Alignment Pt 3: Oh Gods I Thought I Was Done

*Does a cool crouching pose, fingers in an ironic(?) peace sign* I'm doin' it for my players. And that one person who asked me to explain a bit on why I don't actually want people trying to play those specific character types. Except at some point I might. But I'll get to that. 

Also the formatting was weird on the phone on the last post, but Blerger here seems weird on most counts, so I messed with the post a teensy bit and maybe that helps. 

Also, I wonder if it would be jarring if I cussed a little. 

 

Why The Fuck Use Alignments?

Right off, I think there are two reasons I still often have them in my games, even if almost no one cares to use them. (And certainly I think in modern games most people have abandoned their use.) 

The first is mechanical: there are many spells and abilities, monsters and characters, and even magic items in the old school versions of the game with powers specifically detecting, affecting, or only usable by specific alignments. A random thug probably isn't going to be able to heft that Mace of Disruption, but is going to be quite content with the Envenomed Dagger of Being Really Bad or whatever. Evil is going to 100% feel it when they are repulsed by goodie-awesome-shoes Paladin. Detecting good? Evil? Whatever you need to get the info you desire. 

Now, by limiting the alignments, like any other option in the game, you cultivate a particular play experience. In my case, I don't want my table to be at odds with one another. The ideal is to have the characters working together without an in-game reason to be at odds with one another. My game is deadly and tough enough that often they need to be enmeshing their skills, and blowing out their powers together to survive or succeed in picking up that sweet tomb-gold. 

So, the question is why keep them in if there is the opportunity for friction within the game? I feel like the benefit they have is in helping define, even in the slightest way (old-est-school players classically hate backstories), the character. And by having characters that are already leaned toward cooperation, the party as a whole has a better chance to gel as a unit. 

I think when the players are in the mindset of mostly good-aligned people, it cultivates more the kind of experience I want to have at the table and (usually) in my game-world. My games usually tend toward faerie-tale (and baroque political and interpersonal interconnections, sure, but that's a different matter =P), not edgy 90's style lone-wolf coolios, nor overbearing quandaries of some sort of  grey-scale morality in a grimdark world. And definitely not the haha-so-random tonal wrecking-ball that some players might want to bring to a setting. I'd like the characters to be the ones the tales are eventually about, not the ones that get melted in a pot, or thrown off the Cliff of Being Malevolent, or trying to throw a poor NPC off the Cliff of Being Malevolent, or whatever. 

These guys are Neutral Baaad Cliff-throwers of the Realm.

 

But! But! If we're all on the same page tonally, do we really need what some people would say are limitations, specifying the direction the PC will make in his or her decision making process when interacting with the game-world? Is it another one of those artifacts of older editions that are kept in for nostalgia purposes? After all, I can literally say, "Hey, you primitive screwheads," to my players, as I am wont to do, "play some good guys in a medieval-style story-book setting, right!" and I am pretty sure everyone would be on board with it. (But, man, it's fun to zzap people with out of alignment magic items! Haha-haha.)

So, I am pretty sure that in a future-as-yet-only-stuck-in-my-head-game I won't be using the 9 point alignment array.

Hopefully all of this blathering makes sense, because...

Ok IF Alignments Are In, What's The Deal With The 3 Point Thingy? Also Alignment Languages

Well, where did the alignments come from originally, you might ask? (Unless you're one of us nerd-types who roll about in remembering things like this, creature-like, splashing random factoids over our brainbox and call that knowing stuff.) Well, Gary and Dave, they made a little thing called Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures. Seriously, that was what the original was (sub)titled. Well, as you see within that fairly elaborate title, "wargames" sort of anchors the descriptors. And wargames have to have sides. 

I do not actually own this. It is not $10.00 now.

 So, I also heard Gary liked a book called Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson. Within that book, the good guys were agents of Law, and the bad guys and many of the monsters and whatnot are on team Chaos. Later my dude Michael Moorcock would, of course, cite the same book as inspiration for the BIG multiverse and its' unceasing war of the Eternal Balance between Chaos and Law. Both of these authors were clearly influences on early Dungeons & Dragons (and have a listing in the famous Appendix N in the later DMG, the list of "Inspirational and Educational Reading").

The early alignment system was a way to pick teams! (Probably maybe. It's what I'm sticking with =P) Throw in Neutrality to round things out for unaligned animals, and those who try to maintain the balance (or Balance capital B), and you have the original three-point alignment system.

I think, for mechanical games-uses, I can dig it. Compact, easy to deal with, doesn't take a lot of explaining for new players. 

There is something weird, though.  

That's from pg B11 of the Moldvay Basic set, cause I can't be bothered to find a picture of any other example. These things. Well, if you didn't wonder about the general use of alignments before, or argued, or cared at all, now there's something many people could get behind as a wtf is that used for? I don't remember anyone really using it when I was a kid (okay that would have been me, since there wasn't anyone else to run games. Whatever. It still counts). I do remember people arguing about what it all meant, though. Why did that exist? weelll....

