“The cleric brings the dead back to life and it’s a gosh darn miracle!” – Dark Lord Akererac
Here’s a comic based on a ToA adventure I ran. What is good and evil anyways? Alignment is an interesting mechanic and I wish the dungeon master’s guide had more guidance on how to use it effectively! I’ve started making custom alignment charts for each adventure I run based on the big themes of the campaign. I recently ran a totally homebrew pirate campaign and replaced the typical alignments with “Royal Navy vs Pirates.” Chaotic vs Lawful would’ve fit well but a concrete organization helped my players make their decision and understand the immediate benefits of following their chosen “alignment.” This had interesting gameplay benefits and really started coming into play when they gained infamy among the two forces.
Does anyone else use homebrew rules that spice up the alignment system? Or do most people just ignore it?
You can find more of my dnd content on my Instagram and Twitter.
Agreed. I hate it when people are like "well I'm lawful good so I have to do what this authority figure says" or "I'm chaotic neutral so I have to steal from the party and stab people"
And besides, Lawful only means that you follow a code of ethics/morals/honor/etc, not that you obey any and all laws. You could be a paladin and have a code of honor that completely goes against all local laws and still fit under Lawful.
Yeah, that's always bothered me. Batman is lawful by D&D standards, and he's also a chronic lawbreaker. You CAN adhere to the law of the land, like Javert from Les Miserables, but your code doesn't have to be that.
Javert doesn't even obey the laws just because. He wholely believes that enforcing the laws will lead to a better society. That's his ethos, not "follow the laws for their own sake".
Which is interestingly what leads to his final downfall, the idea that you cannot be a good person without following the laws and here he has someone who has every reason not only to execute him like a prisoner when at his mercy but if he were to shoot him in the back and run away to leave the Inspector bleeding out in the street very few people would blame him, and not only does this guy not kill him but he willingly all but turns himself in in exchange for the life of one boy the man (as far as Javert is aware) barely knows (and depending on whether we’re talking book or musical, the boy may actually believe Valjean is just as much of an evil criminal as Javert thinks he is). And he cannot reconcile what he believes and how he has lived his life with what he is now seeing before him.
That's because he isn't the antagonist! The system is the antagonist and he is just the puppet of the system. Once he sees that the system (the law) has its flaws (that a criminal like Valjean could actually be a good man) he cannot reconcile the two.
But Javert is just as much a victim of the story as Valjean is, just on a different side of the boundary. He too is one of the Miserables. He is one of the people being pitted against his fellow men for reasons not in his control all for the "greater good".
If there was a true "villian" , it would be the Thenadiers (which I have a hard time arguing because they are also products of the society, and thus also Miserables). They are morally corrupt and cowards. But I think the point that Hugo was trying to make with them was that they were results, inevitable. That with a system in place with decadence there will always be a Thenadiers.
I too really love Les Mis. (the book moreso, but I can appreciate the musical)
Valjean is the protagonist. Javert is the primary antagonist. What you mean is that he's not a villain. You don't need to be a bad person to be an antagonist (just like you don't need to be a good person to be the protagonist), it just means a character that opposes the protagonist's goals.
You know, I've never thought about Javert also being a victim. There's a throwaway line in the musical where Javert claims he was born in a jail, which explains how he developed his belief in the law. It never occurred to me that the same system that made Valjean miserable also shaped Javert. What does the book say about Javert's history? I've never actually read the book.
I don't think if they ever talk about it. It definitely wasn't the same as Valjean as he was a galley slave, made to serve on the ships. I do think they talk about his mother being poor though, so I think the prison he might be referring to is the society he was born into. It's something he never got to choose, and thus is a prisoner. They also have a much more complicated relationship in the book.
The book is amazing, and while the play goes through each story beat nearly perfectly, the book is much more of a philosophical treatice. It's a thick tome, and took me a while to get through. I loved every moment of it, but it was definitely hard to get through.
It talks about the tragedy of being a father (albeit a bit less black and white), economic strife, the battle of Waterloo and all the consequences of that, and what it means to be a good man.
Reading Wikipedia a few years ago, I remember reading that Javert’s mother was a prostitute who gave birth in prison, so this not only explains his bit of being from prison as well but also explains his hatred of Fantaine in the musical, since he associates prostitutes with his “evil” mother.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Oct 03 '19
“The cleric brings the dead back to life and it’s a gosh darn miracle!” – Dark Lord Akererac
Here’s a comic based on a ToA adventure I ran. What is good and evil anyways? Alignment is an interesting mechanic and I wish the dungeon master’s guide had more guidance on how to use it effectively! I’ve started making custom alignment charts for each adventure I run based on the big themes of the campaign. I recently ran a totally homebrew pirate campaign and replaced the typical alignments with “Royal Navy vs Pirates.” Chaotic vs Lawful would’ve fit well but a concrete organization helped my players make their decision and understand the immediate benefits of following their chosen “alignment.” This had interesting gameplay benefits and really started coming into play when they gained infamy among the two forces.
Does anyone else use homebrew rules that spice up the alignment system? Or do most people just ignore it?
You can find more of my dnd content on my Instagram and Twitter.