AD&D 2nd Edition
Everything I have for Second Edition
Everything I have for Second Edition
Alignment is a shorthand description of a complex moral code. It sketches out the basic attitudes of a person, place, or thing. It is a tool for the DM to use. In sudden or surprising situations, it guides the DM’s evaluation of NPC or creature reactions. By implication, it predicts the types of laws and enforcement found in a given area. It affects the use of certain highly specialized magical items.
For all the things alignment is, there are some very important things that it is not. It is not a hammer to pound over the heads of player characters who misbehave. It is not a code of behavior carved in stone. It is not absolute, but can vary from place to place. Neither should alignment be confused with personality. It shapes personality, but there is more to a person than just alignment.
It is essential that each character’s alignment be noted in the DM’s records for that character. Look at the alignments of the group as a whole. Can this group work together? Are the alignments too different? Are they different enough to break the party apart? Will this interfere with the planned adventure or campaign?
Sometimes characters of different alignments possess such radically varied world views as to make their cooperation impossible. For example, a strict lawful good and a chaotic neutral would find their adventuring marked by animosity and mistrust. A true chaotic neutral would make just about anyone trying to work with him crazy!
There are two approaches to an alignment problem in the group:
The first is to explain the problem to the players involved. Explain why their alignments could cause problems and see if they agree or disagree. If necessary, suggest some alignment changes – but never force a player to choose a new alignment. It is his character, after all. Wildly different characters may find ways to work together, making adventures amusing (at least) and maybe even successful in spite of the group’s problems.
The second approach requires that players keep their alignments secret from each other. Don’t tell anyone that there might be a problem. Let players role-play their characters and discover the problems on their own. When problems arise, let characters work them out themselves. This approach is best suited to experienced role-players and even then it can play havoc with a campaign. Since secrecy implies mistrust, this method should be used with extreme caution.
During play, pay attention to the actions of the player characters. Occasionally compare these against the characters’ alignments. Note instances in which the character acted against the principles of his alignment. Watch for tendencies to drift toward another, specific alignment.
If a character’s class requires that he adhere to a specific alignment, feel free to caution him when a proposed action seems contrary to that alignment. Allow the player to reconsider.
Never tell a player that his character can not do something because of his alignment! Player characters are controlled by the players. The DM intervenes only in rare cases (when the character is controlled by a spell or magical item, for example).
Finally as in all points of disagreement with your players, listen to their arguments when your understanding of an alignment differs from theirs. Even though you go to great effort in preparing your game, the campaign world is not yours alone – it belongs to your players as well.
Just as a well-played character acts within the limits of his alignment, NPCs should act consistently with their alignments. Judicious and imaginative use of NPCs is what creates a believable fantasy world.
Alignment is a quick guide to NPC and monster reactions. It’s most useful when you don’t want to take the time to consult a page of tables and you haven’t devised a complete personality for every casually encountered NPC. NPCs tend to act in accordance with their alignment (though they are no more perfect in this regard than player characters).
Thus, a chaotic evil gnoll tends to react with threats and a show of might. It considers someone who appeals to its compassion as a weakling, and automatically suspects the motives of anyone who tries to be friendly. According to the gnoll’s view of society, fear and bullying are the keys to success, mercy and kindness are for the weak, and friends are good only for the things they can provide: money, protection, or shelter. A lawful good merchant, meanwhile, would tend to hold the opposite view of things.
Remember, however, that alignment is not personality! If every lawful good merchant is played as an upright, honest, and friendly fellow, NPCs will become boring in a hurry. Just because a merchant is lawful good doesn’t mean he won’t haggle for the best price, or even take advantage of some gullible adventurer who is just passing through. Merchants live by making money, and there is nothing evil about charging as much as a character is willing to pay. A chaotic good innkeeper might, quite reasonably, be suspicious of or hostile to a bunch of ragged, heavily armed strangers who stomp into his inn late at night. A chaotic evil wizard might be bored, and happy for a little companionship as he sits by the inn’s fire.
To create memorable NPCs, don’t rely solely on their alignment. Add characteristics that make them interesting, adapting these to fit the character’s alignment. The merchant, perhaps feeling a little guilty about overcharging the adventurer, might give the next customer a break on the price. The innkeeper might be rude to the adventurers while clearly being friendly to other patrons, doing his best to make the group feel unwanted. The chaotic evil wizard might discover that, while he wanted some companionship, he doesn’t like the company he got. He might even leave behind a token of his irritation, such as bestowing the head of a donkey on the most annoying character.
