Top 10 Things That Have Pissed Me Off About Role Playing This Year

So shopping for a present for the wife put me in an ornery frame of mind earlier today. (We're spending the holiday period in different countries, for various unavoidable reasons; this allows me to shop for extra Christmas presents in the January sales and earn totally undeserved brownie points for buying lots of gifts. Fortunately she doesn't read this blog and I can get away with announcing my cheapness like this. But I digress.) And I feel that, since everybody else has been doing similar things, I should do a kind of Top Ten List. So here is the top ten most annoying things about role playing that I've experienced this year.

10. The fact that I don't get enough gaming in. Probably everyone reading this blog can relate to that (at least everybody who has a job/is married/has children/a social life or any of the above).

9. The idiotic rpg.net moderators. Is there anything worse than a role playing nerd given a tiny amount of power over his fellows? That whole damn website is like an extended, free version of Zimbardo's simulated prison experiment, where a random cross section of geek society is elevated above its peers and immediately starts to abuse its position. With the redeeming quality that 90% of the other users are actually pretty nice.

8. 4e D&D. Just because, okay? You like it if you want to. I don't.

7. Online nerdspeak. Awesome involves awe. Sweetness is a taste. "Wicked cool" is not proper English. The abbreviation for "For example" is not "F'rex". Do piss off with your stupid, infantile, depressing, moronic shibboleths.

6. All that guff about the Rule of Cool. "All but the most pedantic of viewers will forgive liberties with reality so long as the result is wicked sweet and/or awesome." No. The Rule of Cool may work with doltish audiences, but stop acting like it's a good thing. Wicked sweetness and awesomeness is not an excuse for lazy writing, planning or execution. Or are we now going to start giving Michael Bay Oscars? See above re: mauling of the English language.

5. The wearing of geekiness as a badge of pride. As Bill Hicks said, it's a judgement call, and I'm making it: You shouldn't be proud to call yourself a geek. It's an insult, and no, using it to label yourself is not "reclaiming the word". Love the things you love, and don't stand for other people calling it geeky. And don't allow yourself the lazy way out of life that geekiness provides. Comic books and role playing games are not a shield to protect you from the world, and they are not really living. Get off your arse and do something with your life, for Christ's sake.

4. GNS Theory. I hadn't heard about it before this year, and I wish I never had. As if pseudo intellectual buffoonery wasn't a problem enough in the real world, it has to pervade an innocent hobby in which fat bearded guys pretend to be elves.

3. Vampire: The Masquerade. Every year since its release until the end of time. Yeah! Let's take Dracula and turn him into an emo goth kid with black makeup who self harms and listens to crap music! And then we'll laugh all the way to the bank!

2. Japanophiles. See Appendix A. Get your own culture and stop ransacking other people's.

1. People Who Want to 'Do' Another Game With Another Game. You know, all those people who post messages on rpg-related forums saying things like, "I want to do a game set in the fourth age of Middle Earth, except using Spirit of the Century rules, but with the combat system from ORE, and the critical hit tables from Rolemaster, and the task resolution from Sorceror, whaddaya reckon? Aren't I just the best?"? Those people will be first against the wall, my friends, come the revolution.

I feel better now that I've got that off my chest.

Normal non-ranty service will resume in the New Year.

In which I provide a series of links to items of interest on the world wide web

• Shameless plug: I've started a new blog for my more academically related articles. If you're interested in international law, or just want to read the pseudo-intellectual ramblings of a legalistic twit, take a look. It's called Anti-ideoligism and there's a grand total of one entry so far.
• Amityville Mike has created huge, FREE blank hex maps for you to download and use. What a star.
• Eye Candy for Bibliophiles is one of the best picture-based blogs on the web. Dozens of classic fantasy book covers, many of them first editions, all of them beautiful, every single day. Subscribe to it at once.
  
• There is proof of a kind that WotC missed a trick in getting rid of gnomes, and should have chucked half-elves instead.
  

[Alignment Breakdown V] True Neutral

True neutral characters sometimes find themselves forced into rather peculiar alliances. To a great extent, they are compelled to side with the underdog in any given situation, sometimes even changing sides as the previous loser becomes the winner. A true neutral druid might join the local barony to put down a tribe of evil gnolls, only to drop out or switch sides when the gnolls were brought to the brink of destruction. He would seek to prevent either side from becoming too powerful. Clearly, there are very few true neutral characters in the world...

