Vogel Dungeons and Dragons Wannabe

[Valdain the King]

Jeez Louise! This stuff is good. What I like is the alignment system in those games. I am playing Temple but the alignments aren't as good as some of the others I hear. Does jeff base any of his characters or npcs on the Dungeons alignment system?

-Redbeard Lawful Neutral

-Hawthorn Lawful Evil

-Grah Hoth-Chaotic Evil

-Slith ssThss Chaotic Evil

-Trajkov Not sure of this one

-Agent Greta Not sure

-Miranda Not sure

-Guardian Alwan Lawful neutral

-Ornks True neutral

-Glahhks Chaotic Evil

-Vlish Chaotic Evil

 

This stuff is really cool. It exists in Spiderweb games and in DnD as well.

[Randomizer]

Jeff grew up playing D&D and the Exile/Avernum GIFTS are from a table top game he played. I don't know if he thinks in those terms when creating characters for the game.

[Valdain the King]

The talking brown recluses? Yeah they are great. Jeff's games I like to think most characters are practical for the most part.

[springacres]

Interesting thought!

 

Miranda definitely seems Chaotic Neutral to me, at least in Avadon 2. Avadon 1 she was more Chaotic Good.

[Dikiyoba]

Spiderweb Software characters by alignment? Sure, I'll bite.

 

Trajkov is Chaotic Good verging on neutral, since he flouts every Shaper law, takes power for himself, and attempts to overthrow the Shaper Empire... but does it in part out of concern for serviles, and rewards you and the Takers if you help him. Agent Greta is definitely Chaotic Good. Support for creation rights, even when it gets her cast out of Shaper school, and causes a war to break out. Miranda is probably Neutral Evil, but I don't remember her from Avadon 1 very well.

 

Dikiyoba isn't sure how creation species can have an alignment. For every rogue vlish, there is one tightly under Shaper or rebel control.

[Valdain the King]

Wretches-Chaotic Evil

Goblins-Chaotic Evil

Turrets in Avadon 2-Lawful Neutral They don't have a master and just blow people up. They are following the law of who created them. Their goal is to destroy.

Sevelin-Neutral Good

Shima-Chaotic Good

Nathalie-Chaotic Neutral

Jenell-True Neutral-Druid?

Pylon-Lawful Neutral, it just sends you where you want to go. It doesn't have a master?

Shadowtarkus-Lawful Evil

 

Let me know if I missed anyone

[springacres]

I'd put Shadow Tarkus in the Lawful Neutral category myself, maybe even Lawful Good - but that depends so much on whether you go loyalist or rebel.

 

Alcander - True Neutral. (although my blademaster insists there must be a special category for people he only trusts as far as he can throw them, or as far as their self-interest lies, whichever is less.)

Jenell - True Neutral.

Silke/Rainer - hard to say, feels either True Neutral or Neutral Good to me.

Dedrik - Neutral Good or True Neutral, but I feel he leans more towards Neutral Good.

Yannick - kinda goes from Lawful Good to Chaotic Good.

Khalida - Lawful Good.

Yoshiria - Hard to say, feels more Lawful Neutral than Lawful Good to me, but she could be either.

[Valdain the King]

Jeff Vogel-Lawful Good

Moritz-Kri-Chaotic Evil

Shadowbeast-Chaotic Evil

 

How would the player character become more chaotic or lawful during the game? I don't understand neutral good and chaotic good's difference in Avadon. It seems like Chaotic neutral fits the player in all of the gene forge games as you go back and forth. Avernum is more like the good guys.

[springacres]

In Yannick's case, he seems to me to change alignment after doing his personal quest. That's how.

 

 

His personal quest results in him being temporarily possessed by a Tawon spirit, as a result of which he ends up going insane - hearing voices, etc.

 

[Alorael at Large]

I don't think anyone ever really creates characters explicitly for the alignment system except in D&D, and then only when trying to toy with the conventions of the alignment system. It's much too limited and limiting otherwise. Shapers are certainly lawful, but whether they are good or evil is a matter of perspective and debate (which we've had for years) without any absolute moral authority to enforce it. Are drakons evil for their power-hungry, power-struggle ways? Are the rest of the rebels evil for allying with them? Rawal seems fairly evil in enslaving someone with the control tool, and pretty evil otherwise in his total self-interest, but is Alwan evil for supporting the Shapers even when that means also supporting Rawal?

