Thursday, May 12, 2016

Holmes Basic D&D Rulebook Part 3 - A Real Neutral Being, and a Lawful Hero

PART 3 OF 12

Part 1
Part 2

The section on hiring retainers is pretty normal and quite solidly written. Interestingly, it says "Subdued monsters will obey for a time without need to check their reactions, and such monsters are salable." Nothing like casting Charm on a subhuman individual and then selling the creature into slavery! Or for spare parts! We're the good guys, right?

Well, that depends on your alignment, and Holmes Basic presents an infamously unique take on that very topic. HERE is the alignment chart from the book - the link was taken from HERE. That blog post and the discussion below it have a lot of interesting information on the subject. I'm not going to go quite so in-depth here, but this is the gist of it: Instead of the three alignments of OD&D (Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic) or the nine alignments of AD&D (just...take your pick), Holmes Basic has FIVE alignments. There's Lawful Good, Chaotic Good, Neutral, Lawful Evil, and Chaotic Evil. It's actually very similar to the alignment system of D&D 4E, and I've read secondhand that Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1E has a similar system as well. Essentially, it's just the AD&D system without any of the Neutral alignments besides True Neutral.

Oh boy. Now it's time to talk about my feelings regarding D&D-style alignment on the Internet. Surely no one will disagree with me to the point of ridicule and/or death threats.

Frankly, I just don't like codified systems of morality in fantasy adventure RPGs. Plain and simple. I have two main complaints about alignment. One, I think that such games are more interesting (and less headache-inducing) when the characters' behavior is rewarded/punished/acknowledged/shown to have consequences in an organic way. For example, a nice person could make friends more easily but also be taken advantage of more easily, while an unhinged murderer could be treated like a dangerous animal by the public at large but be sought out as a hitman or mercenary by certain unsavory groups. A person with strong religious beliefs could be treated as a guest among like-minded people and face prejudice among those with strong faith in a competing belief - or face well-deserved wrath if they violently try to impose their beliefs on "heathen foreigners" in a far-off village and rile up an angry mob of said "foreigners." Imposing XP penalties or forced class changes when a character acts "out of alignment" too often doesn't appeal to me at all. I understand the idea of Clerics and Paladins having to follow specific codes of conduct and stuff, but even then I'd rather base such penalties on specific oaths the characters have sworn based on their personal or institutional doctrines, rather than a catch-all alignment which applies equally to multiple religions and to secular life. And even then, I'd rather just not impose those kinds of penalties at all, but that's just me.

Second, I'm not a fan of including objective, provable, magically-backed, universal ethics in the games I play. I like using moral ambiguity in fiction. I find it more interesting and more applicable to my real-life experiences. Now don't get me wrong: I understand that this is fantasy, and it does not have to mesh with real life at all. That may be the appeal of fantasy, to some extent. But I like it when fantasy is a little grounded, so that the differences between the fiction and reality stand out more, and so that the fiction can help me consider aspects of mundane reality in new, fantastical ways. I think that objective, verifiable morality in fantasy can be very interesting in theory, but in practice I haven't seen it accomplish much in RPGs at the actual table besides restricting player freedom in annoying and sometimes arbitrary ways.

If an intelligent magic sword is only supposed to allow itself to be wielded by a Lawful individual, I think it would be more interesting for the sword to arbitrate its wielder's behavior based on what it believes is Lawful conduct, rather than what objectively counts as Lawful. My favorite alignment system in a D&D-style game so far actually comes from Lamentations of the Flame Princess - it has the same three categories as OD&D, but the rulebook notes that these alignments have nothing to do with morality and are based solely on what kind of supernatural beings, powers, or forces would ally with you or oppose you. It's not an ethical system, but more like the magical equivalent of the continuum between acidic and alkaline chemicals.

All that said, I kind of like how Holmes Basic breaks alignment down into these five categories instead of the nine I'm used to. I think the AD&D system is too ambiguous about what each category entails, even though it presents the categories as if they were fairly separate and clearly codified. The Holmes system at least cuts out the four AD&D alignments that I find the most troublesome. A Neutral Good person just seems to me like someone who goes back and forth between acting Lawful Good and acting Chaotic Good. In other words, they only believe in Lawfulness when it suits them and ignore it otherwise...which just sounds like Chaotic Good to me. Likewise with Neutral Evil.

Lawful Neutral seems absurd to me - why would someone be utterly loyal to the law in every shape and form unless they either believe the law facilitates moral correctness (in which case they would be Lawful Good, although they may be foolishly following bad laws because they incorrectly believe them to be good laws), believe that the law facilitates their desire to selfishly get an advantage over others (in which case they would be Lawful Evil), or merely believe that they are unwilling to face the consequences of breaking the law (which would probably make them True Neutral).

