2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary - Day Sixty

Celebrating 2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary of Blackmoor and of Role-Playing!

Today is Part 5 of my series of looks at OD&D starting with Men & Magic - Volume 1.

Today I am going to tackle Alignment, another contentious topic. This is the source of bitter disagreement from both extremes across the whole spectrum of opinion. Some people think it is a rigid construct that regulates every thought and action of a character while other just say it is impossible to use and do away with it.

Here is the original table with examples of the alignment of various creatures. In Volume 1 - Men & Magic, 

this is almost all of the information given, 99% in fact is just this table. Of the three classic character classes only Clerics are noted as having a penalty for changing alignment. As I noted here 

Note that Clerics are either “Law” or “Chaos,” and there is a sharp distinction between them. If a Patriarch receiving the above benefits changes sides, all the benefits will immediately be removed!

or the later version

Note that Clerics of 7th level and greater are either “Law” or “Chaos,” and there is a sharp distinction between them.  If a Patriarch receiving the above benefits changes sides, all the benefits will immediately be removed!

With the original version we assumed that Clerics chose “Law” or “Chaos,”at character creation and I still do that requiring "Law". However, many prefer to have them choose at 7th level. Also it is evident that 7th level for the choice was the original intent. How do we know this, because the penalty occurs if a Patriarch changes sides. Clerics become Patriarchs at 8th level, so they have to choose sides at 7th level before they become Patriarchs.

Back to the table, note that Men appear in all three columns while Ents are only Lawful. Elves are Lawful or Neutral, but not Chaotic. Dwarves and Gnomes are also Lawful or Neutral, while Hobbits are only Lawful. Goblins, Kobolds, Hobgoblins, Gnolls and Trolls are only Chaotic while Orcs, Ogres and Giant are Neutral or Chaotic. Centaurs were Lawful or Neutral, but Dragons, Minotaurs and Chimerae were Neutral or Chaotic. Yes, no Lawful Dragons in the original version. Lycanthropes were the only creatures in the original game, that like Men could be Lawful, Neutral or Chaotic.

Also note that Lawful is the smallest group and Chaotic is the largest group. Neutral also included all animals in general and all monstrous animals such as Purple Worms and Sea Monsters. Oddly enough Wyverns are only Neutral as are Hydrae. While to me this makes sense for Hydrae to have animal intelligence, I have always treated Wyverns as intelligent and sentient, just not as smart as Dragons.

So here are some of the changes that I made back in my first campaign:

• Hobbits, Elves, and Dwarves could be any of the three alignments the same as Men. I specified which was the most common and least common extrapolated from the original specifications.
• Giants and Dragons could also be Lawful.
• Wyverns could be any of the three alignments.
• Goblins, Kobolds, Hobgoblins and Gnolls could also be Neutral, although commonly Chaotic.
• Trolls in my campaign are not sentient, they are mindless eating machines and are therefore Neutral. Trolls are also Immortal IMC, so proper destruction is a must. A piece of a Troll of two pounds or larger when separated can grow into a full sized Troll. A Troll of sufficient age and size (they never stop growing) will gradually develop sentience and at the point becomes Chaotic.
• Gnomes were changed to be only Lawful as in extreme Lawful. They are the  bean counters of the world, the dot every i and cross every t, adhere to every line of a contract type of folk. They are by nature incapable of changing Alignment just as Undead are unbreakably Chaotic.

While I will look at Languages again when I get to them, I am going to jump ahead to look at them for a moment.

LANGUAGES: The “common tongue” spoken throughout the “continent” is known by most humans. All other creatures and monsters which can speak have their own language, although some (20%) also know the common one. Law, Chaos and Neutrality also have common languages spoken by each respectively. One can attempt to communicate through the common tongue, language particular to a creature class, or one of the divisional languages (law, etc.). While not understanding the language, creatures who speak a divisional tongue will recognize a hostile one and attack.

I made the change that the use of an Alignment Language would not automatically generate an Attack.

Now as to how I used Alignment in the game, I used alignment for characters as a rough template of how they usually behave but nothing rigid and the initial alignment could change based on consistent behavior as something other than what was originally claimed. This could result in magic items such as swords becoming unusable by a character due to alignment change. This also meant that some Monster could be induced over time to change alignment if they found a benefit in dealing with the party.

I gave/give feedback so that players know what behavior if continued could result in an alignment change. I give them an overview up front so that they have a good picture of how alignment is handled.

Alignment for Clerics as mentioned is more serious than for Fighting-Men or Magic-Users. Later when Paladins were added, Alignment was very serious for Paladins. For both there were the Neutral or Chaotic acts and then also the worst thing would be an Evil act. For example slitting the throats of sleeping opponents is an Evil act, leaving them bound without weapons or armor is a Neutral act and leaving them unbound without weapons or armor is a Lawful act and taking them as slaves is a Chaotic act.

The rational for this is that anything a sleep spell will work on is possibly Neutral or even Lawful, the Chaotic only creatures are either more than 4 HD or are Undead or are Chaotic with an Evil bent. Examples of the last would be Medusae, Manticores, Gargoyles and Gorgons. Even low HD Lycanthropes are not affected by Sleep.

More tomorrow.