Category: Gaming

The Flaws of the Flesh

The human condition is such that in some capacity, we all know too well the temptations of the flesh. Every hero has a flaw that blinds him in some way. Ask any storyteller if you do not believe this. It is by this means that authors use a fundamental characteristic of human frailty to illustrate the transition from an everyman into a hero. Flaws let us accept the character as one of us, making him or her real and only highlight the character’s exceptional qualities rather than detract from them.

The same rule holds for villains, only inversely so. The character flaws of villains are magnified by the inclusion of a redeeming trait. It is what makes us revile villains all the more. The most memorable villains are designed this way not just because it gives them a depth of realism, but also because it is a gift squandered. Not a gift of individual merit, but a gift for society at large. When we see the cruelty of an evil overlord that loves children or animals, it is what he does to the parents that we are not placated by his generosity like those he fawns over. That grotesqueness makes us want him stopped.

The misguided actions of a Lawful Good character brought about circumstantially through a flaw are no different. The erroneous action horrifies us far more than bogymen. When we see the flaws of the flesh dominate the soul of an honorable person, no matter how brief of a moment, we realize how far we can fall because the great ones are just as vulnerable to taking the easier path as we are. It is that one act of hamartia that makes the tension all the greater when the climax of the story approaches. Up until that point, his actions may be seen as unjust and immoral, but when the truth is about to be revealed, we fear the outcome and pity whomever the guilty party is.

This brings up an issue that is controversial and for many is darker and infinitely more disturbing: mental afflictions. It is a trope that has been used repeatedly in fiction and film. Consider Renfro from Dracula, cultists from H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos or even the mad god archetype like the World of Greyhawk’s Tharizdun. The truth is that while the loss of self or agency is terrifying, it is often inverted in a villain in the same method just described for qualities. The inversion of what is perceived as the natural order is used to construct a villain at the expense of this otherwise rich terrain. Mental illness is not inherently evil. Since alignment is but a reflection of basic tenets and habits, storytellers have a vast psychological landscape to explore – and exploit – in our characters. Imagine the OGL ranger’s Favored Enemy ability as an obsession (and an unhealthy one at that).

Any number of ailments or quirks can develop in a well-intentioned person. Traumas are often the catalyst that sends a character down the path of heroism. Often the character is haunted by that event, or even a series of them. Consider a character that develops Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Make her a high-ranking member of society. Minus the desire for power, this could readily describe Lady Macbeth (out damned spot,” anyone?) after the horror of murder begins to eat at her. With such a fragile state, it is quite possible for the OCD to manifest from a need to wash hands frequently as a public safety precaution to an edict that oppresses a nation or a specific population, like a minority group, for being seen as a source of pollution (such as a group unable to bather regularly in this example) – perceived or otherwise.

Sadly, these flaws have a habit of showing up in national affairs. The physical and psychic failures and limitations leave an indelible mark on cultures and how they act towards outsiders. We do not have to look far to see this in action. Look at the political climate of the US over the last twenty or thirty years. The line touted by both Democrats and Republicans is that they seek to do what is best, but the influence many members of Congress fall to the traps of special interests and the pervasive power of money. These things, along with the desire to garner power amongst their supporters, lead to numerous problems. Without name-dropping or pointing fingers, there is enough news concerning any number of dishonest behaviors, whether an affair, controversial remarks, or even corruption charges at all levels of government.

The flaw of a character means he or she is capable of committing an act of unimaginable horror. In the moment it can be construed as an act for the good of all. A vice in the guise of one of Christianity’s seven deadly sins serves as an excellent starting point along with books on psychological disorders. Indiscretion on the part of a hero does not make him evil, but can lead to character traits that are neither lawful nor good to those on the receiving end. These flaws fall outside of alignment and are either rooted in beliefs or psychological issues, but they are the blind spots in everyone. It is how the character atones for his actions that prove he is good.

Still not convinced? Consult any religious or mythological text to find heroic figures that struggle with such flaws. When they rise above those failings, they are viewed as exemplars of what we can achieve as a species. When they fall, the story is a tragedy and a cautionary tale. Lest we forget the Lilliputians, their flaws that generated their conflict were pride and deep nationalism. What they sought was a promotion of the public good on either side of their cultural divide.

