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?]
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| 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
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| 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.
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| 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.)
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| 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.
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