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<blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 4942195" data-attributes="member: 80487">If memory serves, in the magazine article presenting his new, two-axis alignment scheme, Gygax noted that at first Law and Chaos (the opposing sides in the Chainmail fantasy supplement) had been in his mind &quot;almost but not quite&quot; synonymous with Good and Evil respectively -- but that more nuances had crept in by the time Supplement I was published.The relatively straightforward idea of alignment in war-game alliance terms was very useful in the kind of campaigns that Arneson and Gygax were running in the early days. This is undoubtedly not the last time I'll make a similar observation about some aspect or other of old-style D&amp;D.The two-axis scheme could serve similar ends if taken as a &quot;quick and dirty&quot; stand in for detailed sociology. (&quot;Alignment Language&quot; is similarly a game-facilitating abstract artifice.)Relations with henchmen and hirelings were important, and AD&amp;D quantified the effects of alignments along with charisma, racial preferences and other factors.Where it really got tricky, in my opinion, was in the treatment of alignment as a very personal combination of psychological and spiritual affinities.Gary wrote in the DMG that it was up to the DM to define the terms. I think he did a disservice in his write-ups of Neutrality, which in his own campaign appears to me much more commonly to have meant &quot;Unaligned&quot; (whether Amoral or Mind Your Own Business and You Won't Be Minding Mine) than to have meant the pseudo-Buddhist philosophical &quot;maintenance of Balance&quot;.The spell notes in the 1e DMG include, iirc, an admonition that detection of evil or good applies only to profound concentrations of those qualities.That's a bit of a shift from OD&amp;D -- in which, however, spells (and many other things) were often but suggestively described. In my old dungeons, a scroll of protection from evil would keep at bay Night Gaunts and Ghouls and sundry other Things one might discover by trial (or learn by buying libations for librarians).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ariosto, post: 4942195, member: 80487"] If memory serves, in the magazine article presenting his new, two-axis alignment scheme, Gygax noted that at first Law and Chaos (the opposing sides in the [B]Chainmail[/B] fantasy supplement) had been in his mind "almost but not quite" synonymous with Good and Evil respectively -- but that more nuances had crept in by the time Supplement I was published. The relatively straightforward idea of alignment in war-game alliance terms was very useful in the kind of campaigns that Arneson and Gygax were running in the early days. This is undoubtedly not the last time I'll make a similar observation about some aspect or other of old-style D&D. The two-axis scheme could serve similar ends if taken as a "quick and dirty" [I]stand in[/I] for detailed sociology. ("Alignment Language" is similarly a game-facilitating abstract artifice.)Relations with henchmen and hirelings were important, and AD&D quantified the effects of alignments along with charisma, racial preferences and other factors. Where it really got tricky, in my opinion, was in the treatment of alignment as a very personal combination of psychological and spiritual affinities. Gary wrote in the DMG that [B]it was up to the DM[/B] to define the terms. I think he did a disservice in his write-ups of Neutrality, which in his own campaign appears to me [I]much[/I] more commonly to have meant "Unaligned" (whether [I]Amoral[/I] or [I]Mind Your Own Business and You Won't Be Minding Mine[/I]) than to have meant the pseudo-Buddhist philosophical "maintenance of Balance". The spell notes in the 1e DMG include, iirc, an admonition that detection of evil or good applies only to profound concentrations of those qualities. That's a bit of a shift from OD&D -- in which, however, spells (and many other things) were often but suggestively described. In my old dungeons, a scroll of [U]protection from evil[/U] would keep at bay Night Gaunts and Ghouls and sundry other Things one might discover by trial (or learn by buying libations for librarians). [/QUOTE]

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