Implementations and Habits

Up to this point the discussion on Lawful Good actions may have created a conundrum in how the literal interpretation works in the face of some of the examples presented thus far. It should be noted that characters in such circumstances come across as Lawful Good in all sorts of stories where these and other dubious predicaments exist. As such, we may have to rethink what is Lawful Good. Quite possibly how the alignment is implemented and the habits in question are will not suffice to explain the alignment in all situations.

In the last section, our Lawful Good character was born in a Lawful Evil nation. How does he live up to his beliefs without breaking the laws? This character is left with a difficult decision if we hold to the strict interpretation of the alignment. Two reasons for this: the protagonist in a story is the moral center of good and adages such as “the path of least resistance makes for crooked rivers and crooked men.” But it is clear the laws of the nation goe against the moral fibers of the character if he willingly follows them, right? Yet, if caught fallowing a Lawful Good deity, he would risk certain death, presuming he knows his god is LG and those sanctioned by the state are not.

The character is walking a fine line in searching for fellow worshippers in order to fulfill any desires of companionship. The risks are great on both sides. The character cannot attract too much attention and his would-be friends are going to be suspicious of his intents. After all, how do you trust when your nation’s laws promote ethics in opposition to yours? A lot of loyalty tests are likely to ensure as such groups will want to sniff out agents of the state before the secrets of the faith’s places of worship and meeting are disclosed. When lives and traditions are at stake, it’s prudent to be overly cautious.

Alternatively, the character could give the illusion of being a part of the social order. Such a character may go through the motions of the ownership of slaves. To keep the fiction alive, he could have the slaves scream out as the whip cracks above their heads. Granted this is a greater effort than just giving in and following the dictates of the law, but where’s the struggle that marks the story’s conflict? Heroes are supposed to struggle with these issues, stumbling along before conquering the temptation to conform to a system the audience feels is wrong. We wouldn’t care much for the characters if they didn’t take a stand, even if they ultimately realize they were wrong to challenge the system. We applaud them for taking a stand and asking the question along with the lumps earned from the attempt.

What is the key to winning an audience over in any medium? As hinted at above, it focuses on making the main characters sympathetic. The audience has to identify with the protagonist in order to foot for him or her. The challenge has to appeal to what the audi3nce wants to do but may not feel capable of doing in reality. It’s during the struggle that we begin to root for characters and hope the underdog wins in the end. After all, isn’t that a reason why people enjoy reading epic stories? The same holds true for epic quests in games right?

Habit can provide a power impetus for implementation of culture. After all what is tradition other than codified habits passed from one generation to another? So, an act done in the past, like enslaving a race bent on total destruction, may start out as a solution to a problem that no longer persists. When the legal or cultural codification governs how the habit cum tradition is to be performed, there is the kernel of the question “for what purpose does this rule still serve?” As a case in point, the traditions of the Lilliputians were ingrained habit for efficiency in egg consumption. Lawful cultures try to live orderly lives. To such ends were the Lilliputians a lawful society. And, if these are the habits that preserve the society, they become the traits that define the culture, especially when similarities between the two are so great that the smallest of contrasts are brought into the sharpest focus.

The adaptation of beliefs by governing bodies can follow similar principles. The political climate in America has grown ever more hostile in the past two decades (not that it hasn’t been heated before this time). As the two wings work to boil down their core beliefs into so-called “purer” concepts to define what they represent, what is really happening is a hyperfocusing on the scant differences between the parties. Replace the egg with the budget and the ends become the revenue sources the sides wish to tap. Ironically, both sides are trying to approach the same issue from a different vantage point. The Republicans have traditionally championed the concept in the adage of “Give a man a fish and feed him for a day; teach him to fish and feed him for a lifetime” as their plan. Democrats concurrently urge the establishment of programs to provide immediate assistance to those in need. Before a person can “fish,” you have to help him or her out while the skills are learned. Both methods of implementation comply with the Constitution’s order to protect the citizens and, depending on your viewpoint, promote the greater good.

Personal agendas, perceptions, and a lack of cohesion within the parties have helped blur the lines and tinted the lenses through which observers within and without the parties see both groups. So, while the pervious comparison might not ring true to some, it doesn’t invalidate the point that the goals of the parties are rooted in the methodology described above. Time, human error, and entrenchment of rhetoric have led to the distortion of the two parties and the murky divisions between them. In part, this is because so little exists to separate them.

