Alignment in EPT

Empire of the Petal Throne occupies an unusual place in the history of roleplaying games. Published a year and a half after the release of OD&D, EPT is at once thoroughly indebted to and dependent upon its predecessor and a huge leap forward in terms of design and presentation. Consequently, the rules of EPT are a glorious mess, equal parts OD&D atavisms, half-baked evolutions therefrom, and genuinely original ideas. You can see this uneasy tension in place like Section 310, which discusses alignment.

Before diving in, remember that Volume 1 of OD&D has little to say about alignment, framing alignment as a kind of allegiance. 

Before the game begins it is not only necessary to select a role, but it is also necessary to determine what stance the character will take – Law, Netrality [sic], or Chaos.

Beneath it is the following chart, which divides intelligent beings in "teams," according to their alignment.

Not much else is said about alignment in OD&D, except that clerics of 7th level and greater must aligned with either Law or Chaos and that changing one's alignment has (unexplained) dire consequences. By contrast, the aforementioned Section 310 of Empire of the Petal Throne is comparatively long (five paragraphs) and spells out many more details of what alignment is and how it works. M.A.R. Barker begins the section with this remarkable section:

For convenience's sake (and not to reflect reality necessarily), all characters are divided into two basic types: those serving the Good Gods and their Cohorts, and those serving their Evil counterparts. There are no "neutrals" on Tékumel, although it is possible to achieve a limited neutral status as one of the nonhuman races which traditionally remain aloof from human affairs.

"For convenience's sake" is an interesting turn of phrase, especially when coupled with "not to reflect reality," since it seems that Barker viewed alignment largely as a construct of EPT's game rules. Equally interesting, to my mind, is that he immediately connects alignment to serving the gods. He elaborates on this in the second paragraph of Section 310, saying "Each player names his or her God, Goddess, or Cohort at the beginning of the game." 

Despite the constructed nature of alignment in EPT, it nevertheless has social consequences. "A good character," Barker explains, "does not consort with an evil one, although it is not required to attack him if there is an encounter." Naturally, evil characters are not bound by these same restrictions, though, oddly, it's suggested that even evil characters will not attack members of their own party while "sharing an adventure together." This reinforces the idea that alignment on EPT' is foundational to the presentation of Tékumel's society rather than having anything to do with personality or morality. (It's worth noting that later presentations of Tékumel develop this further, replacing Good and Evil with Stability and Change and fleshing out a moral system based around "nobility.")

As noted above, nonhumans don't have alignment as humans do. Rather, their alignment is based on their "general attitudes toward mankind," as this chart demonstrates:

This chart recalls the one from OD&D and supports the notion of alignment as being, first and foremost, the marker of one's "team." This is in keeping with OD&D's conception of alignment, though Barker teases out some of its assumptions and consequences a bit more in Empire of the Petal Throne. This is, I believe, where EPT shines, since Barker offered a model of how one might apply the rules of OD&D to a specific world in order to create an immersive, believable place. This is something Dungeons & Dragons has never really done, which no doubt contributes to the dislike of alignment by many of its players.