To quote Gary (with all the misspellings left intact) from message boards in 2007:

As D&D was being quantified and qualified bu the publication of the supplemental rules booklets. I decided that Thieves' cant should not be the only secret language. thus alignment languages come into play, the rational being they were akin to Hebrew for Jewish and Latin for Roman Catholic persons.

I have since regretted the addition, as the non-cleric user would have only a limited vocabulary, and luttle cound be conveyed or understoon by the use of an alignment language between non-clerical users.

However, stretching those creative brain-juice-muscles that sloop about wetly, I, in a fit of inspiration, decided to use that weird-ass clunky artifact of early editions. Shoehorn in Angels, Demons, and Djinn, the mind-heat of some Primordial gods, and voila!

To quote me:

 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! I got me an excuse to use the 3-point alignment system, the languages, too. And incidentally have three classes of super-duper-natural beings to pepper the landscape with that aren't big booming Gods or scheme-y Infernals. 

And that's why I use alignments, Thank you and good night.

F'ing Alignment Pt 2

 Soon, sooooon, I want to get some notes down about something I was thinking about, which I think could work for my Dragonslayer game. Hopefully I'm not reinventing some awful AD&D 2nd ed. proficiency system or kits or whatever they were, but I have been ruminating a bit on the idea of "overlays" for the characters.

 I have been contemplating (rarely, and only in semi-lucid, dreamy states, while gazing softly out at the clouds flowing by, or something) a few specialty classes, like the Thief-Acrobat, and the Bard from 1st ed., and wonder if I could make something, combining with downtime activities that would slurp up a bit of experience points to allow some features from these specialties. Right now, I'm thinking about the aforementioned Bard and the Acrobat, but also a Ninja overlay, as well as a Duelist overlay. The initial idea was heavily inspired by the ninja class in Oriental Adventures, but we'll see how much of that gets ported over. If any of this comes to anything. 

I mean, maybe I'll scrap the whole thing and play the Tales of Alethrion RPG, which I gave into buying a copy from a seller on Ebay. 

 

 

SO! Alignments, right? Riiiiight? 

Like I mentioned previously, I'm going to cherry pick a few things from the books I got, then throw in my impression, and everyone will leave satisfied the whole thing has been solved, and another word will never need to be spoken about it ever again. [PHB is, of course, the AD&D Player's Handbook looking at pg.33 , DMG the Dungeon Master's Guide pg. 23 from the same edition, and DS will be from Dragonslayer RPG pg. 40, kay?]

Ooooh, pretty, like chaos in the astral sea, I suppose.

The Not-Allowed-In-My-Game Alignments

Chaotic Evil

PHB: Randomness and woe. Kindness and good are disdained. Life has no value. 

DMG: Individual freedom is important, others' freedoms are unimportant.

DS: Carnage, destruction, greed. Random violence.

Looks like these guys are just jerks to everyone all of the time. Don't trust no one and nothing cause everything is screwing or eating everything else forever. DESTRUCTION

Neutral Evil

PHB: Pure evil is all. Chaos and law are foolish clutter to be used.

DMG: Weal for all brings woe to the deserving. Natural forces cull the weak and stupid. Use whatever means for dominance without concern for anything.

DS: Evil for the sake of evil. Self-interest. 

It's like the baddest of the bad guys. Everyone is a dumb-ass or deluded, except them, and them is real evil. DON'T TOUCH IT, IT'S EVIIIIILL.

Lawful Evil

PHB: Scorn beauty and truth and freedom. Adhere to the strictest discipline to impose your will.

DMG:  Structure between groups, with the strongest being served by the weaker. Good is just an excuse to promote mediocrity, suppressing the better.

DS: Tradition, loyalty, and order without care or compassion. Strict adherence to discipline and order.

Going to keep the order no matter what. It's hard to maintain an iron fist without specific (if exploitable) laws. DOMINATION

Chaotic Neutral

PHB: Above respect or disregard: randomness and disorder. Neither good nor evil must prevail because chaos would suffer.

DMG: Absolute freedom for the individual, with good and evil of no concern. With life being ordered, death is a desirable end. Life is only justified to combat order.

DS: Individuality and self-interest above all things. Unpredictable with no moral convictions.

Not just "lol-random" like all of the kids used to play them, but "horrible-random," these guys might be one of the worst, because they aren't even doing things to specifically destroy, and certainly not to help. Ever. Just doing things for an increase in entropy and especially "haha for myself." SELFISHNESS 

 

Something something balancing a fine symmetry, meaningfully.

The Barely-Allowed-In-My-Game Alignments

Lawful Neutral

PHB: Regulation is all-important. The ultimate harmony of the world rests in order, all else is immaterial in bringing everything into predictability.

DMG: Law and order give all purpose. Regimentation in the universe brings purpose and meaning, and good and evil are of no import.

DS: The maintaining of order. Following established laws and traditions, though with few moral convictions.