 

 

—Alorael, who is mostly saying that the alignment grid is no substitute for a real, rigorous ethical system. None of which should impede the fun of shoehorning characters into the grid.

[*i]

Yeah, the D&D alignment system is pretty useless when you have morally complex characters with morally justifiable motivations for their actions. The Geneforge games, by design, make the sides of the battles morally ambiguous with both sides having their own good works and atrocities. Certainly, some individuals on each side can be judged on the good/evil axis based on if their motivations are predominantly self-serving or exist to support a greater cause, but that's about the limit. It's a lot easier in fantasy like LoTR -- from which D&D derives much intellectual material despite claims to the contrary by Gygax -- being a classic good/evil conflict where Sauron, et. al. are both evil in their motivations of dominance as well as their tactics.

[Edgwyn]

It always seemed to me that the default position in D&D and AD&Dv1 was to be Good, with lawful substituting for Good in D&D. Of course many of Gygax's characters were actually Neutral.

[Lilith]

It always seemed to me that the default position in D&D and AD&Dv1 was to be Good, with lawful substituting for Good in D&D. Of course many of Gygax's characters were actually Neutral.

 

On the other hand, OD&D's Law/Chaos axis probably owed more to Poul Anderson than to Tolkien, and wasn't expressly a moral judgement. It's true that a lot of your classic rampaging evil monsters did tend to be Chaotic and pretty much none of them were Lawful, but that was more to do with the "rampaging" part than the "evil" part; elves were also usually chaotic and not especially evil.

[Alorael at Large]

D&D always has usually a somewhat odd position on the good/evil axis and how you find your place on it. Good requires work but falling into evil is easy. Neutral is sometimes an explicit conviction, sometimes a lack of conviction, and sometimes a mixture. But no one has ever been worried that their blackguard or necromancer has been acting too good recently.

 

—Alorael, who supposes this makes sense from the standard Western and heavily Christian view of morality. One must always guard against temptation and a fall. Still, it's a bit weird in a universe with explicit and often balanced forces of good and evil. Shouldn't evil gods be just as picky about their followers' morals? If you slaughter villages but then feed the orphans you're a blasphemer and there's no way you're going to get to go to hell when you die.

[Student of Trinity]

Fantasy evil isn't always sure what it wants. Is it just ruthless and selfish? Or does it pursue harm and misery as ends in themselves? Maybe good is similar, up to a point. It's one thing to be soft-hearted by nature, and enjoy helping others if it isn't too hard; it's another to sacrifice your life for what you know is right.

 

In a game you kind of need all these types. Evil-for-its-own-sake is convenient in both boss villains and trash mobs, but ruthlessness is handy for ambiguous NPCs that can switch hit between opponent and ally. Kindly NPCs are good for helping out the party, but if they're too heroic they'll steal the party's thunder or even do its job, so you need a bunch of nominally 'good' folk who still aren't really up for the big challenge. Then of course you need the truly noble types, who can be relied upon to keep the campaign moving through thick and thin.

 

I tried for a while to make an FRPG that would bake into the rules most of the stock play elements that always seemed to drive campaigns in practice, and to my surprise the main moral dichotomy turned out to be between direct and indirect approaches. Do you confront things toe-to-toe, relying on direct strength, or do you manipulate things indirectly, using skill?

[Xaiya]

-Ornks True neutral

-Glahhks Chaotic Evil

-Vlish Chaotic Evil

First of all, unless created like so, these creations are non-sapient and thus cannot have an alignment since they lack the ability to do so. They're either following their masters or mindlessly going around doing whatever comes to them instinctively. And even if they did have the ability, you're labeling entire species as one particular alignment, which can have really awful implications for who you are if this is taken completely seriously.

 

It probably makes more sense to label characters one-by-one. Geneforge, however, has an actually engaging story with characters that often aren't so easy to define, so for many labeling may be difficult.

[Alberich]

I tried for a while to make an FRPG that would bake into the rules most of the stock play elements that always seemed to drive campaigns in practice, and to my surprise the main moral dichotomy turned out to be between direct and indirect approaches. Do you confront things toe-to-toe, relying on direct strength, or do you manipulate things indirectly, using skill?