Player characters, NPCs, and monsters are not alone in having alignment. Since a kingdom is nothing but a collection of people, united in some fashion (by language, common interest, or fear, for example), it can have an overall alignment. The alignment of a barony, principality, or other small body is based on the attitude of the ruler and the alignment of the majority of the population.
The alignment of the ruler determines the nature of many of the laws of the land. Lawful good rulers usually try to protect their territory and do what’s best for their subjects. Chaotic good rulers try to help people, but irregularly, being unwilling to enact sweeping legislation to correct a social ill.
At the same time, the enforcement of the laws and the attitudes found in the country come not from the ruler but the subjects. While a lawful good king issues decrees for the good of all, his lawful evil subjects may consider them inconveniences to work around. Bribery might become a standard method for doing business.
If the situation is reversed (a lawful evil king with mostly lawful good subjects), the kingdom becomes an unhappy place, filled with grumbling about the evil reign that plagues it. The king, in turn, resorts to severe measures to silence his critics, creating even more grumbling. The situation is similar to romantic portrayals of Norman England, with the good and true peasants struggling under the evil yoke of Prince John (as in both Robin Hood and Ivanhoe).
The general alignment of an area is determined by the interaction between ruler and ruled. Where the ruler and the population are in harmony, the alignment tendency of the region is strong. When the two conflict, the attitudes of the people have the strongest effect, since the player characters most often deal with people at this level. However, the conflict between the two groups – subjects and lord – over alignment differences can create adventure.
Using a general alignment for an area allows a quick assessment of the kind of treatment player characters can expect there. The following paragraphs give ideas for each alignment.
Lawful Good: The people are generally honest, law-abiding, and helpful. They mean well (at least most of them do). They respect the law. As a rule, people don’t walk around wearing armor and carrying weapons. Those who do are viewed with suspicion or as trouble-makers. Some societies tend to dislike adventurers, since they often bring trouble.
Lawful Neutral: The people are not only law-abiding, they are passionate creators of arcane bureaucracies. The tendency to organize and regulate everything easily gets out of control.
In large empires there are ministries, councils, commissions, departments, offices, and cabinets for everything. If the region attracts a lot of adventurers, there are special ministries, with their own special taxes and licenses, to deal with the problem. The people are not tremendously concerned with the effectiveness of the government, so long as it functions.
Lawful Evil: The government is marked by its severe laws, involving harsh punishments regardless of guilt or innocence. Laws are not intended to preserve justice so much as to maintain the status quo. Social class is crucial. Bribery and corruption are often ways of life. Adventurers, since they are outsiders who may be foreign agents, are viewed with great suspicion . Lawful evil kingdoms often find themselves quashing rebellions of oppressed peasants clamoring for humane treatment.
Neutral evil, neutral good, and true neutral: Areas dominated by these three alignments tend to adopt whatever government seems most expedient at the moment. A particular form of government lasts as long as the ruler or dynasty in power can maintain it. The people cooperate when it suits them or, in the case of true neutrals, when the balance of forces must be preserved.
Such neutral territories often act as buffer states between lands of extreme alignment difference (for example, between a lawful good barony and a vile chaotic evil principality). They shift allegiance artfully to preserve their borders against the advances of both sides in a conflict.
Neutral evil countries tend to be benign (but not pleasant) dictatorships while neutral good countries are generally “enlightened” dictatorships. Transfers of power are usually marked by shifts in government, though these are often bloodless coups. There is a certain apathy about politics and government. Adventurers are treated the same as everyone else.
Chaotic Good: The people mean well and try to do right, but are hampered by a natural dislike of big government. Although there may be a single ruler, most communities are allowed to manage themselves, so long as their taxes are paid and they obey a few broad edicts. Such areas tend to have weak law enforcement organizations. A local sheriff, baron, or council may hire adventurers to fill the gap. Communities often take the law into their own hands when it seems necessary. Lands on the fringes of vast empires far from the capital tend to have this type of alignment.
Chaotic Neutral: There i s no government. Anarchy is the rule. A stranger to such a town may feel as if he has ridden into a town of madmen.
