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<blockquote data-quote="Gus L" data-source="post: 9361722" data-attributes="member: 7045072">My own suspicion having read a lot of the documents from the era of OD&amp;D and then the ones that followed in the TSR years is that alignment in OD&amp;D is meant largely as a tool for determining army lists... In things like Blackmore and other early games (per First Fantasy Campaign, Strategic Review and Alarums &amp; Excursions) it doesn't seem to have been treated as the sort of absolute, cosmic, &quot;good v. evil&quot; tag that says &quot;Players, always commit genocide and atrocity against this group of exotified others, but not this group&quot;.&nbsp; AD&amp;D seems to start that and I think primarily because it's aimed at tournament design - where combat is far more the favored way challenges are to be solved (likely because it's more consistent across tables/easier to 'score').&nbsp; Additionally the wargame aspect of D&amp;D is disfavored and to some extent removed in AD&amp;D in favor of a high-level game that involves plane's walking and cosmic threats where gods, good v. evil and a paladin in hell make alignment as absolutes more interesting/useful then as a way of determining if you recruit treants to your demense's forces.Alignment as a means of defining character expected behavior ... &quot;Black Dougal! Not Again!&quot; and encouraging binary thinking (e.g. &quot;killing orc babies&quot;) in the B/X and especially BECMI days.&nbsp; I suspect this is because the concept of what I like to call &quot;moral play&quot; - that is playing with morality and player decisions about moral quandaries or character ethics was itself an aspect of the game that freaked the heck out of the Patricia Pullings and such of the satanic panic.&nbsp; Far better a game that explicitly instructs killing off the evil baddies rather then cutting deals with them. Much like the &quot;Hays Code&quot; in movies, D&amp;D starts defining evil as always having to be punished, and clarifies the lines of good and bad very strictly because this allows TSR to push back against wackadoos who insist it's teaching their kids to cast spells, sacrifice cats and worship Satan.Again I suspect</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Gus L, post: 9361722, member: 7045072"] My own suspicion having read a lot of the documents from the era of OD&D and then the ones that followed in the TSR years is that alignment in OD&D is meant largely as a tool for determining army lists... In things like Blackmore and other early games (per First Fantasy Campaign, Strategic Review and Alarums & Excursions) it doesn't seem to have been treated as the sort of absolute, cosmic, "good v. evil" tag that says "Players, always commit genocide and atrocity against this group of exotified others, but not this group". AD&D seems to start that and I think primarily because it's aimed at tournament design - where combat is far more the favored way challenges are to be solved (likely because it's more consistent across tables/easier to 'score'). Additionally the wargame aspect of D&D is disfavored and to some extent removed in AD&D in favor of a high-level game that involves plane's walking and cosmic threats where gods, good v. evil and a paladin in hell make alignment as absolutes more interesting/useful then as a way of determining if you recruit treants to your demense's forces. Alignment as a means of defining character expected behavior ... "Black Dougal! Not Again!" and encouraging binary thinking (e.g. "killing orc babies") in the B/X and especially BECMI days. I suspect this is because the concept of what I like to call "moral play" - that is playing with morality and player decisions about moral quandaries or character ethics was itself an aspect of the game that freaked the heck out of the Patricia Pullings and such of the satanic panic. Far better a game that explicitly instructs killing off the evil baddies rather then cutting deals with them. Much like the "Hays Code" in movies, D&D starts defining evil as always having to be punished, and clarifies the lines of good and bad very strictly because this allows TSR to push back against wackadoos who insist it's teaching their kids to cast spells, sacrifice cats and worship Satan. Again I suspect [/QUOTE]

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