- 2e Player's Handbook

...And clearly this is ridiculous.

Let me start off by saying I don't see something inherently ridiculous in the idea of there being certain entities who would wish for the universe to exist in balance between good, evil, law and chaos. It's an old, old idea - indeed one of the oldest ideas of fantasy literature - and it has a certain rationality: too much good and too much law can be bad things. (Just as the extremes of the political left and the political right loop round and bleed together at the boundary, we can envisage the purest good resulting in just as much wrong as the worst evil, even if the root motivations are different.)

There is, however, something ridiculous in the idea of a single druid suddenly switching sides in a given conflict in order to perpetuate it indefinitely - "It's okay, Mr. Gnoll. I'm with your lot now, honest. Well, at least until you regain your strength...then I'm back with the Baron." It's a classic case of confusion of the microcosmic with the macrocosmic: a little like a government basing its climate change policy on the sunny weather today, and then, when it rains tomorrow, drafting a new bill altogether.

No, surely if True Neutral characters in the classical sense are to work at all, they have to take a long term view of general trends. It isn't about maintaining the balance of power between some minor aristocrat and a gang of gnoll bandits. It's about judging the sweep of history and acting at crucial moments to try to influence the broad progression of events. True Neutral characters in this sense are a bit like Benjamin Disraeli, pursuing a policy of Splendid Isolation; stay aloof from the affairs of the world, unless it seems that Prussia is gaining the upper hand against France - and then, if possible, strike to maintain the balance.




This sort of character could be extremely enjoyable to play, and a whole campaign could be centred around the concept, but it would have to be a one-alignment affair, with the entire party working in concert - because otherwise what reason would non-True Neutral characters have to cooperate? And the set-up would require a campaign world of such political detail that most DM's would balk at the prospect. Worst of all, the temptation to set up a story arc and firm railroads would be too much for even the staunchest of us to resist.

Much easier and more sensible to conceptualise True Neutrality as Apathy, I feel. Although now that I think about it, I don't much care either way.

Music to Play Games By

Apropos of nothing: albums for gaming sessions, broken up by genre.

Cyberpunk

The Predator - Ice Cube. One of hip hop's best albums. Released just after the Rodney King riots, it's all about alienation, violence and anger: "Nobody I know got killed in South Central LA/Today was a good day." You don't get much more Night City than that.

Blue Lines - Massive Attack. The whole thing is infused with urban angst and underlaid with weird, unfocused tension, from the sinister dub of Five Man Army ("Money money money.../The Root of All Evil") to the driving minimalism of Lately ("Summertime always gives me the blues...")

Rhythm and Stealth - Leftfield. An hour of brutal breakbeats and trip-hop to build up an atmosphere of impending, then breaking, doom.




Post Apocalypse

Organisation - Orchestral Manouevres in the Dark. Not just for the opening track, Enola Gay ("Enola Gay/Is mother proud of Little Boy today?/Oh this kiss you give/is never ever going to fade away"), which is perfect for obvious reasons. The album also has a nicely muted, vaguely menacing feel to it - just right for when the bomb has fallen.

High - The Blue Nile. An hour of sparse, melodic background swell, with just enough painful emotion to prevent comfort from settling in.

Beyond Skin - Nitin Sawhney. Like 'Organisation' this one has tracks written explicitly about nuclear war (the final track begins with a sample of Edward Murrow reading Now I Am Become Death, and two others were written as responses for the successful test explosions in India in the late '90s) but even if that weren't the case, the mournful, elegaic feel would be a fine backdrop for a session of Mutant Future.

Fantasy

The Rite of Spring - Igor Stravinsky. It could equally have been The Firebird, but this just pips it as Stravinksy's best, I think - and there was never a more fantastical composer, except perhaps for Sibelius. This is a frenzied, dark, brooding masterpiece for a gritty Lord of the Rings style game. And don't mention the Disney version.

Adore - The Smashing Pumpkins. Not their best by a long shot, but still a great, weird, gothic album for a session of dark fantasy gaming.

Peer Gynt - Edvard Grieg. So well known it's almost a cliche, but it captures the feel of a fantastical adventure perfectly - with In the Hall of the Mountain King the highlight.

Urban Fantasy

Superunknown - Soundgarden. A rock classic, with just a twist of darkness.

