D&D General Worlds of Design: Is Fighting Evil Passé?

When I started playing Dungeons & Dragons (1975) I had a clear idea of what I wanted to be and to do in the game: fight evil. As it happened, I also knew I wanted to be a magic user, though of course I branched out to other character classes, but I never deviated from the notion of fighting evil until I played some neutral characters, years after I started.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.” Albert Einstein

To this day I think of the game as good guys against bad guys, with most of my characters (including the neutrals) on the good guy side. I want to be one of those characters who do something about evil. I recognize that many do not think and play this way, and that's more or less the topic of this column. Because it makes a big difference in a great deal that happens when you answer the question of whether the focus of the campaign is fighting evil.

In the early version of alignment, with only Law and Chaos, it was often Law (usually good) against Chaos (usually evil). I learned this form from Michael Moorcock's Elric novels before D&D, though I understand it originated in Pohl Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions. That all went out the window when the Good and Evil axis was added to alignment. That's the axis I'm talking about today.

This is a "black and white" viewpoint, versus the in-between/neither/gray viewpoint so common today. But I like my games to be simple, and to be separate from reality. I don't like the "behave however you want as long as you don't get caught" philosophy.

Usually, a focus on fighting evil includes a focus on combat, though I can see where this would not necessarily be the case. Conversely, a focus on combat doesn't necessarily imply a focus on fighting evil. Insofar as RPGs grow out of popular fiction, we can ask how a focus on fighting evil compares with typical fiction.

In the distant past (often equated with "before 1980" in this case) the focus on fighting evil was much more common in science fiction and fantasy fiction than it is today, when heroes are in 50 shades of gray (see reference). Fighting evil, whether an individual, a gang, a cult, a movement, a nation, or an aggressive alien species, is the bedrock in much of our older science fiction and fantasy, much less so today.

Other kinds of focus?

If fighting evil isn't the focus, what is?

• In a "Game of Thrones" style campaign, the politics and wars of great families could provide a focus where good and evil hardly matter.
• "There's a war on" might be between two groups that aren't clearly good or evil (though each side individually might disagree).
• A politically-oriented campaign might be all about subterfuge, assassination, theft, and sabotage. There might be no big battles at all.
• A campaign could focus on exploration of newly-discovered territory. Or on a big mystery to solve. Or on hordes of refugees coming into the local area.

I'm sure there are many inventive alternatives to good vs evil, especially if you want a "grayer" campaign. I think a focus on good vs evil provides more shape to a RPG campaign than anything else. But there are other ways of providing shape. YMMV. If you have an unusual alternative, I hope you'll tell us about it.

 

[Krachek]

When I watch some movie or tv show, I don’t make a morality look up at my favorite characters.
when the show is good, the characters are torn apart and twist in their personal belief and morality.
at the end it make a satisfying relief.
Dnd is almost the same, so good, evil, chaotic, lawful, don’t make sense if at the end it don’t make a good game.

 

[SkidAce]

The Lawful person willingly accepts externally-applied laws, rules, customs, etc.; the Chaotic person at the very least questions these things and if the answers aren't to his-her liking, does not accept them.

I mostly agree with your thesis.

But a lawful person can question laws just like a chaotic. They just start from tending to follow them.

And besides, society is meaningful in this context. There are unjust laws, a lawful doesn't just blindly follow them all. (well a LN might more often than not)

Its complicated.

 

[SkidAce]

A lawful character does what is expected of him, a chaotic character does what is personally meaningful to him, whether it bucks convention or not.

This makes the lawful look like a mindless drone, and the chaotic character look like a heroic individual.

I find it hard to discuss L/C without the G/E.

But, its late and these discussions reoccur so often, I'm off to bed....

good luck all, be considerate!

 

[SkidAce]

What D&D text suggests this?

From AD&D (which is the game you say that you play), here are some relevant extracts:

...snipped...

​

Pemerton said it for me.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

But when the scales fall from their eyes, their alignment changes! Depending on context and details, to NG or CG. Or a different sort of realisation might prompt a change to TN. (That would be one interpretation of Jet Li's character arc in Tai Chi Master.)

If there is no alignment shift to reflect this fundamental change of attitude to society, then alignment isn't doing any work! So why would we bother with it.

I think that it is entirely possible that a person could stay Lawful - in that they believe an ordered society promotes Goodness more than anarchy would - while still accepting that the laws of their particular kingdom (or the way that they are implemented) are evil, and thus working against them/to change them.

