Another alignment question.

[EyvindHaraldsen]

I know alignment is a topic that has been talked to death here, and I have read most of those topics, but I still don't have the insight I was looking for. My issue is less on the relationship between alignment and morality (I follow the the THTL approach there with L and C being kinda like G and E, but more complicated, as opposed to the Moorecockian amoral cluster), not is it about how alignment should affect player characters or if player characters can worktogether. The answer is obviously yes, because people are more complicated than that, and just because they have an alignment doesn't mean that is their sole motivator (they likely aren't even aware of "alignemnt" as such).

Instead, my question come at things form a more cosmic angle. I'm developing a more long term campaign setting, and to supplement the DCC rulebook I plan to use some of my old 1st edition AD&D materials. One of those is DDG, from which I paln to borrow multiple pantheons for the different nations of cultures on the continent. My problem is this. Unlike mortals, DCC's implied setting seems to say that gods and greater powers are both aware of the eternal conflict and at least partially motivated by it, that gods of Law are motivated by opposing gods of chaos and vice versa, and while they may be much petty bickering over internal matters, they will always put those differences aside in order to stand against the opposing side. The question is, how do you reconcile this psuedo-untied two way "us vs. them" cosmology with a variety of separate, at least semi-cohesive pantheons each of which span across the alignments and appear to be more motivated by loyalty to each other than loyalty to some side in the eternal conflict.

As an example of what I am talking about, one of the pantheons I am planning on using is the Greek pantheon. Some of the gods therein, lets use Dionysus as an example, are clearly chaotic. Others, lets use Hades as a single example, I would call Lawful. Now the Olympians are notorious for petty infighting and bickering, but I also don't see them ever splitting into open war on opposite sides in some sort of final conflict, and in fact have shown themselves to provide a united front when fighting outside forces, like the Titanomachy. Is there a way to rectify this with the Lawful, Neutral, chaotic alignment system without totally spoiling alignment as an real, tangible conflict between two sides? Has anyone else encountered this issue before? This is one case where, imo, 9 alignments was actually simpler, since they cannot be arranged along a single axis of conflict, it was much easier to envision gods of different alignments working together due to other, stronger allegiances without somehow spoiling some other aspect of alignment.

[finarvyn]

The question is, how do you reconcile this psuedo-untied two way "us vs. them" cosmology with a variety of separate, at least semi-cohesive pantheons each of which span across the alignments and appear to be more motivated by loyalty to each other than loyalty to some side in the eternal conflict.

Bears fans and Packers fans may not like each other, but they will unite against a larger evil.

I think that alignment can be important or not, depending upon how you want to run your campaign. If you want a mix of alignments, I suggest you de-emphasize the importance and let them work together and not make a big fuss out of it. Same thing if you have folks who follow deities with opposing alignments. It's only a big deal if you want it to be.

That help?

[EyvindHaraldsen]

Sort of. I guess My big issue is that I want two incompatible things, that is I want alignment to be a real, tangible cosmic conflict, and kind of the ultimate end-all-be-all of my cosmology to preserve that us vs. them feel, and also want the freedom to use actual pantheons and have the gods interact as in the myths without concern for alignment.

Edit: The more I think about it, the more my previously mentioned and now removed solution also fails to satisfy me. I know I am probably just overthinking things and should just get to the dungeon crawling and let the rest or this sort itself out as play goes on, but the fact is my players want a fleshed out setting with a detailed and specific cosmology. I want to have one for them, but the issue is while I actually really like the idea of law vs. chaos on the small scale, every time I try to expand it out to the cosmic level it either
A) Feels unsatisfying, largely because it becomes so rigid that it is boring and incapable of exploring the kinds of concepts I want, or
B) is loosened to the point where it feels essentially irrelevant, in which case why bother including it in the first place?

I know this isn't the sort of thing that anyone else can resolve for me, but I was hoping that hearing more about whether other players who clearly have more experience with the game than me and enjoy playing it have encountered this dilemma, and how they resolved it/why it never was an issue for them (ultra rigid cosmic conflict with clear sides that are actually in conflict with each other, basically irrelevant bit of fluff, something in between, never came up because you don't care about that cosmic stuff when there are dungeons to be crawled, etc.).

[finarvyn]

I think I see where you are coming from here. The issue seems to be that you have two needs in your campaign -- alignment for characters and alignment for factions in the campaign -- that one stat doesn't seem to fit both. If you focus on alignment for characters, then this messes up the "big picture" for your conflict of factions. If you focus on alignment for factions, this makes character interaction difficult.

Perhaps the solution is to separate the two. Allow alignment to do its thing but then create a separate descriptor for factions. For example, in D&D 5E they have five factions -- Harpers, Order of the Gauntlet, Emerald Enclave, Zhentarim, and one other that escapes me at the moment -- and there is a layer of faction conflict that is separate from the alignment of the characters. One might find that certain alignments tend to gravitate to certain factions, but they don't need to do this. (A goody-goody paladin might theoretically be associated somehow with the shadowy Zhentarim.)

So I think that your solution would be to create some sort of groups other than alignment for your campaign.

[cjoepar]

You might also consider that to the Immortals, their perspective on alignment might be quite different than it is for characters, whose lives are over in the blink of an eye in the cosmic sense. Deities have a long time to see their plans come to fruition and can easily afford to cooperate with others within the same mythos (but with different alignments) in the short term, since any other pantheon may pose an even greater threat to their existence.

[EyvindHaraldsen]

Thanks, those are both excellent pieces of advice, and both seem, at least to me, to boil down to a single issue: a need to more properly define what alignemnt is. I'v spent some time reflecting on that and think I've some up something that will work, and that I really kind of like. I might post soem more information on it (both alignemnt and setting in general) later once I have things a little more nailed down.

[Stretch]

I'm posting a link to The Metal Gods Pantheon and how differing clerical alignments plays out. Not sure if it will help but I don't figure it can hurt.

http://www.kickassistan.net/2012/09/dcc ... art-2.html

[GnomeBoy]

Imagine that that FINAL CONFLICT is always imminent, but it's a LOOOONG way off... Alignment tells us what category you'd fall into in that eventual ultimate conflict.

In the meantime, you can squabble, reconcile, disagree again, etc. etc. Maybe the Greek Gods would bicker and fight, and then unite against the Titans when needed -- and then in that final battle at the end of time? Well, all bets are off...

Is that final battle starting now??? ...um, I dunno... I think today I'm going to assume it is starting right now. Tomorrow, I may feel differently...