On alignment, part II: religion and philosophy

"The more laws and commands there are, The more thieves and robbers there will be." - Tao Te Ching.

I was reading about the history of philosophy and had a brief thought on alignment that I wanted to share.

As you know, in OD&D the "cosmic conflict" is framed as Law vs. Chaos, which is really about Good and Evil. 

AD&D makes things more complex by introducing nine alignments. Still, the "Good vs. Evil" axis seems more relevant than the Law vs. Chaos one; the difference between, say, Saintly and Beatific or between Devilish and Demonic (which would be nearly synonyms in some dictionaries...) is not as significant as the difference between Saintly and Devilish or Beatific and Demonic. 

In addition, rangers must always be good, and paladins not only must be Lawful Good but also cannot associate with non-Good people, although they can freely associate with non-lawful.

You could see Lawful Good as the "best" alignment, in the sense of "summum bonum", while Chaotic Evil are obviously the bad guys.

Orcs, for example, were portrayed as chaotic, lawful, neutral, and evil during the TSR era—but never good. notice that OD&D orcs are chaotic or neutral, but AD&D orcs are lawful evil, despite being the same creatures.

Another example I like is CE gnolls being led by LE flinds, which are very similar creatures.

But Lawful Good versus Chaotic Evil, or Heaven versus Hell, is a simplistic conflict; we can clearly see who is in the right. Maybe if we could see angels and demons, we wouldn’t need philosophy—we would just side with the angels.

Once you start looking into the history of philosophy (and religion—although this post is NOT a comment on real-world religions, but on D&D), you begin to notice a certain pattern.

We have a concept of "Good" and certain laws that are meant to help us achieve that good; this is Lawful Good. Over time, the laws—perhaps because they are simpler, easier, or more explicit than Good itself—start to become more important than Good. In other words, the letter of the law becomes more important than the spirit of the law. So Lawful Good begins to slide toward Lawful Neutral or even Lawful Evil.

Then a new doctrine or figure appears. In a way, it is Lawful Good because it offers a better path (a better law) to achieve Good. It denounces the current regime as Lawful Neutral or Evil, and is often considered Chaotic by the existing doctrine, as it appears to defy the letter of the law.

If the new doctrine succeeds, a new and improved Lawful Good becomes the norm—but it is always at risk of sliding back toward Neutral or Evil, as pure Good is elusive for mere mortals.

This seems especially evident in Taoism, Christianity (particularly in its critique of Phariseeism), Protestantism, and Buddhism, but it’s also present in other philosophies. For example, Confucianism is very heavy on obedience and ritual, but Confucius also emphasizes sincerity in performing such rituals.

I have a feeling that every revolution is also started like this: "the letter of law is now a tool of evil, it must be discarded entirely in favor of good, no matter the chaos we cause in the process".

This is not to say that the battle of Good versus Evil is uninteresting; but this cycle of LG becoming LE and then being corrected by an idea that looks CG until it becomes the new LG seems especially relevant in the history of philosophy and religion, and also in D&D.

In addition, the theme of “adherence to laws originally meant to protect good, but which have grown stale and now protect evil” is a common one in fiction as well; from Antigone to Les Miserables and Game of Thrones.

Of course, there are many other compelling alignment conflicts to explore in D&D: a Lawful Good society growing lax in its adherence to law and falling prey to evil and chaos; two LG factions clashing over fundamentally different interpretations of "good"; or a neutral or good-aligned character living in—or even ruling—a chaotic or evil society. But I’ll save those for another post.

Additional reading:

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2015/03/on-alignment-part-i-alignment-origins.html

How minimalist can D&D characters be?

As I've said before, this is the amount of information I'd like D&D characters to have — and that would have to be enough in actual play for something like 80% of the rolls, to minimize the time spent doing math and checking the book:

Nice, huh? Class, level, abilities, a couple of magic items or spells, and you're good to go. Most PCs have a little more than a dozen pieces of information (Name, Alignment, Level, Class, 6 abilities, AC, HP, weapons, and armor), plus spells for some.