Chaotic Evil: The people are ruled by, and live in fear of, those more powerful than themselves. Local government usually amounts to a series of strongarm bosses who obey the central government out of fear. People look for ways to gain power or keep the power they’ve got. Assassination is an accepted method of advancement, along with coups, conspiracies, and purges. Adventurers are often used as pawns in political power games, only to be eliminated when the adventurers themselves become a threat.
Within these alignments, of course, many other government types are possible. Furthermore, even within the same kingdom or empire, there may be areas of different alignment. The capital city, for example, where merchants and politicians congregate, may be much more lawful (or evil, etc.) than a remote farming community.
And alignment is only one pattern of social organization. Not every nation or barony is defined by its alignment. Other methods of describing a group of people can also be used – peaceful, warlike, barbaric, decadent, dictatorial, and civilized are all possible descriptions.
You need only look at the world today to see the variety of societies and cultures that abound in the realms of man. A good DM will sprinkle his campaign world with exotic cultures created from his own imagination or researched at the local library.
General alignments can also be applied to religions. The beliefs and practices of the religion determine its alignment. A religion that espouses understanding, working in harmony with others, and good deeds is more than likely lawful good. Those that stress the importance of individual perfection and purification are probably chaotic good.
It is expected that the priests of a religion will adhere to its alignment, since they are supposed to be living examples of these beliefs. Other followers of the religion need not adhere exactly to its alignment. If a person’s alignment is very different from his religion’s, however, a priest is certainly justified in wondering why that person adheres to a religion which is opposed to his beliefs and philosophy.
Certain powerful magical items, particularly intelligent ones, have alignments. Alignment in these cases is not an indication of the moral properties of the item. Rather, it is a means of limiting the number and types of characters capable of using the item – the user’s alignment must match the item’s alignment for the magic to work properly. Aligned magical items, usually weapons, were created with a specific ethos in mind. The item was attuned to this ethos by its creator.
Aligned items reveal their true powers only to owners who share the same beliefs. In the hands of anyone else, the item’s powers remain dormant. An extremely powerful item may even harm a character of another alignment who handles the item, especially if the character’s alignment is opposed to the item’s.
Aligned magical items should be rare. When an item has an alignment, it is a sign of great power and purpose. This creates opportunities for highly dramatic adventures as the player characters learn about the item, research its history, track it across the country, and finally discover its ancient resting place and overcome the guards and traps set to protect it.
A second, more insidious, type of magical item is the one that changes a character’s alignment. Unlike the usual, gradual methods by which a character changes alignment, magical alignment changes are instantaneous. The character’s personality undergoes an immediate transformation, something like magical brainwashing.
Depending on the new alignment, the change may or may not be immediately noticeable. However, you should insist that the player role-play his new situation. Do not allow him to ignore the effects the alignment change will have on his character’s personality. Indeed, good role-players will take this as an opportunity to stretch their skills.
In addition to all its other uses, alignment can become the central focus of a campaign. Is the world caught in an unending struggle between the forces of good and evil, law and chaos? The answer affects how the campaign world is created, how the campaign is run, and how adventures are constructed. It also affects players’ perspectives on and reactions to various situations and events.
In a typical campaign, the primary conflict in the world is not a struggle between alignments. The campaign world is one in which passion, desire, coincidence, intrigue, and even virtue create events and situations. Things happen for many of the same reasons as in the real world. For this reason, it may be easier to create adventures for this type of campaign. Adventure variety and excitement depend on the DM’s sense of drama and his ability as a storyteller. Occasionally player characters discover a grand and hideous plot, but such things are isolated affairs, not part of an overall scheme.
However, for conspiracy-conscious DMs, a different world view may be more suitable, one where the powers of alignment (gods, cults, kingdoms, elemental forces) are actively struggling against each other. The player characters and NPCs may be agents of this struggle. Sometimes, they are aware of their role; at other times, they have
no idea of their purpose in the grand scheme of things.
Even rarer are those campaigns where the player characters represent a third force in the battle, ignored or forgotten by the others. In such a world, the actions of adventurers can have surprising effects.
There are advantages and disadvantages to building a campaign around alignment struggles. On the plus side, players always have a goal, even if they’re not always aware of it. This goal is useful when constructing adventures: It motivates player characters and provides a continuing storyline; it ensures that characters always have something to do (“Go and restore the balance of Law, loyal followers!”). Also, a sense of heroism permeates the game. Players know that their characters are doing something important, something that has an effect on the history of the campaign world.