And Chaotic Neutral just seems to be the philosophy that one should do whatever one wants without concern for what is right or proper...which sounds evil to me. Chaotic Evil. And don't get me started on the theory that the True Neutral alignment is supposed to reflect a desire for an even distribution of Law, Chaos, Good, and Evil. That's not how those concepts work!

To be fair, I could kind of see the classic Lawful Neutral and balance-style True Neutral alignments working for creatures with very alien (and possibly illogical) outlooks, like the Inevitables from D&D 3E, but for creatures with human-like viewpoints, I don't think such philosophies are coherent. I'd rather see players put down stuff like "Liberal Protestant" on their character sheets instead of Lawful Whatever, kind of like what I've seen in some LotFP fan-made materials (like The Undercroft #3).

Just as I feared, this turned into a lengthy rant. Anyway, that's my opinion. I certainly respect other opinions on this subject, and people are obviously entitled to run their games as they like without judgement from me, provided everyone at the table is treated fairly and ethically IRL. My point is, I'm not fond of alignment at all, but as far as such things go, I think the approach taken by Holmes Basic is fine.

One more alignment-based thing: Holmes Basic includes alignment languages. These are most definitely not unique to this version of the game, though. I've never seen alignment languages come up in any game I've played in, but if you're going to include magical, objectively-demonstrable systems of ethics, you might as well include mystic alignment languages that somehow everyone knows. At least that's a delightfully weird concept.

Also, the LANGUAGES section is deliberately vague in a way I find endearing, referring to the "common tongue" and the "continent" in quotations. The way D&D generally treats languages is oddly specific while pretending to be vague. What if my campaign setting doesn't include continents and everyone lives on the backs of giant kangaroos in space? Well, I guess that kind of setting wouldn't be very "Basic," now would it? But you see this kind of thing in Advanced and modern D&D rulebooks too, so...whatever. It's easy to houserule. Still, I find the assumptions about languages in D&D really interesting.

Next time: Time, Why You Punish Me?

(Now these two songs are going to be stuck in my head. Thanks, Dr. Holmes.)

27 comments:

  1. D6 Star Wars does hardwired alignment well; the Dark Side is a real thing in the universe, and certain acts just are evil, even if done for good reasons. That said, it's Star Wars so it has the advantage of a setting that everyone already understands.

    It will come as no surprise that I'm also fond of the LotFP system of alignment. I also like 13th Age's approach, in which alignment is decoupled from the character and instead attached to the character's relationships; Alice of Zengis may be a wonderful person who is always kind to children and puppies, but she's also an associate of the Lich King, so everyone tends to think she's up to something undead-y.

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    1. Star Wars is a great example. The Dark Side is tangible and absolute. That's fine for Star Wars, and that's fine for D&D if that's how people want to roll. But honestly, the Light/Dark Side dynamic isn't exactly my favorite aspect of Star Wars, if you catch my drift.

      I've been meaning to check out 13th Age. That sounds like a cool approach to alignment, and I've already heard a bunch of other good things about the game, too.

      Undead-y is a wonderful adjective, and it should be in the OED.

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    2. Oh yes, understood. It works well in Star Wars and the idea of morality being as solid as a law of physics is interesting, but it's still a bit weird and not how I'd do it.

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  2. Just to make it clear, I am in no way going to try and tell anyone how they should be playing an RPG. The only "right" way to play an RPG is a way that is fun for the people playing. If your group is having fun, then congratulations, you're doing it right! The comments below, are just my interpretation of the rules, or how I might apply them.

    I am definitely a fan of moral ambiguity, moral conflict, and situational morality in games/fiction. Sometimes the means are as important, or even more important, than the ends, and sometimes the ends are so important that you're allowed to be a little more lenient in the means. I like the concept of forcing the characters to make difficult choices. Give them situations where they have to choose a path, and that choice has consequences and far reaching implications. The infamous trolley problem: Do you pull the lever to save the little kid by killing a dozen adults, or do you let the kid die so you don't have to be responsible for killing a dozen people? Who's lives matter more, and why? And maybe they will somehow surprise you and save both.

    Alignment in RPGs is far from a universal thing. It is generally used only in fantasy games, and in games that acknowledge some kind of higher authority (usually gods). It's application is also very spotty even in games where it is prominent. Some people hold to it quite tightly, and others hand-wave it away. In the games I've played, it is almost exclusively applied to cleric/paladin-type characters, who somehow derive their power from the beneficence of higher powers. Some systems have defined that only higher level powers are directly bestowed by divinity. (e.g. spells of fourth level and up) So if a cleric wasn't following the tenets of their religion closely enough, they may be denied spells of 4th level and higher until they atone for their actions.

