Let the corpses do the talking

Just recently, whilst running Team Adventure through a couple of wilderness hex crawls, I’ve rolled up two encounters where I’ve used dead monsters rather than live ones. To be honest, I thought at the time of the first encounter (a mountain lion) that it would be a short-lived combat if it even came to that; a good set of rolls on the archery would either finish it off or drive it off. Worth bothering with? Nah.

Yet the dice decreed that a mountain lion was encountered by the party. Well, didn’t have to be a live one, did it? As the party were on the trail of a mysterious lumbering shape in the mist (in reality a lone hill giant) I suddenly thought that the best way to give them a hint about what they were facing would be to present them with one of its victims.

Flash forward a couple of sessions and the party were heading north again, en route to a different dungeon. The encounter roll called for ogres – but the previous week, I had run a big fight with ogres that nearly led to a TPK and I felt that to do another one so quickly would be samey and uninspired. So, once again, I converted a live encounter to a dead one. Two dead ogres, riddled with arrows and hacked about. Who could have brought down two ogres without any sign of taking casualties themselves? If the party had wanted to investigate, I would have allowed them to do a CSI although kids don’t often have the patience to conduct such an investigation with sufficient thoroughness that they pick up the clues that they’ll need to survive.

Now I’m running a wilderness into which the party are the first to venture for quite some considerable time; it stands to reason that they are not going to come across many fresh dead adventurers. They may well find monster bodies that have been killed by other monsters; examination of the claw or tooth marks (or the fact that the bodies have been scorched or drained or frozen, or whatever) can yield information that will stand them in good stead if they encounter the killer a few miles further on. They may feel that something that could take out a pack of ogres (or giants or trolls…) is not worth investigating just yet. And if they do press on regardless, then on their own heads be it.

In a campaign where the party is entering an area, either of wilderness or dungeon, that has previously been traversed by others (although not necessarily cleared) then it’s almost a racing certainty that there will be bodies. Depending on the nature of their death, their remains will give the party more than just a few gold pieces or a new sword or two. The use of gelatinous cubes to clear up the dungeon corridors is just a cop-out, in my view. A well-travelled dungeon or wilderness will be scattered with sad remains – even a few fragments will be enough in some cases to warn of both the presence of danger and its nature, be that monsters or traps. It doesn’t have to be as unsubtle as littering a room with statues to warn of a medusa, basilisk or cockatrice. A brace of corpses with their skulls cracked open and emptied is a good sign that our tentacled friends the mind flayers are out and about. Learning about the effects of various venoms and toxins can point to imminent danger as well. And what about humanoid tribes that deface their enemies in particular ways? Not just lopping their heads off and sticking them on spikes; maybe they remove the eyes and replace them with coloured stones, or prize the heart of a fallen warrior as a delicacy or totem of power. If the latter is the case and a body is found with the heart intact, what does it say about the way that person was killed?

An example – a body is found in a room that appears fairly innocuous. In its hand is a crumpled piece of parchment that appears to show part of the dungeon that the party have just explored. But the ink on the parchment is smeared and blurred as if it has been soaked. The room is in fact a water trap; the body is that of an adventurer who triggered the trap and drowned as a result. The water receded and the map dried out but still shows the signs of its immersion. A party who finds this might wonder about the map and draw its conclusions in time to prevent them suffering the same fate.

Speak with Dead

Of course it might be thought that all this CSI Greyhawk could be avoided with the use of that oh-so-handy Speak with Dead spell. However, the spell has sufficient circumscriptions in the DMG and PHB that its efficacy as a one-shot cure-all is satisfactorily reduced. Consider the following:

When the spell is cast, to whom is the cleric actually speaking? Are they conversing with the departed soul? In which case, where is that soul now? Enjoying the benefits of celestial reward or having its ass fried off by a guy with horns? If the first is the case, then the soul will be particularly testy at having its bliss interrupted (and if the body is in an area where clerics pass by regularly, this might not be the first time the soul has been disturbed) and if the second is the case, all the cleric might get is some demented shrieking as the soul may very well be insane after its time in hell.

And it should also be considered that if the dead person was particularly good (or particularly evil) in their mortal state, they may well have been rewarded by access to the big cheeses of their current spiritual abode. That soul might not be just a disembodied voice speaking from the darkness; it might now be BFF with a powerful demigod or demon prince, who may not take kindly to their friend being disturbed by pesky mortals…

Of course, it might not be the soul to which the spell grants access. It all depends on whether you have an afterlife in your campaign; it may be that what the spell does is to give a glimpse, almost a snapshot of the echoes made by the death in question. The cleric could see visions of the events leading up to and following the death, leaving him to draw his own conclusions. (this point could well be expanded upon to form another post specifically on the subject of Speak with Dead – I’ll give it some thought). The DM can relay to the cleric what they see – it may be from the deceased’s point of view, the killer’s or a hypothetical observer. Information will be limited and not necessarily reliable.

