Alignments
Dec. 18th, 2007 01:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pasitheaI'm going to wax Jon-like for a bit and talk about D&D.
The quiz I took earlier inspired some contemplation of alignment and one of the things I don't like about D&D. According to studies, most people prefer to read stories with strong character development and exploring the emotional bonds between them to hard sci-fi. A good solid technically brilliant setting is great of course, but for the most part, people are more drawn to a story that is emotionally engaging. Whether that's true or not, I couldn't tell you. It's a matter of personal preference and there's always the issue of whether or not we know what we really like.
Anyhow. Getting back to D&D, I think this is one thing that's sort of missing from gaming for me. I'd really rather play a nearly entirely systemless game that focuses more on roleplay than on roll-die. One of the things that I think is really important to this is alignment. It's very under-used in D&D. For most games I've been in, it amounts to what you can and can't kill, not how you really behave.
For instance: If you have a lawful good paladin and his friend is arrested by the town guard under false pretenses, in a D&D game, the paladin invariably will join the others in the team and help break him from the cell to prove his innocence. However, per the description of lawful good, he should really find it difficult to even question either the goodness of his friend or the letter of the law. It should cause a paladin a great deal of emotional turmoil to join this rescue. He should argue that they work through the magistrate to free their friend or appeal to a higher power. He should even possibly have a crisis of loyalty and warn the guards and should almost definitely stop combat to heal a wounded 'enemy' To me, this makes a much more interesting and compelling game.
I have other problems with alignment too. Say you have two lawful good clerics of different faiths. It is internally consistent for each of them to be lawful good yet hold the other in extreme disregard. Yet per D&D's alignments they should get along fairly well. What happens if they enter the homeland of one where the other's faith is held in disregard? Perhaps their kingdoms are even at war. Does the home-turf cleric act by the law of his family, land, and faith or does he lean towards his friend? Perhaps that's the problem really. Most D&D characters are played with friends as your party members and they may have simplified history that we use for general behavior cues but it's not nearly as strong as it should be.
I do realize that alignment isn't hard an fast stuck to one point. There's a lot of wiggle-room in there but I feel like most characters in D&D are chaotic (generally chaotic good) . Just wondering how and where the line gets drawn. I do really enjoy adventure but I enjoy a good story and interesting dilemmas to consider even more.
I suppose maybe that's why I've generally played characters with deep flaws. If a character has a serious enough defect in some way it's much easier to define them and make them more real. When I was a kid, I played a lot of 'perfect' characters that were very lacking in personality until I got a DM that wouldn't let me cheat die rolls and made me play with what I actually rolled... DV-Girl trivia: I am the worst dice-roller in the universe. Everyone I play RPGs with looks at me with pity as I consistently roll the worst possible rolls in nearly every situation. Anyhow.. That rule created my first truly good D&D character. Though at first it was because I was being petulant about having to play such a weak character. (I was 14, cut me some slack)
His name was Org Rockslayer. He was a half-orc fighter with Int 3, Wis 4, Dex 7, an Str 18/23. Org wasn't too bright. One might even have described him as an inky void of knowledge. He spent one entire fight wrestling with a tree stump instead of the kobolds that were attacking the party because he'd thrown his spear and rolled so tragically it was driven halfway through a tree. Org was angry that the tree took his spear and wouldn't give it back. Eventually, he uprooted the tree and started smashing kobolds with it. Most of the other players were somewhat annoyed with my choice of character behavior. The DM however, was delighted (bit of a sadist, that one). Anyhow. I started to enjoy playing Org. Being dumb could be kind of fun, and even though he wasn't a very good fighter, he believed he was. Org made it to level 4 before he was done in by a series of lucky blows.
Following Org was a thief whose name I don't recall. Very short lived. Not a very good thief. I think 16 Dex and the Int and Wis scores were just bare minimum for a thief. The thing I DO recall is that she had a charisma of 3 and the leader of the group had a charisma of 18. She was doggedly in love with the leader of the group and highly suggestible. She died attempting to backstab a dragon at the behest of her beloved. (This character started at lvl 10)
It was about here that I started to really enjoy playing defective characters. Actively looked forward to having a couple of character flaws rather than resenting them and making due. Of course, I was also becoming an angsty teen.
So next was Thorain Kinslayer. He was actually a decent set of roles save for a low Charisma (6, I think) but he had HISTORY! Thorain was the 3rd son of a family but he was desperately power-obsessed and had fallen in love with his fathers sword. He had slain his family and taken the sword. Hated by his people and cursed by their gods, he'd run out into the world and become the only thing he'd ever wanted to be. A sword for hire. ... Yeah... Anyhow... Thorain was batshit crazy, and when the party was captured by a gang of gnolls and robbed of all their possessions (including his father's sword) As soon as Thorain was free, he screamed at the rest of the party that they had to go and fight them and reclaim what was theirs (This was 5 1st level characters vs ~30 gnolls) They (of course) told him to let it go. They'd been offered better gear by the lord hiring them and that they'd be slaughtered. The last they saw of Thorain, he was swearing at them, calling them cowards and casting dispersions on their ancestry. He then ran off into the night, following the path of the gnolls and he was never heard from again.
