D&D 1E Should Gold Dragons always be LG and Black Dragons always be CE?

[Voadam]

I take a fairly 1e view of monster alignment.

"ALIGNMENT shows the characteristic bent of a monster to law or chaos, good or evil or towards neutral behavior possibly modified by good or evil intent. It is important with regard to the general behavior of the monster when encountered."

I read that as the listed alignment is the characteristic bent of a monster type in general, but that does not mean there is no variation among individual monsters of that type or that an individual is locked in hard on alignment.

So Dwarves are Lawful Good but in G3 Gygax has Obmi the renegade mountain dwarf.

Drow are Chaotic Evil but in D3 Gygax threw in "Nilonim, a dissident Drow captured in Erelhei-Cinlu where he led a band of rebels attempting to overthrow noble rule. He is of neutral alignment with a slight tendency towards good deeds."

Dragons in AD&D were just listed with an alignment like other monsters in the MM.

In D&D I would generally expect things to more likely than not be as listed in the MM, but finding divergent ones would not be unreasonable.

The closest thing to hinting at dragon alignment essentialism in the 1e MM is the Tiamat entry which says "Tiamat rules the first plane of the Nine Hells where she spawns all of evil dragonkind."

It was not until 3e where the Monster Manual listed dragons' alignments as always X.

 

[kigmatzomat]

That having been said, you could do the Pool of Radiance thing and have an otherwise Good dragon possessed by evil.

I have done this with a "tarnished" dragon (a silver guarding sentient evil relic). It was less possessed and more driven insane by centuries of psychic whispering. Its hide was dull gray with black streaks , and the gas breath weapon changed from paralyzing to confusion/insanity.

Dragons literally exhale magic and in most settings are offspring of gods. Humanoid rules should not apply. IMO their physical form & magical abilities reflected inner changes.

If you meet a red/gold dragon....is it an evil dragon with a budding sense of morals or a good dragon full of hate?

But just to note, some evil creatures can love. (Some like are sociopaths with no capacity for true empathy, let alone love). It's a weird love, but it's love.

 

[Andvari]

I take a fairly 1e view of monster alignment.

"ALIGNMENT shows the characteristic bent of a monster to law or chaos, good or evil or towards neutral behavior possibly modified by good or evil intent. It is important with regard to the general behavior of the monster when encountered."

I read that as the listed alignment is the characteristic bent of a monster type in general, but that does not mean there is no variation among individual monsters of that type or that an individual is locked in hard on alignment.

So Dwarves are Lawful Good but in G3 Gygax has Obmi the renegade mountain dwarf.

Drow are Chaotic Evil but in D3 Gygax threw in "Nilonim, a dissident Drow captured in Erelhei-Cinlu where he led a band of rebels attempting to overthrow noble rule. He is of neutral alignment with a slight tendency towards good deeds."

Dragons in AD&D were just listed with an alignment like other monsters in the MM.

In D&D I would generally expect things to more likely than not be as listed in the MM, but finding divergent ones would not be unreasonable.

The closest thing to hinting at dragon alignment essentialism in the 1e MM is the Tiamat entry which says "Tiamat rules the first plane of the Nine Hells where she spawns all of evil dragonkind."

It was not until 3e where the Monster Manual listed dragons' alignments as always X.

Even the 3E monster manual says there can be exceptions (albeit very rare) to “Always.”

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Even the 3E monster manual says there can be exceptions (albeit very rare) to “Always.”

Unfortunately, the majority of people took that to mean that alignment could - and SHOULD - therefore never, EVER be a reliable thing. Any assumption that any renowned vile, EVIL monster was actually worthy of death meant that your character committed the crime of not first verifying beyond a doubt that the LIKELYHOOD was actually FACT. DM's seemed to love that. They placed normally evil creatures in front of PC's, but the creatures were now the routinely-found "exceptions". The DM would give no clues, or signs, or warnings that the "known-to-be-evil" monsters WASN'T actually evil, so the PC's would just kill them. Then the DM would smack all the PC's with the alignment-violation hammer and nobody would enjoy it.

Rather than giving good advice to a DM that they needed to be careful when they created any "exception" monsters, because they weren't a good idea to use as a impossible-to-suspect trap, they only CREATED a bigger problem by undermining one of the core uses for alignment in the first place - to KNOW how a monster was going to behave in terms of morals and ethics. It was a paladin-alignment trap that was opened up to be freely inflicted upon all PC's. It was stupid game design that made everything worse, except for those few DM's who understood better than the designers and said, "That is NOT how it works in my game."

 

[Voadam]

Unfortunately, the majority of people

I don't think the majority of people turned monsters into routinely found exceptions.

The DM would give no clues, or signs, or warnings that the "known-to-be-evil" monsters WASN'T actually evil, so the PC's would just kill them. Then the DM would smack all the PC's with the alignment-violation hammer and nobody would enjoy it.

That seems a more personal experience to me than a majority experience.

All the stories I have heard of the 3.0 Sunless Citadel for example it was well telegraphed that Meepo the kobold was a potential ally. This includes my experience having gone through it as a player.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

That seems a more personal experience to me than a majority experience.

Barely experienced anything like it myself. It's overwhelmingly a reaction to personal experiences of people I've seen post online facing similar shenanigans.

All the stories I have heard of the 3.0 Sunless Citadel for example it was well telegraphed that Meepo the kobold was a potential ally. This includes my experience having gone through it as a player.

And that is the exception that almost proved the rule. One week you lure them into false security with the fun, friendly kobold ally, then the next week they don't react in time to the friendly-SEEMING, fun goblin assassin who murders the old lady who ran the orphanage. It's a badly-explained/unexplained rule that gives fuel to bad DM's to continue doing bad-DM stuff with alignment.