Zombie clue machine

The bodies don’t necessarily have to lie there looking gruesome. It’s sometimes more fun if they’re up and walking. A lot of the time, encounters with the undead run along rather predictable lines

DM “Out of the darkness come several shambling figures, reeking of corruption, the stink of the grave fresh upon them…”
Cleric “Ah, zombies – or possibly ghouls. No problem – I’ll step forward and raise my holy symbol, then try to turn them”
Fighter “And I’ll get my bow ready to shoot down any that don’t get turned”
2nd Fighter “And I’ll ready an oil bomb to take care of the survivors”

Much dice rolling, arrows, oil; result – charred undead, more XP, party moves on. But what about if those undead weren’t just faceless mooks? Most undead of the corporeal variety still have bodies on which can be hung pieces of armour, shields with emblems, weapons with particular hilts, pieces of distinctive jewellery. If the DM wants to drop hints as to forthcoming plot hooks, legends, lost expeditions, forgotten cultures, what better way to do it than to have those hints wandering round the dungeon, mumbling “Brains! Brains!”. If the party lacks the perspicacity to spot these hints, then more fools they.


%ge in lair

Some of you may be reading this, especially my comments about having dungeons and wildernesses littered with body parts and say to yourselves “Aha, but you’ve forgotten that most monsters tend to be either predators or scavengers and therefore would probably drag fallen corpses off to their lairs to be digested at their leisure.”
I would add “Yes, dear reader, you are quite right. Of course, why not have both?”
So bits and pieces of corpses may well be found scattered along 10’ wide passages and at the same time, other pieces of the same corpses (probably larger and more fleshy bits) may end up in the lairs of the monsters who killed them. Between the two may well be found a sticky trail of blood, further indication that something ghastly is doing the rounds of Level Four…
This of course makes the search of the monster’s lair after its inevitable demise all the more gruesome, since any remains there will have either been chewed up and tossed aside or possibly end up in the stinking pile of dung at the back of the cave. All the more fun for the party as they realise that they may have to ferret through a steaming mass of poo to get at what they were looking for.

Famous Last Words

Not a few adventurers, when confronted with a TPK in which they are the starring members, somehow find the time to scribble down a quick valedictory message which never takes the form of “Tell Mum and Dad I’m really sorry about stealing the horse before I left home…”; no, it usually serves the function of the DM letting the players know some vital clue about what awaits them. Contrived though this is, it does offer yet more possibilities for making NPCs work on after death. If they foolishly forgot to pack parchment and quill, they often considerately fall dead whilst pointing obviously towards some secret door or hidden compartment. Nice of them, eh?
Of course, after some months in the dungeon or wilderness, there’ll be little left of them save bones, and this is where the mischief makers come in. There are plenty of little critters whose sole function in dungeons, or so it appears, is to mess with the players’ heads. Jermlaine, Xvarts, Snyads, Mephits and so on. What self-respecting dungeon prankster could resist the temptation to draw up fake scrolls and messages and leave them in the bony claws of long-dead adventurers, leading those who read them not to gold and glory but into something nasty and almost certainly deadly?

And of course there is one final advantage to having corpses do the talking – the DM doesn’t have to do the voices!

Would it be so terrible if I never rolled to hit again?

During my ongoing CoC pbem, I’ve been having a few thoughts about the raison d’etre of the adventures I'm running and those I'm planning.

For many, many weeks, the brave investigators have probed the mysteries, followed the clues, talked to the NPCs and been led a merry dance by the twists and turns of the plot. There’s only been one gunfight, and that lasted all of two rounds. And they seem to be loving it.

I’m also working on a module that is very light on combat. There’s a lot of location-based investigation, magic, weird goings-on and of course talking to lots and lots of people. And its follow-up will be similarly combat-light.

Even Death Frost Doom (to take one of the flagships of the OSR's output) is more about atmosphere and ambiance than sword-swinging and axe-hacking (although there is the potential for that). From the reviews, it seems to me that a careful party that is not too greedy and not too foolish can actually get in, get loot and get out again. With no combat.

When I was playing first time around in the good old days, it was taken for granted that we were there to kill things and take their stuff. D&D or Traveller, the tactics were the same, it was just the weapons that differed. Guys wanted bigger guns to make bigger bangs and blow bigger holes in bigger opponents.