Showtime - Dizzee Rascall. Not as raw as the debut but much better for it, this is the sound of Britain in the 2000s - antsy, uncomfortable, frenetic, cocky.

Cole's Corner - Richard Hawley. A gorgeous, lush, night time record which evokes dark cafes looking out onto busy winter streets.

[Alignment Breakdown IV] Neutral Evil

Neutral evil characters are primarily concerned with themselves and their own advancement. They have no particular objection to working with others or, for that matter, going it on their own. Their only interest is in getting ahead. If there is a quick and easy way to gain a profit, whether it be legal, questionable, or obviously illegal, they take advantage of it. Although neutral evil characters do not have the every-man-for-himself attitude of chaotic characters, they have no qualms about betraying their friends and companions for personal gain. They typically base their allegiance on power and money, which makes them quite receptive to bribes. An unscrupulous mercenary, a common thief, and a double-crossing informer who betrays people to the authorities to protect and advance himself are typical examples of neutral evil characters.

- 2nd Edition Player's Handbook

Neutral Evil is, I think, the easiest alignment to play and play realistically; we all know people who fit the stereotype of a stop-at-nothing self-aggrandising swine, and if we are honest we would probably admit to containing a healthy dose of such impulses ourselves (at least at a subconscious level). And it's undeniably true that Neutral Evil characters are also among the most fun, because everybody loves an unprincipled rogue, and everybody loves a rotten scoundrel even better.

The DSM describes a mental illness called Narcissistic Personality Disorder, described in the following way:

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

(1) has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)

(2) is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

(3) believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)

(4) requires excessive admiration

(5) has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations

(6) is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends

(7) lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others

(8) is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her

(9) shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

And that is, almost to a T, how I think a Neutral Evil character should behave.

An old favourite Neutral Evil character of mine is Alan Rickman's Sherrif of Nottingham from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. He epitomises the bad guy who the audience secretly roots for, while never making concessions to compassion, sympathy or scruples. He's the kind of man who'll kill his own family members, burn down villages of innocent forest dwellers while nonchalantly picking his teeth, and give alms to beggars just to ingratiate himself with young ladies - every single action he takes is in the name of self-advancement. If only all Neutral Evil player characters were that fun.

Weekend Thoughts - Tentpole Dungeons and The Changing Face of the Future

I'll continue the alignment rundown tomorrow, but I just wanted to jot down some thoughts I had over the weekend, while alternately hungover in bed or on the train to and from London. The first relates to what Greyhawk Grognard refers to as Old School Campaign Tent Poles - that is, megadungeons which function as tentpole adventuring locales for a campaign:

Adventurers are free [he writes] to delve into its mouldy depths if they choose, but they're just as free to poke around in the local town or city, hie off into the wilderness, or explore smaller dungeons that the DM should properly have waiting for those eager for a change of pace.

But what I think is important is that the tent-pole dungeon is there, for those days when the PCs weary of tracking down clues and following whatever plots they have been pursuing throughout the campaign. The tent-pole should, I think, be a sort of refuge from such things, existing in the world but not of it, a place where the PCs can set aside their plot-induced cares and just go someplace, kill things, and take their stuff.

This sort of thing is enough to get the pulse of any DM (or player, really) racing: doesn't it just make you want to get up right now, grab some graph paper and a pen and start mapping?

James Maliszewski writes that "2e was an era that moved away from tent pole megadungeons as a principle of setting design" and I agree with him, but I also agree that "most of the 2e settings could be retooled to support a tent pole megadungeon" - which sounds like a task I'd like to work on someday, specifically for my favourite setting of Planescape. Indeed it strikes me that Planescape is one of the more obvious megadungeon-friendly 2e settings; not only do you have the Mazes, Sewers and Hive in Sigil, you also have the 16 gate towns in the Outlands (each of which could have a uniquely flavoured megadungeon under its foundations), the Spire (with an infinite pit at its foundation?) and an endless multiverse in which to plonk down whatever you like. You could even envisage entire Planes as megadungeons - what else is the Abyss, after all, but an infinite labyrinth full of monsters, death and treasure? Ditto Pandemonium.