Turning to a real-world religion, Muhammad was a soldier. He was also a faithful adherent of the religion he founded: Islam. He stressed the belief that Islam must be the dominant faith –by the sword if necessary. This is what a paladin does in OGL games. In this context, Muhammad was a crusader, which is the one-word summation of the Lawful Good alignment. Through such conviction and crusade, he preached that others who believed in the “one true God” and accepted Islam as the true and dominant faith would be tolerated, even if they would not receive the same privileges as Muslims. The European crusaders did much the same. And both sides persecuted those who didn’t accept the Judeo-Christian god; yet, followers of each faith believe what they did was both lawful and promoted the greater good. As in reality, many settings have included a theocratic state, such as Fire Emblem: Path of Radience, Warhammer 40,000’s The Imperium of Man, and The Theocracy of the Pale in Wizard of the Coast’s World of Greyhawk. In the instance of the Theocracy of the Pale, there are many similarities with the tenets of Islam. The key difference seems to be that the real-world efforts to subjugate secularism and other faiths within nations have been more successful than their fictional counterpart. There is a crucial difference in the doctrinal approach of the Theocracy of the Pale, however. The point of all of this: Lawful Good religions can go on the offensive without the need to terrorize a land first. All that’s required is a threat to the faith and the potential of corruption by dissenting viewpoints that might destabilize the power structure.

In the end, what matters is that we can see that the habits and methods of implementation of laws and traditions can vary widely while seeming strange, and possibly chaotic, to another. The traditions or methods can slip from good to evil without vigilance, one of the problems that can creep into any system that doesn’t allow some dissent in criticizing any shifts in policy from the established order. Hence, even if the society isn’t Lawful Evil, those enslaved beings are still in a precarious position along with their overseers. No matter how the deviation occurs or the conditions for the original traditions have ceased to exist, you have a source of tension that can lead a Lawful Good character to question what others perceive as being Lawful Good.

The Hows and Whys of Choice

Choice is an extremely important element of morality and ethics. How the Lawful Good character approaches the quandaries of each dilemma, then, becomes an important part of how such a character conducts himself. A strict interpretation of the alignment holds that by being Lawful, a character will never willingly violate a law. But are such people able to choose whose laws to follow? Why are they allowed such leeway, if at all? It’s an important question with no clear-cut answer, as this section will illustrate.

Here’s the premise: a Lawful Good character is born and raised in a culture where the enslavement and torture of nonhumans is not only the accepted practice, but also failing to do so when such creatures get out of hand is construed as treasonous. A lot of questions beg to be answered, not least of which is how would a Lawful Good individual know any different.

So, how can a person of this alignment exist in such a society? It seems a position that’s tenuous at best. If he was holding to the alignment as it is usually interpreted, it doesn’t seem as if this is possible without some sort of deception on the character’s part. The two likely options that spring to mind are either keeping a low profile or hiding one’s beliefs. Keeping a low profile would include the need to remain quiet, which means the character must turn a blind eye to the acts of others, which is essentially being complicit with the acts. Lawful Good people would have to hide their views to avoid persecution. This would also include deception in the form of denial. As a dishonest practice, something seems off with a strict interpretation of the alignment in such a culture.

Now, it is easy for us to view such a place as being anything but good. Perhaps it is difficult because the only sentient species on Earth capable of propagating any evil against humanity is ourselves. If any human can be the victim of torture, then the possibility (no matter how remote) exists that it could happen to you. Consciously or otherwise, it’s a thought that terrifies us. Science fiction and fantasy can reframe the debate by adding other species to the equation. One can see a level of cruelty in Robert Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters. Humanity has to take a drastic step of eschewing clothing and accessories of all types to prevent the insidious aliens from taking over the planet via symbiotic enslavement. The only way to save the human race is to shed any notions of decency that informed the past. In Alien, Ripley jettisons her inhuman opponent out of an airlock. The orcs in Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings are also treated without mercy.