However, recent anecdotal evidence points me towards a view that there is a sizeable proportion of players out there (it seems to be female gamers, but I'm sure that there are males who would agree) who would get just as much enjoyment out of a game where there is as little combat as possible, and the main thrust is on interaction, investigation and problem-solving using brain rather than brawn.

The raison d’etre of D&D and indeed Old School dungeons is exploration but it’s implicit in the rules and the way that the characters are established (hit points, armour class, weapons, damage, enemies whose first resort seems to be fighting, stats for monsters which list AC, HD, Att) that combat is going to be taking up a lot of that exploration-centred activity. Cure Light Wounds implies that wounds are going to be suffered, after all.

So I find myself thinking – am I shifting focus to a genre of role-playing that eschews violence? Is it a mark of getting old and finding continual hack-and-slay boring or am I undergoing a fundamental paradigm shift?

Being a writer, I'm aware that the main feature of any story is conflict - the same applies to adventures. In days gone by, perhaps we took that word a little too literally. I know that I did - although towards the end of my first stint of gaming, back in the late 1980s, we were starting to move towards a style of play whereby we felt that if we had to draw our swords, we had failed to achieve our ends successfully. Admittedly, that was a city-based campaign where the opportunities for role-playing non-combat situations were somewhat heavier on the ground than they might have been if we were exploring the wilderness.

In my gaming sessions with Junior Grognard, the mix for the Training Dungeon was combat and puzzles, physical obstacles and features that challenged his thinking abilities as much as his dice-rolling. Yet if I'm selling D&D to kids, it's going to be pitched at the "Are you a Warrior or a Wizard? Find out with Dungeons and Dragons" tagline level - hack 'em or zap 'em, it's still combat. Where's the alternative? For seven-year-olds, the level of patience and social sophistication needed to run an adventure on non-combat lines is still lacking - they want to hit things with things.

I suppose it all depends - there is no "right" balance - the tastes of the DM and his players, the type of campaign and terrain in which the action takes place all play a part in determining how often the cry goes up

"Roll to hit!"

What's your view? Do you like a good bit of bloodshed or is it better to talk than fight? Would adventures that are less combat-oriented help to attract women into the game? And should adventures be slanted towards situations that can only be solved by combat or should the non-violent options be given equal chance?

The Gamer's Year

When I started this blog back in October of last year, the evenings were drawing in and the weather was worsening. In fact, that December we had the coldest winter for years. Ideal conditions to ignore the state of the garden and get the dice out. So I did and the Training Dungeon and the first sessions of the sandbox were the result. I thought to myself that surely, once the summer set in, there would be ample opportunity to get more gaming in, but I was wrong.

In fact, what with holidays at various times from June through to September meaning that at least one of the players is always away, the fine weather meaning that there is no excuse not to get on with the garden and the tendency of families to decide the weekend is too good to waste, so let's do X, Y & Z (but not D&D) it's a wonder any gaming gets done once the summer is here.

Yet clearly some of us do get game. Which leads me to the question of the day - which is the best season for gaming? I'll set up a poll for it and I'd be interested to see what it tells us.

(as an aside, apologies for not posting more just recently. I have been Busy on a Big Project - more anon - watch this space)

Good, evil and the line between them.

GOOD VERSUS EVIL

Evil shall never be portrayed in an attractive light and shall be used only as a foe to illustrate a moral issue. All product shall focus on the struggle of good versus injustice and evil, casting the protagonist as an agent of right. Archetypes (heroes, villains, etc.) shall be used only to illustrate a moral issue.
The TSR Code of Ethics 1995

Introduction – and a disclaimer.

I’ve always been interested in the notions of good and evil, morality and immorality especially when it comes to the alignment system in role playing games. In this post, I’ll be looking at some of the questions that the alignment system throws up and pondering how best to reflect a system of morality in RPG.

The inclusion of viewpoints and quotes for illustrative purposes should not be construed as endorsement thereof. I have no intention to offend or provoke; considered comments are welcomed. I am also aware that there has been a considerable amount of blog discussion on alignment, which I have not referenced or revisited before writing this post, as I wanted the examination to be my own and not unconsciously answering questions that those posts might have raised. You may well find that I either mirror or seem to complement issues that have been dealt with elsewhere.

Three versus nine.

I’m going to be playing in a Labyrinth Lord AEC campaign soon. Whilst discussing the rules set, the DM asked me if I had a preference between the three-point alignment system and the nine-point. As I’m a long-time 1e player and DM, you can probably guess my answer.

But there’s more to it than just tradition. Having started my gaming life with 1e, I had no prior experience of the three-point system and so had to come to it fresh.

