Sticky Alignments

With the release of the Elric of Melniboné audiobook, I've finally gotten into one of the Appendix N classics. It got me thinking of alignment, along with the 1e campaign I'm prepping for the day I can seduce my group to try the system.

With the usual caveats about applying game system thinking to linear narrative media, Elric is definitely aligned with chaos. The Duke of Hell Arioch is his patron after all, you're not getting more chaos-aligned than that. But at the same time, Elric isn't some crazy chaos cultist, nor, in the early stories I've read anyway, is he particularly evil. In Fortress of the Pearl he proves himself capable of great nobility and virtue, even though at the end of that story he gives in to vengeance and bloodthirst.  

I think the nature of alignment this implies is far more interesting than alignment as a category for character ethics and morality. I would rather conceive of one's alignment as faction membership, or meta-faction membership. Elric sold his soul to Arioch, but he's not a puppet, and his personal morality quite often conflicts with that of his hellish master. Alignment in this system would tell you where your soul is going, what forces have a hold on you, whether you give yourself over to them enthusiastically or only reluctantly. 

In other words, alignment is sticky. Whatever metaphysical or supernatural forces have a hold on your soul are fairly invested in keeping it, and a single action contrary to your alignment isn't going to cause a shift. Rather, an alignment shift would be the end result of a longer series of contrary behavior, or a conscious and very strong rejection of your alignment in favor of another. It's like being part of a club or organization (a religious organization is a good model here) which is quite keen to keep its members and is willing to forgive some minor transgressions and bring wayward souls back into the fold, but if you deliberately break with it, or if your actions so consistently break with policy that you're no longer worth the trouble to redeem, you'll be excommunicated, and fall into a new alignment more consistent with your behavior. 

Alignment then becomes something external to your character, something about their relationship with the world, and not just their internal state of mind. This goes a ways to making features like alignment language more sensical, and makes it easier to adjudicate things like alignment-based classes. Yes, rangers must maintain a Good alignment, but they're not going to lose their class just because some villain forced them into a situation where they were forced to make an immoral choice. I'd go as far as to say that sort of thing could never cause a paladin or ranger to fall, unless in the process they suffer a true crisis of faith and reject their alignment of their own will. 

Likewise for an assassin, which must maintain an Evil alignment, donating to charity or rescuing innocents or otherwise aiding in Good causes isn't in itself going to cause an alignment shift unless, 

a) the assassin is so personally moved that they question their own alignment and cast it aside, or 

b) the assassin so reliably acts against the interests of the forces of Evil that he is cast out.

In such a situation, losing the character class might mean that they actually lose those abilities, which implies some supernatural force granting the ability to assassinate and use poison (which doesn't make all that much sense to me) or else that the character is no longer willing to use such methods and the player thus loses access. This is a grey zone which doesn't fit as well with this conception of alignment, and which would require more detailed adjudication. 

It also gives a meaning to faction alignment or species alignment without being totalizing. The Melnibonéans are, one and all, Chaotic. This isn't because every single one has the same morality (the vast majority are cruel and do not heavily value life, but this results from the same causal factor rather than being the cause itself) but instead because they've come up in a culture which traditionally aligned itself very strongly with Chaos, and those assumptions and traditions remain even as they've weakened. There can be Melnibonéans who disapprove and want something different, who seek to align themselves with other forces, but because of the particular cultural dynamics summarized by that big C, they're very much the exception, like Elric.

And if you sell your soul, your alignment isn't changing, period. Elric has that big capital C on his sheet from the moment he makes his covenant with Arioch, and no matter what decisions he comes to about his own morality, or what lessons on justice he brings back to Melniboné, it's staying there. 

I think this is the understanding of alignment I'll use in my games going forward. How does this compare with how you use alignment at your table, if you use it at all?

---------------

Enjoy this sort of post? Be sure to follow the blog and comment below. Until the next time, have a great week.