 

One of my buddies did this using the standard D&D alignments, in a very clever way. The "good-evil" axis was an axis of ends; the "law-chaos" axis was an axis of means. The big splits that mattered in our group were (usually) along the law-chaos axis.

 

So, in some of our dimension-travelling superhero-powered games, my characters tended to be strictly <I>against</I> things like fixing a problem by time-travelling back for a do-over (creates more problems than it solves), using matter transmutation powers to create gold and spend it (inflationary), selling hi-tech weapons on low-tech worlds (disruptive), etc. A certain other player was in favor of doing such things early and often. Naturally, each of us thought of the other as "less good" but in terms of an alignment system, placing me on the "law" end and this other guy on the "chaos" end made a lot of sense and made the alignment system track the way we played. The trick was that lawful characters were restricted in their means - wouldn't do certain things, on principle, even to accomplish good ends, though different lawful characters might have different restrictions.*

 

Under this interpretation...Litalia is the most interesting GF character to track. I suppose she starts out as chaotic good, drifting down to chaotic neutral or evil as she becomes jaded with her revolutionary tactics...and ends up on the good side again but with a new set of priorities. Lawful, chaotic, or neutral? She's got firm principles this time, but it seems she's willing to use nearly any tactic to pursue them (such as releasing the bug-nasties or, as she hints, even resorting to shaping if she has to defend herself), so I'm inclined to "chaotic" but it's arguable.

 

On the other hand, OD&D's Law/Chaos axis probably owed more to Poul Anderson than to Tolkien, and wasn't expressly a moral judgement.

 

I always thought he lifted it from Moorcock, especially the Elric/Corum series.

 

 

________

* I remember being annoyed by the Palladium alignment system, which had very <I>specific</I> rules for its alignments...for example, you couldn't be "principled" if you believed in looting useful items from your evil fallen opponents (you had to see such items as "dirty"...might work for some superhero worlds but doesn't fit many others we gamed in).

[Sudanna]

And even if they did have the ability, you're labeling entire species as one particular alignment, which can have really awful implications for who you are if this is taken completely seriously.

 

D&D, or at least some editions of it, actually explicitly does this. Orcs or goblins might be listed as always Chaotic Evil, for example. Depending on how you look at it, this is either fantasy racism or a setting in which different species are actually, y'know, very different from each other. It would probably have fewer Unfortunate Implications if they weren't referred to as "races".

[adc.]

Then this abomination must belong to the Chaotic Evil Alignment...

 

 

SUFFER!!! SUFFER FROM ITS VOMIT-INDUCING AND HORRIFIC USELESSNESS!!!ONE

 

 

Summon me, I haz the ritual of unsellification. Additional damage because I am in the Chaotic Good alignment.

-----

-Nightwatcher

[Xaiya]

Fool! If unsellable trowels truly were chatoic evil, we would all be doomed. They are actually True Neutral, and are simply watching and waiting. We should hope they do not take interest.

 

D&D, or at least some editions of it, actually explicitly does this. Orcs or goblins might be listed as always Chaotic Evil, for example. Depending on how you look at it, this is either fantasy racism or a setting in which different species are actually, y'know, very different from each other. It would probably have fewer Unfortunate Implications if they weren't referred to as "races".

They also tend to be extremely stupid sterotypic trash mobs. Sapience seems to be the exception, not the rule, as far as I've seen, though I could be wrong since I'm really just looking at Avernum for my interpretation of goblins and from what I've heard overall of the two. If this is the case, then really only the leaders can have an alignment. Though this point is moot since it seems all of the leaders seem to be chaotic evil anyways.

[Student of Trinity]

I once put a couple of janitorial ogres into a relatively high-level dungeon. They wore coveralls, and carried mops, and pushed trash cans around. They didn't put up much of a fight, but they caused enormous consternation. I was horrified that the players just slaughtered these harmless janitors. I was expecting them to be surprised by mild-mannered ogres, but they were all Good, so I thought they should at least ask a few questions before shooting. Nope. I reproached them, and they complained to me that I had violated a genre convention.

 

After that I stopped identifying unusual monsters as stock types. Orcs were all evil, but 'hairy humanoids with big teeth and bandy limbs' could be anything, and players were more cautious. That was probably fair.

