to follow, scattered about the various worlds. But, the D&D alignments can seem a bit restrictive as compared to his Eternal Struggle. I mean, didn't Gaynor fight on the side of Law for a long-ass time, as a big jerk, before being a big jerk for Chaos (or, perhaps the other way around. Either way that dude for sure broke out of the "alignment" imperative to fight for the bad-guys! Nice). 

So, have I come around full-circle, full of wide-eyed enthusiasm for Gygaxian Outer Planes all compass-ified upon the alignment-wheel? (Man, I did love those..fine, do love that model of the Planes a bit, even if I sniff at my younger self never getting to use them in any meaningful way. Oh yeah, I for sure have my own thing going now, that's only slightly derivative, and that only because I habitually steal from everything.) 

Nope! I am too tired for wide-eyed anything, except surprise when I get the energy to blather on about some random subject. But I am still trying to get those D&D-style alignments to really work for me, and, yep, they've been going in every iteration of the game I've been running recently. And, even the concept of alignment languages worked out alright in the setting we used them in, a setting at first played in Moldvay Basic (before switching to Swords & Wizardry, because more funner I think, though my Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert books get referenced all of the time for random, easy info). 

They will attack immediately if either hears the wrong frickin alignment language.

 

In Filios, the alignments map onto the psychic fire of the Gods, and thus the 3-point system, instead of being part of a cosmic Moorcokian struggle, is a sort of soul-fire, or affinity for beings that actually exist in the world. The language of Law, therefore, is the language of Fire Without Change, the Angels. The language of Chaos is spoken by those powers to fuel change and destruction, Fire Without Smoke, the Endjinn (bindable, sometimes, into machines to run them interminably, or into containers by the real danger-seekers). And, of course, Neutrailty in the middle. This language is the language of Demons, Fire Without Light, who are much, much of the time doers of great evils, but are the only of the Gods'-dreams capable of real choice. Famously, 3 of the Twelve Great Saints are, of course, Demons, who achieved the Repose of Perfect Understanding and are venerated Spheres-wide. 

Alright. All of this was actually supposed to be preface to a quick (har har) overview of what I consider the 9-point alignment to be in my game. My very own, personal, nobody else's opinion, not what I think is dogma or a capital T truth or anything like that. I already pulled out my AD&D Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide, as well as the rule-set I am currently using, Dragonslayer. They are scattered around me, opened to their respective pages describing what each has to say about the subject, and I think next time, I'll cherry pick the pertinent points from each entry, as well as my own summarization of what I want them to be in The Bright Spans and Filios (ie my danged Dunges and Dragonning Gamesers). 

Til later!?

A House-rule Guaranteed Not To Get Out of Hand

Well.  Once a month, non sequential, barely new writey..things...posts seems to be the current way of it. I suppose I ought to get to scribbling a bit more on the Bright Spans, if for no other reason than the title did say "Pt. 1". Though that sort of thing rarely puts a dent in my focus to get some follow-ups done. 

I did, however, throw down some stats and saves abbreviations right behind my moderately functional hit-chart. Thems are for the "sweet scars" one can receive! It barely makes sense with some of them, but they mostly have a reason, even if it is obscure, or just amusing in my own head. Easy ones are like the "side/kidney → stone" or various head to int ones. More obscure ones like "calf → wis" take some parsing I suppose (the calf as the "heart of the lower body" and some sort of correlation of wisdom to the cardiac muscle). Ok, I suppose many of them are really stretching it, but it gave me a bit of amusement, and, more importantly, a way for my players to get big-bubba-stat boosts! 

The glorious glow knowing you can now take on one more henchman after your Charisma went up,

 

Man, if there's one thing that players like, it's attribute bumps. Attaching all of this to the hit chart gives me a reason to use that hit chart. When a player drops to 0 or negative hit points I roll the bones, and if it makes any sense at all, the devastating blow will have landed on the bodily region indicated. At 0 hps, the lucky PC just gains the sweet scar and +1 to the relevant stat indicated. At the dreaded negative hps, if they survive, they come-to with a limp or some other memento of their battle as well as the little boost. 

In the last session, dipping into B4 The Lost City, the Wednesday group came upon the scrufflings and eventual crunchings of the giant-ass gecko on the bird-masked guy behind the bed in the abandoned priest's quarters. They weren't too careful, and just poked around until the thing jumped them. Then everyone converged on the room, just in time for the second one to spring. They almost lost a PC or two, but with judicious use of the porters they brought, and my wrassling rules, they barely scraped by. (Also the fighter Anja crit failing, using a luck-point to reroll, and rolling another 1, leading to the Dragonslayer crit fumble chart, and another hit on the already downed assassin was classic.) The cleric Eli turned and healing energies flowed off of him to Omen, but was then munched on by the hungry hungry gecko. So close. Anyhow, they both got "almost died-gimme my sweet scar" bonuses.

I can already see all of this getting out of hand, so I'm thinking about limiting it to once per level, or having it cost one of their limited luck points to boost the attribute. If that's the case (and that's what I'm leaning toward right now) I'll only allow once per session. If someone gets KO'd multiple times in a delve, it seems alright to let the player choose what to get the boost in. Hopefully all of this doesn't promote carelessness or nonchalance toward getting downed or, worse, the players looking to get smashed (though that does give me thoughts of amusing scenarios), but instead a feeling of hard-won improvements and battle-field experience. 

Besides, they have yet to experience someone getting dragged off instead of just attacked until hps are depleted. That might make the less thoughtful character squint apprehensively into the gibbering darkness.