There are disadvantages to this approach, too, but none that can’t be avoided by a clever DM. First is the question of boredom. If every adventure revolves around maintaining balance or crusading for the cause, players may get tired of the whole thing.
The solution is simply to make sure adventures are varied in goal and theme. Sometimes characters strive in the name of the great cause. Other times they adventure for their own benefit. Not every battle needs to be a titanic struggle of good vs. evil or light vs. darkness.
Another concern is that everything the characters do may affect their quest. An aligned game universe is one of massive and intricate cause-and-effect chains. If X happens over here, then Y must happen over there. Most adventures must be woven into the thread of the storyline, even those that don’t seem to be a part of it.
This is in direct conflict with the need for variety, and the DM must do some careful juggling. A big quest is easy to work into the story, but what happens when the player characters take some time off to go on their own adventure? Are they needed just then? What happens in their absence? How do they get back on track? What happens when someone discovers something no one was meant to know yet? For these problems there are no easy answers. A creative DM will never be idle with this sort of campaign.
Finally, there is the problem of success and failure. An aligned universe tends to create an epic adventure. Player characters become involved in earthshaking events and deal with cosmic beings. Being at the center of the game, player characters assume great importance (if they don’t, they will quickly get bored). This is standard stuff in sword-and-sorcery fiction, so it is natural that it also appears in a sword-and-sorcery role-playing adventure.
Fiction writers have an advantage DMs do not, however – they can end the story and never return to it. At the end of the book, the good guys win, the world is set right, and the covers are closed. The writer never has to worry about it again, unless he wants to. What happens when characters win the final conflict, the battle that puts all to right? What can be done after peace and harmony come to the universe?
Furthermore, the author knows who is going to win. He starts by knowing the good guys will win. There may be many twists, but eventually the heroes triumph. Many DMs make the same assumption. They are wrong.
Never simply assume that the characters will win! What if they don’t? What if the forces of darkness and evil win the final battle? No matter how high the odds are stacked in their favor, there is always a chance that the characters will do something so stupid or unlucky that they must lose. Victory cannot be guaranteed. If it is, players will quickly sense this and take advantage of it.
The best way to avoid the problems described above is to design the characters’ struggle so it is never-ending. At the very least, the conflict is one that lasts for millennia (well beyond the lifetimes of the player characters).
To keep the players from feeling frustrated, certain they can never accomplish anything, they must be able to undertake sizable tasks and win significant victories for their side. Player characters fighting for the cause of good may eventually drive back the growing influence of the chief villain, but they defeat only a symptom, not the disease itself.
There can always be a new threat: Perhaps the evil villain himself returns in a new and more hideous manifestation. The DM must always be prepared with a series of fantastic yet realistic threats. These gradually increase in scope as the characters become more powerful.
Thus, it is possible to build a campaign where the forces of alignment play an active role in things. It is difficult and there are many hazards, but imagination and planning can overcome the obstacles.
Even though it has been said several times already, this point is important enough to repeat: Alignment is a tool to aid role-playing, not a hammer to force characters to do things they don’t want to do!
The DM should never tell a player, “Your character can’t do that because it’s against his alignment,” unless that character is under some type of special magical control. Let players make their own decisions and their own mistakes. The DM has enough to do without taking over the players’ jobs, too.
Despite this prohibition, the DM can suggest to a player that an action involves considerable risk, especially where alignment is concerned. If the player still decides to go ahead, the consequences are his responsibility. Don’t get upset about what happens to the character. If the paladin is no longer a paladin, well, that’s just the way things are.
Such suggestions need not be brazen. True, the DM can ask, “Are you sure that’s a good idea, given your alignment?” He can also use more subtle forms of suggestion woven into the plot of the adventure. Tomorrow the cleric intends to go on a mission that would compromise his alignment. That night, he has a nightmare which prevents any restful sleep. In the morning he runs into an old soothsayer who sees ill omens and predicts dire results. His holy symbol appears mysteriously tarnished and dull. The candles on the altar flicker and dim as he enters the temple. Attentive players will note these warnings and may reconsider their plans. But, if they do not, it is their choice to make, not the DM’s.
