"He's [JB's son] using all the AD&D rules he can remember...yes, including weapon length and speed factor, etc...and is keeping careful track of time and light sources and wandering monsters and all that jazz. The main difference ... besides dropping alignment ... is that he is using Alexis Smolensk's experience system, which has been standard in our house since May 2019. It necessitates tracking damage inflicted and received, but that's still a lot easier than it sounds (as even a ten year old Dungeon Master can manage it)"
There. Narcissistic courage gained. JB jibed at me a couple of days that I should be proud that his boy isn't using alignment. I am. I'm damn proud.
I've tried today to find a semblance of something in alignment; to be merciful on some ground about some aspect of the rule set. No, sorry, I can't find it.
I know of people who identify as "good" ... Danskin made an excellent 6-part video set about this. The last video takes its time explaining how the whole good/bad dichotomy is used by human beings to rationalize tremendously shitty things they do, while gratifying themselves with the belief that its okay to do those things, because they're "good." Think mass shooter here, where the mass shooter doesn't think he's evil, but instead thinks he's good, because he's killing all the evil people. Good and bad have only subjective meaning, which means its a terrible foundation for describing what sort of person a player character is. It makes no sense.
Likewise, in large extent, everyone is fundamentally lawful. A serial killer who's just buried a thirteenth body in a string will go to the pump, fill their car with gas and pay for it, because that's a practical way to behave. They'll obey stop signs and they'll speed occasionally — we don't put people in jail because they're fundamentally "unlawful" ... every person that's in a jail right now obeyed 99.99% of the laws that exist. Even if you tried very, very hard to be "chaotic", the so-called opposite of lawful, you'd still accidentally obey 99.9% of the laws we've made as a society because it wouldn't occur to you that a lot of the things you sensibly do have a law saying you should do that thing sensibly. The only people who are truly "chaotic" also can't function in society. By that, I don't mean they fail to get along with society, I mean they can't function. This is why we institutionalise them, or walk wide circles around them, because they have serious mental health issues. Let's be clear. One of these people would not make a very good ranger.
Gygax clearly meant something else by the term "chaotic": specifically, anti-social, at least where rangers are concerned. However, anti-social isn't the diametric opposite of lawful. Hermits are very careful about building and dousing fires; many of our laws come from the commonsense teachings of people who deliberately lived apart from human society, then wrote books or gave lectures about their experiences.
Finally, the word "neutral" doesn't mean anything. If you're concerned about your own survival, as you must be if you're a player, you're not neutral by definition. If you're a druid, the class designated as having to be neutral, and you have a belief system based on the survival of nature and animals vs. humans, again, you're NOT neutral. "Neutral" is a mock cloak that players put on when they feel apathetic, until they take the cloak off so they can act in a way they care about, only to put the cloak on again while saying, "That didn't happen." It's bullshit. Worse, its codified bullshit.
The words used to make combinations that designate alignment AREN'T OBJECTIVE. It is impossible to hold players to a subjective standard, unless the goal is to subjectively dick them around while pretending that this is all logical. Since Gygax plainly feels the words are objective, we may reasonably describe him as a cognitively dissonant asshole who loved the inventive mental fuck machine that empowered him to mind fuck his players.
And for this behaviour ... he's praised. He's monumentalized. This is a strange thing to do with a profoundly narcissistic prick, but here we are.
Alignment is the bastard child of D&D. It's a warped pretension that's launched ten thousand reddit arguments and a million memes. You can't make a television show without some D&Der taking stuffing its characters into an alignment grid. Alignment is the relentless Floridian sinkhole that will, given time, submerge the entire state. It's Gilligan. It's the bear from The Winter's Tale. It's the albatross around the mariner's neck.
We'll never get rid of it.
Hey, man: it wasn’t a jibe...at least, not at you. Maybe myself...I’m the one that tends to be wushu-washy on the topic.
ReplyDeleteI totally grok what you’re saying regarding the system of alignment being subjective bullshit when it comes to personality/behavior stuff. But what about as a cosmic force in one’s (game) universe? Like: say there was this force that is demonic in nature (being defined as “impossibly unwholesome to any semblance of rational or pleasant human existence”) and for lack of a better term we called that force “Chaotic.” And say there was another force of similar power but perhaps the opposite “polarity.” Maybe there are even astral planes (unlike the “prime material” plane) that are so fundamentally aligned with one force or another that a normal human would burn to a cinder in its crucible without some severe magical protection...