*

My second thoughts for the weekend related to Cyberpunk 2020 and alternate visions of the future. Some time ago I was thinking about this in very vague terms, and actually wrote a post about it - as well as starting off an interesting (for once) rpg.net thread. At that time, I was thinking in terms of what was realistic - i.e. what we might reasonably expect the future to be like from our current standpoint, as opposed to that of the 1980s. But I recently read Pashazade, a book by John Courtenay Grimwood, which had been sitting on my shelf for years. It is the first part of the Arabesk Trilogy, and is set in an alternate future (rather than alternate past), where WWI never got off the ground and the Ottoman Empire still exists. The action centres around Alexandria (El Iskandriyah) in the mid 21st century, and the setting is like a William Gibson novel but with North African Islam as its backdrop rather than LA or Japan. The book isn't great, but the setting is, and it got me thinking about non-European and non-Japanese cyberpunk futures. India, Brazil, Russia and China are obvious candidates for future Megapowers, and near-future games set in worlds dominated by one or the other (or all) would just be fantastic to create and play games with.

Once again I regret there isn't enough time to do all of these potential projects and keep abreast of work and a social life. How unfair that we don't have a few extra hours each day.

[Alignment Breakdown III] Chaotic Good

Chaotic good characters are strong individualists marked by a streak of kindness and benevolence. They believe in all the virtues of goodness and right, but they have little use for laws and regulations. They have no use for people who "try to push folk around and tell them what to do." Their actions are guided by their own moral compass which, although good, may not always be in perfect agreement with the rest of society. A brave frontiersman forever moving on as settlers follow in his wake is an example of a chaotic good character.

- 2nd edition Player's Handbook

Chaotic Good was traditionally my favourite alignment; in fact I've probably even now still played more Chaotic Good characters than anything else, although these days I try to spread myself around a lot more. Actually in my experience it's the most popular of all the alignments, probably because it allows players to be Good without forcing them to be too Moralistic - and that's exactly what the majority of D&D players seem to want. It is after all the most fitting attitude for a traditional 'Good Guy Adventurer' type to take, representing unwillingness to conform and dislike for law, combined with a strong sense of right and wrong. It's the alignment of the rugged individualists of American and Australian legend who settled the 'wild' reaches of their respective continents (though let's mention the natives, thankyouverymuch) and wanted nothing but land, liberty and good neighbours - and those types happen to make very good Adventuring Heroes.

Of course, this overaccuntuates the Good while playing down the Chaos. The alignment could imply something more deliberate - for example good hearted but dyed-in-the-wool anarchists from the Parisian Left Bank, or non-racist libertarians shut away in rural Idaho, or anarcho-capitalists/individualist anarchists like Murray Rothbard or Lysander Spooner. That is, people who have a moral belief in disorder as the best way for everybody to live - and who see in government nothing but tyranny and evil. Though perhaps this is to overegg the Chaos at the expense of the Good: in the rhetoric of people like Rothbard, von Mises and McElroy it's often harder to discern the Goodness in amongst all the What's Best, which means something slightly different.




The ideal mix of course is the Han Solo or Robin Hood type; the man who stands against government brutality and defends freedom while never losing a sense of justice. But in a game in which revolt and guerilla warfare is not the aim, it can be difficult to make such characters work - we know why the Neutral Evil guy is after the dragon's treasure, but why would Han Solo give two hoots? Funding the rebellion perhaps, but how long does that last as a justification before it gets old?

In retrospect perhaps it is for the above reasons that the Rugged Individualist is usually the Chaotic Good character type of choice. Because Individualist Anarchism and robbing from the rich to give to the poor are all very well, but they don't seem like satisfactory reasons to pillage vast subterranean labyrinths.

[Alignment Breakdown II] Chaotic Neutral

Chaotic neutral characters believe that there is no order to anything, including their own actions. With this as a guiding principle, they tend to follow whatever whim strikes them at the moment. Good and evil are irrelevant when making a decision. Chaotic neutral characters are extremely difficult to deal with. Such characters have been known to cheerfully and for no apparent purpose gamble away everything they have on the roll of a single die. They are almost totally unreliable. In fact, the only reliable thing about them is that they cannot be relied upon! This alignment is perhaps the most difficult to play. Lunatics and madmen tend toward chaotic neutral behavior.

- 2nd Edition Player's Handbook

There's always been something ridiculous about Chaotic Neutral as it is described in the above quote: lunatics and madmen are surely a different kettle of fish altogether - that is to say not in control of themselves, and therefore alignment-less. I prefer to think of Chaotic Neutral types as people who aren't necessarily malicious but who nevertheless prefer not to abide by society's rules. This doesn't mean self-conscious, "I'm mad, me!" buffoonery, but can actually ecompass quite a range of behaviours.