Realistically, however, even the lightest versions of D&D need more information than that. For example, can you recall each saving throw from memory? Unlikely, but this is easily solved by reducing all of them to a single saving throw (say, roll 1d20 + level, target 20, or 16, etc.).

What about THAC0? Same thing. I'm happy with leaving the attack bonus equal to level for fighters, half level for everyone else, which is a huge simplification from D&D. But that's two extra bits of information. And usually, you need ranged and melee values, which rely on more information than just level (so you need to add strength modifier).

And ability scores? You have the six of them, but you need modifiers. You could commit the modifiers to memory, but you use them often enough that is is easier if you write them down. Well, maybe not all of them; since you already have AC, HP, and languages, you can ignore Dex, Con and Int modifiers most of the time (which is, by itself, an interesting idea - why keep these modifiers in the character sheet?). But you need Charisma mods for reaction, at least in theory, and Wisdom for saves.

Strength modifiers are needed to attack and damage - and in AD&D, this can mean two additional numbers. Notice these stats lack weapon damage too, something you'll use all the time.

Notice tat at the very least we could ignore all "+0" modifiers so we'd only need to add two or three digits, not six new ones.

We do not have much equipment here either; it is likely that a real PC has at least half a dozen items or more, not only weapons and armor. I'm counting "sword +2" as a single piece of information, not two.

[On a side note, maybe in a low magic D&D setting, "sword +1" could be a personal trait for a warrior instead of a magic weapon. This could incorporate your strength bonus and make "weapon specialization" a lot easier.]

So maybe we'd have a minimum of 30 pieces of information for each PC... but there is more!

Spellcasters have spells, which is straightforward enough (if not for the fact that they could in theory pick new ones every day, and clerics have access to their whole list - notice that the cleric here has no spells memorized). Thieves have skills - again, a bit hard to memorize, but can be easily replaced by rolling 1d20 and adding level (once you get some customization, more information is needed). Fighters have their weapons specializations and extra attacks - and they need this stuff.

And that is assuming each PC can only have one class.

In the end, we could have more than 100 pieces of information. Look at this AD&D sheet:

Of course, much of it is redundant, or rarely used, but it still muddles the sheet.

Sigh.

In the end, this post ended up doing the opposite of what I intended when I wrote its title...

The answer, I think is that D&D characters could be a lot more minimalist than they are, but it is not an easy task.

We could start by cutting all ability scores in half (only one number, no modifier), reducing all saves to one single save, and streamlining all skills... but I've been to this road before. There is no end to this, other than ending with something that doesn't resemble D&D anymore.

Maybe this much complexity is fine if I let the players handle it. 

I guess I have no easy answers today.

At the Earth's Core and Pellucidar

It was a huge tiger—such as hunted the great Bos through the jungles primeval when the world was young. In contour and markings it was not unlike the noblest of the Bengals of our own world, but as its dimensions were exaggerated to colossal proportions so too were its colorings exaggerated. Its vivid yellows fairly screamed aloud; its whites were as eider down; its blacks glossy as the finest anthracite coal, and its coat long and shaggy as a mountain goat. That it is a beautiful animal there is no gainsaying, but if its size and colors are magnified here within Pellucidar, so is the ferocity of its disposition. It is not the occasional member of its species that is a man hunter—all are man hunters; but they do not confine their foraging to man alone, for there is no flesh or fish within Pellucidar that they will not eat with relish in the constant efforts which they make to furnish their huge carcasses with sufficient sustenance to maintain their mighty thews.

- At the Earth's Core

This is another chapter in my Appendix N quest. In a previous one, I heartily recommended another book by the same author (Edgar Rice Burroughs), A Princess of Mars. If you enjoyed that one, you'll likely enjoy this one too.

At the Earth's Core and Pellucidar (the first and second books in the series, respectively) are very close in spirit to A Princess of Mars: the story of a man from Earth who travels to another place by accident (in this case, the Earth's core instead of another planet), discovers savage, weird civilizations, falls in love with a princess, fights tyrants, and becomes ruler of the world.

