Alignment in Bhakashal

I am writing a supplement along the lines of Blackmoor, Tekumel or Greyhawk called Bhakashal, taking a base of 1st Edition AD&D, and building a game world out of it. As such I will be revisiting some of the game concepts of AD&D and reframing them to fit a different approach. Alignment is a big one, and fundamental to a lot in the game. It has also come under fire for being essentialist and racist. Both concerns can be addressed by returning the concept to its roots.

Bhakashal uses alignment, but in the sense outlined in 1st Ed AD&D:

There are many ways to read this passage, but for me the penny dropped when I realized that character behavior determined alignment, not the other way around. The original purpose of alignment was a descriptor for the character’s behavior, not a rule to shape it.

Alignment here is idealistic, “philosophical and moral reasonings are completely subjective according to the acculturation of the individual.” The referee decides what these concepts mean in their game world. This suggests a great deal of flexibility for the concept, rather than treating it as rigid instructions for character role play. Lawful Good in one game world can be very different than Lawful Good in another. This is not generally how alignment is understood.

Take away: your beliefs are determined by the interaction between you and your culture, so alignment in the game is an abstraction of your culture’s impact on you. It isn’t specific to your particular set of beliefs, they can vary, but it is representative of your broader group.

Note the discussion of a lawful society, “Lawful societies will tend to be highly structured, rigid, well-policed and bureaucratic/hierarchical.” 

Imagine someone described modern Western society as “lawful, structured, rigid, well-policed and bureaucratic/hierarchical”. No one would bat an eye at that. Now what if I said that people who lived in lawful societies would tend to be lawful in this sense. That’s what alignment is saying, not that every member of a lawful society is lawful, but that society is lawful, so many members of that society may be so as well. 

So, religion often determines alignment, similarly aligned groups can conflict, and alignment doesn’t solely determine actions, reactions or purposes… What does this sound like to you? Does it sound like something biological? No, it sounds like  political affiliation, or nationalism, or sports enthusiasm. 

Substitute in.

Political affiliation is broad, impacts overall behavior, not specific, religion often determines political affiliation, groups with similar political affiliation can conflict, and political affiliation doesn’t solely determine actions, reactions or purposes.

Alignment is your team, it is a broad set of values and beliefs that determine how you generally sit on issues, it isn’t exhaustive or determinate. Gygax borrowed from the pulp/fantasy literature and organized the teams by law/chaos - good/evil, but if it were a game about modern conflict or a historically specific game (rather than a fantasy game with historical flourishes) then he could have used any political division or ethos he wanted.

I assume that no one has a problem with the idea that your political affiliation might work in this way. To say that one group of people would be primarily of a particular political affiliation. It’s not deterministic, as there can be exceptions. We are comfortable with the idea that your class, gender or cultural/religious group might shape your beliefs in this way, alignment is just representative of that cocktail stew of social things that influence your behavior, flavored for a fantasy game. 

What purpose can a concept like this play in the game?

Gygax tells you, it groups creatures into non-hostile divisions. D&D evolved from wargames, alignment is a sorting tool for organizing group conflict and factionalization in your game world. Want to know if the treant’s hate the ogres? Check out their alignments and see. 

So when a monster is labelled as lawful evil, it tells you that as a group those monsters will be selfish and organized, that they will pair with strong allies and use force to secure power. It tells you what other creatures they will be likely to work with. It’s cultural determinism for game purposes, it simplifies a complex situation by assuming similarity in groups. 

Bhakashal doesn't use traditional fantasy groups like elves, but in AD&D, NPCs elves, dwarves and halflings all have a single listed alignment. But PC dwarves, elves and halflings have whatever alignment their player chooses for them. You have “essentialism” for NPCs but variability for PCs. 

What does this imply?

It’s not like PCs become a different race than NPCs when the PC starts adventuring. They are still dwarves, halflings and elves. NPC and PC elves are the same elves. It’s not that all elves are chaotic good, or all dwarves are lawful good, it’s that dwarves like rules and structure and are loyal to groups, and dwarves and halflings get along OK, dwarves and elves don’t, for the most part. Individual dwarves and elves can have any range of alignments, but as an aggregate or group the listed alignments help the DM to organize the factions of the game world.

