Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Alignment?

There are really no direct influences of Zoroastrianism in Tolkien. Sacred flame is hardly a unique concept to that religion. Tolkien has a mix of elements from Norse mythology, but his biggest single influence was his own Catholicism. The Judeo-Christian God exists in Tolkien’s Middleearth, Sauron is a lieutenant of Satan, the wizards are angels and the struggle between good and evil is distinctly Christian. This isn’t even speculation, he wrote all of this in letters.

And Greek chaos doesn’t have much to do with modern conceptions of chaos. It’s more of a primordial void than the jumbled opposite of order. That idea came later. Greeks thought on terms of civilization versus wilderness / savagery, reason versus irrationally, and masculine versus feminine (the Greeks at large had pretty poor opinions of women), and the way they conceived these could all be considered expressions analogous to our contemporary notions of law and chaos, but that had little to do with their version of chaos.

I think we can detect some influences in the notion of the flame being eternal, of the maiar serving the flame, etc. No question, Catholicism (English Catholicism) is the greatest influence on Tolkien -- but not the only one, as you mention the Norse myths, Beowulf etc. And yeah, he had defend himself against other Catholics who worried his books weren't Catholic enough (what is he trying to say with Tom Bombadil . . .)

But the Greek Chaos -- Moorcock does use chaos that way. Remember in Stormbringer when the chaos stuff was seeping into the world and changing people's bodies to half human / half white worm and such? It's the primordial void and entropy as well, because it obeys no laws it can contain all contradictions and give rise to all potential resolutions. Gygax ripped this off -- the Githzeri impose law on chaos and build monasteries in Limbo. You're right on about the Greek view of the world but can't agree that didn't have an impact on Moorcock -- remember Elric destroys the world to usher in a new one. The swirling chaos at the end of the Saga is the necessary prerequisite for the creation of the new order to come. It's primordial soup. And, in the new order, Stormbringer is no longer an a pure agent of chaos but also an exemplar of the new concept of evil . . .

Stormbringer -- the arrival of chaos

colours seemed to flicker everywhere over the camp, fiends of all kinds mingled with the evilly beautiful Dukes of Hell conferred with the kings who had allied themselves to Jagreen Lem now regretted it. Every so often, the ground erupted and any human beings unfortunate enough be in the area were either engulfed and totally destroyed or else had their bodies warped in indescribable ways. The noise was dreadful, blending of human voices and Chaos sounds, devil's wailing laughter and, quite often the tortured scream of a human soul . . .Many of the human beings could neigh be told from the Chaos creatures, their forms were so warped under the influence of Chaos

Theogony -- the death of Chaos

The life-giving earth crashed around in burning, and the vast wood crackled loud with fire all about. All the land seethed, and Ocean's streams and the unfruitful sea. The hot vapour lapped round the earthborn Titans: flame unspeakable rose to the bright upper air: the flashing glare of the thunder- stone and lightning blinded their eyes for all that there were strong. Astounding heat seized Chaos: and to see with eyes and to hear the sound with ears it seemed even as if Earth and wide Heaven above came together; for such a mighty crash would have arisen if Earth were being hurled to ruin, and Heaven from on high were hurling her down; so great a crash was there while the gods were meeting together in strife. Also the winds brought rumbling earthquake and duststorm, thunder and lightning and the lurid thunderbolt, which are the shafts of great Zeus, and carried the clangour and the warcry into the midst of the two hosts.


Similar themes of boiling seas, crashing storms and fires.

Metamorphoses -- nature of chaos:

" It was a rude and undeveloped mass, that nothing made except a ponderous weight; and all discordant elements confused, were there congested in a shapeless heap."

Similar themes of confusion of elements and formless masses of 'stuff'.

I think it had a bigger impact on Queen. At least I think Freddie Mercury was Zoroastrian, anyway. I didn't know Blind Graun also worked with Moorcock; as for Hawkwind, I haven't read the Elric books but the album was fairly interesting. Moorcock's poetry readings perhaps less so.

Edit: one day I'll actually remember to quote what I'm replying to beforehand...

Are the last few comments somehow related to alignment and I'm just missing it, or...?

Discussions often meander off topic, but fair point, if we want to talk about Moorcock, Hawkwind, Zoroastrianism and so on in any more depth perhaps it should get its own topic in general chat.

Sadly, this particular forum software doesn't support the splitting off of posts within a topic; the only alternative is to delete them, so here they stay.