Being somewhat contrarian in my views, I would – if I had to classify myself as any particular alignment – be Chaotic Good, although my recent completion of the WotC online alignment test had me down as Neutral Good. I have never had much time for an alignment system that equates Law with Goodness. There are many sorts of law that I could not imagine being classified as in any way desirable. The Nazi regime, the rule of Stalin, the harsh, and to our minds, barbaric rules that made up the legislature of the Roman Empire. As a singularly apposite example of Law without good, consider Drako, the Athenian lawgiver, whose name has come down to us in the word “draconian”. Concerning the liberal use of the death penalty in the Draconic code, Plutarch said:

“It is said that Drako himself, when asked why he had fixed the punishment of death for most offences, answered that he considered these lesser crimes to deserve it, and he had no greater punishment for more important ones.”


Nor indeed do I ascribe to Chaos the epithet of evil – the role of the rebel is one on which the entire United States is built and one that, in the personae of Robin Hood and his merry band we laud and hold up as heroic. Luke Skywalker and Han Solo are not exactly upholding the rule of law; in fact they are using violence to overthrow a state. That the state itself utilises violence to perpetuate itself is immaterial; the fact is that it represents Law, stability and the institution of authority. If there were no rebel alliance, the Empire would probably endure for many years to come. Let’s look briefly at a section of the TSR Code of Ethics which addresses this:

3: AGENTS OF LAW ENFORCEMENT

Agents of law enforcement (constables, policemen, judges, government officials, and respected institutions) should not be depicted in such a way as to create disrespect for current established authorities/social values. When such an agent is depicted as corrupt, the example must be expressed as an exception and the culprit should ultimately be brought to justice.

Whilst corrupt law officials are clearly bad and need to be rooted out, the system that they serve is beyond questioning. There is also the equivocation between Law and Justice, which is not always necessarily so.

The Axis of Evil – and Good.

It’s said of the three-point system that the emphasis on good and evil can be applied by the players within the axis of Law, Neutrality and Chaos. All well and good, but perhaps I would have preferred, if any three-point system was to be used, to have the axis of Good, Neutrality and Evil, with law and chaos as gradations on that line.

But even this axis starts to look shaky when we ask the question “What is evil?”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has some wise words for anyone who might seek to ringfence particular viewpoints, beliefs, acts or peoples and mark them down as evil.

“the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil.”

The Gulag Archipelago

Solzhenitsyn is indeed correct when he describes the line as a shifting one, and it’s one that generally tends to move forward rather than backward. To emphasise just how that can happen, let’s see what two admirable figures from history have to say on subjects which today would be considered cut and dried on a moral basis.

“I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favour of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am not, nor ever have been, in favour of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say, in addition to this, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And in as much as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favour of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”

Abraham Lincoln 1858


“And how will the new republic treat the inferior races? How will it deal with the black? how will it deal with the yellow man? How will it tackle that alleged termite in the civilised woodwork, the Jew? And for the rest, those swarms of black, and brown, and dirty-white people, who do not come into the new needs of efficiency?
Well, the world is a world, not a charitable institution, and I take it they will have to go. The whole tenor and meaning of the world, as I see it, is that they have to go. So far as they fail to develop sane, vigorous, and distinctive personalities for the great world of the future, it is their portion to die out and disappear.”

H G Wells 1905.

Wells was a progressive, left-wing thinker of his time, so if he could hold the views cited, one shudders to think what the reactionaries of the day might have been thinking. What we are considering here is the way in which, even in a century, views that had been held by the progressives in society are now looked on with disgust and abhorrence by those who consider themselves enlightened.

Black and White and Grey

When we think about alignment, specifically about good and evil, we make those judgements based on the standards of today. In a way, the quasi-mediaeval societies that we create mirror far more the mores of the modern age than they do those of the time that they are intended to represent. Too many of us (and it does us credit) have trouble putting ourselves into the mindset of those who held fast to moral absolutes that would enable them cheerfully to put to death their fellow men merely because of a difference of doctrine or an geographical accident of birth.

Are there such things as moral absolutes? Whilst not wishing to go off down the path of moral relativism, there is always a case to be made for breaking what might otherwise be regarded as societal strictures. Ask yourself two questions: firstly, am I a good person? And secondly, are there circumstances in which I could commit what might normally be considered an evil act?

Thou shalt not kill? What about using violence to defend your children from an intruder? Thou shalt not steal? What if you’re a starving indigent who finds some stale loaves of bread left outside the back of a bakery?


Moral dilemmas

Here’s a conundrum based loosely on the (much disputed) Churchill and Coventry case.