So the alignment listings in the monster manual can have a non-essentialist reading, they don't assume that everyone is exactly the same based on biology, they are no different than saying that any group of people is likely to share a set of beliefs. They say that, for the purposes of the game, NPCs/monsters need to be organized into factions, alignment helps the DM to do that. The game only has certain playable humanoid groups, that’s a conceit from the source literature as well, but that doesn’t mean that NPC dwarves are a different race than PC dwarves, that NPC dwarves are essentialist and PC dwarves are not. It’s a gaming concept that creates some structure for PC behavior, to aid in the role playing, and to manage NPCs/monsters into factions in the game world. This is the use to which I want to put alignment

Back to Basics

I think this is a great foundation for alignment in the game, it is not deterministic, not biological, it is cultural, and it is not a driver of behavior, it is an aggregate descriptor of it. Alignment serves as a tool for the ref to help them organize the game world. 

The Alignment rules for Bhakashal are:

1. The gods have no alignment, they are mercurial, obscure and enigmatic

2. People worship pantheons and pray to specific gods based on their “sphere” of influence, so a kind, altruistic person can pray to a god of death or revenge. Tying gods to alignments never made sense this way, can only evil people pray to a god of death?

3. Alignments apply to institutions and groups, for example, in Bhakashal every Noble House, Guild, etc., has an alignment

4. Lawful institutions prioritize and reward groups and cooperation, chaotic institutions prioritize and reward individuals and independence. 

5. Good institutions behave altruistically and avoid harming others wherever possible

6. Evil institutions will harm to achieve their goals and are fundamentally selfish. Note that this assumes nothing about why the institution is behaving selfishly, perhaps the institution is under threat and trying to protect itself, but otherwise virtuous

7. Alignment is broad, e.g. two people can agree that a law is needed but have two different views of what that law should be. Violent disagreement is still possible between groups with identical alignments, cooperation and mutual aid is still possible between groups with opposed alignments.

8. Individual PCs have no alignment, but all creatures in the game (including PCs) have a group alignment listed, the alignment of the group the most influential on them. Certain classes also restrict membership based on behaviour (e.g. paladins have to be lawful in their actions)

9. The listed alignment for any monster/NPC is a loose role playing guide, that is how the monster/NPCs dominant group/institution generally acts, individual actions can be as complex as desired. It is a role playing cue, not a restriction.

10. Any spell or magic item effects based on alignment are now based on purpose, e.g. protection from evil is protection from harm that hedges any extraplanar or summoned beings, a Mace of Disruption destroys undead, anyone not committed to the destruction of undead takes harm while holding it, etc. 

Applying It

Institutions/groups have alignments, but individual members of those institutions do not. The point of the alignment system is to situate the institutions/groups in relation to each other. 

Individual monsters don’t have alignments on this system, but organized groups of monsters do. Where you see a listed alignment for a monster, say a chaotic evil red dragon, read that as most collectives of red dragons (e.g. a family, a mated pair) behave, as a group, in an individualistic and selfish way. So this means that, for example, as a default, a pair of red dragons wouldn’t coordinate attacks well, are open to bribery or flattery, etc. so the ref can decide if they want to run this particular red dragon pair as typical or not, maybe choosing “not” gives them a good encounter idea.

For individual monsters use alignment as a LOOSE GUIDE of monster behavior. As a group red dragons will behave in a generally selfish and individualistic way, but that’s just the group, the referee can run individuals in any way desired, or decide this group is different, and once the encounter starts the monster’s behavior should be dictated by the encounter reaction table or the circumstances. Think of alignment for monsters as a source of gentle role playing guidance. 

One might object, “well, why will adventurers go out and adventure now, when there is no evil to slay”? The dragon keeps eating the fine people of Rivenstar, taking their livestock, eating their soldiers, that hasn’t changed. So there will always be heroic tasks to undertake.

For NPCs, it is a similar thing. An individual blacksmith has no specific alignment, but the guild she works with has one. 

Keep in mind, NPCs will be part of multiple groups, a blacksmith could also be a member of the town watch, a religious movement, or a member of a secret organization. So for the purposes of simplification, use alignment to guide NPC behavior by assuming that one of the institutions or groups to which they belong has the primary influence on the NPC. 

The ref can use this as a guide to role playing the NPC, and even spin adventures out of it. So say the party goes to the blacksmith, and say the guild is listed as “Lawful Good” organization. When the party arrives and tells their story (Brama’s armor was damaged fighting off that dragon that attacked the town last week), a positive reaction roll is interpreted as the blacksmith doing the job for free, to thank the PCs for saving the town, a negative reaction roll that calls for a mild response might be interpreted as the blacksmith thinking the party was actually in league with the dragon, and extending the conversation and ask questions to see if her hunch is correct. In this case the alignment of the blacksmith’s dominant group, lawful and good, influences the behavior to be group focused and altruistic. 

