Aligning thoughts on Alignment
Alignment has been much maligned throughout the years. Several lines of argument have been made against it. Arguments against the apparent lack of descriptiveness. Against the implications that Good and Evil might be objective descriptors instead of subjectively based on beliefs and culture. How alignment might change over time, so why track it at all. How alignment languages are silly. All of these arguments have some level of merit, and while I do believe that there are solid counterarguments against all of these, this article isnât about any of that. Instead, this article will be on why I believe that the addition of Good and Evil to alignment was a mistake.
Now, weâre going to go and meander quite a bit, but stay with me on this. I think I have something worth thinking about here (well duh, why would I spend my spare time writing this otherwise). This all started with a discussion I had with the excellent Flooded Realms about Alignment. The discussion came about after I expressed disappointment in Gygaxâ writing in the February â76 edition of the Strategic Review, the precursor to Dragon Magazine.
Maligning Gygax
However, before we get there, letâs have a look at what alignment was like in the OG books; ODnD and Chainmail. Both of them have preciously little to say, but letâs do so anyway for historic record.
It is impossible to draw a distinct line between "good" and "evil" fantastic figures. Three categories are listed below as a general guide for the wargamer designing orders of battle involving fantastic creatures: Chainmail Before the game begins it is not only necessary to select a role, but it is also necessary to determine what stance the character will take - Law, Netrality, or Chaos ODnD
Both of these seem to imply some functional and indeed, wargamery feel, which shouldnât surprise us given the source and history. âPick which side youâll be fighting forâ. Thereâs a bit more in there though. In Chainmail he does seem to imply that Law is Good and Chaos is Evil.
Simple, easy to grok, but Gygax disagreed with himself from the past. In the abovementioned Strategic Review article Gygax argues about how Law and Chaos (them being the two not Neutral alignments in ODnD) have been misunderstood and misconstrued.
He thinks in hindsight having Law and Chaos as the two non-neutral alignments was a mistake. He argues that the audience misunderstood Law and Chaos to also mean Good and Evil, which he says he did not. He purely meant it as two diametrically opposed sides in some conflict, but that both those following Law or Chaos could be Good and Evil independent of that. He argues for, in effect, a five point alignment system; Lawful Good, Lawful Evil, Chaotic Good, Chaotic Evil, and Neutral.
Furthermore, he says that
Placement of characters upon a graph similar to that in Illustration I [Bos: An alignment graph] is necessary if the dungeonmaster is to maintain a record of player-character alignment. Initially, each character should be placed squarely on the center point of his alignment, i.e., lawful/good, lawful/evil, etc. The actions of each game week will then be taken into account when determining the current position of each character.
That is: as a player did stuff the characterâs alignment might change. Good actions would make them drift more towards Good, Lawful actions to Lawful and vice fersa. This means that Gygax saw Alignment as something descriptive, a representation of what kind of person the player is acting as.
His later writings in ADnD would keep this. Particularly the descriptions of each of the (by now nine) alignments explains the general sort of attitude people with this alignment might have. His view on alignment change being possible has shifted somewhat though, from âthis happens naturally through player actionsâ to âall but impossible, requiring acts of sacrifice or questsâ. However, the ideas of both the Law/Chaos as well as the Good/Evil axis existing separately had cemented itself into the fabric of DnD.
Misalignment of ideas
At the same time though, Gygax says this in that same article in the Strategic Review: âAlso, law and chaos are not subject to interpretation in their ultimate meanings of order and disorder respectively, but good and evil are not absolutes but must be judged front a frame of reference, some ethos.â
This feels weird. Not only because it contradicts what Gygax wrote in Chainmail (which could be written off as ongoing experiences changing his perspective), but due to two other reasons as well.
Firstly, while one could argue that Gygax was being neutral, which Iâm not sure about, but if he was: he was clearly having issues with it. His keywords for Law squarely fit into the category of âgenerally positiveâ while his keywords for Chaos fit into âgenerally negativeâ. Later on he also seems to contort himself into some moral and philosophical bends about how a Lawful Good person might attempt to use an Evil creature for the purposes of Good, and that would affect his Lawful standing, but not necessarily his Good. It doesnât hold water.
Secondly, it reduces the whole Law vs Chaos alignment to pure banality. In the original system it was about some metaphysical Law and Chaos. Now itâs about mere personality traits; whether someone adheres to the rules of an orderly society over anarchy. At this point you might as well further expand the system by adding where on the political spectrum they are, or whether they prefer cats over dogs.