Would you be willing to go down that particular road a step or two? And would you be willing to consider the possibility of these forces AT TIMES manifesting in your game world? NOT in terms of a character’s personal code of behavior or ethics, but as a sacred (or profane) area or artifact? A relic of a Saint? The stinking remains of some summoned demon or devil? Other things?
I still like the idea of “forces” existing in the game, something to (perhaps) be tapped into, of worshipped, or feared. I like the idea that these forces might motivate nations or armies or religious movements...and perhaps (very rarely) even the occasional individual.
A world without such forces feels a little too secular (for lack of a better word)...at least for my own taste in fantasy. But I agree that the system, as penned, is kind of a big shit pile.
Of course the outer planes deservedly possess forces that are aligned with one sort of agenda or another. Why do these agendas need to be graphed, exactly? Shouldn't the profundity of Asgard, Elysium, Nirvana, Tartarus, Hell and so on be sustained by the use of needful language to describe their nature IN FULL? Must we boil it down to a single word - and not a very descriptive word, at that. We DON'T lack for a better word. The words used by the Greeks and Romans were "Dionysian" and "Bacchanalian" ... the worst of humans as they sink into sense-driven vice. How about "Chthonic"? Or "Apollonian"? Part of your issue, JB, in your disparagement of secularism, is that while theology spends all its time picking apart the same literature written 2500 years ago, the world has moved on and discovered new things to talk about, and new ways to discuss them.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, whattaya say we dump the need for "polarity" and we just define these places as what they are, and not by virtue of what they are not, and stop looking for neat patterns for arranging them on a board? Hm?
There is a story, possibly apocryphal, floating around that alignment was only bolted on to D&D in the first place as a lever to make the players behave, and be less murder-hoboish.
ReplyDeleteIt might not be accurate, but it certainly fits with Gary's frequent admonitions to keep players in check, and his kvetching about player behavior.
I've heard that story, Pixledriven; and I think it probably has merit, as the story goes back to the 1980s. Only, it's not really the purview of the company or Gygax to tell people how to behave when playing a game according to the rules.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Gary's frequent admonitions, I tend to appreciate those where he encourages players to think about larger values than immediate gratification. I've trying to think of one where he's purely kvetching without giving a good reason why the players should change and I can't, not right off.
Well, it IS a game after all.
ReplyDelete; )
My apologies for disparaging secularism...there are indeed good things (thoughts, progress, whatever) to have come out of it. A lot of worthless shit as well...I mean a LOT of worthless garbage. Which is only to be expected, I suppose considering we're all just humans and we continue to layer our flaws on one another.
[on the other hand, I've become so inured to the pitfalls and flaws of religious doctrine and spiritual followings that I just take them as a given...like gravity]
I see the secular and the divine as two (opposite) sides of the same "humanity" coin: the material and the immaterial, the known and the unknown, Earth and Heaven, and both part of our human experience. And D&D, being primarily a game about humans (or human surrogates) NEEDS both. And the only thing doing any real work in the game towards that end would be "alignment."
And, yes, it's badly done and it's shitty and it's simplistic (it's a game right?!) but a lot of OTHER parts of reality are abstracted as well; and folks have long complained about other shitty, simplistic, badly done systems of the physical realm in the game. We tinker with combat systems and hit points and encumbrance and economies until we get them in some semblance of "acceptable" form for our perspective. But we cut alignment and replace it with...what? Nothing?
As I said, it doesn't sit comfortably with me. I have felt the divine in my life. More than once. It is probably part of what gives me my faith in the divine (the religion I practice...well, that's a choice and really is much more about my upbringing and (*sigh*) snobbishness than about my divine experiences!). I am happy to play a fantasy game where magical spells are simply a type of "science," where magical creatures or artifacts are simply a poorly understood "technology." But a game without fundamental divine forces? THAT, to me, is too simplistic. For me, it verges on the unbelievable.
