Does the game even need a hard coded alignment? After listening to thoughts back and forth, I'm thinking, no.
Just because there isn't a hard "stat" that states what a PC or monster's alignment is doesn't mean they can't act within an alignment. It's just saying that nothing needs to conform itself to a hard coded moral line.
So if you eliminate alignment from the game, how does it affect it?
It doesn't really, if you look at it.
Mechanically there isn't much in LL or the AEC that is really dependent on alignment. The original LL with it's straight Law/Neutral/Chaos lines never had spells that just hurt Chaotic creatures. It did, in fact, have spells that affected "evil" creatures, but told the DM to make a judgment call on what was considered evil. There was mention that if spells were cast that seemed to go against a cleric's alignment, he might fall from a god's favor, but still, that was up to the DM's call. So, why not do that with everything?
If we eliminated alignment (as a hard coded "stat") from Deminar, would it really affect the game?
I can only think it'd affect the flavor on spells, like Detect evil etc.
ReplyDeleteI'm all for it!
Slightly, remember, Detect Evil showed up in LL, before the AEC added the optional Good/Evil alignments, so it's description is based on not having an alignment either:
ReplyDelete"Note that the Labyrinth Lord must decide what is "evil," and some things may be potentially harmful, like traps, but not "evil." This spell does not grant the ability to read minds, but
only grants a general sense of evil intent."
And without any real, Anti-Law or Detect Chaos spells, there is nothing mechanically linked to alignment, just character morale choice suggestions, so it is not needed.