Sometimes characters try to use spells or magical items to learn the alignment of a player character or NPC. This is a highly insulting, if not hostile, action.
Asking another character “So, what’s your alignment?” is as rude a question as… well, it’s so rude that any example we think of, we can’t print. At best, any character who is boorish enough to bring up the issue is likely to receive a very icy stare (turning to shocked horror from more refined characters).
Asking another character his alignment is futile, anyway – a lawful good character may feel compelled to tell the truth, but a chaotic evil character certainly wouldn’t. A chaotic evil character with any wit would reply “lawful good.”
Even if a character answers truthfully, there is no way for him to know if he is right, short of the loss of class abilities (as in the case of paladins). Player characters can only say what they think their alignment is. Once they have chosen their alignment, the DM is the only person in the game who knows where it currently stands. A chaotic good ranger may be on the verge of changing alignment – one more cold-blooded deed and over the edge he goes, but he doesn’t know that. He still thinks he is chaotic good through and through.
Casting a spell to reveal a character’s alignment is just as offensive as asking him directly. This is the sort of thing that starts fights and ends friendships. Hirelings and henchmen may decide that a player character who does this is too distrustful. Strangers often figure the spell is the prelude to an attack and may strike first. Even those who consent to the spell are likely to insist that they be allowed to cast the same in return. Using these spells, besides being rude, indicates a basic lack of trust on the part of the caster or questioner.
Some characters – the paladin, in particular – possess a limited ability to detect alignments, particularly good and evil. Even this power has more limitations than the player is likely to consider. The ability to detect evil is really only useful to spot characters or creatures with evil intentions or those who are so thoroughly corrupted that they are evil to the core, not the evil aspect of an alignment.
Just because a fighter is chaotic evil doesn’t mean he can be detected as a source of evil while he is having a drink at the tavern. He may have no particularly evil intentions at that moment. At the other end of the spectrum, a powerful, evil cleric may have committed so many foul and hideous deeds that the aura of evil hangs inescapably over him.
Characters should never be sure of other characters’ alignments. This is one of the DM’s most powerful tools – keep the players guessing. They will pay more attention to what is going on if they must deduce the true motivations and attitudes of those they employ and encounter.
Sooner or later, a player character will change alignment. A character might change alignment for many reasons, most of them have nothing to do with the player “failing” to play his character’s role or the DM “failing” to create the right environment.
Player characters are imaginary people, but, like real people, they grow and change as their personalities develop. Sometimes circumstances conspire against the player character. Sometimes the player has a change of attitude. Sometimes the personality created for the player character just seems to pull in an unexpected direction. These are natural changes. There might be more cause for concern if no player character ever changes alignment in a campaign.
There is no rule or yardstick to determine when a character changes alignment. Alignment can change deliberately, unconsciously, or involuntarily. This is one of those things that makes the game fun – players are free to act, and the DM decides if (and when) a change goes into effect. This calls for some real adjudication. There are several factors to consider.
Deliberate change is engineered by the player. He decides he doesn’t want to play the alignment he originally chose. Perhaps he doesn’t understand it, or it’s not as much fun as he imagined, or it’s clear that the player character will have a more interesting personality with a different alignment.
All the player has to do is have his character start acting according to the new alignment. Depending on the severity of the actions and the determination of the player, the change can be quick or slow.
Unconscious change happens when the character’s actions are suited to a different alignment without the player realizing it. As in the case of a deliberate alignment change, the DM must keep track of the character’s actions. If the DM suspects that the player believes his character is acting within his alignment, the DM should warn the player that his character’s alignment is coming into question. An unconscious alignment change should not surprise the player – not completely, anyway.
Involuntary alignment change is forced on the character. Most often, this is the result of a spell or magical item. Involuntary changes are immediate. The character’s previous actions have little bearing on the change.
During the course of play, keep notes on the actions of the player characters. At the end of each session, read through those notes, paying attention to any unusual behavior. Note which alignment seems most appropriate to each character’s actions.
If, over the course of several playing sessions, a character’s actions consistently fit an alignment different from the character’s chosen alignment, an alignment change is probably in order. If small actions are taking a character outside his alignment, the change should be gradual – maybe even temporary. Severe actions may require an immediate and permanent alignment change.
