#026

When playing Dungeons and Dragons, character alignment can play an important role. Many classes have alignment restrictions, and behaving inappropriately for you character means you can lose some of your key abilities. For example, if Valdren's alignment ever shifts away from Lawful Good, he loses all of his Paladin abilities, from Smite Evil, to spell casting, to his special mount.

I provided the explanation of how a Lawful Good character can take up arms against a backdrop of another character attacking a goblin. In this light, I wanted to show that the goblins aren't actually evil. Also, by refraining from actually illustrating a goblin striking Soverliss, it makes it seem more reasonable to the reader that maybe these goblins - who have initiated an unprovoked attack - aren't necessarily bad people.

Funnily enough, on game day when the party was learning their mission, Pat had actually asked if the goblins had a history of being up to no good. I didn't feel the need to draw that, as I think leaving that scene out makes it seem more surprising that the goblins aren't evil.

From a gameplay perspective, the goblins are Chaotic Neutral. This is widely considered to be the most versatile alignment, and as a DM I actually kind of hate it. A Chaotic Neutral character can do virtually whatever they want. Lots of players choose Chaotic Neutral, (like Tamaki), and it might actually be the most common in a group of adventurers because there are no restrictions on how your characters act.

True story: Soverliss is Lawful Good. We question it sometimes, especially when he gets that evil grin and starts throwing around fireballs and lightning bolts, but he somehow hasn't betrayed his alignment yet.