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Post by geneweigel on May 22, 2016 10:09:01 GMT -5
I was thinking of having an alignment discussion but I don't want to repeat anything done elsewhere. I want information gathering without campaign opinions or paladin situations. Well, at least not for a while.
Gygax's sources, Gygax as the "Final word" statements, Gygax's "look back in disgust" latter day statements and D&D to AD&D term usage.
Narrowing down the 2E era's effect on people's campaigns on alignment (deviltry, etc.) by reviewing what did "bad TSR" put in the Kool Aid.
Then when its all over comparing actual campaign experience with different people's approaches to alignment while avoiding bland "we did what Zeb told us but didn't know it was Zeb" type statements.
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Post by geneweigel on May 22, 2016 19:55:27 GMT -5
Alright the first area of business is STRATEGIC REVIEW VOL II #1 (FEB 1976) (Also reprinted in BEST OF DRAGON VOLUME ONE 1980): Now most people know this as the "good lich" article and here are all the charts combined for clarity: Illustration One is pinkish, Illustration Two is B&W and Illustration Three is greenish. Alright, this the article cited the most for paladin play back in the early 80's as everything was spelled out as behaviors.
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Post by geneweigel on May 22, 2016 19:57:04 GMT -5
the middle says "elementals" in pink and "neutral" in B&W.
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Post by geneweigel on May 22, 2016 20:38:47 GMT -5
Note this is also when vampires were being considered as the epitome of lawful evil (which is included in the Holmes edit Basic Rulebook but later removed across the board.)
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Post by GRWelsh on May 22, 2016 21:20:19 GMT -5
Of interesting note was: "Druids serve only themselves and nature, they occasionally make human sacrifice, but on the other hand they aid the folk in agriculture and animal husbandry. Druids are, therefore, neutral — although slightly predisposed towards evil actions." This made me think of the Wicker Man, Celtic Druids as perhaps they were perceived by Julius Caesar and early sources? Keepers of lore and helpers of their own kind, but perceived as barbaric and heathenish by people from 'civilization.' Also, this could possibly foreshadow the concept of Dark Druids as an NE off-shoot of the TN druids.
Also of note is how "most of humanity falls into the lawful category, and most of lawful humanity lies near the line between good and evil. With proper leadership the majority will be prone towards lawful/good. Few humans are chaotic, and very few are chaotic and evil." That is a concept of most of humanity falling into fairly regular patterns of behavior, owing their survival to cooperation, and uniting under a leader or government, tending towards good but most not being willing to stand up for it if sufficiently pressured against it -- such as by a strong evil leader or regime. This concept seems to have later shifted to humanity being simply baseline Neutral, with tendencies in all directions...
For the other races and monsters, I suppose a lot of the changes from D&D to AD&D could have had some reasoning by EGG behind them, but I'm not sure if I've ever seen them.
- Good liches = a typo? - Orcs and gnolls switching places later = concept of orcs as baseline grunt troops, ready to knuckle under dark lord types, but with gnolls remaining more unruly and less suited for that role? I.e., orcs = evil troops, gnolls = unruly brigand-types. - Vampires and werewolves as initially lawful evil, but later switching to chaotic evil = perhaps a conception of them as orderly and scheming and infiltrating humanity? Like in the novel, DRACULA, about a monster capable of being urbane and methodical? All of the undead in this early graph seem to be on the lawful side of the spectrum. - Other changes like moving some evil dragons/giants to the lawful side, and some undead to the chaotic side = just to provide greater variation for tactics and motivations for such foes?
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Post by geneweigel on May 23, 2016 7:09:59 GMT -5
Gygax addressed the "good" lich in SLAYERS GUIDE TO THE UNDEAD (2002) saying they'll start good then slide. So the older the lich the more evil. Prior to that he also says its starts with acquiring a larvae from a night hag. So that appears not too good.
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 475
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Post by foster1941 on May 23, 2016 9:52:06 GMT -5
I assume the good lich comes from Gardner Fox's Kothar series - Kothar's patron is very obviously the model for the D&D lich - he's got the same appearance, the same powers (including paralyzation aura), is the remains of the greatest wizard of a previous generation, is encountered in a setting very much like Asberides' lair in D1, and is even referred to as a lich (an archaic term for corpse) - and is not-necessarily-evil and occasionally aids Kothar (who's a direct Conan clone, except for being blond) to defeat various bad-guys, but always with his own ulterior motives. Lawful Good is a stretch, but in D&D terms that character could easily be pegged as TN or LN.
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Post by geneweigel on May 23, 2016 10:25:41 GMT -5
Gardner Fox to Gary was like Gary was to us in a a way.