The rules lawyers of the universe, only they have weapons very often. Going to have some strict, no wavering. letter-of-the-law interpretations of situations, and decisions made, sometimes to their own and others' detriment. They are allowed, because they can work with others within a framework, or toward a common goal oftentimes. UNBENDING, COLD LAW

Neutral

PHB: Each aspect must be retained in balance. Nature will prevail, provided intelligences don't unbalance the work of natural forces.

DMG: Everything is an integral part of the cosmos. Each thing exists as part of the whole, and no one thing must become ascendant. This alignment haves the narrowest scope.

DS: Balance between all of the directions, as "nature intended." May act situationally for own interests or a greater good. 

Alright, this is one that I never loved, and definitely interpret much more like some other systems. That is, it's fine if you want to play a neutral character in my games, as this is where most people in the world fall into. I am not going with the "balance above all" or "nature's intent" interpretations typically; that seems like an interesting alignment, but a different kind of neutral to me. Fanatic, or primitivist, or egomaniac, I dunno. Very judgy seeming, since with this interpretation, a neutral character seems primed to smash down whomever is currently ascendant. 

I like to think of it as more the alignment for people without strong convictions one way or another, nor without the pull of great forces pulling them hither and yon. Normal people, usually. They may keep their head down in the face of adversity, but may throw a wagon off a child if there's a connection there.

 

Letter-tiles as the epitomy of visual example, again?

The Easily-Allowed Alignments

Chaotic Good

PHB: Freedom and randomness are truths, but life and welfare of everyone is important. Respect for the individual.

DMG: Freedom is the way by which each creature can achieve true satisfaction. Restrictions are wrong as each individual has the ability to attain prosperity.

DS: Personal individuality, and following your own moral compass, regardless of the social norms. 

These are what most people actually play outside of the adventuring party, I think. Rebels on the edge of society with a heart of gold, and all that, trying to do good without getting kept down by the man. Or the king or baroness or whatever. FREEDOM

Lawful Good

PHB: Strict in law and order,, but only to improve the common weal. Truth is the highest value, and life and beauty of great importance.

DMG: Order is necessary to assure good. Good is best defined as that which brings the most benefit to the greatest number. 

DS: Upholding the highest principles of justice, striving to be forthright, law-abiding, and compassionate. Oppose evil in all forms.

The social glue trying to hold everyone together, building charities and institutions, and trying to do the most good for the most people. Probably the leader types, probably going to eventually make that dangerous zone a nice place to live. SOCIETY

 

The Best Alignment

Neutral Good

PHB: There must be some regulation in combination with freedoms, if the most beneficial conditions for all things is to be attained. The best to be brought to the world.

DMG: Life, happiness, and prosperity above all. Order is only desirable if it brings it to everyone, and freedom is undesirable if it does not.

DS: Compassion and kindness, without strict adherence to authority. Good can be attained through law or chaos, or in balance, so a flexible worldview.

Alright, so if you're going to be good, you're going to try to do good, regardless of if the rules say you have to do some specific thing, or if everyone is running around like random idiots not helping anyone. Sometimes you have to help that one individual, make the sacrifice, whatever, even if it doesn't bring the most help, just because it's the right thing to do. Sometimes you have to think of everyone. BEIN' THOUGHTFUL, BEIN' GOOD

 

 

 

Okay. Jeez, that was a lot of blah, blah, blah, and I think I'm pretty much done with it. I know a zillion people have talked deeply about these things, but my only intention was to skim a couple sources and get down the gist of what I noticed. I am not even sure if, with a bit of actual thought, I might have used different language, or chosen different phraseology to focis on. But it's late and I'm tired, and this is what got gotten. 

One thing I realized after getting all of these noted, was that I rather like the explanations listed in Dragonslayer. They were clear to me, without getting out to the extreme edges of the compass, so-to-speak. I suppose it makes sense to try to make the AD&D alignment wheel archetypal, as the actual Outer Planes, and the classification of the gods and whatnot is reflected in the various specifically defined directions it points to. But the simpler explanations give a bit of clarity to the extreme viewpoints laid out early on. 

All in all, I think I can take it or leave it. I like how alignments interact with certain spells and abilities, as well as a bit of defining beasts not of this world, but rigidly defining PCs seems tedious. I mean, I am 100% never ever going to make a chart tracking my player's behaviors to ensure an accurate assessment of their moral compass is kept. (If anyone does that, I'd be very interested to hear about your campaign. That's pretty intense.)

It's not Elric, but let's see if any of my players recognize the figure.

 

As I've been re-experiencing D&D recently, especially old-school versions, my preferences have definitely shifted. When I was younger the 3-point alignment seemed, well, too basic, even with my immersion in Elric and the other Moorcockian characters (I hadn't yet read Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions). Now, with the inclusion of Fire of the Gods' Dreams fitting well with Law to Angels, Chaos to the Djinn, and Neutrality to the Demons, I think I am leaning more and more toward just including that in my games. 

Or ditching the whole silly thing, cause why not.