How does alignment work in encounter reactions?

[Celebrim]

Is communication necessary for alignment to play a role?

I would tend to say, "Yes." I suppose there might be exceptions as in the case of a character who by mode of dress is strongly suggesting their alignment - for example a cleric of some deity wearing formal ecclesiastical garb - but I would argue that such overt signaling is a form of communication and exists precisely for that purpose

2. Are there any other considerations that would prevent alignment from being considered? (e.g. Intelligence below 5 or lack of alignment in the creature whose reaction is being considered.)

If it does play a role, then I would say, "Yes." The target must have some moral sense of their own before they care a whit what the moral sensibilities of someone else are. An animal or other creature that lacks an alignment does not care what the alignment of a character is because they cannot understand the concept in the first place.

I would only vary this depending on the cosmology. D&D tends to suggest that animals are aligned with neutrality and for example Druids. It would be perfectly reasonable to suggest that as an exception to the normal rules, Druids do get their alignment modifiers when interacting with animals. Other cosmologies might have different animals explicitly aligned with different groups. For example, my homebrew world tends to have lots of talking animals of the fairy tale sort, and animals are broadly predictable in their alignments (oxen and wolves tend to be lawful, cats and foxes chaotic, wolves and sharks evil, elephants and cranes good, etc.). In that case, if I introduced alignment based reaction modifiers, they'd probably ignore limitations of intelligence in order to make the world act appropriately.

3. Is it possible to use deception to disguise one's alignment for the purposes of a reaction check, or to cause a creature to react as if to an alignment other than the character's true alignment?

I would say that in 1e/2e, this is adequately handled by any charisma modifiers themselves. A charismatic character is intuitively disguising his true self from scrutiny, for example, a blackguard presents himself as noble to the good aligned, a good aligned person emphasizes his toleration over his sense of justice, and so forth. In 3e, this is handled by the decision to 'bluff' rather than use 'diplomacy' and the player creating appropriate social context through RP to justify the one or the other.

4. When applying modifiers for the Associated Group, are they cumulative in the same way that racial preferences are (i.e. using the most and least different), or do you use only the most different alignment of the group? Also, does it make sense for a creature to possibly react more negatively to a group than to just one person?

I'd use most and least different. The presence of at least one person who is sympathetic will color the reaction to the whole group. And, yes, groups are a threat.

 

[howandwhy99]

1. Is communication necessary for alignment to play a role?

Yes.

Remember, Alignment is a language. Having/Performing an Alignment is the act of communicating. It covers both verbal and nonverbal. It is the ideas and behaviors expressed which differentiate the Alignment languages. And in D&D there is no unaligned.

2. Are there any other considerations that would prevent alignment from being considered? (e.g. Intelligence below 5 or lack of alignment in the creature whose reaction is being considered.)

Alignment is always a consideration - well, maybe there are exceptions when we get metagamey. But definitely whenever Monsters are involved. And the PCs are monsters.

3. Is it possible to use deception to disguise one's alignment for the purposes of a reaction check, or to cause a creature to react as if to an alignment other than the character's true alignment?

Hiding is part of the game. Most everything can potentially hide or be hidden. People can try and hide their true thoughts and feelings by behaving differently on the outside. Assassins are trained to such a degree as to eventually gain this as a class ability. Also, the very act of engaging in deception is part of Alignment.

NPCs can attempt to deceive other NPCs. This means their Reaction Roll is the same (say the result is Hostile), but their tactic is to act Friendly until they attack. Their friendly behavior might modify the probability of other NPC reaction rolls when the two meet. This makes deceivers more dangerous in the short run, but NPCs without the Assassin's ability do slip up now and again.

Players whose PCs don't have magic to Detect Alignment can study behavior and have their PCs act in response to discern more about a person's nature. (This is so much of the game already, but Alignment is more in the Cleric's sphere). By not having the PCs roll reaction checks the Players get to play this out as a game. One that can go back and forth and lead to many different ends.

Players can also play at deceiving NPCs too by having their PCs act take actions contrary to their current Alignment. However, just like any behavior this can lead to Alignment change depending.

Players can also lie to other players, but that's handled as Player-to-Player interaction. It could still affect their PCs alignment (as well as other game elements), but neither refer to NPC rules (like Loyalty).

4. When applying modifiers for the Associated Group, are they cumulative in the same way that racial preferences are (i.e. using the most and least different), or do you use only the most different alignment of the group? Also, does it make sense for a creature to possibly react more negatively to a group than to just one person?

I don't use the Alignment system exactly as suggested in AD&D. If that is your goal though, I would guess the modifiers are are not cumulative if the creatures are coordinating as one. If not, if everyone is acting separately, then each person has their own accounting to compare to. But I'd still only roll one reaction per Person/Team to treat the Encounter singly.

And no, it doesn't make sense to me why a person or a group would react more or less positively/negatively because they met a person rather than a group, or vice versa. I'd be interesting in hearing some alternate view on this though.

To partially answer some of my own questions, its my view that an unaligned creature would still react directly to the alignment of the speaker, as long as there was some way to communicate. Aligned creatures, however, would react to the group's alignment(s) even if no communication was possible.

Don't forget: Both parties/individuals are reacting to each other. Only the Player Characters are having their reactions determined by them. Just like Morale, PCs never roll Reaction rolls for themselves. When NPCs encounter other NPCs, all sides roll.