[Randomizer]

I remember watching a game where the good aligned party was attacking a dwarven cavern. One player asked another if dwarves were evil and the second replied, "Of course they are evil. They are keeping us from their treasure." The gamemaster pointed out to another bystander that that the monster manual showed dwarves as lawful good alignment. Then the gamemaster started plotting the next game session to teach the players not to attack good aligned groups for loot.

 

Players rarely care about alignment except to use it as another excuse to justify their actions.

 

Unsellable trowels are true neutrals in that they lie in wait to inflict themselves on all others. They care not to whom they wreck.

[Lilith]

I tried for a while to make an FRPG that would bake into the rules most of the stock play elements that always seemed to drive campaigns in practice, and to my surprise the main moral dichotomy turned out to be between direct and indirect approaches. Do you confront things toe-to-toe, relying on direct strength, or do you manipulate things indirectly, using skill?

 

I've seen an indie tabletop RPG called In a Wicked Age that has an interesting take on this. You have six stats: Directly, Covertly, For Myself, For Others, With Love, and With Violence. For any action you take against opposition, you pick the two stats that are most applicable to your method and intent, add them together and roll both. The way the mechanics shake out, there are short-term advantages to picking courses of action that use your highest stats, and long-term advantages to picking your lowest stats.

 

I always thought he lifted it from Moorcock, especially the Elric/Corum series.

 

I somehow got the impression that Gygax was never big on Moorcock. Then again, he was never big on Tolkien either, and that didn't stop him from including hobbits by player demand.

[Student of Trinity]

Huh. IAWA costs $5 for the PDF rulebook, so I just bought it, on the off chance that it'll be fun to play with family over Christmas. At least, I tried to buy it. I'm not sure anything is actually going to happen. Maybe I need to roll.

 

EDIT: No, it just worked. I now have the PDF. You mark my words, this internet thing might catch on big some day.

[Alberich]

I somehow got the impression that Gygax was never big on Moorcock. Then again, he was never big on Tolkien either, and that didn't stop him from including hobbits by player demand.

 

Not to mention Tolkienesque dwarves, elves, elf-friends (whoops, half-elves), orcs, uruk-hai (whoops, half-orcs), goblins that ride wolves called "wargs" (or did he spell it with an "o"?) etc., most of which have since become cliché in all manner of CRPG's and related games. (And this essay convinced me that is not a bad thing, at least not all the time it's not.)

 

If I remember from the old Dungeon Master's Guide -- and dang, that's an old memory -- he spoke most highly of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd-and-the-Mouser stories plus H.P. Lovecraft (at least among tales I know well those were the ones), and maybe Robert E. Howard, but it's a lot easier for me to see Tolkien and Moorcock in the player races plus the alignment system.

[Alorael at Large]

RPGs that take their

Players rarely care about alignment except to use it as another excuse to justify their actions.

This is an oddity of gamism, but it's one that can be neatly sidestepped. And is, by most RPGs that are not D&D or a direct and deliberate offshoot. Not coincidentally those games also tend to eschew alignment.

 

—Alorael, who tends to play those games that eschew alignment. Some of them have weirder stats than others.

[Alberich]

This is an oddity of gamism, but it's one that can be neatly sidestepped.

 

My experience -- and heaven knows different gaming groups have their own cultures -- is that this is an oddity of human nature, using the language of morality to justify whatever you feel like doing, while using the same language to condemn whatever you don't like that the other fellow's doing. And I used to see it all the time even in games without formal alignments.

 

It's a little exacerbated in classic D&D/AD&D because the paladin class was so powerful, yet required a lawful good alignment...so that it attracted bullies who really didn't care to live up to a chivalric ideal. (My thought was that it shouldn't be allowed as a starting class; but instead a mid-level fighter who had already shown he was acting like a paladin could go to the Chapel of Knighthood and get the additional powers...and one who hadn't, couldn't.)

[Randomizer]

What happened to TSR because of that Tolkien thing.

[Lilith]

It's a little exacerbated in classic D&D/AD&D because the paladin class was so powerful, yet required a lawful good alignment...so that it attracted bullies who really didn't care to live up to a chivalric ideal. (My thought was that it shouldn't be allowed as a starting class; but instead a mid-level fighter who had already shown he was acting like a paladin could go to the Chapel of Knighthood and get the additional powers...and one who hadn't, couldn't.)