A king whose army is fighting a long and bitter war with a confederation of humanoids has managed to acquire a mole inside the leadership of the confederation. This mole brings the king information that a large band of orcs is heading for one of his cities, intent on attacking and razing it.

If the king strengthens the garrison enough to repel the orc attack, the humanoids will know that he knew of their attack and they may deduce from this that a traitor is in their midst. If the mole is exposed and killed as a result of a hunt for him, the king will lose his source of intelligence inside the confederation and by the time he gets another one, the humanoids may have won and it will be too late.

But if he stays his hand and does nothing, feigning ignorance of the impending attack and its target, hundreds – if not thousands - of innocent citizens will be killed.

Moral dilemmas are always a good thing to throw at parties who seem secure in their alignments. Often, choices are presented in which the correct option is implicit in the question. But what if there are no right answers, only differing degrees of wrong?

Fighting fire with fire?

"They had gone down into the mire to destroy us and our nation and down after them we had to go"

Tom Barry

There have been cases where supposedly good-aligned characters have found themselves committing what might be termed atrocities against goblins, orcs, evil NPCs or cultists whose own moral compass points inexorably towards the Dark Side. Perhaps roughing up an orc to find out where he has hidden his gold. Perhaps the judicious application of sharp instruments to a cultist to obtain the location of his temple before the princess is sacrificed to summon a demon.

Is it ever permissible to use morally dubious methods against those who, given a particularly convincing argument, might deserve it? Is it, in fact, an act of Good to use whatever means are possible against Evil? After all, Evil doesn’t fight fair and to do so oneself hands Evil victory on a plate. Let’s see what the journalist Sam Harris has to say on the subject:

“Imagine that a known terrorist has planted a bomb in the heart of a nearby city. He now sits in your custody. Rather than conceal his guilt, he gloats about the forthcoming explosion and the magnitude of human suffering it will cause. Given this state of affairs—in particular, given that there is still time to prevent an imminent atrocity—it seems that subjecting this unpleasant fellow to torture may be justifiable. For those who make it their business to debate the ethics of torture this is known as the “ticking-bomb” case.
While the most realistic version of the ticking bomb case may not persuade everyone that torture is ethically acceptable, adding further embellishments seems to awaken the Grand Inquisitor in most of us. If a conventional explosion doesn’t move you, consider a nuclear bomb hidden in midtown Manhattan. If bombs seem too impersonal an evil, picture your seven-year-old daughter being slowly asphyxiated in a warehouse just five minutes away, while the man in your custody holds the keys to her release. If your daughter won’t tip the scales, then add the daughters of every couple for a thousand miles—millions of little girls have, by some perverse negligence on the part of our government, come under the control of an evil genius who now sits before you in shackles. Clearly, the consequences of one person’s uncooperativeness can be made so grave, and his malevolence and culpability so transparent, as to stir even a self-hating moral relativist from his dogmatic slumbers.”

This moves towards the realm of teleological or consequentialist ethics, where anything is permissible, provided that it serves a greater good. In Latin, this is rendered Exitus acta probat, literally “The End Justifies the Means”, a sentiment that was falsely attributed to Niccolo Macchiavelli’s phrase “Si guarda al fine” which, as Dungeonmum will surely tell us means “One must consider the final result” (in fact I’m sure she could give us a more accurate translation but it will do for now).


The Boredom of Evil

I’ve played an evil character once. I thought that it would be an interesting playing choice, given that at the time, there was little difference between good characters and those inclined more towards evil. Kill the monsters, take their stuff was the watchword then, as it sometimes tends to be today. Yet after a while, I started to get bored with the routine acts of evil that I was carrying out. With a good character there is always the battle between what the character knows is right and what their darker side, their animal nature wants to do. That battle of choices, the struggle to stay on the side of light makes for a very interesting playing experience. Yet with an evil character, that decision has already been made. There is no conflict - the line has been crossed. Even if the evil character carries out an act that might be considered good, it is usually for expediency, exploitative and cynical.


If we can’t be sure about evil, what is our definition of good?

Let’s consider two paladins. We’re on safe ground with these guys – everyone knows what alignment they have to be and everyone knows what sort of things that alignment allows. Right?

Well…

The first paladin serves Forseti, the Norse god of justice. The second follows Girru, the Babylonian god of fire. Both Lawful Good gods.

Our paladins come across a village of halflings. The first paladin rides in, preaches his deity, helps out, seeks to do good, uphold right and assist wherever possible.

The second paladin takes out his sword and starts to kill the halflings, because his mythos says that they are demons.

Both are doing what they consider to be right and were we to say to the second paladin that he was committing an evil act, he would be able to cite that particular page of Deities and Demigods as justification for his actions.