    You talk about binding characters to earthly guilds/groups/organizations in order to provide consequences. That's great. Makes for good RP if the players have some things they need to think about other than the most expedient way to accomplish their immediate objective. However... in fantasy games there *are* higher powers. There are gods that have arbitrarily defined the behavior they expect from their followers. In return for following those arbitrarily-defined ethics, those higher powers gift their adherents with some of their power. They are not going to continue to gift those considerable powers to an agent if that agent is not working in their best interests. In situations like this, a character's alignment *should* matter. It's a simple way to define the ethical system imposed by their god. The alternative to an alignment system is to individually identify the ethical tenets of each player's god, and then hold the player's accountable against that.

    As players get higher and higher level, and more likely to come into contact with the direct agents of these powers, and perhaps even the powers themselves, their adherence to their ethical guidelines become more important. If you haven't defined these ethics in some way, how does that power judge the character's actions? The easy way is to use alignment as the yardstick.

    Anyway, it all comes down to what any particular set of players thinks is fun. Adding alignment into the mix as a guideline for those classes where it makes sense (i.e. for those classes that derive power from divine entities) can help add to that fun.

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    1. Well said!

      My BA in Philosophy makes me too fond of moral dilemmas and ambiguous ethics to just drop gray-and-gray morality from the games I run completely, although I do try to make things black-and-white every once in a while. Of course, the players should be free to choose whatever option they prefer, even in a black-and-white situation.

      I'm more-or-less fine with gods providing powers to characters and then taking those powers away if the characters go against the rules set by those gods. What I'm not fine with is the idea that those rules are objectively correct from a moral standpoint, rather than the subjective opinions and beliefs of those gods. The right thing to do and what the god CONSIDERS the right thing to do can overlap, but they don't need to overlap 100% of the time. I'm just not interested in playing the gods as morally infallible. It's like my magic sword example in the blog post, except the magic sword is a god now and grants abilities from afar instead of from a hunk of metal in one's inventory...unless you count the cleric's holy symbol.

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  3. I guess i never considered the gods in d&d as infallible. I think the description of them in the various books shows they aren't. I treat the alignment names as just labels for various sets of behaviors, not as ultimate truths.

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    1. That's probably a good way to look at it. However, I think the "detect alignment" and "alignment language" things, plus the XP penalty for acting "out of alignment" in some versions of the game regardless of whether or not the gods are directly involved in what the PCs are doing, plus the way the planes and various afterlives are set up all make it hard for me to see the intention of the alignment rules as representing subjective morality instead of ultimate moral truth. But of course, you can ignore the supposed intentions of a game or campaign setting and just do whatever you want.

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  4. Alignment as a *rule* can be a huge bugaboo.

    In a world, where one man has the power to detect evil absolutely and the sworn oath to destroy evil -- why aren't paladins just marching through towns, cities, and countrysides, en masse, slaughtering those who detect as evil? Then someone says, "ah, but that person could change to another alignment -- you've got to give them a chance to change!" and you just about circle back to "what's alignment again?"...

    If it's behavior, how do you know in advance??
    If it's built into your DNA or whatever, what does that mean? I was "born evil"???

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    1. It annoys me that most D&D settings don't seem to try to answer these questions, at least to my satisfaction.
      I'd love to see a D&D setting that answers these questions and incorporates those answers into the process of world-building. You could probably create a pretty interesting and scary dystopia just based on the "detect evil" spell.

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    2. Now *THAT* would be an interesting game.

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  5. Remind me to send you a copy of Gygax's letter to Strategic Review from Feb 1976. (StratRev was a short-lived newsletter that was the precursor to "The Dragon", as Dragon Magazine was first known.) In addition to the articles that bear witness to his pole arm fetish, he wrote a nice one called "THE MEANING OF LAW AND CHAOS IN DUNGEONS & DRAGONS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIPS TO GOOD AND EVIL". (Yes, the all-caps is the original title.) In the article, which was written pre-Holmes basic, Gygax states: "In fact, had I the opportunity to do D&D over I would have made the whole business very much clearer by differentiating the four categories, and many chaotic creatures would be good, while many lawful creatures would be evil." His examples include unicorns and mummies both being very lawful, with unicorns being shaded slightly good, and mummies being shaded slightly evil. Zombies are true neutral. :) Anyway... I'll have to get you a copy. Very interesting.

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    1. That is interesting. I'd love to read that. Thanks.

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    2. I've always thought it odd that vampires -- creatures that are bound by so many rules -- aren't lawful in D&D.

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    3. In Gygax's 1976 article, he puts vampires at almost the extreme Lawful Evil limit. If I can get a copy of the article to Justin, maybe he can post the chart. I don't think I can post a graphic in a comment.

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    4. "creatures that are bound by so many rules -- aren't lawful in D&D."