 

Interestingly, BECMI D&D took exactly this approach: becoming a paladin was one of the possible paths for a fighter once they hit level 9, if they were Lawful and there was an appropriate church that they were willing to swear fealty to. A Chaotic fighter could become an avenger instead, gaining a somewhat different set of special powers, while a fighter of any alignment could become a knight, gaining no magic powers but having less onerous restrictions on their behaviour and obtaining certain social advantages that neither paladins nor avengers received.

[Alberich]

Didn't even know that existed 'til you told me about it just now - thank you!

[Lilith]

Yeah, after the split between AD&D and Basic D&D, "Basic" kind of became increasingly a misnomer as that branch grew into its own thing. In practice, a lot of people in the 80s used BECMI and AD&D material interchangeably in a single campaign since they both ran off a similar mechanical chassis, but there were some significant differences in their design philosophies.

 

If you want to check it out, the definitive text for BECMI is the Rules Cyclopedia, which compiles all the key rules and the most popular optional variations into a single volume. You can get it in PDF form for $10. It's set out more like a reference work than a traditional player's guide, but if you've got some familiarity with any edition of D&D you'll pick it up fast enough.

[Valdain the King]

I dont understand Chaotic Good and Neutral Good. They just seem like some laws and no law belief. If a thief is neutral good is it because they are stealing from someone who can spare it? Wouldn't that make them Chaotic Neutral. Wait, Chaotic Neutral is the psycho who breaks someone's arm and then buys an apple pie for them. Chaotic Good is just no belief in laws but good in nature. ( Im Chaotic Neutral but Im nice)

 

Is Jeff's alignment Lawful good by the way? He seems like a paladin.

[Alberich]

Lilith - Thank you! Right now I don't have a live gaming group and am not in a position to look for one. In a couple of months that may be different and I will keep that in mind. (And depending on whom or what I find, I may ask you for some advice about good systems.)

 

Valdain - Think of it in the "ends and means" mode I mentioned above. The classic "good thief" is Robin Hood or someone like him -- he wants to accomplish good ends (ending a tyrannical regime) but is willing to use "unrestricted" means (like stealing) to get it done. Dirty Harry -- from the first movie in particular -- is arguably chaotic good; he wants to accomplish good ends (like saving a girl who's suffocating to death, and punishing the monster who's doing it to her) but is ready to use unlawful means (like disobeying orders and torturing a suspect) to get them.

[Alorael at Large]

Although it's also the subject of endless wrangling, I'd say that Neutral X is X without any particular regard for law. A thief really can't be lawful, except maybe as a member of a highly regulated guild that just happens to ignore standard laws, but a thief might not be chaotic if he's not deliberately rejecting laws. But a rebel could be chaotic, literally overthrowing the current rule of law, or lawful, by intending to replace those laws with newer, fairer ones.

 

Everyone who has encountered the "I'm chaotic neutral, so I'm just craaaazy!" character has no desire to encounter such a thing ever again. Insanity is not a meaningful morality. And wanton maiming doesn't balance out with cheery repayment; that's straight evil insanity.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't see how Jeff is in any way a paladin in demeanor. He mostly goes for world-weary, snarky cynic. Which isn't necessarily incompatible with paladining, mind you, but they certainly aren't usually closely associated.

[Edgwyn]

In terms of Moorcock as an influence on Gygax, one of the supplements for 1st Ed AD&D was Deities and Demigods. Stats for Elric and his sword were listed in there in a whole pantheon. Lovecraft also had a pantheon as well as did Greeks, Egyptians, Norse, Indian, Native American, etc. The Greyhawk specific deities came later and the Forgotten Realms specific Deities much later. I remember there being a whole listing of influences in the back of the 1st Ed DMG, but I do not currently have access to it. The influence of Tolkein seems undeniable to me.

