"Thou Should Not Broach the Topic: An Old-schooler’s New Perspective on Alignment”

"Thou Should Not Broach the Topic: An Old-schooler’s New Perspective on Alignment”

There is one fiery topic that starts wars among those who discuss their opinions - ‘Alignment’.  I will first say there is no true method to prove one opinion is more valid than another.  Some have greater merit, but this quickly becomes a philosophical debate that no one enjoys.  I am sure anyone reading this has had one ‘debate’ over the topic, maybe a fistfight or two.  But, I will ask you to take a moment to reflect on what I propose as a new way of implementing alignment without creating discord in the ranks, the use of the Sliding Scales of Alignment. 

There are two dichotomies - “good vs. evil” and “lawful vs. chaotic”, with a neutral ground between each one.  It is true, the original descriptions of the alignment terms put a tradition characterization to explain good and evil, lawful and chaotic.  I would contend that this is the source of player and DM frustrations.  And I would also say they instilled a now defunct idea of what we have come to understand as good or evil.  Literature and film have blurred those lines significantly, allowing the popular hero architype to be transcended by the antihero.  People are flawed, which makes for colorful and compelling stories.  The old way needs a little revision as I see it, to keep up with the evolving role-playing aspect of the game.     

In the ‘real’ world, the battle for good vs. evil is found in all parts of the world - in our religion, our society, and even our personal lives… at times.  You know that irritating bastard I’m talking about.  (No offense to bastards.)  This is where the ‘heat’ in those highly-argumentative discussions stems from.  They influence how we read and understand what an alignment means to us, to be then projected onto the character.  I would never say that this option I am proposing is meant to tear apart your perspective, just offer an alternative in understanding how it is applied as a game feature.  Here is where I would start as the foundation when implementing alignment:

1.       Know that alignment is not a black and white approach to role-playing your character.  It is more a cornerstone, so when you step beyond, you are allowing your character to have some internal conflict.  The benefit of this is by allowing for character growth at a later time.  The DM can use those slight indiscretions to add layers to a campaign’s story arc.

2.      Your alignment doesn’t give you permission to run rampant over the game and other characters.  By twisting up the adventure, having a character derail a campaign, does nothing for the overall experience.  In fact, this leads into…

3.      If your alignment creates contention between players, characters, or the DM, you have to ask some important questions that arrive at valid answers.  Why would your character travel with the party?  Why would the party allow your character travel with them?  How does your character contribute to the actual game?  Are the decisions you are making in line with someone motivated by the plot/story/campaign?  Your understanding of your character’s alignment, although just a game, should be realistic and grounded to some degree.

Why this approach?  As you hopefully have noticed when deriving your own concept of alignment, your understanding of good vs. evil, lawful vs. chaotic, is greatly influenced by your experiences.  And other people have their own ideas as well.  And, when asked to consider some of the flaws in the traditional approach, a big one is there are very few pure evil people in the real world.  Remember, there are billions of people with only a handful of notable evil individuals.  So, remove the personal aspect, look at it with an outside perspective by pinpointing your characters placement on the sliding scales of ‘good vs. evil’ and ‘lawful vs. chaotic’. 

GOOD VS. EVIL

When you don’t drive home the quintessential definitions of good and evil, you free yourself of the main issues.  So, I propose to think of good vs. evil more as a selfless vs. selfish sliding scale.  At the core, good actions could be considered selfless acts.  While evil acts are generally selfish in nature.  Even murder generally is the result of a selfish act.  As crazy as it sounds, I find this as the easiest of choice when putting together a personality.  There may be things you selfishly hoard… a good ale, your tools of the trade, a lovely lass/gentleman.  But, overall, you will have a general personality everyone encounters that reflects whether you ‘put yourself over others’ or ‘put others before yourself’.

As a simple but very complex example of how to implement and know that it can work – you can finally run an evil campaign without fear.  There is no need to be a murder-hobo or a villainous scoundrel to everyone.  That would make the game sputter and you would never get far.  Imagine you are among the nations around Cimmeria, Conan’s home.  It is a violent and chaotic realm that requires some questionable moments in order to survive.  To be selfish/evil, not everything must be bled by your sword.  You just have a larger gray area when taking jobs or have no problem burglarizing a nobleman’s home to feed yourself for the next month… and not sharing with the party (yes, chaotic evil).