If a paladin rides through a town ravaged by disease and ignores the suffering of the inhabitants, he has transgressed his alignment in an obvious, but small, way. Several such failures could lead to an alignment change.
In the meantime, the paladin could recognize his danger and amend his ways, preventing the change and preserving his paladinhood. If the paladin burns the village to prevent the disease from spreading, he commits a seriously evil act.
In this case, the DM is justified in instituting an immediate alignment change to lawful evil or even chaotic evil. The character eventually may be able to change back to lawful good alignment, but he will never again be a paladin.
Although player characters can change alignment, it is not something that should be approached lightly, since there are serious consequences. When a character changes alignment, he does more than just change his attitudes. He is altering his perception of the world and his relationship to it. Much of what he learned previously was flavored by his alignment. When the philosophical foundations of his life change, the character discovers that he must relearn things he thought he knew.
There are two possible effects of changing alignment, depending on the situation and circumstances of the change. The first results in no penalty at all. This effect should only be used when the player and the DM mutually agree that the character’s alignment should be changed to improve the play of the game.
Most often this occurs with low-level characters. The player character’s alignment may prove to be incompatible with the rest of the party. A player character may simply be more interesting for everyone if his alignment were different. Inexperienced players may select an alignment without fully understanding its ramifications. Discovering they simply do not like the alignment, they may ask to change. Such changes must be made with mutual agreement. As DM, try to accommodate the desires of your players, if those desires won’t hurt the game.
In the second type of voluntary change, the case cannot be made that the alignment change would be for the good of the game. This generally involves more established characters who have been played according to one alignment for some time. Here, the effects of alignment change are severe and noticeable.
The instant a character voluntarily changes alignment, the experience point cost to gain the next level (or levels in the case of multi-class characters) is doubled. To determine the number of experience points needed to gain the next level (and only the next level), double the number of experience points listed on the appropriate Experience Levels table.
For example, Delsenora the mage began the game neutral good. However, as she adventured, she regularly supported the downtrodden and the oppressed, fighting for their rights and their place in society. About the time she reached 5th level, it was clear to the DM that Delsenora was behaving more as a lawful good character and he enforced an alignment change. Normally, a mage needs 40,000 experience points – 20,000 points beyond 5th level – to reach 6th level. Delsenora must earn 40,000 additional experience points, instead of the normal 20,000. Every two experience points counts as one towards advancement.
Delsenora started the adventure with 20,000 experience points. At its conclusion, the DM awarded her 5,300 points, bringing her total to 25,300. Instead of needing just 14,700 points to reach the next level, she now needs 34,700 because of her alignment change!
If an alignment change is involuntary, the doubled experience penalty is not enforced. Instead, the character earns no experience whatever until his former alignment is regained. This assumes, of course, that the character wants to regain his former alignment.
If the character decides that the new alignment isn’t so bad after all, he begins earning experience again, but the doubling penalty goes into effect. The player does not have to announce this decision. If the DM feels the character has resigned himself to the situation, that is sufficient.
For example, Beornhelm the Ranger carelessly dons a helm of alignment change and suddenly switches to chaotic evil alignment – something he didn’t want to do! Exerting its influence over him, the helm compels Beomhelm to commit all manner of destructive acts. Although unable to resist, Beornhelm keeps looking for an opportunity to escape the accu.rsed helm. Finally, after several misadventures, he cleverly manages to trick an evil mage into removing the helm, at which point he is restored to his previous alignment.
He gains no experience from the time he dons the helm to the time he removes it (though the DM may grant a small award if Beornhelm’s plan was particularly ingenious). If Beornhelm had chosen not to trick the mage but to work with him, the change would immediately be considered a player choice. From that point on Beomhelm would earn experience, but he would have to earn twice as much to reach the next experience level.
A character can change alignment any number of times. If more than one change occurs per level, however, the severity of the penalty increases. (The character is obviously suffering from severe mental confusion, akin to a modem-day personality crisis.) When a character makes a second or subsequent alignment change at a given level, all experience points earned toward the next level are immediately lost. The character must still earn double the normal experience.
Delsenora drifted into lawful good. Now she finds lawful good too restrictive. She is confused. She doesn’t know what she believes in. Her head hurts. The character reverts to her earlier neutral good habits. Bedeviled by indecision, she loses the 5,300 experience points she had already gained and now has to earn 40,000 to achieve 6th level!