First is the Nihilist Type, or people who absolutely refusal to engage with society, because they see no purpose or reason in the universe, and therefore choose to set themselves apart from it. A good example in fiction is Bartleby, the Scrivener, whose only response to any request is to say, "I would prefer not to", and who eventually retreats into catatonic slumber and possibly death after refusing to eat. The members of the Bleak Cabal can be said to be the epitomy of this brand of Chaotic Neutral.

Second is the Hellraiser Type, or those who see themselves as completely unfettered by society in their pursuit of pleasure; they are not necessarily explicit hedonists or libertines from a political standpoint, but their beliefs and actions amount to as much. Hunter S. Thompson is the epitomy of this kind of Chaotic Neutral - "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." There is no malice in such behaviour but nor is there goodness.




Third is the Discordian Type - that is, those people who believe in 'Chaos' as a philosophical construct and seek to perpetuate it. These very rare characters aren't the tiresome kind of person who insists on being 'zany' and tries altogether too hard. They positively work towards disorder for its own sake, and are deadly serious about it. The Doomguard, who believe in 'preserving' entropy, and the Slaadi, who embody discord, encompass this kind of Chaotic Neutrality.

The main thing to escape from, when playing a Chaotic Neutral character, is the use of that alignment as an excuse for being unaligned - which is what in my experience it comes to signify. Like the other 'neutral' alignments - LN, NG and NE - the important point in CN is not the Neutrality but the 'active' alignment, in this case Chaos. For the Chaotic Neutral, morality is irrelevant and disorder is everything; it is in fact the most extreme alignment, rather than the least meaningful. And it is this which makes it the most difficult to play, not that it is the alignment for "lunatics and madmen".

[Alignment Breakdown I] Chaotic Evil

Outraged at the totally true but tactless accusation of cowardice, the chaotic evil character snaps back, "Look, I was doing an important job, guarding the rear! Can I help it if nothing tried to sneak up behind us? Now, it seems to me that all of you are pretty beat up--and I'm not. So, I don't think there's going to be too much objection if I take all the jewelry and that wand. And I'll take anything interesting those two dead guys have. Now, you can either work with me and do what I say or get lost--permanently!"

- AD&D 2nd Edition Player's Handbook

When it comes to misunderstandings about alignment, I think Chaotic Evil stands out as the point at which most of them intersect. There was never a better excuse (except perhaps for an uber-moralistic paladin) for a player to act like a complete ass than by creating a Chaotic Evil character, and nor was there a better excuse for a DM to behave like an unreasonable dictator in banning such characters outright. But Chaotic Evil is just as interesting an aligment as any other if it's played thoughtfully, and I think a lot of the problems associated with it arise from the fact that most of us started playing AD&D when we were about 11 years old. 11 year olds don't do subtelty: if you're Chaotic Evil, it means you're a vicious and uncontrollable psychopath. But it also stems from quotes like the one above, which don't do a subtle reading of alignment any favours whatsoever.

First things first, a Chaotic Evil character is as intelligent and self-aware as any other. Bad people don't generally put their lives in unnecessary danger by flagrantly breaking the law when there is a chance of being caught, pissing off their friends, and starting fights with whoever they meet. A small minority of socially inept psychopaths may do those things, but for the vast majority of Chaotic Evil people, law-breaking is done only when discovery is unlikely, friends are viewed as a valuable resource, and sadism or brutality is meted out to the weak when victory is assured and there is little chance of retribution. Stupid Chaotic Evil characters will make errors of judgement, but there is no reason to assume the intelligent will do so.

Secondly, Chaotic Evil characters are still people. They become lonely, stressed, annoyed, and upset just as those of other alignments do, although they may react in very different ways. The 2e DMG actually says as much when it gives the example of a bored Chaotic Evil mage at the local inn, who's just after some drink and company for the evening. He's not about to turn anybody into a cockroach or pull somebody's finger nails out for his own amusement, and probably poses no threat at all in that setting.