LAWFUL VS. CHAOTIC

Looking at lawful vs. chaotic, I find this one more challenging to pinpoint a strong base when deciding my stance for a character.  The central qualifier depends on the who, where, and when.  If you are lawful, what laws are you abiding by?  I imagine it could be the birthplace or where your character was raised as one option.  Or, it could be your allegiance to a particular organization.  Maybe also stemming from an ideal or faith.  Either way, it would establish a baseline on how your character reacts to situations and confrontations.  Not a bad way to start when choosing an alignment.

Now, let’s muddy the water.  What if it more relies on your character’s trust in law, regardless of who’s laws?  They respect a base of authority and believe it is an essential institution to prevent anarchy.  I like this one more even though fantasy will often push the envelope on social structures.  The one social system that illustrates this is the drow city of Menzoberranzan.  Isolated in the Underdark, this highly evolved matriarchal culture demands a lawful population for it to function.  But yet, with its webbed intricacies (you see what I did there?), the system embraces deceit, murder, and unquestioning loyalty.  These are the tools of daily living and advancement in their social order.  There is also a prevalent religious element led by their primary deity, Lolth.  What is lawful in this setting is frowned upon by most other societies.  How do players and DMs make an agreed understanding?

In the end, another sliding scale should be established at the campaign setting at the start.  It is up to the DM to designate where the vital points on this scale are placed.  After all, the campaign centers on their story.  Who better to answer these questions?  In most cases, it still results in a subjective challenge and continues the cycle but there needs to be a standard.  This is where the campaign setting strongly dictates the lawful vs. chaotic scale so things are not so confusing.  There will always be slight cultural differences as well, but some issues like theft and murder are commonly addressed in the established laws of the governments encountered.  Punishment is a separate issue but may influence the overall effect on a person’s tendencies.  So, as painful as it may be to hear, ignore punishment as grounds to embrace or reject law.  Desperate people will do what they need… such as a mother or father killing a buck in the King’s Wood to feed their starving family.  They may be lawful people, but a hungry family comes first.

Unfortunately, there is no simple answer when using alignment in character builds.  I will say that if you do, just use it sparingly.  The Sliding Scales of Alignment offers an alternative that can avoid some of the pitfalls.  If the DM needs to check your sheet for your alignment, that may be a sign of problems.  Otherwise, if your game is looking to branch out into the gray areas, stepping away from the traditional definitions and using these suggestions could allow for some leeway for characters without breaking the game.

Happy adventuring (you vile scum)!

--- James S. Austin

"But I Don't Want to Fight a Dragon: Forced into Making Unrealistic Decisions”

 

"Maybe I Don't Want to Fight a Dragon:  Making Unrealistic Decisions”

  

What I love most about Dungeons & Dragons is the open-world play aspect.  There is nothing more gratifying than taking pen to paper and creating something out of nothing.  Don’t get me wrong, I understand we pull from the sum of our experiences… and everything has near-about been written.  But, there is something cathartic about the process. 

I started loooong ago, stretched out on my bedroom floor as a kid drawing up new adventures, making maps, and dreaming of the tales bards would sing in smoky taverns after I has shuffled off the Earth (or whatever world).  The results may have been a little too fantastic at the time, thanks to a child’s overactive imagination, and needing more polishing than an old pipe organ.  But, I prize every memory made of those days.  After the years sharpened, and possibly dulled in some ways, my story-building, I have learned many important features and pitfalls when embracing the open-world freedom.  One pitfall that troubles me the most is the need to follow certain paths on an adventure without having at least some motivation interlacing the characters. 

Come to think of it, maybe I don’t want to fight a dragon.

I believe having the liberty to choose any door is one of the prime features that has led to D&D’s continued success, outside of everyone’s inner child always wanting to break free from the day-to-day adulting.  Being able to create and adventure in worlds only dreamed of screams for a continuing experience, desiring to find those impossible boundaries.  Inversely, there sits the one issue I sometimes run into when playing under other DM’s or grabbing up modules – players not able to deviate from a path.  And worse, it requires them to do something that under very, and I mean very, few circumstances would they consider a favorable path.

When sitting down to adventure, DMs may have brewed something up of their own design or run one of the many modules made available.  To simplify, the adventure’s path can either be ‘open’, with multiple options, or linear, directed by the set events taking place.  In both cases, limitations still exist.  That is an undeniable truth.  DMs cannot have every path planned and modules require a certain amount of subservience, to openly welcome whatever is coming.

