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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gus L" data-source="post: 9362980" data-attributes="member: 7045072">Yes this is precisely the period I'm referencing.  I think the style of play varied among regional affinity groups (West Coast, Twin Cities, Lake Geneva etc), preferred periodicals - you are right to mention Alarums & Excursion, which has more than one style of play at work in it (though I think it takes a while before the "Dungeons & Beavers" style really develops as something with different goals then Lake Geneva's/Gygax's) and of course specific tables.  Early stories of D&D are all about characters becoming vampires, leading orc armies, tricking demons and such.  The morality of it, as much as one thing can be said,  all appears rather roguish and very much in line with the wargamer ethos of playing the baddies for fun. This is something I increasingly wonder about - not the new thing (an RPG) that D&D became (even during publication, the seemingly sudden addition of the alternate combat system suggests a change in focus to me for example), but the game (RPG/wargame/hybrid) that it started as in Gygax and Arneson's minds. I know this is foolish - an authorial fallacy among other things .. but it's fascinating.  I mentioned my thoughts on this in the Odd Rules thread I think - but basically, to me there increasingly seems to be a skirmish and domain game under OD&D and I think alignment, No App. for monsters the in Wilderness, equipment prices vs. XP needed to level and a few other touches are it peering through the seams.  It's fascinating because many of these rules both have had lingering effects on play and the development of subsequent editions and because while they appear as kludgey or odd in the context of a dungeon crawl RPG ... they make a lot of sense for a skirmish game of commando raids that serves as an adjunct system for a domain based wargame.Absolutely.  Though this strikes me as a far cry from the way alignment has evolved into a fairly ironclad system of monster to kill vs. NPC to receive quests from. It's this modern conception of alignment I find galling because to me it eliminates some of the positive and most interesting elements of play - and tends to reinforce a combat centric game where evil creatures fight good PCs.  A blue team/red team style of design that makes the kind of dubious alliances, corrupt deals, treachery and player driven schemes I love to see in play far less common or viable.  Now if some player wants to declare their PC as someone who won't cut deals with the undead or 'evil' say - this is still possible but I think far more interesting in a setting where 'evil' isn't a specific marker on a monster description that applies universally by monster type.  To put it another way. I don't need Poppa Xagyg to says only talk to Gold Dragons... the rest are stranger danger. I want all dragons to be strange, dangerous and potentially something you can cut a deal with.This tendency, to me at least really seems to get going with B/X, AD&D and BECMI (for various and I suspect slightly different reasons).  Certainly it has antecedents and it's an easy read from the OD&D alignment table to cosmic conflict of either the Anderson or Moorcock variety (AD&D only for that one). For me though - I haven't used alignment since I started playing again in 2012 and it's been a generally good decision. We're agreed here - as much as AD&D has consistency this is the play style progressions - high level play is fighting gods and demons in strange new worlds (something that 5E seems to be locking into as well with the new Vecna book btw). To me it's an interesting juxtaposition with the OSR cliche around "tiers of play" - e.g. dungeon, wilderness and domain.</blockquote>

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