For NPCs list the alignment of their most relevant institution, and then list the institution, which will give you a small role playing cue in addition to the group/individual, selfish/altruistic axis. So for example, you roll a random city encounter for the party, it lists a merchant, Lawful Neutral (Thieves’ Guild). The RP prompt is that this guy is a merchant, but also working with the Thieves Guild, so maybe he’s a fence, or a money launderer, or a front, or a source of funding for jobs, etc. Another encounter with a farmer listed as Neutral Good (Temple of Oghma) is more willing to help out the cash strapped party if they agree to do work for the Temple, or for him, in return.

The guidelines for NPCs / Monsters are straightforward, check their listed alignment/institution, and use that as a potential role playing guide for any encounters, knowing that it is just the default, and the individual NPC/Monster can act in any way deemed appropriate by the ref.

Scaling it Up 

Bhakashal is also a setting of warring Noble Houses, competing factions between the temples, the military, the Houses, the coven, the bureaucracy and the Guilds. Alignment gives the ref a simple tool to help organize these factions. I considered giving each Noble House a history and a list of “rival and friendly Houses” with rationales, but then thought the better of it. 

Instead, alignment works as a proxy here, similarly aligned Houses will generally get along, Houses of opposing alignments will tend to conflict, all by degrees. There can be NPCs in lawful Houses that are extremely individualistic, there can be NPCs in chaotic Houses who are very rule following and group focused. The point is to capture the aggregate actions of the House, not the details. A lawful good House will pursue group priorities and do so as altruistically as possible most of the time. 

All Noble Houses are listed with an alignment, as well as the other institutions within the city. 

So for example, there are two Noble Houses in Bhakashal, House Himmenghost and House Viinos, House Himmenghost is LE and House Viinos is LG. When running the game, the alignment of these Houses can be used to help structure the environment and their interactions.

So there could be a rivalry between these two houses based on their alignment differences, both are lawful, so they focus on groups over individuals, but one House (Himmenghost) is more willing to allow other groups / individuals to suffer to achieve their goals, whereas the other House (Viinos) tries to achieve their goals through mutual cooperation and benefit.

Chaotic Noble Houses allow individuals a lot of freedom to break the rules to achieve House goals, Lawful Noble houses focus on rules and working within the system. There can be rule breakers in Lawful Houses, and rules followers in Chaotic Houses, but they will be aligned against their Houses, picture the individualist within a Lawful organization, always aligned against it, but working from within to “better” it. 

Rather than set specific historical relations between Houses (which would have been interesting but hugely time consuming) the alignment system gives the ref a shorthand for framing the relationship between Houses. If the PCs show up at the arena to see an honor duel between rival houses, the ref can pick two houses with opposed alignments and use that opposition to create a quick back story for the rivalry. Since House Kesht is Lawful Neutral and House Ain is Chaotic Good, perhaps the Lord from House Kesht had publicly accused House Ain as hunters from House Ain have been hunting on House Kesht’s territory (something a Chaotic House would “look the other way” about, and a Lawful House would call out), and a Lord from House Ain challenged that Lord from House Kesht to an honor duel to defend his house (something a Chaotic House would favor, an individual Lord stepping up to action).

A set of minimalistic role playing cues are all that is needed to support ongoing game play. Class, alignment, secondary skill and humanoid group are a broad base from which to get an idea of the character, game play fleshes that out well. Alignment also serves to provide a quick tool to sort out the various factions in the setting without constructing a vast history to organize them. Alignment of Houses and factions will similarly figure into the repute system in Bhakashal, providing reaction modifiers based on the alignments of the individual’s dominant institutions.

One final word, a chaotic evil organization isn’t one devoted to stereotypically evil behavior, e.g. a chaotic evil House in Bhakashal doesn’t have necromancers stealing babies and plans for world domination. A chaotic evil House in Bhakashal is focused on individuals over groups (so it might support a rogue Lord from a rival House) and is willing to break rules and harm other groups to achieve their ends (e.g. breaking a deal with another House) but they don’t have to be perpetrators of horrific acts.

Evil and good, chaos and law, alignment here anchors them in behavior, actions, not intentions or anything existential or biological or essential.