I last posted about alignment, and how much I disliked the concept. It is, in my mind, similar to the way certain Computer RPGs have a "Good/Evil" thing going on. Games like KOTOR (Knights of the Old Republic), Neverwinter Nights and Fable come to mind. It's kind of interesting, in those games, because they do give you a choice of how to act, some decision-making control over social interactions and tasks, &c, but ultimately, it all boils down to a very basic black-and-white view of: "If you choose to be an ass you're an ass, and if you choose to act like Mother Theresa you're not". And that's good and evil, right there. Ridiculously simplistic.
But, after I wrote that post, I've been asking myself, what would you replace it with? There are really two options, in mind. You could replace it with nothing. That is, let players act how they act, and the DM determines repercussions. If you decide to steal from that poor shopkeeper and get caught, are you evil? He was poor. You have adamantium weapons. You got caught. Are you evil? What about if you then, because you got caught, decide to kill him to cover up the crime? Are you evil then? What if, before he gets killed, he shouts really loud and the night watch comes to investigate and sees you with the proverbial bloody knife in your hand? Are you then evil because you got caught? And what if, then, because you're by now level 10 and everybody knows that basic humans are supposed to be 0-level, you decide "I really don't want to go to jail because then the game would be over and I kind of like this character so fuck it, engarde Night Watchman!" and you proceed to hackandslash your way through the entire constabulary of this medieval fantasy town and you don't even breathe hard until you have to face Lord Whatsthenameofthistownanyway, who is considerably higher than level 0. Are you evil then? Because now you just sacked a town. When, in reality, all you wanted was to just keep playing the character that you'd grown kind of fond of? I mean, come on, I have an Adamantium Sword and was just trying to get the potion of whatsit for the guy over there. It's my quest, man!
See the problems? Anyway, I sidetracked a bit. So you could replace it with nothing at all. No alignment. Only consequences. Which, to be fair, is truly where the RPG experience is anyway. Nowadays, it goes something like this:
DM - "You just sacked a town. The king's going to be pissed when he hears about this. Oh, and Mikey, you're not a paladin anymore. That was kind of the very definition of not Lawful Good."
Mikey - "But I didn't even do anything until the guard showed up, and Joe the barbarian started getting his ass kicked and begged me for help. I helped my friend. THAT's the definition of Lawful Good."
DM - "Nope. You sacked a town and now you guys are going to have huge bounties on your heads and you will have to spend the rest of your days in Sherwood Forest."
Conrad the Half-Elven Ranger - "Sweet. I've always wanted to be Robin Hood. No worries, guys, I have Wilderness training. We'll be fine."
Mikey the ex-Paladin - Sure. We'll eat rats all day and I'll be a warrior. Great. Whatever.
As opposed to the not f'ing worrying about the good vs evil thing, and just letting them play. Because, let's face it, he did help his friends. And that is a pretty good thing to do, isn't it? I'd wager that it's kind of in the eye of the beholder.
OR, you could really come up with a convoluted cultural/religious separate worldviews system, wherein every God/Culture defines good and evil separately. In other words, if you're a worshipper of the Raven Queen, then what she considers to be acceptable and "good" is completely different than what Bahamut or Fizban or whoever considers to be acceptable and good and proper. Fizban/Zifban/nabzif/It's-been-way-too-long-since-I-read-those-books the avatar of the platinum dragon might frown on you randomly slaughtering passersby, but be perfectly fine with you killing everything that moves in the Goblin village over there. Gork and Mork might have a problem with you single-handedly thwarting the latest Waagh!, while the Raven Queen just loves it all. You see what I'm saying? In each case, you could have a "Good" character, or somebody who follows the cultural/religious tenets of his worldview, and yet in each case the decisions you make would be different.
And it's this point that I've been thinking about lately. A lot.
Showing posts with label Alignment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alignment. Show all posts
Friday, August 26, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
Musings on Game - Alignment
Playing an EVIL character the other day got me thinking about Alignment in the D&D system, and how much it sucks. Yeah, I know. Another post on Alignment? Everybody knows that Alignment blows. Why write yet another post about it?
I don't know. Why do the makers of D&D insist on keeping the Alignment system in place when everybody and their mother hate it?
Way back when, the original D&D had a pretty simple Alignment system: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. It was probably somewhat influenced by Moorcock. The best thing to say about it was that it was easy. But, being a sometime player of D&D when I was a kid, I remember not really "getting it". What was Lawful, and what was Chaotic? Lawful represented a desire to uphold order and justice, and Chaotic represented a "frontier spirit" sort of thing, all for the good of the individual. I guess. I don't know. I always tried to interpret it in the spirit of Star Wars, but that led to the interesting conundrum that the Empire would have to be Lawful (at least by the time of A New Hope), and the Rebellion Chaotic. But the Empire is bad. And the Rebellion good. Right? Right?
Right. It didn't make any flipping sense. Then out comes AD&D, and their whole 9 alignment system, which introduced Good and Evil. Now you could be Chaotic, but still be Good at the same time. And you could be Lawful, but still be Evil. So there you go. The Rebellion = Chaotic Good, and the Empire = Lawful Evil. But still, after a little bit of thought, that system sucked too.
