D&D General Worlds of Design: Is Fighting Evil Passé?

When I started playing Dungeons & Dragons (1975) I had a clear idea of what I wanted to be and to do in the game: fight evil. As it happened, I also knew I wanted to be a magic user, though of course I branched out to other character classes, but I never deviated from the notion of fighting evil until I played some neutral characters, years after I started.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.” Albert Einstein

To this day I think of the game as good guys against bad guys, with most of my characters (including the neutrals) on the good guy side. I want to be one of those characters who do something about evil. I recognize that many do not think and play this way, and that's more or less the topic of this column. Because it makes a big difference in a great deal that happens when you answer the question of whether the focus of the campaign is fighting evil.

In the early version of alignment, with only Law and Chaos, it was often Law (usually good) against Chaos (usually evil). I learned this form from Michael Moorcock's Elric novels before D&D, though I understand it originated in Pohl Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions. That all went out the window when the Good and Evil axis was added to alignment. That's the axis I'm talking about today.

This is a "black and white" viewpoint, versus the in-between/neither/gray viewpoint so common today. But I like my games to be simple, and to be separate from reality. I don't like the "behave however you want as long as you don't get caught" philosophy.

Usually, a focus on fighting evil includes a focus on combat, though I can see where this would not necessarily be the case. Conversely, a focus on combat doesn't necessarily imply a focus on fighting evil. Insofar as RPGs grow out of popular fiction, we can ask how a focus on fighting evil compares with typical fiction.

In the distant past (often equated with "before 1980" in this case) the focus on fighting evil was much more common in science fiction and fantasy fiction than it is today, when heroes are in 50 shades of gray (see reference). Fighting evil, whether an individual, a gang, a cult, a movement, a nation, or an aggressive alien species, is the bedrock in much of our older science fiction and fantasy, much less so today.

Other kinds of focus?

If fighting evil isn't the focus, what is?

• In a "Game of Thrones" style campaign, the politics and wars of great families could provide a focus where good and evil hardly matter.
• "There's a war on" might be between two groups that aren't clearly good or evil (though each side individually might disagree).
• A politically-oriented campaign might be all about subterfuge, assassination, theft, and sabotage. There might be no big battles at all.
• A campaign could focus on exploration of newly-discovered territory. Or on a big mystery to solve. Or on hordes of refugees coming into the local area.

I'm sure there are many inventive alternatives to good vs evil, especially if you want a "grayer" campaign. I think a focus on good vs evil provides more shape to a RPG campaign than anything else. But there are other ways of providing shape. YMMV. If you have an unusual alternative, I hope you'll tell us about it.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

My, rather reductionist, take on alignment:

Lawful: You follow an external code (laws, ethos, religion, fraternal order, knightly order, etc.)
Chaotic: You reject external codes.

Good: You sacrifice yourself to help others.
Evil: You sacrifice others to help yourself.

This is about as four colors as I really want alignment in my D&D to be.

In the above, though, Hobbits would probably be anywhere between lawful good and neutral. Lawful good if you focus on their social structures and the ways they help each other (which is a bit lacking in the source material). Neutral in that their social order doesn't seem to get much veneration and they don't go out of their way to help anyone but their own. Individually, Frodo seems neutral good -- he clearly sacrifices himself for others, but doesn't appear to adhere to or reject an external code. Sam is similar. Aragon is lawful good -- he adheres to an external code and sacrifices himself. Boromir would be lawful neutral -- his adherence to external codes is strong and he's not terribly concern with helping or harming others in following it. Gollum is chaotic evil -- he rejects any outside codes and willing sacrifices others for his own good. Orcs seem lawful evil -- they follow an external code, but will harm others to help themselves. Goblins maybe neutral evil to chaotic evil? Not a lot of data there.

What is your take on eru illuvatar's alignment? I feel like its actually LN with only a slight leaning toward LG all things considered. Was curious if you thought similarly.

Also, i know tolkein's intention is for him to be either LG or NG. I know that's his intended narrative, you can tell thats the attempted positioning of the entity, but IMO it doesnt really come through as hoped.

 

[Hoffmand]

has anyone ever considered that it’s not about personal code or government law, but about cosmic law or what the enlightenment would have called natural law which is in no way a reference to Druidism.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

has anyone ever considered that it’s not about personal code or government law, but about cosmic law or what the enlightenment would have called natural law which is in no way a reference to Druidism.

Generally i consider it relevant to cosmically inherant forms of order.

I dont think most peopke quite think that way.

Classic d&d cosmology was actually based on ancient greek ideas of the conceptual levels of existance btw (which is actually at the core of this discussion. Some may know why. Most will not.)

 

[Son of the Serpent]

has anyone ever considered that it’s not about personal code or government law, but about cosmic law or what the enlightenment would have called natural law which is in no way a reference to Druidism.

It is difficult to say if triangles or we are more real. The ancient greeks would say triangles.

 

[Hoffmand]

Generally i consider it relevant to cosmically inherant forms of order.

I dont think most peopke quite think that way.

Classic d&d cosmology was actually based on ancient greek ideas of the conceptual levels of existance btw (which is actually at the core of this discussion. Some may know why. Most will not.)

