Alignment and Party Dynamics

[M.L. Martin]

I would say your characterization is actually very atypical of 1e play.

1E play as written, arguably. I don't have the grounding to know about 1E play as played, but it sure sounds like 1E play as idealized by a vocal segment of the online community.

 

[WyzardWhately]

I'm not sure I care a whole lot. If the grognard types, possibly including myself, want an alignment? Just write it down. We all know what it means, and nobody's going to glare at you for putting LG on your paladin's sheet. I never made a great deal of use of alignment, with a few rare exceptions, I just expected my PCs to roleplay.

And, really...when a demon crawls forth from the nether-hells and is, I dunno, eating babies and leaving a trail of acidic slime on the lawn, you don't really need it to radiate an evil alignment to know it's stabbin'-time. I guess it would be cool to keep the moral and ethical forces as genuine, ascertainable quantities in the physical universe, but I won't necessarily think less of the game if it gets trashed.

Cleric:"This bottle is full of evil."
Rogue:"Evil what? Is this a lecture on the dangers of alcoholism?"
Cleric:"Not evil *something,* just evil. The pure essence of it."
Rogue:"Why...why would you want that?"
Cleric:"Letting it out of the bottle is worse."

 

[FourthBear]

Actually, not really. I remember Gygax saying that he was totally floored when there was interest in playing Drow. He couldn't understand anyone actually wanting to play such an evil race.

In Isle of the Ape, the module writer (again, Gygax) tells the DM that any party who wouldn't go along with the hook of the module are a bunch of scoundrels and should be brow beaten into acting heroic.

I would say your characterization is actually very atypical of 1e play.

I don't know, I seem to recall a *lot* of evil-in-all-but-name adventuring in my 1e days. The Assassin class was definitely not NPC only, in my experience. Further, while EGG may have balked at outright evil characters, his own mage Mordenkainen is pretty much a classical, power-hungry amoral manipulator who definitely is grey at best. If I recall from my 1e Rogue's Gallery, there were a fair number of evil PCs presented there, like Erac's Cousin and such.

 

[Psion]

I'm not sure I care a whole lot. If the grognard types, possibly including myself, want an alignment? Just write it down.

If you don't want alignment, just write down neutral.

 

[WyzardWhately]

I don't know, I seem to recall a *lot* of evil-in-all-but-name adventuring in my 1e days. The Assassin class was definitely not NPC only, in my experience. Further, while EGG may have balked at outright evil characters, his own mage Mordenkainen is pretty much a classical, power-hungry amoral manipulator who definitely is grey at best. If I recall from my 1e Rogue's Gallery, there were a fair number of evil PCs presented there, like Erac's Cousin and such.

Still. Even those evil PCs were generally only typically evil. I mean, there's a spectrum there. You can be a pretty terrible person and still find the Drow society to be an unspeakable mass of alien horror.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I guess it comes down to this:
Do you want alignment to be a guideline how to play characters?
Do you want it to have a mechanical impact on the game whether you are good, evil, lawful or chaotic?

If the "rules" just aim for the first, there is no problem with totally ignoring it.
If they aim for the second, removing them is harder, because a lot of in-game mechanical abilties and effects will be based on these alignments.
Ward of Chaos, Holy Smite, Magic Circle vs. Chaos, Detect Law, all these spells give alignment a mechanical meaning. Slapping neutral on your PC might help your PC, but not the setting.

If you want mechanical impact with alignment, having just guidelines for alignment isn't enough, since you have to invent tons of stuff to make it mechanically important again.

I like the D&D forces of evil/good/law/chaos from a story telling perspective. But I am not really that thrilled about all the alignment based spells that affect even non "Examplars of Alignment". And I really hate it if it can be used to identify the bad guys without using the players cleverness, or if it is used to allow indiscriminate killing. (Especially if it is done by the "good" guys - if you're good, you must be better than that!)

So, the 1st approach is my preference.

 

[The Little Raven]

In Isle of the Ape, the module writer (again, Gygax) tells the DM that any party who wouldn't go along with the hook of the module are a bunch of scoundrels and should be brow beaten into acting heroic.

Gary "If you're not playing D&D the way I say you should, then you're doing it wrong" Gygax... I applaud him for helping create our hobby, but applaud even harder because I know he has nothing further to do with it's development.

 

[FourthBear]

I dislike alignment as a cosmological force that defines planes and results in creatures with detectable alignment tags. It just gets me that you could go to your local spellcaster once a week and have your alignment checked to see if you were beginning to slide. "Gee, John, you're looking a little Chaotic Evil today. Why not arrest some lawbreakers and fund an orphanage and get yourself back to True Neutral?" So I'm all for removing mechanical effects of alignment.

Now, as a descriptor to guide player's actions and to aid DMs in understanding opponent behavior...you know I still don't like it. As it currently stands, the two axis system has far too little descriptive power. The only cases where they fit are the obvious ones where a simple sentence would do much better. Do we really need CE to describe a murderous bandit? Or LG for a noble king? And the cases where there's ambiguity are even worse, since then the two axis system just doesn't have what it takes to classify a character. All it seems to do is result in endless, pointless arguments. I've never seen a convincing case that alignment would serve to help me describe any fictional character of even moderate depth, like Robin Hood or Conan.

If we're going to keep alignment as a descriptive tag, I'd like to see it opened way up from the nine alignments. Maybe have tags for Wrathful, Forgiving, Greedy, Bigoted, Romantic and such.

 

[Nifft]

Maybe have tags for Wrathful, Forgiving, Greedy, Bigoted, Romantic and such.

Me: "That's right, baby. I'm Romantic Evil."
Her: *swoon*

- - -

IMC, I've decoupled Conduct from Sponsorship. Sponsorship means you are somehow getting power from an external entity -- such as a Cleric or Blackguard would have, but also random demon-cultists.

Your Conduct may cause your Sponsor to cut you off -- or to reward you -- but if you don't have Sponsorship, you also have no particular repercussions for your Conduct.

In other words, from the stand point of a detect evil spell:

"I paid 200 gp to Asmodeus, and now I can cast prestidigitation!" = EVIL

"I just killed 200 orphans with a rusty knife for no particular reason!" = not particularly evil

It works okay. Cheers, -- N

 

[FourthBear]

Me: "That's right, baby. I'm Romantic Evil."
Her: *swoon*

I'm not just Romantic Good, I'm Romantic *Great*.....