Realigning our ideas with Cicero
Law and Chaos are not terms that Gygax plucked out of thin air for use in Chainmail. They came out of Poul Andersonâs Three Hearts and Three Lions. A book about a man getting transported to another world to fight with the Holy Roman Empire against the Faerie. Law is very much the same as Good in these books, and Chaos just as much Evil. I imagine Poul Anderson got the term law not out of thin air either. Law has all sort of theological and philosophical interpretations that go back via great theologians like Aquinas to Roman and Greek philosophers. However, I will go to Cicero, because thatâs a text I had to study at one point and have some knowledge about.
Cicero was one of the great Roman statesmen during the end of the Roman Republic. He was more than this though. He was considered one of the greatest orators, with the highlights being a series of 14 speeches to the Senate after which Mark Anthony was declared an enemy of the state. However, today weâre talking about his philosophical works, particularly De Legibus; On the Laws.
Itâs a fictional dialogue, during which the two characters (not important enough to name here) discuss what the laws ought to be. Not all works survived, but enough of them did that we can intimate some of his ideas. I might post a few quotes (to sound clever), but in general I will try to mostly summarize his arguments in order to not replicate the entirety of the translated text. All translated quotes come from a translation by Francis F. Barham.
Cicero argues that there are two different concepts; legalisms (law as written), and justice (Law). And justice does not flow from nowhere he says but âfrom the highest law, which was born before any law was written or any cities at all were even founded.â Essentially: justice is not a human invention. Itâs something that humans can come to though. How? Through reason; âfor Law (say they) is the highest reason, implanted in nature, which prescribes those things which ought to be done, and forbids the contrary.â
If that doesnât sound like good or evil yet, just you wait:
For my part, I imagine that the moral essence of law is better expressed by its Latin name, (lex), which conveys the idea of selection or discrimination. (...) an equitable discrimination between good and evil.
How do you know what this Natural Law (as the philosophical concept is named these days) is? Simple: anything with the gift of reason can figure it out, since, in Ciceroâs worldview, Reason is at the basis of this Natural Law.
So this Natural Law is less of a set of rules, but a metaphysical description of how to be Good. There therefore is no real difference between Law and Good. This law is immutable and present everywhere. Now, this is where Cicero gets interesting from a DnD standpoint. Because we have the capacity of reason, we humans are bound by this law, since by our reasoning we are able to perceive it. However, so do the gods. These gods are therefore bound by this same Natural Law. We can express whether or not gods are good or evil, since theyâre judged by the same standards that we ought to judge men by.
Meanwhile as I was explaining this to the void, Flooded Realms was joining in and told me how much Christian doctrine seems to align with this. Pretty much the same line of argument is used by both parties. Now I am not the person to dive too deeply into the nuances of the Christian argument; Iâm not as well versed in the theological literature behind it, and someone more versed in that (your move, Flooded RealmsâŚ) should probably do so.
How I think you ought to see alignment (sadly ran out of alignment puns)
So what am I saying after 1500 odd words on this subject? Simple: Law is the Same as Good. Chaos (the antithesis of Law) is therefore by definition Evil. Adding some kind of combination of the two is either tautological or oxymoronic.Chaotic Evil is the same as Evil Evil. Lawful Evil is the same as saying Good Evil.
The throughline from Cicero to alignment seems clear as day to me. From Anderson's works, who learned from the Greek and Roman philosophers and the Christian theologians, to Gygax. Gygax was a devout Christian (to the point of believing that Christmas was dangerously pagan) and a well read man. I cannot believe he himself truly believed that good and evil are in any way subjective. To say this goes against the basic tenets of Christianity is to do it a disservice. I donât believe he wouldâve been particularly convinced by his own arguments.
What was written in ODnD was Good: you have Law, and you have Chaos. We donât need more than this.
Except for one change, a nod to Cicero. We had Law, Neutrality, and Chaos. However, those without the capacity for understanding Law canât be blamed for not following it, but are markedly different from those who with that capacity straddling the fence between Law and Chaos. Iâd therefore suggest a four point alignment system. Law, Neutrality, Chaos, and unaligned.
So what does it mean to align with Law? It means that you strive to seek and obey this Natural Law. The Paladin striving to live up to his Ideals. The Good King caring for the people in his domain. To align with Chaos is the opposite: you actively seek to break with it. The orc who relishes in the wrongness of his raping and pillaging; the necromancer wilfully subverting the natural order to bring corpses to life for his own goals. In the middle between them: the Han Solo, who, while not evil, doesnât go out of his way to do Good unless rewarded for it. And unaligned? The beasts that cannot know Law, but act as their instincts tell them to.
Something to think about. Until next time (hopefully with less of a break) count your torches and keep mapping.