Before condemning this theoretically society, we should consider what could possibly lead to such draconian rules against nonhuman entities. The history of the society is important in making the determination for whether the situation in question is what it seems to be on the surface. Consider the possibility that a war for survival was waged some time in the past where the only solution that preserved the species on all sides of the war was complete domination of one group over another. Those who lost were hell bent on annihilating the humans. Given their general tenets, the powers that be decided to enact harsh measures near the war’s end when it became clear that no other solution would suffice. The Americans’ decision to drop atomic weapons on Japan was rationalized in a similar manner, minus any enslavement as in the society under examination. What sounds less distasteful, having to drive an opponent into extinction, or saving their progeny even if it means harsh treatment?

The above scenario presents a damning position for anyone forced to take it. For someone born after the fact and taught about the terrible price paid to make the decision and the two choices presented, this doesn’t sound as heinous as it could be. Knowing the choices and seeing the resultant peace doesn’t strike one as being necessarily evil. If the churches of the Lawful Good persuasion also support the government’s position, then it is even harder for a character to deny the oppression of another species. Either the gods agree with the treatment, or something ghastly is going on. Or, perhaps the individual of the Lawful Good alignment in the society is ignorant. In either case, there is a history that backs up a morally and ethically justified position that looks gruesome to anyone looking in from the outside.

Let’s change the scenario a bit. Say there is a state religion where the truth of the teachings is hidden behind a code that appeals to a Lawful Good sense of propriety. All other faiths would likely be outlawed in order to bolster state power. As such, the conditions within the nation’s borders would be reinforced and glorified by the churches granted official status. A Lawful Evil deity could fill the role by masquerading as a militant figure. The harshness of his teachings and promotion of obedience to his teachings as the pathways to the greatest good would make an excellent cover for the continued treatment of nonhumans as necessary so that they, too, can achieve paradise.

What happens if the Lawful Good person discovers he has been lied to and that everything he’s been taught is a violation of his ethos? The character would be in a bind. Obviously, the Lawful Evil deity would no longer be suitable for worship. Issues on how to survive without openly breaking the laws and violating his beliefs have to be resolved. Would the character pay lip service to the official deity will illegally worshipping someone more appropriate? Does church law supersede state law? Would such a person risk such a threat to personal safety treasonous actions impose when it is easier to just follow social dictates? Is there justification for a national good rather than a universal one? The answers may be as unappealing as the questions.

Let’s return to the Lilliputian leaders called upon in the previous section. Again, the two sides were concerned with the preservation of their cultures. From our vantage point, the reasons appear quite childish. But how does one suppose they felt? The cultural aspect stems as much from the geographical as it does preference. As such, we see it as national pride that fuels the argument. To accept the claim of the other nation as legitimate would be an admittance to its right to exist, and due to its own nationalistic feelings, belittles the embittered acceptor. This is true even if it is a subconscious affair for the view engaged in such a long-term rivalry.

In a government with multiple political parties, each can work for similar ends by approaching issues from different philosophies. Things get murkier, however. The charter that delineates the governmental power may be the basis of authority, but it doesn’t necessarily describe how to perform and execute the duties of office. The lack of guidance on how to govern beyond the procedures and limits on power create obstacles in the form of philosophical roadblocks where rhetorical detritus litters the road to a nation’s future. The choices may strike a political opponent as nationalistically destructive, but it’s a strategy evolved to enact what is believed to be the best way to achieve national goals. Like previous examples, it is the choice and reasoning behind it that colors one’s view of the other.

Religions are no stranger to sectarianism. Monotheistic faiths are not monolithic. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all have sects; so too Buddhism. If the real world works this way, wouldn’t various chapters of a deity also have discrete doctrinal differences? Add to this the heroes of a church or sect. What if the hero was also a patriot? Who selects which figures are enshrined as heroes? If the faith is the state religion, chances are pretty good that national heroes will be portrayed as icons embodying the faith’s (and nation’s) highest tenets, such as Romulus as the founder of Rome. If our own real-world religions have saints and martyrs who struggled with the question of choice, why shouldn’t the faiths in your own campaign have the same?

You should think about how the people of your campaign world come to their decisions and why they act the way they do. After all, it is the basis for their Lawful Good tenets. Somewhere, a choice and its justification were made, and they continue to be made with each successive situation and/or generation.

What does it mean to be Lawful Good?

