A game with good and evil but no neutrals?

[Hawkshadow]

Original 0th edition D&D

IIRC the original white boxed set with three beige books had 3 alignments: law (which was lawful good), chaos (which was chaotic evil), and neutral which was true neutral.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

That rather depends upon whether Good and Evil are actually forces or descriptions. If Good and Evil are the two teams and everyone on the world is on one team or the other, then adding a third force could make things more interesting. (The problem with this, of course, is that you can't add the same kind of third force because Good and Evil pretty much exhausts the moral/ethical spectrum once one has decided that nothing is indifferent. Actions may come in superogative, obligatory, acceptable, and prohibited categories, but those are all on the good and evil scale of ethics. You could theoretically invent a new category, but it wouldn't be an ethical/moral category. (And yes, this is a problem for the normal D&D Law/Chaos "axis" too)).

If, on the other hand, neither good nor evil are monolithic (or if even only one side is monolithic) then there are plenty of forces in contention to make things interesting.

All that said, what if the point is to make it so that choosing sides is NOT interesting. After all, there are a lot of stories where the excitement and entertainment comes not from picking the side, but from what you do once you've chosen your side. If you don't spend any time and energy on creating a complex basic conflict, that enables you to focus more completely on, as Andor puts it, "booting the door and taking heads."

Or, are you condensing things down to just G vs. E? In that case I would actually encourage some kind of third faction, like the Lawful / Neutral / Chaotic tricotomy present in OD&D. Having three basic forces in contention is vastly more interesting than two, I find.

Baron Opal

 

[Nifft]

IIRC the original white boxed set with three beige books had 3 alignments: law (which was lawful good), chaos (which was chaotic evil), and neutral which was true neutral.

Huh, I thought way back then Elves were Chaotic and Orcs were Lawful.

-- N

 

[Particle_Man]

I guess part of the idea would be that good and evil are strong (perhaps intelligent divine?) alignment forces affecting what you do. If a pc does enough acts to stop being good, then he becomes an NPC, at which point, the "Dark Side" *very rapidly* takes over and drives that npc to evil.

Evil folk would be at each other's throats for the most part, but would outnumber the good folk (it would be hard to remain good, which adds to the problems).

Just spitballing right now.

 

[Hawkshadow]

Huh, I thought way back then Elves were Chaotic and Orcs were Lawful.

-- N

You may be right. It's been a while since I've played that system and I don't have the books anymore.

 

[Nifft]

You may be right. It's been a while since I've played that system and I don't have the books anymore.

I can't remember either.

But I know of one who can...

begins chanting... diaglo! Diaglo! DIAGLO! I invoke thee!

-- N

 

[Particle_Man]

Well in 1st edition AD&D orcs were lawful evil. If that helps.

For basic/expert, weren't elves neutral? Or maybe I have that messed up.

 

[The Great Bear King]

These are the O Ed. alignments indexed with the latter ones

Lawful-Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Lawful Neutral
Chaotic-Chaotic Evil, Neutral Evil, Chaotic Neutral
Neutral-Chaotic Good, True Neutral, Lawful Evil

 

[Baron Opal]

That rather depends upon whether Good and Evil are actually forces or descriptions. If Good and Evil are the two teams and everyone on the world is on one team or the other, then adding a third force could make things more interesting. (The problem with this, of course, is that you can't add the same kind of third force because Good and Evil pretty much exhausts the moral/ethical spectrum once one has decided that nothing is indifferent. Actions may come in superogative, obligatory, acceptable, and prohibited categories, but those are all on the good and evil scale of ethics.

True. However thinking about it I tend to make L/G/C/E more of allegiances than alignments. I was very impressed by the concept of patrons and allegiances in the game Stormbringer by Chaosium way back when. I never really adapted it to may D&D game, but if you played in my game and your worshipper of Asallam the Valiant kept being selfless and heroic, you tended to gain more friends in the church and sometimes interesting powers.

But, anyway, I prefer tripartate axis rather than two and a pentapartate axis rather than four. Must be a prime numbers thing.

 

[Nifft]

But, anyway, I prefer tripartate axis rather than two and a pentapartate axis rather than four. Must be a prime numbers thing.

Since when is two not prime?

-- N