Oh no, I don't mind it. I'm just not a long-time D&D vet and there were a lot of words and names being discussed that I'm not familiar with, so I thought that maybe some references to alignment or the history of how the system came to be was just going over my head.

So in terms of major literary inspirations for early D&D, the big one everybody thinks of is Tolkien, for good reason. A major influence who is less well known to the general public (at least for the moment, his works are in the process of being adapted, so it would certainly be interesting if he was received like The Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones) is Michael Moorcock. Where Tolkien is very prose heavy, scholarly influenced epic high fantasy, Moorcock is 60s and 70s pulp psychedelic fantasy. As he was writing around the time when table top fantasy gaming was first developing, his works played a big part in how these games evolved.

Most of his books are part of the Eternal Champion saga, a multiverse where Law and Chaos are constantly at odds with each other, as opposed to good verses evil found in Tolkien and most other writers of the genre. The Forgotten Realms’s law and chaos dichotomy can be traced directly back to Moorcock, and the cursed sword Stormbringer, wielded by the most popular incarnation of the Eternal Champion, Elric of Melnibone, was actually an item listed in D&D rulebooks up until 2nd Edition. There were probably some other direct references to Moorcock that have escaped me.

And @KillerRabbit, without getting too off topic, that Theogamy quote is from the Titanomachy, and is describing the climactic battle between the Olympians and the Titans, a battle so fierce that it even disturbed chaos. It’s not a description of Greek chaos, which is only mentioned in passing. Chaos is Greek mythology was the absence of everything, complete nothingness, and is very different from the force that is the antithetical opposite of law as it is in Moorcock.

The Metamorphoses was written by Ovid 600 to 700 years later, and Roman conceptions of Chaos were different from the Greeks, and much more similar to Moorcock.

Alright, I think I’m done being the objectively biggest geek on the BG3 forums for a little while. I’m going to sit on this here pillar of skulls and drink some Martinelli’s Apple Juice like a boss.

about alignment:

- I am happy they removed it. Usually when using alignment it results in two things:
a) The options you have are fine, but there is a huge discussion about "Why is this action lawful?" or "How can this be good?"
b) The options fit perfectly each alignment but they are boring or unrealitic. ( good: save everyone, evil: kill everyone, lawful: I follow orders, no questions, chaotic: I do whatever I want and do not care about anything)

Personally I love the Witcher games. No alignment system, but your choices have consequences and the game reminds you that these outcomes are the result of your action.
Looks like Larian does it that way and I think this is good.

- Some time ago I did a test with tons of questions that does not only show your alignment but also your race and class.
Result: I am a lawful neutral human wizard with high int and wis but pathetic cha and bad physical stats ( the DnD version of a nerd ;))
Unfortuanatly I cannot find this test at the moment, it was also an online multiple choice test and the result showed a numerical value for each axis, your race, class and stats.

Heroic Fantasy inspiration for D&D and nobody talks about Howard? Come on, the barbarian class comes directly from Conan. He's the alpha barbarian. Everybody knows that

Back on topic, Moorcock is not the only one who wrote extensively on Law vs Chaos. Robert Zelazny as well, in his saga of Amber, reflects on the eternal struggle. Besides, style wise, Zelazny is a much better writer than Moorcock in my opinion.

And I agree with the comment above. I prefer the no alignment system like in the witcher or warhammer fantasy games. Alignment has this tendency to getting stuck into a very specific path which feels boringly inorganic and constrained.

In an ideal world - laws would be perfect. Ours isn't an ideal world, never was, maybe will become one day. Same with the world of D&D. (We still have to work to remove bad laws, fix others and keep them updated; laws are still needed)

Thus being Chaotic Good is the best choice, except when a law is good or an authority is right and following isn't a mistake; also when doing unlawful acts are needed to stop or prevent a larger evil. Sometimes only a Chaotic Evil can stop an evil. That's why only the consequences -- of our choices & actions -- and their wide reaching web of influence, can define, if our actions were Good or Evil. When we act, we can have the best motivations, and still can end badly, because we can't see the future. Even when that is revealed, we can see that Good was just a Lesser Evil in fact, because there was no way to achieve more.

So the game can't show which actions are "Good" or "Evil" without spoiling the endings (of those actions at least), but can define what is "Lawful" or "Chaotic", though without the "Good" or "Evil" parts, their meaning is just knowing that trespassing could trigger an immediate action (such as being chased by guards) and obeying could improve your relationship with some character(s), nothing more.