This question is not as easy to answer in OGL games as it may appear initially. Two things interfere with the clarity one should be able to give: the abstract nature of the alignment system and the value judgment inherently implied in determining what are good and lawful behaviors. Since the system allows one to be good while scoffing at laws, the two elements are mutually exclusive. To conflate the two would necessitate that they are complimentary and coincidental traits. This is the case for Fourth Edition Dungeons and Dragons games. The effective claim is that one who is good adheres to the law because it promotes the greatest amount of good. However, an unjust law, if followed, violates the concept of promoting what is best for all. Thus, it does not work to claim that a Lawful Good individual does what is decent and follows the rules since both the law and good can conflict with one another.

In Western cultures, there is a tendency to conflate law and goodness. Whether social, cultural, or religious in nature, the tendency is to equate these two values. Perhaps it is because it creates a strong social glue that states the laws and cultural scripts are fair for everyone. Given the tendency for humans to place a high value on objects and concepts perceived as scarce, rare, precious, or unique (amongst other descriptors), this shouldn’t come as a surprise. We see material objects of these kinds as priceless. For ideals such as morals and codes of conduct, we use terms like “pinnacles” and “hallmarks” of greatness towards our fellow beings. Deep within our hearts, even if we are unwilling to admit to others (let alone ourselves), we know we can aspire to meet these standards, but we cannot hold to them forever. Such is the flaw of the human condition and desire to equate concepts deemed the best we can achieve in relationships that we thus create the lionized heroes of stories and legends.

As gamers, it becomes easy to see why we place such stringent rules on the champions of the Lawful Good alignment. We want them to be the acme of the best our species and our culture have to offer. Note the use of the singular and not “cultures,” more on that later. But, is it not presumptuous to impose such standards? Yes … and no. Yes, because it is unrealistic and making such demands magnifies all flaws grossly out of proportion. No, because this is a game, and fiction, as an art form, lets us create anything we want to explore conceptually, no matter how impossible it seems.

This begs the question of whether or not we should throw out any notions of paladins who abstain from alcohol and romantic trysts while donating most of their gains to charity and their holy orders. By all means, no. However, this image does contribute to the problem in some ways. This character has a legitimate place in fantasy, if not being an outright staple of the genre. The problem here is that the image is a reflection of and plays to the sacred institutions many hold dear as the moral anchors of our society.

What’s at the heart of this is one of the things which may go unnoticed by gamers: metagaming. Unlike the fiction that informs roleplaying games, our play sessions do not necessarily contain the restrictions of conventional storytelling. It is quite likely we forget this barrier and that a lack of insight into a person’s intent and motive can lead people to mistrust, undisclosed hatred, or even outright war. We seem to focus on defining what is evil while ignoring what is good beyond its absence of and opposition to evil. What does it mean to be good? If two leaders declare war on each other due to a cultural or ideological bias in relation to a resource squabble, who is good and who is evil? Clearly, in the domain of war, some laws are about to be violated and some people are going to suffer, perhaps even needlessly.

One can fight a war by following a code of conduct, but if there is a legal system that says causing injury and death is wrong, then something unlawful is about to take place. Specters of all sorts of questions get raised, such as if it is a form of cheating to ambush or otherwise use strategic leverage against a foe. Other than to ask if a Lawful Good character would avail himself to these tactics or if warfare supersedes civil laws, this is a line of questioning beyond the scope of this piece and would probably require several philosophy books, but it serves to illustrate the ambiguity available to you.

Another question in regards to this line of thinking is whether two Lawful Good kings can hate each other. At first glance, this seems like an impossibility. They share the same tenets if you follow the alignment’s description. The problem with this is that it ignores the role culture plays in shaping a person’s worldview. Further complications that can result in miscues involve language, which can range from regional intonations, sayings and the like all the way to distinct languages. Imagine the types of gross misunderstandings or dislikes of a culture this can cause! Another possibility is a quibble over how a shared deity should be worshipped. The Lilliputians in Gulliver’s Travels fought a war because of a similar type of cultural problem. Was either side truly evil in the story? No. While the reason to fight was poor, both rulers believed they were serving to protect their citizens.