But alignment is shit...I agree. Cutting character alignments from my game hasn't altered it much at all (though my children bring their own sense of ethics and whatnot to the table so they're kind of playing "alignment" without alignment anyway, if you catch my drift). But the thing feels like it's missing SOMEthing. In a game that seeks to codify all reality into a playable form, I guess I just want something extra. Alignment has been a poor substitute, but it's been something.
Forgive me.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to attach this to your argument, but as a person who is thoroughly versed in religious studies and theology, I want to point out that your question, "Nothing?" smacks of a particular sentiment evoked by modern evangelicals that without the Bible there is no morality.
Define this "need." Because I don't see it. I have language and the ability to put as many words together as I need to describe things. Duality is an unnecessary label, that would compel me to force every human thought into boxes into which they may not fit, or round holes where the tiniest bit of squareness is planed off to MAKE it fit, for this "need" you speak of. I don't grasp what this need provides, except to simplify ... which is the purport and saleable quality of religion: that it SIMPLIFIES the complicated, difficult to define parts of a complicated world.
I'm not looking for simplification. I cannot "feel" your faith in the divine, nor can I see why the structure of a game must be designed specifically in a manner that suits your particular prejudices. I don't see why YOU need it designed that way! Why is something "divine" necessarily dualistic? What does one have to do with the other? Draw me the straight line that states clearly that if you're not divine, you're profane.
Oh, wait, I know what it is. It's the power that organized religion holds over its subjects as a criticism and a threat, stating that if you don't toe the line you're evicted as NOT divine. Stupid of me to forget that.
Nothing to forgive, man. My own faith bears little resemblance to the stuff in the game, and I wasn't necessarily suggesting duality.
ReplyDelete[yes, in the hypothetical of my first comment I used "Chaos" and its "polarity" as a possible POTENTIAL example...I did not meant to imply that was the ONLY way to approach the subject. Ugh, the challenges of having an internet conversation!]
Anyway, I'm definitely not trying to evangelize here.
Why do *I* find a particular need to include the possibility of some type of divine forces? Um...because it feels important enough to do so? Because I can? Because it's my universe and I'm the god of it?
I suppose that (for me) it feels rational to have metaphysical rules that govern (or have influence on) the universe. There are natural laws and there are supernatural laws. We necessarily simplify (or "abstract") natural laws for game purposes (when you reach zero hit points your character dies, for example) so why not simplify supernatural ones?
Regardless, it doesn't have to be dualistic at all. Perhaps God IS the "prime material universe" and the only divine force that works upon it is the supernatural evil that seeks to corrupt and destroy it (in addition to the normal selfish and petty evil found in your average human being). Perhaps there are a multiplicity of metaphysical forces: the Ars Magica game included "faerie" in addition to "divine" and "infernal" forces, but I can see other possibilities...perhaps with personalities or "alignments" akin to the elements of the ancient Greeks or Chinese. AD&D itself produces nuances with its nine point alignment system (there are differences between lawful evil, neutral evil, and chaotic evil)...and even though they ABSOLUTELY FAIL at defining the scope of behavior found in any single human, they can serve as an example of the multiplicity of metaphysical force in the world's cosmology.
Listen, man: this is my particular quandary to solve (like you have with poison). For your world, the only metaphysical force in your universe would appear to be YOU...and that's fine! And you are a "hands off" God when it comes to your players' free will...you create the world (a divine clock maker) and let them experience it and let the chips fall where they may WITHIN THE RULES AND LIMITS YOU'VE SET and that's cool. For you, there's plenty of "nefarious" to be found in the mass of humanity, plenty enough to hold accountable, plenty enough to have plenty of consequence, reaction for action, without worrying about "spiritual laws" and "divine plans." I get that! That's cool! You have depth and complexity without simplistic, overused tropes of fantasy moralizing...great!
I want more. And you may say: worry about getting the bread and butter before worrying about saying "grace" over the meal. But for me, the "grace" bit is PART of the "bread and butter" stuff.
That was really all I was trying to say.
You say "more," but to me it sounds like less. Christianity and religion have always sounded like LESS to me.
ReplyDeleteBut you're speaking sensibly now. Thank you.
Oh, good!
ReplyDelete: )