Alignment

Alignment. Long regarded as the stick with which the GM beat players. In the second edition game alignment was utterly confining and any character that stepped from the path they had chosen at first level - that dared to actually roleplay a character with a complicated and evolving personality - was stunningly penalised. The penalties have gone in third edition. Characters are now free to drift between the alignments. This is a good thing, certainly, but it doesn't overcome the fundamental problem of the alignment system: that it shouldn't really be there in the first place.

Alignment is just an excuse not to roleplay. "I am playing a paladin. My paladin is Lawful Good, therefore I," player flips through the PHB, "act as a good person is expected or required to act. I combine a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. I tell the truth, keep my word, help those in need and speak out against injustice. I hate to see the guilty go unpunished." Oh, dear god.

If alignment was just a crutch for the roleplaying-challenged it would be a simple matter to excise it from the game. Unfortunately this is not the case. Alignment is hardwired into the rules for character classes, spells, races and even some magic items. Take alignment away and suddenly whole bits of the game don't work properly any more. Remarkably, this is even worse in third edition than it was in second. Alignment in some form has to stay. This section describes how that can be the case.

The Nature of Alignment

The Book of Vile Darkness and Book of Exalted Deeds take some serious steps in defining what is Good and what is Evil. But how can you actually define good and evil (or law and chaos for that matter)? How often have any of us played in a D&D game when someone says - "My character isn't evil. You may think what he's doing is evil, but it is perfectly acceptable in his belief system. He doesn't believe he is evil."

The answer is that in world where Alignment exists (as it does in D&D) and spells can be used to detect it Good, Evil, Law and Chaos are absolutes. There is a single, unwaveringly definition for each of these terms. They are not open to interpretation. Of course, this asks some fundamental questions such as who decided what was Good and what was Evil. Who set the definitions? That is all very interesting, and is more properly answered in the background material for individual campaign settings.

The way I see it is this: Good, Evil, Law and Chaos are four fundamental forces that pull reality (and those who live there) in different directions. The politics of belief, faith and alignment are matters that concern gods, angels and demons. They are, on the whole, too high a concept for the mortal (i.e. PC) races. It just doesn't matter to them, or it wouldn't were it not for churches and their clerics.

The moon churches in my Iourn setting are all Neutral. They have their axes to grind, but it is not with waging war against an abstract such as "all evil". Many churches, however, are motivated to seek out and destroy evil, or good or any of the other alignments. The clerics of these churches impart upon the people of the world a sense that Evil (or Good) is a real and tangible force that can take hold of a person and change them. That Evil is the cause of their problems.

Are they right? Well, a force of Evil definitely exists in D&D. Is that force a sentient thing that works to corrupt the weak, or is it simply a product of the fact that evil beings exist and it is the evil beings we have to worry about, not Evil itself? Either works perfectly well in the D&D setting, and both are compatible with my view of alignment.

So wars exist between good and evil, law and chaos. But how does this really effect the man on the street? What does his alignment actually mean? Does he even have one? Well, unfortunately he does. Everyone stands somewhere on the moral compass, even if they don't know where it is or don't even know there is a compass.

In my campaigns I do not require players to choose an alignment for their character. They have the freedom to roleplay their character as they see fit. If their alignment ever comes up in play (they gain a magic item that only works for characters of a certain alignment, or they have detect evil cast on them) I will make a judgement call on their alignment based on how they have played their character. I will still do this if players chose an alignment and didn't stick to it.

Detect Spells and Alignment

By far the most annoying thing about Alignment is that some berk can point his finger at your character and say "You're evil, you are!" Spells that detect evil, good, law or chaos are such a fundamentally bad idea it bugs me no end. But I'm playing D&D and if I want to use all the feats and classes that are available then I have to accept that these spells exist. However, I also accept that I can slightly alter their effects.

The Detect Evil spell (and the paladin's ability of the same name) detects the presence of evil auras. Any character who is of an evil alignment has an evil aura, and can therefore be detected with this spell. The spell might tell the caster that is a 'faint' aura, but it will detect it nonetheless. This is all rather silly.

Most mortal creatures who can be defined as slightly dodgy are not evil enough to register for this spell. As TS Eliot said, most men are hollow men - they lack the conviction to believe passionately in anything. I think my point is best illustrated by way of a visual aid:

The above graph shows an axis for Good, Evil, Law and Chaos. Where they meet is Neutrality. As you can see the Pit Fiend is an extremely evil and lawful chap, the Balor is evil and chaotic and the Solar is good and lawful. All three of these beings are far removed from mortal man. They are our extremes on the alignment scale.

Almost all PCs will fall somewhere in the shaded circle. Even if they are not neutral and have a learning toward one of the four poles, it probably won't be significant enough to get out of the grey circle. A cutpurse and a burglar would have chaotic leanings, his disregard for others might make him slightly evil but in no way is he approaching balor status.

Any character whose alignment is so trivial that it doesn't take him outside the grey circle, cannot have his alignment discerned by any of the detect spells. There just isn't enough there to detect. Characters whose alignment falls within the shaded area are considered neutral in all respects, despite their actual alignment.

This has some far-reaching game related effects. Magic items or anything that requires a character to be of a certain alignment (like a prestige class) will not be available for a character with an alignment within the shaded area, even if they have been behaving in a manner generally consistent with that alignment. This makes some sense to me - only the best of the best (or the worst of the worst) can use such devices, or enter such classes.