While the first edition AD&D rules and the Basic D&D did unfortunately use the term "Race", "Species" could be more accurate as long as you are not to concerned with (or willing to give a fantasy/magic exception) to the issue of being able to bear cross-species off-spring that can have off-spring (half-elves and half-orcs). As a species, Dwarves were Lawful Good, Orcs Lawful Evil, Elves Chaotic Good and Goblins Chaotic Evil. That was in part based on some fantasy works were Goblins were the opposite/evil copies of Dwarves and the same with Elves and Orcs. Player characters of Dwarves and Elves were not limited to those alignments, but could be different, so be extension, not all Orcs and Goblins had to be LE and CE respectively. That said, for most players, AD&D and D&D were not about hard moral decisions, but about killing monsters, gaining loot and having fun.

[Edgwyn]

In terms of Moorcock as an influence on Gygax, one of the supplements for 1st Ed AD&D was Deities and Demigods. Stats for Elric and his sword were listed in there in a whole pantheon. Lovecraft also had a pantheon as well as did Greeks, Egyptians, Norse, Indian, Native American, etc. The Greyhawk specific deities came later and the Forgotten Realms specific Deities much later. I remember there being a whole listing of influences in the back of the 1st Ed DMG, but I do not currently have access to it. The influence of Tolkein seems undeniable to me.

While the first edition AD&D rules and the Basic D&D did unfortunately use the term "Race", "Species" could be more accurate as long as you are not to concerned with (or willing to give a fantasy/magic exception) to the issue of being able to bear cross-species off-spring that can have off-spring (half-elves and half-orcs). As a species, Dwarves were Lawful Good, Orcs Lawful Evil, Elves Chaotic Good and Goblins Chaotic Evil. That was in part based on some fantasy works were Goblins were the opposite/evil copies of Dwarves and the same with Elves and Orcs. Player characters of Dwarves and Elves were not limited to those alignments, but could be different, so be extension, not all Orcs and Goblins had to be LE and CE respectively. That said, for most players, AD&D and D&D were not about hard moral decisions, but about killing monsters, gaining loot and having fun.

[Student of Trinity]

Elric was in the stapled booklet "Gods, Demigods and Heroes" before Deities and Demigods. I'm really not sure that Gary Gygax had much to do with either of those supplements, which were authored by other people.

 

Gygax's vision of D&D was always — and often explicitly — against the epic, worlds-at-stake scenarios of Tolkien and Moorcock. He tried to make a game of endless picaresque adventures, where there was always another range of mountains to be scaled. I think that was his main innovation, in fact. D&D grew out of tabletop miniature wargaming, very much like what Warhammer is now. Other people developed gaming that simulated individual combat rather than armies, including fantasy combat with magic and monsters, and even the notion of character advancement; but it was focused on short campaigns, with advancement being a one-time improvement kind of like making a 'king' in checkers. Gygax invented leveling as we know it, a very long progression over campaigns that can last for years. This is the opposite of Tolkien, where the whole world changes in just a few months, and the only boosts for which a character can even have time are things like finding a ring or reforging a sword.

 

About strange 'attributes': The mathematician G.H. Hardy, mainly famous now for discovering Ramanujan, had an odd set of characteristics by which he measured people, with scores from 0 to 100. According to C.P. Snow's preface to Hardy's Mathematician's Apology, some of the characteristics were 'Spin', 'Bleak', 'Stark', and 'Old Brandy'. Bleak and Stark were fairly self-explanatory, though the difference between them seems to have been expressed only in the fact that 'a stark man is not necessarily bleak: but all bleak men without exception want to be considered stark'. Spin was a cricket term, indicating a knack or tendency for subtlety and indirectness, or something. Old Brandy measured the kind of borderline eccentricity exemplified by a character who drank nothing but old brandy: bizarre, yet just conceivably reasonable, from a certain point of view.

[adc.]

Fool! If unsellable trowels truly were chatoic evil, we would all be doomed. They are actually True Neutral, and are simply watching and waiting. We should hope they do not take interest.

 

Can you not see? They are sooo neutral, that they conspire against us, which is shrouded behind their devious minds!!!

 

 

One shudders to imagine what inhuman thoughts lie behind that shine... what dreams of chronic and sustained cruelty?

-----

-Nightwatcher

[Student of Trinity]

"A sign," he said, "a sign."

 

"It is this," I answered, producing from beneath the folds of my roquelaire a trowel.

 

"You jest," he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. "But let us proceed to the Amontillado."