Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Referee Alignment

A Continuum
White Box gives us the concept of Alignment; Law, Chaos and Neutral. In the LBBs, Alignment is used to classify creatures into competing camps and to influence certain magical effects. Magic swords are aligned to serve Law, Chaos or Neutrality and will resist use by those PCs of opposite alignment causing damage to them in terms of Hit Point loss. Intelligent creatures will speak an Alignment language so that they may communicate across species as well as readily identify friend and foe. "Good" and "Evil" are separate concepts from Alignment in the text of the three LBBs. Anti-Clerics are described as "Evil" and certain spells such as Detect Evil and Protection from Evil make use of the term and concept although there is no list of "Evil" beings outside the Anti-Clerics. Creatures of Chaos are often equated with "Evil" by those playing the game, but the rules do not specifically state this.
An online query for the definition of Law and Chaos gives the following results: Law - a system of rules or a statement of fact;  Chaos - complete disorder and confusion; Neutrality - impartial, the absence of decided views. These definitions seem to fit with the game mechanics as a sort of overall classification theme under which creature behavior could fall.
I occurs to me, as an exercise in logic, to apply the terms Law, Chaos and Neutral to refereeing style or preference. A Lawful referee then would be one who prefers to play by the book - the rules as written. Organization would seem to characterize the Lawful referee as would planning. The ideal referee of Law will carefully assemble campaign materials, be organized and thorough in preparation and record keeping and know the rules to the game. Appearing rigid at times, the referee of Law will have definite ideas regarding running the campaign.
By contrast the Chaotic referee will prefer rulings over rules and be unpredictable while running the game. Surprises and flexibility may be strengths of this approach. Rules will often be by fiat - at the referee's whim and highly situational in interpretation. Improvisation will take preference over preparation and the campaign may seem in flux, changeable or even arbitrary.
The referee who strives for Neutrality may seek to be impartial or to be seeking the middle path between opposite extremes - a willingness to do some planning, but ready to improvise, mostly by the rules, but with some house ruling as deemed necessary. The Neutral referee may at times appear "wishy-washy" or undecided. This may be a legitimate criticism or a by-product of trying to not dictate too strongly how the game/campaign is to proceed.
Referee alignment seems useful in terms of describing characteristics often found in various referee's style. I am not sure that there is anything definitive to learn in applying this distinction however, except maybe to assist a player with a strong preference for a particular referee style in identifying such. So should we advertise our games as run by a referee of Law, or Chaos, or Neutrality? Should we warn our players we are feeling a bit more Chaotic today?

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