What about the sneering lip of the NE or CE character? Or the friendly yapping of a blink dog companion? Are these just corner cases that don't need to be worried about?
(To be clear - I'm not sure how they should be handled. The AD&D rules are unclear on this, as you indicated in your opening post.)
Right, and just how unclear they are is becoming more apparent. Part of the problem seems to be the way in which the modifiers have been given to us, basically as a set of modifiers to Loyalty, which we are then told to apply to a reaction check. We are left wondering to what degree we are to consider the monster a "henchman" of the character in question, at least for the purposes of the check. If the character speaking is to be considered as the "liege," then are we to only use those modifiers found under the heading of "liege" for the purpose of determining a reaction when someone is, in fact, speaking, or might they apply in other circumstances?
I've tried to focus this thread on the way alignment is treated in first edition encounter reactions to get some ideas about how this works in practice. I've played and DM'ed first edition in the past, but I don't recall ever using this mechanic. I'd imagine that many people have had the same experience. But I'd like to try using encounter reactions in my fifth edition games, and this issue of how exactly to treat alignment has been one of many grey areas I've come across.
Perhaps I should explain how I want this to all come out in the end. Conversation Reactions are the mechanic provided for resolving social interactions in fifth edition. To use this system, the DM is required to assign a Starting Attitude to the NPC of hostile, uncertain, or friendly. So what I'd like to add by converting the first edition system is a way to randomly determine the Starting Attitude based on certain factors, one of which has traditionally been the alignments of the parties involved. It's a part of the "classic" game that seems to be missing from the present edition.
So, to answer your excellent questions, I've gone back to the sources, because one of the principles I try to follow in interpreting first edition is that it expands on the game that came before it without necessarily superseding it. It turns out that, in 1974, Gygax and Arneson provided us with a Monster Reaction table to randomly ascertain the actions of "those monsters which are intelligent enough to avoid an obviously superior force," to use one of their phrases for such creatures. A short, incomplete list of possible modifiers to the 2d6 roll was given, including such factors as "the alignment of the parties concerned." No numerical values were given. It was
not suggested that this method be only used for the purposes of a parley, social interactions, and the like. It was, rather, an all purpose tool for randomizing the dynamics of almost any encounter.
It's only with his presentation of the Encounter Reactions table on page 63 of the first edition DMG, that EGG seems to focus on verbal interaction as some sort of precondition for the use the table. In light of the earlier game's reaction system, which is almost identical in its basic design, and the example he gives on page 10 when illustrating the use of "averaging dice", I believe it's a misinterpretation of EGG's words to assume that reaction rolls
only be used when a character is speaking. Nevertheless, verbal communication is a strong component of what he's adding with the AD&D system.
Specifically, he states that the NPC is to be regarded as a henchman of the character speaking. This would equate speaker with "liege" when using the rather extensive set of modifiers he gives for the purposes of determining an NPC's loyalty on pages 36-37, but he also gives another, small set of alignment based modifiers under the heading "Associated Group". I suppose that some of the uncertainty regarding the implementation of these modifiers stems from the fact that EGG only points us toward them in situations where a character is speaking, while at the same time, he gives no other modifiers for alignment to be used in situations where perhaps no one is speaking, besides those he gives for the liege's associates. We are left to choose between the two alternatives, then, that on the one hand, alignment only be considered when someone is speaking, possibly in contravention of earlier practices, and on the other, that alignment always be considered through use of the "associate" modifiers, but that it is
intensified as a factor when someone speaks.
I'm now leaning strongly towards the latter. The intent seems to be that alignment will manifest in
some way, whether it be through sneers, holy symbols, friendly yapping, or, my original suggestion, through the aura spoken of in the Know Alignment spell. The particular form of this manifestation is not important, however, if we agree that it is the alignment itself, or rather the difference in alignment, that is operating between the parties to produce the adjustments that we apply to the die-roll. How this mechanically operates over an encounter distance of up to 100 yards is another matter to consider, but it seems that the original intent was for alignment to play a part in any of these interactions. I think the simplest explanation is that alignment is not only our internal view of the world, but also how the world views us from the outside, encompassing something akin to reputation, perhaps.
Anyone have experience with using one interpretation or another in gameplay and potential pitfalls in verisimilitude that could result?