      We have laws aplenty in this world... doesn't make us all Lawful... I'd say vampires are more 'constrained' than willingly following the rules... ; )

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    5. Heh. Vampires are just like most of us then, I'd bet.

      I've got to be honest: I still can't quite wrap my head around what Lawful Evil is supposed to even mean. I can see it as a strategy - use the law to selfishly get what you want and maintain control - but as a moral philosophy it seems to me that a truly evil person wouldn't give a crap about the law outside of practical concerns like whether or not a given action will get them executed.

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    6. Consider a highly regimented, despotic society. The entire society could be defined by the ruling class, solely for the benefit of the ruling class. The people in the society may do well if they walk the straight and narrow. The society in general could be extremely repressive, with each level of society preying on those below it.

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    7. I kind of see what you mean, but...I don't know, if I try to hash this out my thoughts on AD&D alignment in more detail, it's going to turn into a philosophy paper and/or wall of text.
      Maybe I'll do that...

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    8. I ran across this interesting example today:
      "Chaotic evil is the cycle gang who kicks down your door, steals your stuff, burns your house and deep-fries your puppy dog - then leaves. Lawful evil is a faceless bureaucracy that seizes your house through Immanent [sic] Domain laws, confiscates your property with a court-ordered foreclosure, puts your puppy dog to sleep because he wasn’t registered, and then offers to rent your old house back to you at a reasonable rate. Lawful evil is organized. Violence is the last resort, after it’s tried blackmail, bribery, threats and devious backroom political maneuvering. Chaotic evil hates to back down from an open fight. Lawful evil hates open fights: It would much rather sneak into your bedroom, cast a Sleep spell on you to make sure you’re really out, then put a pillow over your face. So much tidier."

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    9. That's a great example.

      Based on this and other examples, it sounds like only the Good/Evil axis on the alignment chart actually says anything about a character's morality, whereas the Law/Chaos axis is more about the tactics or strategy preferred by that character. The problem for me arises when you see characters (usually Lawful Neutral or Chaotic Neutral ones) who champion Law Itself or Chaos Itself as moral principles. That's what I find confusing and/or silly, although I could see it working for sufficiently alien/Lovecraftian beings (see http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality for examples of what I mean there).

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  7. Lawful characters act according to a code of behavior, but that may have nothing to do with the laws of the land. Allied LE Thieves won't stab each other in the back, if that's what they've agreed to... (of course, a CE Thief could be pretending to 'obey the rules', heh heh heh).

    Then again they could adhere to the laws of the land, if your LE character is using bankruptcy laws or legal loopholes to protect or increase their assets, never mind the many lives they are throwing to the wolves.

    But if you think of 'Lawful' as involving some sort of order, and "Chaos" not as flaunting law, but being simply unpredictable, it makes more sense (as much as Alignment can make sense).

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    1. Gack! Hit wrong 'reply' button... : \

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    2. This is more or less Gygax's original concept of law/chaos. Being aligned to Lawful means that you believe in a ordered society. A place for everything, and everything in its place. This may or may not have anything to do with written laws. It could just be that you believe that's the way things are. Chaos on the other hand would be the complete and unrestrained exercise of free will. (Note that these are separate concepts from good/evil. Believing in free will/chaos doesn't mean you are evil, by any means.) As you say, following the law also doe snot mean you are good. They could be corrupt laws meant to enshrine the ruling class's tyrannical domination over the peons. It is worth noting that Gygax's description of neutral is not a "Keep both sides in balance" type of neutrality. Rather, it is a disregard for both sides of the conflict. If you get involved in a manner that benefits one side or the other, then your involvement is not really neutral.

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    3. Oh yeah, I'm in agreement with both of you as to Gygax's intentions regarding the AD&D alignment system. I just think that, in terms of my personal beliefs and/or the way ethics have historically been investigated by philosophers throughout history, it still leaves a little to be desired. In real life, I think that the Law vs. Chaos axis is not the SAME as the Good vs. Evil axis (quite obviously), but it's not as divorced from (or perhaps I could say perpendicular to) it as the AD&D grid shows it, either. To me, whether the Lawful or the Chaotic (unlawful) action is the morally correct one depends entirely on the individual circumstances of the situation and pretty much nothing else.
      (Does that make me Neutral on the Law vs. Chaos axis? I think I said earlier I don't even think Neutral Good is a proper alignment...) I don't know...I'd have to think about this in more depth.

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  8. Having grown up on AD&D, and getting a copy of Holmes later, but having read Pohl Anderson and Micheal Moorcock and Louise Cooper regarding Law and Chaos, I am much more a fan of GURPS' use of codes of honor, vows and personality traits like sense of duty, intolerance, Impulsiveness and greed as substitutes for an Alignment system.

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    1. That sounds like it would be easier to individualize for each character.

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