We do not have to look very far for examples of the shifting perception of evil in our own world. A gay couple who give to charity, do voluntary work with the homeless, help their elderly neighbour and never badmouth anyone will still be regarded as more evil than child sex offenders by some extremist groups. A law-abiding, caring tee-total, non-smoking father who observes speed limits, pays his taxes on time, never cheats the system and would never access Zak Smith’s blog would nevertheless - according to fundamentalists - burn in hell because he’s an atheist.

In a recent adventure I ran, (the Spider Farm), Junior Grognard and the gang burst in to one of the buildings and overwhelmed the goblins with such efficiency that the last goblin archer dropped his weapon and surrendered. JG ordered one of his party to kill the goblin. His justification was that if he let him go, the goblin would just join his fellows and go on to carry out more attacks. Nevertheless, an unarmed creature was executed. I noted this and moved on but it made me think and served as one of the bases of this post.

Another example – let’s say that the DM is running a campaign world based on the Roman Empire. A player in the campaign, who – with their modern sensibilities – believes that slavery is wrong and a societal evil, decides that their character is going to campaign to overthrow slavery, liberate the slaves and bring freedom to the Empire. He might cite this section of the TSR Code of Ethics to back his position up

13: SLAVERY

Slavery is not to be depicted in a favourable light; it should only be represented as a cruel and inhuman institution to be abolished.

Of course, no character in that day and age would consider that such a thing was right. For a start, anyone who tried to free slaves would have the slave-owners on their backs, clamouring for the liberator to be arrested for theft. Even in the New Testament, written at around that time, the institution of slavery is taken as a given. Neither Jesus nor Paul take a stand against it. For them, it was no more immoral than keeping animals for food and agricultural use.

What to do with alignment?

After having thought long and hard on the subject, and given that the alignment system may well have been invented to simulate the dogmatic and entrenched viewpoints that existed during the mediaeval age, when certainties were more certain and good and evil were rooted in a spirituality that seems perhaps too simplistic by our age, I am minded to do away with it.

But what to put in its place? I am an optimist when it comes to human nature; the vast majority of individuals are decent, good people who do their best with what they have. That humans are also capable of terrible things is more a product of latent leftovers in their evolutionary heritage. I don’t believe in Original Sin.

I came up with something today – after writing the majority of this post – and grabbed a pen (this always happens to me, inspiration striking when I’m least prepared). Basically, what I propose is to have the players draw up a Statement of Principles for their character. It would run along the lines of

 Five things the character believes in.

 Five things the character would never do/try strenuously to avoid doing.

 Five things the character believes are wrong.

 Character principles (5-10).

It’s sort of a summary of what they stand for, what they won’t stand for and what’s important to them.

A statement of principles is an individual thing; as we’ve seen, no two definitions of good or evil are the same. Something similar could work for monsters too. As you can imagine, the Statement could well encompass ‘evil’ or ‘immoral’ principles also. To reflect the fact that our attitudes and values may change over time, I might allow the player to move one principle off the list and replace with another every level-up or two.

If the player acted inconsistently with the Statement of Principles, I would require them to be able to justify their actions. Responsible and mature players would probably appreciate that, and might even welcome it as an aid to good role-playing.

If I was unhappy with the justification or felt that they were using the lack of alignment to act in a capricious and unrealistic manner, I would probably inflict some kind of spiritual retaliation – remember that in fantasy worlds, the gods not only exist but interfere on a regular basis.

By the Gods!

In fact, upgrading the role of the gods in a fantasy setting might be an interesting way to enforce a degree of behavioural consistency. In mediaeval times, and the ages before that, the consideration that the average person gave to the doctrines and views of their gods was a good deal higher than it is today. Whether you view this as a good thing or a bad thing, the point is that it affected their day to day activities and many of the decisions that they made. That’s not to say that being devoutly religious in mediaeval times made you automatically good.

In 1209, during the "Albigensian Crusade" against the Cathar heresy in Southern France, the forces of Orthodox Catholicism had been besieging the city of Beziers, defended by the Cathar heretics, for some time. Finally they breached the walls of the city and prepared to storm it. The commander of the crusade, Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, pointed out that not everybody in the city was a heretic; some of them were good Catholics, so how should they treat the inhabitants when they captured the city? A monk who was actually present at the siege recorded the answer of the Papal Legate to the Crusaders, Arnaud-Amaury, the Abbot of Citeaux, as "Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet." ("Kill them all. God will know his own.") So the Crusaders followed his advice and killed everybody they could find in Beziers.