 

[DammitVictor]

You know, the "appeal to authority fallacy" doesn't mean that every layman's shots in the dark are equally as legitimate as an expert's opinions in their own field of expertise. It means one, that the claims of an expert in one field aren't particularly important to arguments in another field and two, it means that not even the claims of an expert in their own field should supercede empirical evidence.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Just to pimp my interpretation again, as it resolves the recent 'discovery of unjustness' issue:

Lawful: venerates, adheres, defines self by an external code, religion, structure
Chaotic: rejects down external codes

Good: sacrifices self for others
Evil: sacrifices others for self

So, why do I use this simplified method? Because it works and solves some of the larger issues with alignment and D&D. By sticking lawful as just following one external code, it solves the issue of expecting a lawful person to be respectful and follow any set of laws or codes that exist, which is incoherent. It solves the issue recently discussed of a lawful good person that discovers that how their code is being actually applied in their society is unjust -- they can either determine that it's the application that's unjust and continue to follow their code, but strive to see it applied justly or find a new code; either way they maintain their lawful alignment. Or, they could decide to reject all codes and just do what they think is just and move to chaotic. Or, they could decide that the code works okay, but should be ignored when it causes unjust outcomes and slide into neutral. It seems clear that all of this is good, so append that as you will.

It also addresses that the source material, outside of paladins, provides no codes to follow at all. A lawful priest of Tyr, for instance, has no more guidance given on tenets, roles, structure, duties, taboos, or strictures than a chaotic priest of Selune (keeping on the same G/E axis). There's nothing in the source material that identifies what codes a priest of Tyr follows or what is expected of a priest of Selune. This is all left up to the GM, which leads to very garbles and unclear play. Using the above, though, I can ask the player what the code is that their character follows as a lawful person (much like identifying the oath of a paladin), and I can also ask how a chaotic character rejects having a formal code. This is a simple step and gives that character a strong theme.

This also allows for lawful characters to be in dispute with either codes that are not theirs or with laws that are not theirs. So long as they're following an external code faithfully, it can be in dispute with other codes. This still works with the outer planes, as it doesn't break continuity to think that physical embodiments of lawfulness would likely group themselves according to a similar code.

 

[pemerton]

The definition of an alignment comes from all directions, not just that of those who subscribe to it.

Alignment is defined by the claims it makes - in AD&D, those are claims about the role played by order, or individualism, in facilitating certain ends.

The truth of those claims is what is contested.

So LG people assert that society generates happiness. That community is the natural and best condition for humanity. That tradition, if followed conscientiously and thoughtfully, provides the best guide to resolving conflicts and ensuring wellbeing. This is an easily-understood view - Hobbits, valiant and heroic knights, Aragorn-esque kings, etc all provide us with examples from the fantasy genre.

Conversely, CG people assert that individual self-realisation is the path to wellbeing. They are suspicious of order and tradition because (as they see things) it stifles that self-realisation.

Someone who thinks that peope are by nature unruly and hence need to be disciplined by external law is not, in D&D terms, LG. The LG have an optimistic, not pessimistic, view of human nature and society. Nor is such a person CG - to the extent that people are unruly and diverse, CG celebrates that.

In D&D terms, someone who want to use external law to discipline the community seems to be either LN - they're an order fetishist - or perhaps LE - they want to impose their yoke even if that prevents people realising their own wellbeing.

In the real world, no doubt there are people who think that people are by nature unruly, and will only come to grief if not disciplined by external law. But I don't see that there is very much room for that viewpoint in the D&D alignment system. That viewpoint requires adopting a conception of wellbeing that strongly divorces it from concerns for freedom and individual right. D&D alignment, on the other hand, tend to posit a broad unity of values.

This is another reminder that D&D alignment is a device adopted for a particular game purpose. It is not a general system for classifying social, political and moral outlooks (which is probably one reason why no serious system of philosophical thought uses the D&D alignment categories).

 

[pemerton]

So Bob grows up in LG kingdom. Jon grows up in LE kingdom but does not recognize it until later on in life. Or maybe he does but can't help where he was born.

Further suppose that they are identical in every way other than where they grew up. Exactly 100% the same outlook on life and what they believe and in how they act.

I'm not sure why I would grant the second supposition. How can these two people have the same outlook in every way despite their radically different experiences of social order and its connection to human wellbeing?

This example also drives home what I and one or two others posted a way upthread, that alignment is unhelpfully used to do to many things.

By "LG kingdom" I assume you mean a kingdom with benevolent laws. By "LE kingdome" I assume you mean a kingdom with oppressive laws. If both those kingdoms are possible - which they must be if they both exist! - then the whole dispute between LG and CG has evaporated, because the answer to the question Is social order a source of wellbeing or a source of oppresssion simply becomes "It depends".

At which point 9-point alignment is doing nothing useful and all we need is personality descriptors.

 

[pemerton]

I think that it is entirely possible that a person could stay Lawful - in that they believe an ordered society promotes Goodness more than anarchy would - while still accepting that the laws of their particular kingdom (or the way that they are implemented) are evil, and thus working against them/to change them.

Sure. The true king tempers some of the harshness of tradition, and the like.

But I don't think that's what the example was getting at; it doesn't involve any scales falling from the protagnoist's eyes. See my post just above for my view on what I take the example to imply - ie that it dissolves the utility of alignment altogether. (On the premise that no change of alignment is involved when the scales fall from the eyes.)