Think of it from the standpoint of politics. A lot of hyperbole is used to diminish an opponent’s position. Historically speaking, the Republican and Democrat parties often don’t see eye to eye. Add to this the multiple divisions within a party’s ranks on any given issue. Both sides make the claim that they know what’s best for the country and want to implement such policies they believe are beneficial to everyone. Setting aside rhetoric and personal bias, virtually no one in office believes they are destroying their own society – or so one hopes. Shortsighted, maybe; actively destructive, not really. While party members may view their rivals as evil, this is most likely a result of the excessive hyperbole and working at cross-purposes on a frequent basis.

Religion plays a huge role in the lives of many people, and it likely holds true of a fantasy society modeled on our own species, perhaps even more so if clerics can heal the sick and perform other miracles. As a result, an example from a real world faith is in order. At the risk of appearing biased, I make the disclaimer here that I am only using the religious text with which I am most familiar: the Bible. Taking the tack that paladins are Lawful Good, then the Christian god must follow suit, since the concept of the character class is taken from a historical source. So, let’s look at a not-so-pacifistic episode where a Lawful Good individual becomes violent. According to the Bible, Jesus never harmed anyone (based on a lack of writing to the contrary). Rather he went out of his way to help others in need. Up until a specific point, that is. There is a scene where Jesus blows up in a temple because of the business conducted by the moneychangers for effectively providing commodified absolution. He flips tables, yells, opens animal cages, and then makes a whip and beats everyone out of the building. The commotion alone marks this as a chaotic episode. Paladins in fantasy are modeled after their real world counterparts and this is the deity they served? If this is who adherents of the faith are to emulate, then Lawful Good can wreak all sorts of havoc in the name of their tenets.

Religious texts are filled with many such examples, regardless if they are allegories or no, of righteous people defending the faith in some capacity or other. (The Bible mentions sexual trickery, adultery, and promiscuity by the erstwhile faithful.) There is no reason why the same cannot be said for your game’s myths and legends of the Lawful Good alignment. We’ll explore this more through the above examples in later sections. For now, it is enough to raise the question of what it means to be Lawful Good and to challenge the biases of our society.

Since its introduction in the late 70s in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax’s two-axis alignment system has been a staple of that game line for more than thirty years, culminating in its continued use in the d20/OGL third-party products still in print.  Despite this longevity, the concept of nine alignments with their strict interpretations as described in the rulebooks seems to be the only way in which characters can be played.  The rules aren’t immutable.  They are termed guidelines by the games’ authors.  If the rules are considered as such, doesn’t that mean one should consider that the same applies to the alignment definitions?  Most gamers don’t seem to take this view if one looks at the number of complaints and arguments across the Internet on this subject.  How does one account for the venerable seventeen-plane Great Ring cosmology that accompanied Gygax’s introduction of this system?  As such, there must be shadings within the alignments if that cosmology is any indication.  These questions are the impetus of this inquiry and whether or not it is possible to interpret what alignments truly describe.

A few things need to be deconstructed in order to not only establish the ground rules for the project as a whole, but also as a way to examine variations on alignments without being a complete departure from their core values.  Rather, these variations express something that is contrary to these very values on a superficial level.  This gives a sense of standing apart in an erstwhile sea of sameness without running completely outside the group.  Thus, these slight deviations are referred to as “shadings” given their take “colors” the perception of an alignment.

It is important to note that there is no attempt to undermine the system that exists, but rather to promote the idea that the good/evil and law/chaos axes are a system of coordinates within which there is room to maneuver.  The hope here is that players will take more leeway with interpreting alignments in their games, have a better understanding of someone’s interpretation, or shadings of what already exists.

The series is structured by examining what is written about each alignment and then following it up with a series of sample interpretations for each.  The examination of the alignments starts by questioning and deconstructing their descriptions and if they are fair assessments of adherents of the alignments they profess.  Through deconstructing the concepts in each, it becomes easier to identify what concepts must remain intact and which are negotiable.  From there, the variations in the shadings can be constructed and still remain true to their parent’s description.  Thus, good will remain good, even if its honor is shredded a bit.

In writing terms, this is known as playing it slant.  It’s the angle one takes to tell a story or portray a character.  Actors do this to find a character’s motivation for the behavior exhibited.  The entire point of this work, then, is to spur players to explore and mine their characters’ back stories for all they’re worth.  Or, in other words, how a character’s personality shapes his alignment.

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