The advice of the abbot makes perfect sense if his belief that death is not the end and that a benevolent god will ensure that souls are correctly treated is taken into account. Of course, there is a good argument to be made that he was just being cynical and had not one iota of genuine consideration for the views of his god. What his god thought of his justification is not recorded. A couple of centuries later, the Inquisition would cheerfully make bonfires of heretics because they believed in their hearts that they were doing good work, and that those who they killed were evil and merited no better treatment.

This might make a good case for extending the involvement of the characters with their deities. Recent posts on other blogs have discussed the relationship of the cleric to his deity but perhaps the relationship of all characters to their deities should be examined. Whilst a non-cleric has no spells that can be removed by an angered deity, there could perhaps be some method of sanction that can be applied if a character transgresses.

It’s also a fascinating opportunity to get deeper into the motivations of celestial and infernal beings – with alignment, demons and devils do evil because…well, that’s the way they are. Similarly with gods of good alignment, they just can’t help being good. If we jettison alignment, we then have to work out exactly what these entities are up to, why and what they might consider doing in order to get to those goals.

One last point that is raised by the notion of abandoning alignment is that the same holds true of monsters as well. It has always struck me as odd that entire races of monsters have the same alignment. Are all dwarves good? No. Then why are all orcs evil? The issue of the killing of orc females and children has been raised before, and I refer back to the example of the Abbot of Citeaux, who would have had no compunction on this issue. Indeed, the slaughter of men, women, children and animals is not only condoned but explicitly ordered by Yahweh (who is conventionally depicted as Lawful Good in alignment) in the Old Testament:

“But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth”

Deuteronomy 20:16

Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.' "

1 Samuel 15 v3

It would be an interesting argument if a lawful good cleric wanted to remove orc children from their tribe and raise them in a good environment. Indeed, something similar has been done in the real world with regard to taking Native American and Aboriginal children and raising them in white families, to ‘civilise’ them.

Is evil innate? The ascription of a generic alignment to monster races seems to indicate that Gygax thought it was, or intended it to be so for the purposes of game mechanics.

Conclusion

I hope that this has been an interesting – though long - ramble through some of the problems that alignment throws up. Interestingly, whether one holds to them or not, the pulp roots of D&D argue even more convincingly for an amorality that cannot be trapped within either the threefold or ninefold structure of alignment systems.

I’ve convinced myself that alignment is too restrictive for me, does not reflect the complexities of human nature and – in the case of monsters – is simplistic and unfair. My abandonment thereof will be an experiment, a work in progress. If it turns out that the interests of game mechanics require it to be reimposed, that’s what I’ll do. And I’ll let you know all about it!

Mentors, Meatshields and Mary Sues

I’m running a campaign for a new player starting at 1st level; the way that the campaign is going has brought to the forefront of my mind the concept of mentors. In this post, I’ll be looking at these, why they might be needed, when to kill them off, and their cousins, the meatshield and the Mary Sue.

Mentors

The mentor of a PC fills the role of a Gandalf, an Obi Wan or a Yoda. With new or inexperienced players, or parties that are new to the campaign world in question, the mentor can be a lifeline, preventing unnecessary loss or damage until the party finds their feet.

The function of the mentor is more advisory than anything else, training, developing, nudging and hinting rather than turning up with a lightsabre and cutting the opposition to ribbons any time the PCs get into trouble. That’s moving into Mary Sue territory and I’ll be discussing that later. Indeed, page 39 of the DMG specifically states that magic users serve an apprenticeship with a ‘wise old master’ of at least 6th level. Why more is not made of this, I don’t know. Does anyone keep in touch with their ‘wise old masters’?

And mentors have only a limited lifespan. Both Obi Wan and Yoda ‘died’. Gandalf died but then he came back again, albeit with a respray. Indeed, there is a specific time to kill a mentor; usually when the PCs get to about 3rd level.

Why? Well, it’s about then that they have come to rely on the presence of the mentor. They know that having a mentor is not a Get out of Jail Free card, but if played well, the mentor can become a friend, an older brother figure, even a parent in a way.

And 3rd level is an interesting level. In fact, the odd-numbered levels are, I find, the more interesting to play. I’ll be posting about that later. Suffice it to say that by 3rd level, the players are probably thinking to themselves “I’m still alive. I didn’t die at 1st level, made it to 2nd and now I’ve done sufficiently successfully that I’m at 3rd; it might be worth investing some time to personalise my character, get a set of aims and objectives together, start imagining them as a person rather than just a dead PC waiting to happen".

And that is the time that the mentor has to go. By 3rd level, the character has enough personality and history with the mentor that the loss will be all the more meaningful. If the death of the mentor can be in some way attributed to the actions of the character, a whole raft of guilt issues can be introduced. Rich pickings indeed for future adventures with the character in question.