The protagonist, David Innes, is maybe just a tad less superheroic and self-confident than John Carter, and has a bit more humorous. Maybe the writing in these books is even a bit superior to the Barsoom series; the pace feels somewhat faster. Another advantage is that these two books form a coherent whole, with a satisfying ending (which I didn’t quite get in the case of Barsoom, having stopped on book two). There are other books in the series, but they were written a take place many years after the end of Pellucidar (even Tarzan will visit Pellucidar in book 4!).

But the pulp action and naïveté are still there, sometimes amplified. When Innes is chained to a random group of people, there’s a princess behind him and a king of another tribe ahead of him. The princess gets kidnapped several times, and the hero is imprisoned often. "Random encounters" often with important characters and fell unlikely to have happened by chance. The protagonists rules over others for no apparent reasons and staunchly believes he can create utopia with enough guns, factories and banning commerce.

Personally, I find Barsoom—with its weird aliens and monsters—a bit more interesting than Pellucidar with its dinosaurs, cave people and Smilodons (which probably influenced the appearance of such creatures in D&D and AD&D, and the how Hollow World setting from Mystara). Curiously, John Eric Holmes wrote a couple of sequels authorized by the Burroughs estate.

Still, Pellucidar has its cool features such as areas of permanent light and permanent shadow and mind-controlling pterodactyl-people (the scene where they hypnotize their meal is particularly creepy and cool).

In any case, both books are enjoyable reads and will probably influence my current project.

Read more about the Appendix N and other fantasy books HERE.

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Some of my books like Teratogenicon and Dark Fantasy Basic are included in the Halloween sale!

You can find more OSR and D&D picks from other sales here (affiliate links).

Prismatic Worms (Prismatic Planet)

Did you ever notice how purple worms are listed under “P” in the D&D monster manuals, but red dragons are under “D”? Not sure where I’ll file my entries.

Purple worms are such a cool creature, I decided to add some variations. If purple is the biggest, red could be the smallest—maybe with a touch of Paranoia-style inspiration. The rest basically wrote itself.

I like the idea of monsters with common origins. Not just “it’s magic,” but something with vaguely scientific explanations, which fits the sci-fi setting. You can put aboleths, snakes, rot grubs and all kinds of creatures as mutated worms.

And the best part is... they create dungeons as they burrow!

The Great Grey Worm concept is an old one—I might’ve borrowed it from Dune, Lovecraft’s dholes/bholes, Bahamuth, etc. It is also discussed in my Teratogenicon.

For more ideas on worm cults, check Obscene Serpent Religion.

Anyway, here are the prismatic worms!

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The prismatic worms are strange annelid creatures that can reach enormous sizes, changing colors and shapes as they grow. The smallest ones, rarely seen, resemble large earthworms and are almost featureless. They might be obsidian, white, or grey soon after hatching, but they are rarely—if ever—observed in such colors. Typically, the smallest are blood red, the most common are orange or yellow and about the size of snakes, and the largest grow to green, blue, and eventually purple—reaching nearly 100 feet in length and six feet in diameter.

They lay eggs beneath the earth and sand, where they can hatch and wait for an unsuspecting victim. Sometimes, a previous victim or carcass serves as a host. People attacked by mature worms may find themselves infected with their eggs, which hatch and produce larvae that consume the victim from within after a few days of hallucinatory fever. One such also be careful to avoid eating the meat of infected animals.

The worms are highly susceptible to mutation. Some individuals develop wings, small arms, or amphibious traits. Others are blind or covered in innumerable eyes. There are scorpion-like, eel-like, and bat-like variants, but the biggest specimens seem to lose these features as they grow. All of them share a round mouth with sharp teeth and typically a poisonous stinger. They suck blood and burrow into living or dead creatures while young, but once large enough, they devour their victims whole and regurgitate unused materials.

Most prismatic worms live underground or underwater. There are burrowing versions that prefer deserts or any kind of softer soil, although some seem powerful enough to leave stable tunnels beneath the earth and even through solid rock.

Their bodies are harvested as ingredients. Each color yields a different rare substance. Eating them may cause sickness, mutation, or death. The venom is deadly but also has calming and hallucinogenic properties.

An alternative theory about the existence of the worms suggests that each type belongs to a distinct species, possibly sharing a common ancestor. Intermediary forms—with underdeveloped wings or multiple colors—are rarely seen, which could indicate that they are separate creatures.