So who manages to break the boundary and have an alignment that you can detect? Obviously, aligned creatures such as demons, devils and angels detect as one might expect. Equally, truly ancient undead creatures, aligned dragons and the like are probably sufficiently impressive forces that they will detect. Among the PCs, paladins will probably register as Lawful and Good because of the unswerving nature of their class. All clerics have an aura. This aura is the same as their god, so they tend to show up as well. Any character who takes an Exalted feat is declaring that they are good, in the same way those that take Vile feats are declaring they are evil. This would also be revealed by a detect spell.

But do not forget that anyone can break through the wall and get an alignment that shows up. All they have to do is convince the GM (i.e. me) that they are playing their character in a manner that is so consistent with a particular alignment that they are likely to shine like a beacon to anyone with a detect spell.

Of course, most characters won't want to prove that because most characters won't care - and rightly so. These mechanics I have introduced help me to manage detect spells and alignment. It also stops the zealous paladin casting detect evil on everyone in town and lynching all the evil people.

• See the Revised Detect Evil spell.

Alignment and Taint

Taint was an optional concept introduced into generic D&D in the Unearthed Arcana. I liked it and kept it. The section on taint explains what it is, but a little more explanation is required to fit it into the whole Alignment thing.

Taint is the overwhelming presence of ancient evil. It sticks to things (even good aligned characters) and eventually corrupts them. The rare spell Detect Taint will detect the presence of taint in an item, place or on a person. A place, person or item that is tainted will always show as overwhelmingly evil to a detect evil spell. A good character could be tainted and still have a good alignment, but show as overwhelmingly evil when exposed to a detect evil spell.

Alignment and Spells

This only really applies to clerics, but these problems can crop up for everyone so I will mention them here. The standard rules state that spells with an alignment descriptor are only castable by characters of that alignment. So only evil clerics can cast cleric spells with the [Evil] descriptor.

For the most part, my attempt to give all clerics a unique spell list has circumvented this problem, but I can see occasions when it would still be a factor. Therefore, I rule thus: If a player believes his character would have no moral problem with casting a certain spell, then he can cast it. Doing so may sway the GM's understanding of what that character's alignment is (which may be at odds with what the player thinks) but there is nothing intrinsically stopping him. Often it is the context of how the spell is cast rather than the spell itself that is considered aligned.

However, certain spells are undeniably attached to one alignment. Spells such as Holy Word or any of the Corrupt spells from the BoVD do exactly what they say on the tin. A good aligned character has nothing to stop him casting a Corrupt spell, but will undoubtedly see his alignment drift toward evil. Of course, he may not care which is in itself the source of interesting roleplaying possibilities.

Should a deity allow its followers to cast spells contrary to its alignment? The answer to that question depends very much on your view of how clerics and their gods interact. My interpretation of the rules is that gods grant clerics a certain amount of power that they use to manipulate the magical weave and cast spells. The spells are devised by the clergies and not by the god himself. That is why so many clergies have access to similar spells (they copy one another). You can safely assume that Neutral deities probably don't care too much if their followers are casting [Good] or [Evil] spells as long as it isn't done to excess. A good god may take exception to his followers learning and casting a spell like unhallow and may act to stop it. However, the god may simply not notice. It's up to the player and the GM's interpretation of how gods and men interat.

Positive and Negative Energy

Oh dear. Here is a whole can of worms. In the second edition game (nicely exemplified by the wonderful Planescape setting) the six inner planes of Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Positive Energy and Negative Energy were all considered to be neutral. These were the six building blocks of life. They were the raw materials from which all things were possible. This is an idea I took and ran with in my Iourn setting.

In third edition negative energy has become directly associated with Evil, and positive energy is now directly associated with Good. You can see why this is. Negative energy is antithetical to life and it is used to create undead creatures that are, by and large, evil little buggers. Positive energy, on the other hand, is the energy that is used to magically heal wounds. This is normally considered a good thing.

But I still don't think that Negative and Positive energy should be any thing other than Neutral. They are just elements, like fire is an element. Fire can be used to cook meat and feed the starving. It can also be used to flash fry orphanages. It can be used for good and evil purposes, but fire in and of itself isn't good or evil.

This viewpoint (however reasonable it may be) rather flies in the face of perceived D&D wisdom. Your prestige character class that wields negative energy requires prospective characters to be Evil. Spells that use negative energy often have the Evil descriptor. The spell Deathwatch is a good example. It allows a character to see how close to death someone is (presumably by measuring the amount of negative energy in their body). This spell is a boon to healers and other do-gooders, but it is saddled with the Evil descriptor. Why? What is evil about seeing how ill someone is?

The main problem comes from spells such as Hallow or Unhallow, and the fact that good-aligned clerics wield positive energy, and evilly-aligned clerics wield negative energy for the purposes of respectively turning or commanding undead. On a fundamental level Negative is linked with Evil and Positive is linked with Good. That stops right here and right now.

I rule this: Negative and Positive energy are neutral. Using them is not an intrinsically good or evil act. What you do with them might be considered good or evil. I will agree that Negative energy lends itself to evil purposes more readily than positive energy (and vice versa). This is why it is often used by evil characters. But the character is not evil because he using negative energy, he is using negative energy because he is evil. This is a very important distinction.

As another example, good aligned undead hunters use positive energy because it works very well against undead. That doesn't make the energy itself good, any more than saying: this sword is very effective at killing orcs, orcs are bad therefore the sword must be good.

So a cleric who uses Inflict Light Wounds is no more evil than a fighter hitting someone with a long sword. They do the same damage after all. The Inflict spell isn't going to hurt any more or have any other deleterious effect. It is the context that is important. And that is all I have to say on the matter.