In fact, the loss of the mentor figure is necessary if the character is ever going to become an independent and self-reliant person. To keep the mentor present, or indeed to twist the mentor into a Mary Sue is to keep the character in a permanent state of psychological childhood.

There’s something about the character of a mentor; there may be a sense of resignation, sadness even about their attitude. Their advanced age means that they have seen a lot, often so much that their philosophical approach can be mistaken for blasé. Their protégé may well be the latest (or last) in a long line of trainees but now, it’s the twilight of their career and there is a sense of handing over the baton. It’s almost as if they know they’re going to die soon. (Sooner, if their DM has read this post)


Meatshields

I’m using the term Meatshield for the purposes of this post to refer to big fighter-types that accompany the party for the purposes of being the first to get hit, soak up the damage that would otherwise fall on the PCs and generally show the players what danger they’re in without actually killing a character. Occasionally, they may survive, at which point they often get a sort of honorary (if associate) membership of the party.

In the current Elesalia campaign, Junior Grognard’s party has made friends with Sergeant Subaras and his town guards. It happened rather by accident; an ettin had been reported and the guards were heading off to check it out. The party had the choice of going or staying and they chose to go; the fight was going to be a tough one but Subaras was 3rd level and his two guards were 1st. Their contribution to the fight was going to be providing extra firepower and decreasing the likelihood of any of the PCs getting hit (a one in ten chance of death is a lot better than a one in six)

Subaras and his men also accompanied the party on their expedition to the Spider Farm. They were instrumental in the success of the party but not utterly essential; the party may well have succeeded but at greater cost.

There may come a point at which, purely by chance, a randomly-generated meatshield starts to take on the role of Mentor. It’s very sandbox when this happens. Suddenly, the meatshield gets a name, attribute stats, a description and a personality. In this situation, the character’s new stats should be determined by the dice. And this is the reason why.

Mary Sues

There are times when the DM realises that the party is short a character. Maybe no-one rolled up a cleric and there are undead aplenty in the dungeon. Maybe they’ll be confronted by locked doors and the only thief in the party has just collided with an ogre. Either way, the DM-controlled NPC is often the quickest way round this.

However, this route is fraught with danger. The DM will want to make sure that the NPC created is the best NPC for the job. No-one wants to have a second-rate thief trying to pick that lock, or a cleric whose Wisdom is too low for bonus spells, or whose combat skills make them more of a liability rather than an asset. So the NPC is naturally going to be the best that they can be, which is logical if they are being created for a specific role rather than rolled up and at the mercy of the dice.

Being the best NPC possible is going to make that character rather more fun to play than would be the case for an average NPC. And the more fun something is to do, the more one is going to want to do it. Unless the DM is very careful (and very self-disciplined) they’ll find themselves falling in love with the NPC and that’s a bad place to go.

Soon, the NPC is proving their worth, saving the party’s bacon time after time. The party may become collaborators in their own enslavement, initially liking the fact that they’ve got a Get out of Trouble Free card and playing it whenever they can. This not only makes them lazy and addicted to the NPC, but also gives the DM positive feedback for the use of that NPC. Before you know it, the DM has worked out that if NPC equals good, then more NPC equals better. And total NPC must be perfect. We have arrived in Mary Sue town.

Another problem with the DM playing an NPC is that, like everyone who plays a character, they’re going to start projecting aspects of themselves onto that NPC and identifying with it. Some DMs might have inadequacy issues and find a kind of fulfilment through playing an NPC who is just better at doing things than they might be.

Although it’s initially nice to have a ‘big brother’ for the party, someone who can take on the tough guys and fight through to the treasure room, leaving the party to pick up the gold pieces, this happy state of affairs can’t last for ever. There’s going to come a point at which the NPC does something that the party wanted to do, kills a monster that they had been gearing to up to defeat, makes them realise that in fact they can take no credit whatsoever for the completion of the dungeon or adventure. They’ve just become the NPC’s fanboys.

In the worst-case scenario, the players might decide that they are going to kill the offending character. It doesn’t take a genius to see how this is going to spell disaster. The DM is addicted to this character by now, and no way is he going to give it up – the buzz is too good. In fact, there may be an even greater buzz from defeating the attempts of the party – actual flesh and blood players – to kill the Mary Sue. How much cooler will that make the NPC? Of course, attempts to kill the Mary Sue are doomed to failure – the character is going to have the best stats, the best magic items, and 101 things will mysteriously ‘go wrong’ with any party plans. What it boils down to is an attempt, albeit indirectly, to attack the DM himself – or that’s how he’ll see it.

In the end, the only thing that’s going to die is the campaign itself.