D&D General The History of Alignment: Why D&D Has the Nine-Point Alignment System 4 UR Memes

[Snarf Zagyg]

The OP seems to have skipped over the apparent use of five-point alignment (with the very few exceptions which use parentheticals) in the Monster Manual (1977). This would seem to complicate the idea of the SR article as a straight forward presentation of nine-point alignment.

Huh. I AM INTRIGUED! I didn't mean to skip over anything, so I pulled out a copy.

ALIGNMENT shows the characteristic bent of a monster to law or chaos, good or evil or towards neutral behavior possibly modified by good or evil intent. It is important with regard to the general behavior of the monster when encountered.
-MM p. 6.

Then I looked for examples of all nine alignments, starting from the beginning.

Aerial Servant: Neutral p.6
Beholder: LE p.10 (that's right, pages 6-9 are all neutral!)
Blink Dog: LG p.10
Bugbear: CE p.12
Djinni: CG p.28

*Cloud Giant: "Neutral (good 50% evil 50%)" arguably this means either NG or NE, but also .... tendencies p.44
**Larva: "ALIGNMENT: Evil" C'mon! At least try and be consistent!!!!!! p.59
*** There are other examples of parenthetical or tendencies, such lich, bandit (under men), etc.

But .... there are NO straight-up examples of NG, NE, CN, or LN! In fact, I would say that you are correct (despite, inter alia, the weirdness of the larva entry .... GYGAX!!!!) due to the Pilgrim entry.


If you look at the MM on page 69, there is an entry for Pilgrim. For alignment, it says see below. This may shock you to your core, but Gygax included a table to determine the random alignment of pilgrims!

A group of pilgrims is likely to be aligned as follows:
lawful good 35%
chaotic good 20%
neutral 10%
chaotic evil 15%
lawful evil 20%

....woah. So to answer what was posed by Hriston ... I didn't skip it, I had never noticed that before!!!!! You, sir, get all my internet points today!!!!!

We know that Holmes (which was originally to be just a codification and simplification of the craziness of OD&D) was changed at the last minute to refer to the upcoming AD&D. And we know that the MM was the first 1e book and reused some OD&D monsters. But I did not realize that the MM had the Holmes alignment system, and that Gygax did not move to the nine-point system until the PHB!

 

[Voadam]

*Cloud Giant: "Neutral (good 50% evil 50%)" arguably this means either NG or NE, but also .... tendencies p.44

I read it as Neutral with Good or Evil tendencies because every other alignment parenthetical in there is tendencies and this is the only parenthetical swinging two ways. Also it means generally they are more one alignment with slight variations than two diametrically opposed ones.

Later editions have them go full full bipolar on the good or evil axis.

 

[Voadam]

Its funny how the 1e alignment graph has the four corner alignments as if they are huge balloons invading to the center. The pure axis ones are interstitial while true neutral is a little island.

For those wondering how the five point alignment skips the axes Holmes Basic has a graph too.

 

[Nikosandros]

Interestingly, given how often this SPECIFIC issue pops up as a debate, Orcs can be Chaotic OR Neutral.

That's Gary pandering to modern sensibilities. He ruined the game for me. I hope that you can actually find on the secondary market a clay tablet version of the original (and far superior) Bronze Age edition: Ziggurats & Zamzummims.

 

[Clint_L]

How come Holme's basic lacks an example of kinda sorta chaotic good, unlike with the other four alignments?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I read it as Neutral with Good or Evil tendencies because every other alignment parenthetical in there is tendencies and this is the only parenthetical swinging two ways. Also it means generally they are more one alignment with slight variations than two diametrically opposed ones.

Later editions have them go full full bipolar on the good or evil axis.

.... excellent. (That's my opinion as well)

NOW DO LARVA!

 

[TwoSix]

We know that Holmes (which was originally to be just a codification and simplification of the craziness of OD&D) was changed at the last minute to refer to the upcoming AD&D. And we know that the MM was the first 1e book and reused some OD&D monsters. But I did not realize that the MM had the Holmes alignment system, and that Gygax did not move to the nine-point system until the PHB!

From this, we can now derive that 4e is actually old-school.

 

[pukunui]

@Snarf Zagyg Interesting that the PHB’s breakdown of the planes seems to muddy the waters even more … with “absolute good chaotics” and “chaotic evil neutrals” and all that.

 

[Mannahnin]

We know that Holmes (which was originally to be just a codification and simplification of the craziness of OD&D) was changed at the last minute to refer to the upcoming AD&D. And we know that the MM was the first 1e book and reused some OD&D monsters. But I did not realize that the MM had the Holmes alignment system, and that Gygax did not move to the nine-point system until the PHB!

Alignment is another example of how the MM, despite the cover saying AD&D on it, was to a substantial degree written and designed for OD&D. Which only makes sense. There was a pre-existing OD&D audience to sell it to, who went bananas for such a nicely-organized (by comparison with OD&D's scattered and shorter write-ups) and comprehensive monster book.

This is also why when you compare MM statblocks to FF and MM2, and those from AD&D modules, the MM creatures often look underpowered. Lower damage and HP, for example.

 

[Voadam]

.... excellent. (That's my opinion as well)

NOW DO LARVA!

"The larvae are the most selfishly evil of all souls who sink to lower planes after death. They abide in the gloom of Hades, controlled by the night hags. These creatures are desired by demons and devils alike, as they are used to form quasits (qv) or imps (qv) respectively. Liches employ their essence in order to retain their un-dead status and powers. Because of the value of larva the night hags use them to trade off and thus maintain the freedom of their planes."

Souls of anybody evil and usable by CE and LE powers alike to reshape into basic fiends so I would say in five point alignment both Chaotic and Lawful Evil people make larvae, in Nine point alignment that could be LE, NE, CE.

Pilgrims had a specific chart so not a generic "any". The more evil cloud giants are distinguishable as Neutral (evil). So each of the three oddballs have an explanation that works with five point alignment carried over from Holmes and which interpretation is not inconsistent in full 1e PH nine point alignment.

Complicated by the Hades association which impliedly indicates NE but even Hades Night Hags are not Neutral Evil but "Neutral (evil)". More muscular neutrality.

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