After him, there were a lot of good and fun characters.
The rat, a telepathic/telekinetic rat with intense freak-out issues when faced by laboratories and scientists. He also had a major issue with controlling himself when food was present.
The Crimson Acorn. A halfling swashbuckler that acted like Errol Flynn. He was nutty.
Rick Sterling, Good Guy. A billionaire that wanted to believe he was Bruce Wayne. He had 250 points of disadvantages and 100 points of advantages. All of his powers were limited to 'only when no one is watching' and they were basically just powers to keep him from dying. (regeneration and stuff) He spent most of every campaign unconscious. Fun tho.
Flame... She was interesting. Garish red costume, good martial arts and a more-secret-than-most identity. She was a transvestite. By night a defender of the poor and homeless of the streets, by day a boy with a record for shoplifting, living in a group home. I could almost make a comic from her. She was pretty neat.
and so on. I'm yammering now, so I'll stop. Anyhow... I guess that's what I'd want in a roleplaying game. Stuff that makes you think and have to really be in-character. I assume there are other people that play that way and oddly enough, I haven't really got the opportunity to play with most of my friends so maybe I've just been in poor groups. What do you guys think?
The quiz I took earlier inspired some contemplation of alignment and one of the things I don't like about D&D. According to studies, most people prefer to read stories with strong character development and exploring the emotional bonds between them to hard sci-fi. A good solid technically brilliant setting is great of course, but for the most part, people are more drawn to a story that is emotionally engaging. Whether that's true or not, I couldn't tell you. It's a matter of personal preference and there's always the issue of whether or not we know what we really like.
Anyhow. Getting back to D&D, I think this is one thing that's sort of missing from gaming for me. I'd really rather play a nearly entirely systemless game that focuses more on roleplay than on roll-die. One of the things that I think is really important to this is alignment. It's very under-used in D&D. For most games I've been in, it amounts to what you can and can't kill, not how you really behave.
For instance: If you have a lawful good paladin and his friend is arrested by the town guard under false pretenses, in a D&D game, the paladin invariably will join the others in the team and help break him from the cell to prove his innocence. However, per the description of lawful good, he should really find it difficult to even question either the goodness of his friend or the letter of the law. It should cause a paladin a great deal of emotional turmoil to join this rescue. He should argue that they work through the magistrate to free their friend or appeal to a higher power. He should even possibly have a crisis of loyalty and warn the guards and should almost definitely stop combat to heal a wounded 'enemy' To me, this makes a much more interesting and compelling game.
I have other problems with alignment too. Say you have two lawful good clerics of different faiths. It is internally consistent for each of them to be lawful good yet hold the other in extreme disregard. Yet per D&D's alignments they should get along fairly well. What happens if they enter the homeland of one where the other's faith is held in disregard? Perhaps their kingdoms are even at war. Does the home-turf cleric act by the law of his family, land, and faith or does he lean towards his friend? Perhaps that's the problem really. Most D&D characters are played with friends as your party members and they may have simplified history that we use for general behavior cues but it's not nearly as strong as it should be.
I do realize that alignment isn't hard an fast stuck to one point. There's a lot of wiggle-room in there but I feel like most characters in D&D are chaotic (generally chaotic good) . Just wondering how and where the line gets drawn. I do really enjoy adventure but I enjoy a good story and interesting dilemmas to consider even more.
I suppose maybe that's why I've generally played characters with deep flaws. If a character has a serious enough defect in some way it's much easier to define them and make them more real. When I was a kid, I played a lot of 'perfect' characters that were very lacking in personality until I got a DM that wouldn't let me cheat die rolls and made me play with what I actually rolled... DV-Girl trivia: I am the worst dice-roller in the universe. Everyone I play RPGs with looks at me with pity as I consistently roll the worst possible rolls in nearly every situation. Anyhow.. That rule created my first truly good D&D character. Though at first it was because I was being petulant about having to play such a weak character. (I was 14, cut me some slack)
His name was Org Rockslayer. He was a half-orc fighter with Int 3, Wis 4, Dex 7, an Str 18/23. Org wasn't too bright. One might even have described him as an inky void of knowledge. He spent one entire fight wrestling with a tree stump instead of the kobolds that were attacking the party because he'd thrown his spear and rolled so tragically it was driven halfway through a tree. Org was angry that the tree took his spear and wouldn't give it back. Eventually, he uprooted the tree and started smashing kobolds with it. Most of the other players were somewhat annoyed with my choice of character behavior. The DM however, was delighted (bit of a sadist, that one). Anyhow. I started to enjoy playing Org. Being dumb could be kind of fun, and even though he wasn't a very good fighter, he believed he was. Org made it to level 4 before he was done in by a series of lucky blows.