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 475
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Post by foster1941 on May 23, 2016 11:38:46 GMT -5
So which monsters changed alignment from this chart to the AD&D MM? I see:
Ents & Unicorns: LG to CG Platinum Dragons: CG to LG Hippogriffs: CG to N Liches: LG/LE to N(E) Werewolves, Gnolls, Minotaurs, Vampires: LE to CE Orcs, Blue Dragons, & Green Dragons: CE to LE Efreeti: CE to N(LE) Wereboars & Weretigers: CE to N
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Post by GRWelsh on May 23, 2016 12:14:42 GMT -5
Good catch on the KOTHAR reference... that seems plausible.
-- from KOTHAR: BARBARIAN SWORDSMAN (1969), by Gardner Fox (p. 23).
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Post by geneweigel on May 23, 2016 15:12:19 GMT -5
This is the spiel from SGTTU on good liches:
AND
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Post by geneweigel on May 23, 2016 17:48:26 GMT -5
Okay here is a visible alignment drift chart with monsters that changed alignment with red letters marking the change to the right of each:
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Post by geneweigel on May 23, 2016 19:37:34 GMT -5
I think this is the reference to the inkling of alignment in THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS (1953):
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Post by Scott on May 24, 2016 13:18:11 GMT -5
That definitely reflects my view of the 3 option D&D alignment system. On the cosmic level, I think I like this option better. I think the expanded options really just represent behavioral tendencies within the law chaos, or good evil struggle.
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Post by geneweigel on May 24, 2016 15:09:11 GMT -5
Its obvious straight up and the move towards "good" And "evil" is ironing out fringe definitions. I like the idea that consciousness of alignment is not for everybody. There is a language regarding alignment pre-AD&D where Gygax keeps saying "highly" as if, in later AD&D, there is an unknown low score which means "neutral" and an unknown high score which means LG,LN,LE,NE,CE,CN,CG,NG and an unknown medium score which is an alignment with a parentheses
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Post by geneweigel on May 24, 2016 15:48:12 GMT -5
I mean in the CHAINMAIL game (1971) its as if "mercenaries" are the neutral (standard wargame stuff) and in the "CHAINMAIL FANTASY SUPPLEMENT" they're specifically labelled as "NEUTRAL" to avoid confusion. You can't call an "elf" or "sprite" a "mercenary". It doesn't seem right. I think the idea of neutral is the THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS unconscious idea taken a step further into the actual "mode of existence" where it doesn't matter. Then it later congeals into "DRUID THINK" represented by "TRUE NEUTRAL".
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Post by Scott on May 25, 2016 10:19:45 GMT -5
The Three Hearts and Three Lions quote above implies, to me, that Law and Chaos were synonymous with Good and Evil. I think problems started creeping into the D&D alignment system when people started reading Lawful and Chaotic too literally. And I still think this is a major problem with the way some DMs run alignment. When Law and Chaos stopped being about Good and Evil, Good and Evil had to be added back into the mix.
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Post by geneweigel on May 25, 2016 11:45:23 GMT -5
Yes, that would be spot on with the thinking that I've had when actually thinking about it around the time when the DRAGON MAGAZINE ARCHIVE (1999) came out and it gave me more to think about. I came to the same conclusion "highly" evil doesn't fit this label so they shifted and reclassified.
The drive for spelling all this out for review is:
1) Notions in Gygax's prose about severity of alignment (the above mentioned "highly" adjective in post 3 book OD&D supplements regarding demons and such almost suggests an unknown alignment "stat" that he was looking at for AD&D the whole time but was not for publication .
2) Game play where I felt alignment wasn't satisfactory. I later concocted a rude adjunct alignment system of my own but its better off not being elaborated here.
Okay now lets head for more Gary:
DRAGON #28 (1979) reprinted in DRAGON MAGAZINE VOLUME 2 (1981):
This is the article that cites chaotic evil big leaguers being Earth loiterers and neutral evil maybe and lawful evil rarely.
There was a big shift in 2E where all the evil behavior went lawful in this regard.
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Post by Scott on May 25, 2016 14:55:21 GMT -5
I find the 'players have a harder time acting out the lawful v chaotic' line quite accurate.
This again reminds me of Robilar and Erac's Cousin, neither character seems LE under ant alignment description I've ever read.
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Post by geneweigel on May 25, 2016 16:07:48 GMT -5
Here is the definition of the alignment parentheses, which seem to be in every official Gygax character in the articles (quasi-deities, deities, etc.) and the GH modules, versus the original MM text:
MM(1977)
MMII (1983):
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