But thirdly, and by the same token, Chaotic Evil characters have no regard for laws and morality except for that imposed on them by force, and they care about nobody other than themselves. The Chaotic Evil mage who enjoys carousing at the local inn may have a magically concealed dungeon in his tower where he can get up to whatever he wants to get up to, safe in the knowledge that he won't be discovered. Intruders might well find themselves hanging upside down from the ceiling and having their hearts carved out with a rusty spoon, or being gnawed to death by half-starved beavers. Chaotic Evil characters can be as sadistic and as brutal as they like when they know they can get away with it. The classic example of the Chaotic Evil character behaving in this fashion is the Stuntman from Deathproof, who kills because he has found a way to do so with impunity (or so he thinks).




What this means is that Chaotic Evil characters can be perfectly functioning members of an adventuring party so long as they can see a rational reason for cooperating with the other members, or can be forced into doing so by some kind of threat. And since most of the time adventuring parties do have rational reasons for cooperation - maximisation of profit - the issue of Chaotic Evil characters screwing everything up should rarely arise. Potential for conflict is more likely to come from issues such as what to do with prisoners and whether to help those in distress.

The scenario portrayed in the quote from the 2e Player's Handbook at the top of this entry is therefore unlikely to ever occur - because what Chaotic Evil character would be stupid enough to make enemies of his comrades in such an obvious way? The answer is that none would, except one grotesquely stupid or else obscenely powerful; somebody like Blackbeard the Pirate may have been able to browbeat his minions into obedience in such a way, but even he relied more on the carrot of treasure and women than he did on the stick. Because how long would he have lasted if all he did was try to keep all the treasure to himself?

The idea that Chaotic Evil characters are likely to make a game unplayable or un-fun doesn't stand up, for me. I think this misperception has arisen because of quotes like the one in the 2nd edition Player's Handbook, and because D&D players are mostly geeks - some of whom are not equipped with the social skills necessary to a) play sensibly or b) deal with people who can't play sensibly.

The 'Thorny Issue' of Alignment

I wrote a little throwaway post a few days ago offering examples of Chaotic characters from real life and fiction; I was going to do one for Lawful and Neutral alignment types too, but then I read a recent article on Turbulent Thoughts regarding the topic, and it got me thinking about it in a little more detail.

To sum up my own position: I'm a believer in (as that great philosopher Dante Hicks once put it) taking a shit, or getting off the pot. That is, either make a decision to do something and carry it through all the way, or don't bother at all. This philosophy has a great deal to say to the 4e designers, and nowhere does this apply more than in the field of alignment. They had their chance to excrete alignment completely; they had their chance to get off the pot and keep it as it was; instead they did neither, and ended up with thoroughly soiled pants. The 4e alignment system is a remedial red-headed stepchild of the old structure, ill-brought up and without any clear place in the world, and the designers should have had the balls to throw the baby out with the bath water. And that makes three analogies for the price of one - so don't try to tell me I'm not providing value for money on the metaphor front.




I'm not wedded to alignment at all; I've played enough non-D&D games to know how unnecessary and weird the whole thing is - a sort of hang-up from Moorcock which morphed into a creaking quasi-religious philosophical framework over the years. The Planescape campaign setting should in fact have proved that D&D characters at least didn't need alignment, in its rather more sophisticated and practical view of their motivations. Yet there is something oddly compelling about the old diametric structure. The symmetry itself is appealing, but I also like the attempt it made (whether conscious or not) to create a set of ethics which had absolutely nothing to do with real-world politics or religion. It's a fantasy belief system for a fantasy world, and that in itself is highly interesting. And while it has little worth as a way of policing players, it does at least prevent politics from ruining a gaming session. I've met enough idiots from both the Left and the Right who'll take any opportunity to spout out bilge, and in my experience the D&D alignment system distracts them from doing so where other games can often fail.

The key to sensible alignment lies, I believe, in not seeing it as an explicit way of thinking of the world, but rather an implicit one. People don't see themselves or their behaviour as Chaotic Evil or Neutral Good, even if it is - indeed, those terms do not exist as ways of describing people or the world. They are rather metaterms for groups of philosophies and behaviours to which actors unintentionally subscribe, perhaps known only to the Gods and whoever governs the multiverse. Thus an Epicurean pleasure-seeking anarchist sees himself as "a libertine", rather than "Chaotic Neutral", but he is nevertheless considered "Chaotic Neutral" by the laws of reality and the 'powers that be' across the universe. It is those immutable and unkown laws which deprive a ranger or paladin, unbeknownst to him, of his powers when he has crossed alignment lines too many times.

From tomorrow I'm going to start a ten-post marathon run-down on each alignment and how I see it. Be afraid. Be very afraid.