Following Org was a thief whose name I don't recall. Very short lived. Not a very good thief. I think 16 Dex and the Int and Wis scores were just bare minimum for a thief. The thing I DO recall is that she had a charisma of 3 and the leader of the group had a charisma of 18. She was doggedly in love with the leader of the group and highly suggestible. She died attempting to backstab a dragon at the behest of her beloved. (This character started at lvl 10)
It was about here that I started to really enjoy playing defective characters. Actively looked forward to having a couple of character flaws rather than resenting them and making due. Of course, I was also becoming an angsty teen.
So next was Thorain Kinslayer. He was actually a decent set of roles save for a low Charisma (6, I think) but he had HISTORY! Thorain was the 3rd son of a family but he was desperately power-obsessed and had fallen in love with his fathers sword. He had slain his family and taken the sword. Hated by his people and cursed by their gods, he'd run out into the world and become the only thing he'd ever wanted to be. A sword for hire. ... Yeah... Anyhow... Thorain was batshit crazy, and when the party was captured by a gang of gnolls and robbed of all their possessions (including his father's sword) As soon as Thorain was free, he screamed at the rest of the party that they had to go and fight them and reclaim what was theirs (This was 5 1st level characters vs ~30 gnolls) They (of course) told him to let it go. They'd been offered better gear by the lord hiring them and that they'd be slaughtered. The last they saw of Thorain, he was swearing at them, calling them cowards and casting dispersions on their ancestry. He then ran off into the night, following the path of the gnolls and he was never heard from again.
After him, there were a lot of good and fun characters.
The rat, a telepathic/telekinetic rat with intense freak-out issues when faced by laboratories and scientists. He also had a major issue with controlling himself when food was present.
The Crimson Acorn. A halfling swashbuckler that acted like Errol Flynn. He was nutty.
Rick Sterling, Good Guy. A billionaire that wanted to believe he was Bruce Wayne. He had 250 points of disadvantages and 100 points of advantages. All of his powers were limited to 'only when no one is watching' and they were basically just powers to keep him from dying. (regeneration and stuff) He spent most of every campaign unconscious. Fun tho.
Flame... She was interesting. Garish red costume, good martial arts and a more-secret-than-most identity. She was a transvestite. By night a defender of the poor and homeless of the streets, by day a boy with a record for shoplifting, living in a group home. I could almost make a comic from her. She was pretty neat.
and so on. I'm yammering now, so I'll stop. Anyhow... I guess that's what I'd want in a roleplaying game. Stuff that makes you think and have to really be in-character. I assume there are other people that play that way and oddly enough, I haven't really got the opportunity to play with most of my friends so maybe I've just been in poor groups. What do you guys think?
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Date: 2007-12-19 01:18 am (UTC)That was one thing I really liked about the otherwise pretty damn silly Gamma World 2nd Edition rules and background. Your characters were pretty much invariably mutant freaks in some regard. I never got to play it, but I loved rolling characters and I still look back fondly upon my four-brained sentient epileptic eagle who could mind-lift a car but flying made him motion-sick.
You know, the philosophical flaws of the D&D alignment system are legitimate and it's always neat to see people discussing them, but I've always rather had a soft spot for the two-axis alignment system. Not because it's psychologically realistic -- far from it! I liked the implication of an alternate metaphysical world, where alignments were ALIGNMENTS, dammit!
In D&D, good and evil aren't just social constructions. They're not just absolutes -- they're practically elements, as objectively real and subject to natural law as gold and silver. They're like physical properties, woven into your very matter and subject to magical and theological reactions. If you bring in the planar stuff, alignments are even places. I don't know if that's a genuinely "medieval" worldview per se, but it's definitely pre-modern and pre-rational, and it seems like it has all sorts of neat implications for a really good worldbuilding GM to play with. (Could there be sorcerers, or even gods, trying to exploit power inherent in the alignment system? Can you make, say, engines out of conflicting good and evil, or law and chaos? Can these rules be hacked? Is there some divine entity who made the world like this? Can you find it? Can you kick its ass, Golden Compass style? :) )
In practice though, yeah, alignment is what you make of it. "Bad," i.e., simplistic campaigns will ignore it in favor of a nice rousing dungeon crawl. "Good," i.e., intricate RP-heavy campaigns will use it as a guideline and not be too hindered by it. Personally, I like rules-heavy systems because a good one will make some of the gameworld intrinsic to the PC. (e.g., secret societies and mutant powers in Paranoia; the diminishing-humanity traits in White Wolf games; and just the sheer bunnyness of Bunnies and Burrows...)