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To recap: Alignment in Dungeons & Dragons creates issues with moral essentialism, and applied to entire “races” provides an ugly reflection of real world racial essentialism that upsets some players. Good thing it’s a legacy rule of minimal value..
1/ https://twitter.com/DistemperedGus/status/1276632004209987584
1/ https://twitter.com/DistemperedGus/status/1276632004209987584
There are other tools in the older systems of D&D that help mitigate essentialist world building. Two simple classics are: Reaction Rolls and Morale. Both of which offer alternatives to combat and encourage player moral decision making.
2/ https://twitter.com/DistemperedGus/status/1277268747103789063
2/ https://twitter.com/DistemperedGus/status/1277268747103789063
I've linked the three lead up threads here: Alignment first, then the Reaction Roll and here Morale. The next step is placing these agency and moral play building mechanics in a setting that encourages there use.
3/ https://twitter.com/DistemperedGus/status/1277654932837945344
3/ https://twitter.com/DistemperedGus/status/1277654932837945344
Instead of mechanics, it’s time to talk about a classic Design Principles and Ethic of Play - specifically the use of asymmetrical encounters and the design principles behind them. Asymmetrical encounters here means encounters that aren’t balanced to party level/power.
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“Challenge Rating” wasn’t part of early D&D, but that’s not because the old designers weren’t aware of balance, only that balancing occured at a level above the individual encounter. Balance concerns are instead addressed relating to the entire location or “level”.
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"Level Based” v. “Encounter Based” design might not initially sound like much, but it's a set of Design Principles that make for a different game. Encounter based design (as taught in the 5th Edition DMG) approaches each encounter as a discrete play experience.
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Level based design instead approaches the entire adventure location (or a large portion) as an arena of play. Encounters are not discrete events, but have a greater relation to the rest of the level. Monsters move about, interact with each other and react to changes.
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This is a Design Principle, not a mechanic, so it’s not a fixed absolute -- encounter based design can include interactions between encounters, and level based include set-piece encounters … but ... it’s a way of approaching adventure design, which informs the whole.
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What does that have to do with asymmetrical encounters? Simply, if one views encounters as part of a level sized puzzle to unravel, rather than individual obstacles to be overcome, it expands the field of design.
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Individual encounters can act as obstacles or puzzles that can't be resolved by combat, or as looming threats appearing at random and necessitating retreat, a risk of exploring too cautiously. Players are asked to discern the danger each encounter represents and respond.
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So Level Based Design and exploration require a player expectation that the locus of play is something other then combat. If you’re playing a game about fighting strange beasts, you aren’t likely to avoid or flee any strange beasts you encounter…
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To reinforce this expectation there are both mechanics (No combat XP, high lethality combat) and ethics (describing a dangerous world, heroic characters, goals other than defeating enemies) that help, and which can be generalized with the maxim “combat is a fail state”.
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Of course most classic games and designers also recognize that combat is somewhat inevitable, but again the key here is an ethics rather then mechanics -- combat may be inevitable, but only when risk gets the better of the players’ schemes or they choose it ... because ...
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Independent of mechanics combat is risky with Asymmetric Encounters. These principles, mechanics and ethics here all feed into each other. You can have dangerous or unbeatable encounters because the players know that they can't win every fight but also have other tools.
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Those tools include Reaction Rolls and Morale, while Level Based Design creates the arena that the players can utilize the tools that Asymmetric Encounters make necessary or preferential solutions.
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You can spot Asymmetrical Encounters very early in Dungeons & Dragons design. In the 1974 Little Brown Books, random encounters hint at them. Monsters are split up into categories by threat and these are distributed based on “Level Beneath the Surface” … but…
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Note that even on the 1st level of a dungeon, OD&D allows for monsters that are near impossible for 1st level PCs to defeat: gargoyles and lycanthropes for example are both high HD and utterly immune to normal weapons, while a Enchanter is a 7th level Magic User.
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Asymmetrical Encounters drive play, rather then guarantee a TPK, only if the players understand that the creatures they meet aren’t automatically enemies to fight, and this only works when options besides combat: trickery, alliance, bribery and stealth must be possible.
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Thus Asymmetric Encounters don’t themselves discourage moral essentialism in adventure design, but instead present an opportunity and encouragement to use the roleplaying tools that do.
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The risk of meeting with enemies that are too powerful for the party, and the opportunity of those that are far weaker help create a player mindset that encourages caution, creativity and nuance, but it’s part of a larger toolkit.
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There's maybe one more of these threads on the issue of alignment and "moral play" -- a discussion of how to utilize factions to improve moral nuance and avoid essentialism which I may write up in the next few days.
Also all the art here is by John Blanche.
Also all the art here is by John Blanche.