Many cults worship prismatic worms. Some sacrifice people to the great worms, while others seek to mutate themselves or others in pursuit of creating superior races. One heinous ritual involves human sacrifice—willing or not—alongside either a cluster of eggs or a single mature worm, roughly the size of a person’s throat.

Legends tell of a great grey worm living far underground (or deep in the oceans, or frozen in some glacial nation) that one day might eat the core of the planet until it collapses unto itself. While few claim to have seen such an aberration, some tunnels are greater than any worm in known memory.

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Back to the table of contents.

As always, all feedback is appreciated!

Prismatic Planet - Table of Contents

This is a Table of Contents for the Prismatic Planet setting. It’s unfinished—just a rough draft based on what I have in mind so far. I’ll update it as we go.

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Intro

1. Short intro and explanation
2. Introduction to the Setting 

Creatures

1. Humanoids
2. Insect people
3. Beasts (incl. dinosaurs)
4. Robots
5. Prismatic Worms
6. Oozes
7. The Progenitors
8. Great Ones

Places

1. The City of Evil (draft)
2. The Black Hexagon

Religion

Mythology

Tech & Treasure

Sources of Inspiration 

Random tables (draft 1)

Prismatic Planet

Okay, I'm giving this a try. 

I've wanted to write this setting for a long time, and now I've finally found a name I really like.

I'd prefer to have a full product to offer you, but instead I'll start a series of posts under the Prismatic Planet tag. Maybe one day I'll compile the whole thing and publish it. 

For now, I hope you enjoy these posts!

This is a sword and planet setting, inspired by my love of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom and its spiritual successors like Dark Sun and Carcosa. It also draws from Lovecraft, H.G. Wells, other pulp and weird fiction, traditional D&D, and various other works.

The planet itself is roughly the size of Mars and inhabited by savage humans of different colors—chalk white, obsidian, red, blue, green, and yellow, at least for now. Water scarce but there are a few huge lakes, forests and frozen regions.

The world is populated with strange creatures, including dinosaurs, banths, morlocks, and nightgaunts, and a few ideas discussed in my Teratogenicon. 

There is no centralized government or kingdoms, only a few large cities that rule over nearby villages. While there are no lizard or snake people for now, a few insect colonies do exist. Religion is present but remains materialistic, with no active demons or deities introduced yet.

Psionics are common across all creatures. Advanced technology exists, but few understand or know how to use it. The beings who created it—the progenitors—might be Rykors, Mahars, brains in vats, or something else entirely. They won’t appear soon.

I do not have an specific system for that, but if one is needed I'll certainly use some flavor of OSR. But hopefully it can be used across several systems.

Leave any questions in the comments and I'll answer them to the best of my ability!

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Back to the table of contents.

Random stopwatch encounters

This is a small improvement over an old idea.

The DM rolls 1d100 in secret. Then sets a stopwatch for that many minutes.

When the time is over—there IS an encounter.

This will keep players on their toes! And it has several advantages over checking for encounters every 30 or 60 minutes:

- No more useless rolls where nothing happens.
- Encounters can happen almost simultaneously—roll a 1 or 2, and one side might get reinforcements during the fight!
- Or the newcomers might wait to see who wins… and jump in after.

It would work well for dungeon exploration. On average, you get an encounter every 50 minutes of actual play, on average. Sounds good to me, but you can adjust to your liking.

For wilderness exploration, I'm not sure - maybe you could roll 1d100 and count hours, but that would defeat the purpose of using a stopwatch...

On a similar topic...

In Pellucidar, Chapter 2, Edgar Rice Burroughs describes a series of random encounters—but most are hand-waved until a meaningful one (with a cave bear) actually happens.

Maybe D&D deserves a mechanic like that to make wilderness encounters more meaningful. Day one you circumvent some snakes, day 3, you scare wolves with arrows, day 5 you see pterodactyls in the distance, and day 7... BAM! Roll initiative.

But this deserves further reflection. 

For now, you can check my small app (explanation here) and my latest book to make your wilderness encounters easier to generate.