Alignment and the real world
I’m starting a new D&D game soon — part of the reason I haven’t posted much this month is because I’ve been spending a great deal of my free time preparing for that; I’ve been writing such a large mass of words for the game that I haven’t had much fluid left in my writing appendages for the blog. I’m mad old skool, so I still run second edition, even here in the grim darkness of the far future. Maybe if you get real lucky I’ll post a long-winded pointless screed on why I like AD&D 2e better than the more recent revisions of the system. For now, I’ll just say that I agree with E. Gary.
But that’s not what I’m here to talk about today. I’m here to talk about the draft alignment. Since I’m a damn great nerd, I’ve pretty much been thinking about the real world in terms of AD&D alignments for about as long as I can remember. I, in common with a great many libertarians, would consider myself to be Chaotic Good. This showed itself to great extent in my Burning Crusade raid alliance, where I and mine found myself working with an intensely Lawful crew. They were in favour of setting up rules and policies and councils and systems for determining whom to give the loot to, whereas I was just all "how about we all just roll on what we want and don’t be assholes?" Surprisingly enough, I won that battle, but that’s a bit of a digression.
Since I’ve been thinking so much about D&D lately, I’ve been thinking about all kinds of things in terms of alignment. I was watching Firefly earlier today, and was discussing with the wife what alignment any given character would be. Am I the only one who does stuff like this? I have to think that most people who grew up on D&D probably think the same way.
(Incidentally, I determined that Shepherd Book is Lawful Good, Zoe and Kaylee are Neutral Good, Mal and Wash are Chaotic Good, Simon is Lawful Neutral, and Jayne is Chaotic Neutral. Inara probably flatters herself by thinking she’s True Neutral, but in fact she’s largely devoid of personality altogether. And River is Chaotic Plot Device.)
You’re probably not the only one who does stuff like that, but you’re the only one who admits it on the ‘tubes for all to read about.
Me, I’m basically Chaotic Good, but I have a strong Lawful streak that comes out every now and then. I have a desire and need for structure in a lot of things. For instance–I hate AoE pulls. Hate ’em. I want a nice, structured kill order, single-target DPS, burn ’em down one at a time type pull.
Also Inara is Neutral Sexy.
Comment by Dave | 15 January 2009
I doubt there’s anybody who’s absolutely 100% consistently faithful to one D&D alignment — that’s just not realistic. Everybody’s lawful and chaotic and good and evil and neutral all in a mix; it’s just a matter of what elements tend to be dominant. Like you, I prefer more structure when I’m tanking; I think that’s mainly because I have a shitload of stuff to be thinking about already, and I don’t really need the added weight of trying to react to the unrelated things everybody else is doing. It makes things much simpler if everyone’s following a prearranged plan.
Comment by Darien | 15 January 2009
For me, not having grown up on D&D, it’s really helpful in terms of preparing for a game I’m supposed to play in to figure out the alignments of some characters I know, so I can get a better idea of how each one would be played. I really didn’t get Chaotic Neutral until we talked about why that’s what Jayne would be. (Incidentally, he moonlights as Neutral Sexy too.)
As far as myself, I was probably firmly entrenched in Lawful Neutral for a long time, but all my association with you crazies has gotten me drifting closer to the Chaotic Good side of things. I don’t think I’m there yet- though I do tend to argue that perspective in theory- I’m probably somewhere on the border of Lawful and Neutral Good.
Except, of course, when I’m being totally Evil and refusing to help people and only caring about my own advancement, you know. :-}
Comment by Ama | 15 January 2009