In either case, there may arise an ‘ugly’ choice that creeps into the storyline at some point.  With an open-world approach, the game may not hinge on continued progression from that point, but a linear adventure requires the party to make a ‘poor’ choice, or it all ends.  This is not something I would endorse or recommend as a plot device.  I suggest to DMs to find other ways to build drama, there are so many.

I am sure for those that have been running since ‘back in the day’, you have encountered this lovely happenstance.  Don’t worry, you newer players can have that opportunity with one of 5^th Edition’s starting modules - Horde of the Dragon Queen.  This lovely launching module for 5^th edition gives a great example to illustrate my point.  A bit extreme, but fun enough.

What if I were to tell you, using similar words:

“The party crests a rise, the trail breaking free from the crowded forest behind them.  The sun’s last rays quickly disappear behind the distant horizon.  Before you, in a valley below, obscured in plumes of smoke, lies your destination.  You have arrived while the town is currently being ransacked.  At its center, a nearly obscured tower extends upward with a large creature with wide-spread wings dancing in and out of sight, wheeling around the dark finger.”

With that image in your character’s head, what could possibly make a young, ‘green’ adventurer think it is a good idea to run in to aid the town?  Really?  One can make the argument that the characters are heroes.  That this is something that they would typically do.  I wouldn’t dispute the foolhardiness an adventurer should have, but to run into this milieu would seem suicide.  Are characters to live on the jagged edge?  I would pose that this is not to be taken lightly. 

Or, how about a familiar, classic theme:

“The smell of the deep earth stains the stale air in this long-forgotten tomb… until you approach a closed, wooden door at the end of the hall.  The party has been down here for two days fighting undead creatures and horrid monstrosities, all behind these countless doors.  This one seems different.  A slight whiff of burning metal, or what could be old copper, permeates from the ‘welcoming’ change.  From the inch-wide gap at the base, the faintest wisps of yellow light waivers in and out of existence.  The scout tests the door, then slowly swings it open.  Before you stands a grand portal.  Gold bands intertwined and shaped into waves create an archway, pinned to the stone floor, and nearly touching the vaulted ceiling.  A translucent, milky shimmer swirls in no particular pattern between the arches.  Everyone standing in front of the portal looks at one another, not a clue where it leads.”

Hmmm…  Yes, my first thought is, “Let’s step through…?”  Not really.

I don’t think it matters whether you are a 1^st level or 15^th level, not knowing what is on the other side makes this portal appear to be more a dead end than the next leg of the adventure. 

The use of the “before you” in each example subtly implies that this is your one option.  Yes, there may be other approaches and probing that can be done, but the DM is hoping the players will blindly accept their fate.  Of course, this is more used to illustrate my point so that as a DM, they do not introduce that ultimatum to their players.

The challenge now should have been realized, that there needs to be some forethought on the DM’s part to consider the adventure’s path.  Whether backstory or well-placed carrots, the majority of the party members should have some reason to dare folly.  It’s widely known by DMs to read the module and prepare before the game.  This particular suggestion should not be overlooked. 

To enrich the game and aid the its progression, the DM should act as orchestral conductor, weaving the notes into a clear and simple sound.  The DM should take the time to sit with each player and get an idea of their character, know how they see their character’s motivations.  This will unburden the DM from worrying about whether a party may flip the story on its side, thus then forcing a direction they may not want to take.  This will lead to troubles at the table.  Even if it is just a game, players shouldn’t be expected to rush in and fight a dragon. 

The principle idea is to never let the players believe they have no choice.  They may have misgivings, but not get the impression they are being railroaded by the DM.  Characters having a vested interest in doing something questionable offers some indirect support from the DM.  Sorta a metagame nod.  Also, to dive briefly into running a game, the DM must adhere to the core tone of the world and story.  If a DM gives the players the impression they can chose to make rash decisions without consequence, the adventure may struggle when faced with an obvious deadly situation.  No, you cannot persuade the lich to stop his invasion of the kingdom with his undead army by dropping off some donuts. 

The creative process pushes writers and DMs to advance a story, and they sometimes try to push the boundaries as well.  Compelling images capture the imagination but reigning in those moments when requiring a party to blindly charge into danger needs some attention.  A little love and care for the characters before the game can go a long way. 

Besides, maybe I don’t want to fight a dragon.


--- James S. Austin