You Can’t Go Home Again
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
D&D long ago gave into the guy who kept pestering the DM to let him play an evil character. That genie is not going back in the bottle
[…] Catholic7. Your Emotions are Not “God Speaking” – Fr. David J. Nix at Pilgrim Priest8. You Can’t Go Home Again – Donald R. McClarey, J.D., at The American Catholic9. Are U.S. Bishops Complicit In Handing […]
Evil PCs were part of the game since there was an evil alignment (the original rules only allowed Lawful, Neutral or Chaotic, though a PC could be any of those.) In 1st edition AD&D one of the base classes is Assassin, which must be evil. Thieves are not required to be evil (they can avoid being evil as long as they are partially neutral, i.e. neutral good, lawful neutral, true neutral or chaotic neutral.) But it is explicitly said that they tend to be evil. Discouraging or even disallowing evil characters was an innovation of 2nd edition and the Basic line.
The problem was not people wanting to play evil characters. The problem was people wanting to do evil, but to also be lauded as good characters. The average wokester doesn’t think that he’s evil for wanting to mutilate children as part of so-called “gender-affirming care.” He thinks this makes him the paramount of good.
One way you can track this development is by looking at how good clerics and paladins are developed. In the original rules they are Christian in all but name, with Clerics being priests or monks and Paladins being cruasders or knights-errant. For example, in the original rules Clerics don’t have generic “holy symbols” they explicitly carry crosses. The artwork depicts clerics and paladins in a distinctly medieval Christian way through 2nd edition. But later on they become generic “holy warriors” with no specific morality or aesthetics, and now are practically just literal social justice warriors.