The alignment system can't be a moral dilemma in it's current form, that's why they lead to "huge discussions about "Why is this action lawful?" or "How can this be good?" as @Madscientist noted in above post, because thankfully the players feel that the system is wrong.

Can this alignment system be "fixed"? Of course, just these can't be shown next to the choices, at least the "Good & Evil" variants not, as I explained above, unless we want major spoiler beacons at every step.
But they could still be part of the story -- and I think they should be a major part of the story, because these give meaning to any major choice. Just can't be visible during gameplay if we don't want spoilers, otherwise can be there as optional feature, as an easy mode (meaning in the story part, making easy to pick the best choice every time)

They still need to be correct: Good really be Good, based on the consequences, and nothing else.

D&D was an evolution from the old Chainmail wargaming series, which established the basic dice-roll combat system somewhat like the board game "Risk" but much more complex. In the 3rd edition of Chainmail by Gygax & Perrin, they added the "Fantasy Supplement" with a strong nod to Tolkein & Robert E. Howard (Conan series). This included wizards, elves, dwarves, demons, werebears, and the like. The basic magic spell list was created at this time as well.

Regarding alignment, they state, "It is impossible to draw a distinct line between 'good' and 'evil' fantastic figures. Three categories are listed below as a general guide for the wargamer designing orders of battle involving fantastic creatures: LAW NEUTRAL CHAOS."

Impossible ?!

Thank you for that breakdown!

I think the best recent example of alignment being handled pretty well is found in Pathfinder: Kingmaker.
Pretty much every situation has options for nearly every alignment, and a lot of the choices make sense for their given alignment. And it's interesting that your alignment is actually tracked on a chart, and you can watch it gradually adjust as you make decisions and can actually swing out of your initial alignment over time by making decisions that other alignments would make. It actively shows your growth as a person since it fluctuates since you can see exactly where each decision fell and how far it swung you toward a specific alignment.

(resisting to temptation to talk about music -- but the list of bands is long, that's all)

Agreed. The pathfinder model is D&D -- the witcher is something else. (the stories are also a rip off of the Elric saga but that's another story). Not saying it's a bad game but D&D isn't the witcher -- D&D has it's own history and own feel . And I just prefer D&D to the witcher.


Sure, Zelany was the better writer and Moorcock lists him as an influence. But Moorcock was an ideal factory and lots of the ideas in his books made it into D&D. Early versions of the sourcebook Deities and Demigods provided stats for the major figures in the Elric series. As others have said the Chaos-Law continuum is lifted right from Moorcock. As are the notion of planes of existence. Elemental summoning. Rules for killing gods and demons. The most powerful artifacts in game -- hand and eye of Vecna are taken from the Corum series.

To me "players will disagree" isn't a reason to keep something out of the game. People disagree on things they are passionate about -- if you care enough to argue for your position it shows you care. "tends to start discussions" is another way of saying "immersed" or "engaged"

Sure, alignment can be done badly but it doesn't have to be. Alignment was done well in BG2 and the game wouldn't be the same without the alignment grid -- think of Minsc's comic "make way evil", Mazzy's commitment to honor, Korgan's willingness to murder for coin, Edwin's self serving nature, Haer'Dalis' belief that entropy swallows everything. Alignment provided the pillars of their personality.

I agree, I really like how Pathfinder incorporated it into the game. I did feel like some options were presented better than others (neutral good has a ton of great options, lawful evil has some great ones in some places but lacking in others) but overall I found it to be one of the better implementations of the alignment system in video games.

If any of our characters die do they go on to the Fugue Plane or are we able to resurrect them. If so how long do we have to get them back.

[quote="KillerRabbit"] think of Minsc's comic "make way evil", Mazzy's commitment to honor, Korgan's willingness to murder for coin, Edwin's self serving nature, Haer'Dalis' belief that entropy swallows everything. Alignment provided the pillars of their personality.[/quote]

"Yes! Lead evil by example, and one day we need no longer take the boots to those who stray off the path of goodness in to the muck and bile of villainy and track great bloody footprints across our lily white tiles. Boo will have clean wood shavings you evil bastards! YEARGH!"

Greatest quote from any game, ever.

Raise Dead is a core PHB spell. It’s 5th level, so normally for 9th level characters, but can be accessed earlier through NPCs or scrolls. (We may have seen a scroll of Raise Dead in one of the gameplay demos? Although I can’t swear to it.) The PHB deadline for Raise Dead is “within ten days of death,” and I don’t believe the Realms’ somewhat peculiar afterlife specifically interferes with that, although I might be wrong.

We’re straying away from alignment again, though.