The enlightenment (or age of reason) was basically an extension of Greek and Roman thought.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

has anyone ever considered that it’s not about personal code or government law, but about cosmic law or what the enlightenment would have called natural law which is in no way a reference to Druidism.

Nope. Considering many versions of D&D give kingdoms and cities an alignment in their stat blocks, I think it is meant to be much more real and basic and to give a general idea of how the kingdom or city is run/controlled.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

So ive been thinking about the original question.

"Is fighting evil passe"

I have to answer no. Actually i dont think it is even possible for if to become passe.

Now, fighting against a type of evil can and so can a type of fighting. But broadly "fighting evil"? No.

Why: because evil is the antithesis of good and fighting against evil is an underlying theme deeply involved in uniting to overcome malice. Humans are a tribal primate with millions of years of adaptation toward establishing social and moral concepts and evil is a way (among other purposes for the word) of refering to that which preys upon those things. This question is about something like THAT falling out of style. REALLY at the end of the day thats just never gonna happen. It would be like the idea of excessive GREED being something to fight against falling out of style but even MORE unlikely.

When you look at it this way i think there is an easy answer to be had. Types of evil to be fought against and ways of fighting against it may come and go oit of popularity to some extent but fighting evil in a broad sense will just always be popular. That's not to say there arent other popular things to focus a campaign around, but this will always be a popular one. And its impossible for it to ever cease to be. Thats also not a bad thing.

Specific variations of this will always come and go out of style though.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But this is the right outcome! It's inherent in basically all non-modern cultures that they honour tradition and community.

I think at that point it becomes a useless descriptor, because they're not actually equally organised, don't actually equally value consistent laws and rules and so on, and even if few of them value individualism (which I'd actually suggest was valued in a number of ancient societies, with Rome being a very obvious example, despite, ironically, it being often held up as the classic "Lawful" society), then there clearly are very significant differences. But if they're all L (and probably mostly LE by D&D alignment standards), then I guess we just shouldn't apply alignments to societies at all? Maybe that is the solution.

Also, an ancient history student, I think your point is a bit rubbish and facile frankly. The notion than individualism is some super-modern thing that's never been seen before is gibberish to the point where it's almost a political stance (it's like the people who claim communitarian societal approaches are strictly a post-Marx thing, which is just gibberish but I've heard actual professors claim it before, and not at terrible universities either). Individualism is a theme that comes and goes throughout human history. It's very prevalent in some ancient cultures, and near absent in others. After the Romans, it tends to decline a bit in the West (and never really got big in the East AFAIK), but reawakens in the 1000s, as the Christian church recognises that individuals can seek individual salvation - that everyone has a separate soul (this may seem obvious, but it was actually a huge deal in the 1000s-1100s) that is saved separately, and gradually grows from there, being spurred forwards by the Black Death and the resultant shortage of both skilled and unskilled labour.

Also let's come at it from the other direction, and see what D&D does - and we can see from countless products from 1E, 2E, 3E, 4E and 5E, that your approach is not followed. One individualistic society will be LN or even LG. Another will be CE. One largely collectivist society will be LN, another will be CG. Looking at D&D it seems much more like the L-N-C applies largely to how organised and focused on formal procedures, formal rules, and inflexible traditions a society is, than anything else.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But the player who, after a real-time hour or two of planning, says in-character "screw it, I'm heading for the tower right now" can be a godsend; as almost nothing is duller than a long session of planning.

Sure, but my experience is that behaviour is to do with the player more than the character and not tightly tied to alignment. CN characters in my experience generally say "screw it, I'm going to go around the inn we're meeting to discuss plans in, and rob people's rooms!" or "screw it, I'm going to go and see if someone will sell me an owlbear cub so I can train it", rather than "screw it, I'm going to do the mission that the DM laid out for us". Anything but the latter. That's why they picked it, in my experience. YMMV.

Re: legitimate - no, that wasn't the intended implication - the intended implication is that NO government in a medieval era is particularly "legitimate". Not that unjust ones are more or less legitimate. Unless there's literal divine right (extremely rare in D&D, as one god backing a ruler when others may oppose them is clearly not divine right in the sense we mean it, not remotely - it could happen in an Arthurian campaign where the was but one god of course), it's likely to be a mess of claimed heredity (which is always a disaster). Ones with a solid legal basis and the consent of the ruled people are also likely to be relatively rare (not unheard of, even with monarchies, especially elective monarchies, but rare).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

So it's no surprise that Hobbits can be fitted into the alignment system pretty straightforwardly, whereas Vikings - being actual people with an actual and complex history - cannot.

Yet many D&D societies far more closely map to historical vikings than to hobbits. Hobbits are the exception not the rule (and would I think have huge problems fitting into many human LG societies). This is especially true of settings which have had real thought and effort poured into them, and which aren't a random agglomeration of junk that was "fun at the time", or more modern settings like Eberron.

Very often the "alignment" of a society as presented in D&D, note, appears to actually be the "mode average" alignment of the behaviour of people in that society. Like if 28% of people in a society are LE, and that's the most common alignment, it seems to be listed as LE. Rather than attempting to consider it the way you are.