Alignment (Vol. I, p. 9), Annotated

Character Alignment, Including Various Monsters and Creatures

We open Volume I: Men & Magic at page 9 to find a chart of alignments for various OD&D monsters. There three: Law, Chaos, and Neutral; with no further explanation of what they are. An examination of the listed monsters on this page will give a reader not in the know enough information to run the game. That is, Law is basically good and Chaos evil. 

If one is familiar with the concept of Law and Chaos? There is an understanding it is not quite that simple. If one wishes to understand more about the Eternal Struggle of Law and Chaos, the Elric novels by Michael Moorcock are highly recommended. In point of fact? They are worth reading even if one does not wish to know more about the Law -v- Chaos dichotomy.

In private conversation with your esteemed editor EGG expressed regret over the implementation of alignment in OD&D. Gary stated alignment was not meant as a straitjacket, more of a shirts versus skins (our summation and term, not Gary's) sort of division.

There are minor differences between first printing and eighth printings of the rules, but the list is basically the same. Briefly, the Law column is the same throughout all printings. For Neutrality later printings inserted Griffons, omitted in the first printing. Chaos removes a first printing reference to Balrogs (in second place, right under Men*) and removes a duplicate reference to wights (under Ghouls). Dragons should be listed in all 3 columns (labeled as Dragons*) rather than only Neutrality and Chaos (even though the exception of Gold Dragons is noted in that monster's description in Volume II). Other minor differences, such as changing Hobbit to Halflings and Ents to Treants, should be reasonably obvious to most readers.