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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AdamBank" data-source="post: 935702" data-attributes="member: 6009">Divine ElementsThis explanation has made my players happy in the past:Aligments are divine elemental forces in D&D. The arcane elemental forces that make up the material world are Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, right? Well, the elements Good, Evil, Chaos, and Law make up the spiritual world. Look at how nicely it fits: we've got two opposing flavors of magic, Arcane and Divine, that each have two opposing pairs of elements (Air<>Earth, Fire<>Water, and Good<>Evil, Law<>Chaos).If the labels "Good" and "Evil" concern you, just use "Positive" and "Negative." These are the terms used to describe the kinds of energy channeled by Clerics and spiritual creatures in D&D3e, after all. Think in terms of creation vs. destructions, life vs. unlife, rather than issues of morality.It's easy to give absolute alignments to monsters, spirits, undead beasties, angels, demons, and the like--they all have fairly extreme personalities anyway, so saying a monster is Lawful Evil really just assigns its divine elemental vibes.The tricky bit comes with people (humans, half-orcs, or whatevers). As far as classes go, there are some classes where alignment doesn't matter (fighters, commoners, rogues, etc.) For those characters, treat alignment like astrological signs. You can use your alignment as a personality descriptor if you wish, but that isn't necessary. They do come into play when dealing with divine magical matters, however.Classes like clerics, druids, and palandins, however, derive power from their aligment restrictsion, both in-character and for game balance. In addition to game mechanical restrictions, the classes impose certain personality traits related to aligments. Fortunately, the classes themselves provide clues as to how to behave. Paladins have their code of honor, druids have their tree-hugging duties, clerics have their gods, etc.</blockquote>

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