I mean, what sort of person is ONLY good? Which one of us has not been a dick to somebody else at some point in our lives? What, that's not good and evil? That's just too personal? Alrighty then. So what defines evil? Comic books sometimes make it out to be a killing vs non-killing thing. If you take a life, you're evil. You're a villain. If you don't take a life, you're a good guy. Yeah, I know. Ridiculous. How about assassination, then? That seems pretty clear. You kill a person for no other reason than pure unadulterated profit. Evil, right? Not necessarily. What about a sniper, in the military? Alright, not working for profit. Working for patriotism, supposedly. But assassinating people, regardless. So soldiers in a war = good, but mercenaries in a war = bad. What's the difference? Patriotism. Law and order vs Ego and the profit motive. In other words, Lawful vs Chaotic. Not good and evil. So, what's evil then? Good question. It has always been my belief that there is no such thing as good and evil, that these terms are societal constructs/labels that are used to control behavior (which is a post and a half all by itself, so we won't get into that here). But the game already has a set of labels to define whether your anti-social or not: Lawful and Chaotic. So then, aren't Good and Evil, in the terms of the game, redundant?
It would seem so. Or at least, in D&D 4E it would, because they've gotten rid of 6 of the 9 alignments. Now there's only Lawful Good, Good, Neutral, Evil, Chaotic Evil. In other words, Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil, being redundant terms, are REALLY REALLY Good or REALLY REALLY Evil. Whatever. Nobody's going to play a Lawful Good character as it should be played, and nobody's going to play a Chaotic Evil character as it should be played, so what's the point?
There is no point. Alignment sucks, it always has. Let the players play what they want to play, how they want to play. Don't force them into a moral straightjacket, especially when the definition of that morality is a slippery thing, and evil to the character might not be evil to the DM might not be evil to anybody else.
I mean, I played an Evil character a couple of days ago. What was the most evil thing I could think of to do, short of killing other players, which is always always a great big no no? I didn't help out a merchant in need, and then I peed in the fountain. In public.
I don't know. Why do the makers of D&D insist on keeping the Alignment system in place when everybody and their mother hate it?
Way back when, the original D&D had a pretty simple Alignment system: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. It was probably somewhat influenced by Moorcock. The best thing to say about it was that it was easy. But, being a sometime player of D&D when I was a kid, I remember not really "getting it". What was Lawful, and what was Chaotic? Lawful represented a desire to uphold order and justice, and Chaotic represented a "frontier spirit" sort of thing, all for the good of the individual. I guess. I don't know. I always tried to interpret it in the spirit of Star Wars, but that led to the interesting conundrum that the Empire would have to be Lawful (at least by the time of A New Hope), and the Rebellion Chaotic. But the Empire is bad. And the Rebellion good. Right? Right?
Right. It didn't make any flipping sense. Then out comes AD&D, and their whole 9 alignment system, which introduced Good and Evil. Now you could be Chaotic, but still be Good at the same time. And you could be Lawful, but still be Evil. So there you go. The Rebellion = Chaotic Good, and the Empire = Lawful Evil. But still, after a little bit of thought, that system sucked too.
I mean, what sort of person is ONLY good? Which one of us has not been a dick to somebody else at some point in our lives? What, that's not good and evil? That's just too personal? Alrighty then. So what defines evil? Comic books sometimes make it out to be a killing vs non-killing thing. If you take a life, you're evil. You're a villain. If you don't take a life, you're a good guy. Yeah, I know. Ridiculous. How about assassination, then? That seems pretty clear. You kill a person for no other reason than pure unadulterated profit. Evil, right? Not necessarily. What about a sniper, in the military? Alright, not working for profit. Working for patriotism, supposedly. But assassinating people, regardless. So soldiers in a war = good, but mercenaries in a war = bad. What's the difference? Patriotism. Law and order vs Ego and the profit motive. In other words, Lawful vs Chaotic. Not good and evil. So, what's evil then? Good question. It has always been my belief that there is no such thing as good and evil, that these terms are societal constructs/labels that are used to control behavior (which is a post and a half all by itself, so we won't get into that here). But the game already has a set of labels to define whether your anti-social or not: Lawful and Chaotic. So then, aren't Good and Evil, in the terms of the game, redundant?
It would seem so. Or at least, in D&D 4E it would, because they've gotten rid of 6 of the 9 alignments. Now there's only Lawful Good, Good, Neutral, Evil, Chaotic Evil. In other words, Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil, being redundant terms, are REALLY REALLY Good or REALLY REALLY Evil. Whatever. Nobody's going to play a Lawful Good character as it should be played, and nobody's going to play a Chaotic Evil character as it should be played, so what's the point?
There is no point. Alignment sucks, it always has. Let the players play what they want to play, how they want to play. Don't force them into a moral straightjacket, especially when the definition of that morality is a slippery thing, and evil to the character might not be evil to the DM might not be evil to anybody else.
I mean, I played an Evil character a couple of days ago. What was the most evil thing I could think of to do, short of killing other players, which is always always a great big no no? I didn't help out a merchant in need, and then I peed in the fountain. In public.
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