Alignment Languages in D&D - What the heck?

 This is a fascinating subject. I first encountered it in Moldvay's Basic D&D rulebook. Shortly thereafter I read about alignment languages in the AD&D Player's Handbook. My high school group in the mid-80's ignored this rule outright. My first DM ever in 1980 ignored it too. Yet, when introducing new players to the game, this weird feature always reared its head. 

 The idea has merit but is not presented in the best manner. In my mind, alignment language is not accurate. Alignment empathy would be a more believable thing. My best example of this is from the remake of 3:10 to Yuma (2007). In this particular scene, Ben Foster's character Charlie Prince rides into town. He's looking for his boss Ben Wade (Russel Crowe). He does not know exactly where Ben Wade is until...he catches the eye of this guy in the window of a nearby building. This guy doesn't speak. He makes eye contact and nods up.

So what's so amazing about this is not how this communication happened but why. We can only assume these guys are two peas in a pod. Charlie is an outlaw but this guy in the window is a bartender in the hotel where Ben Wade is being kept. Was the bartender a bad guy in the past; did he have a grudge against the men holding Ben Wade in the hotel? We don't know the answer. His motivation to contact and help Charlie was his moral prerogative. He wanted to help the bad guys win.

 Now imagine the "jovial priest" from B2 - Keep on the Borderlands. He and his acolytes are on page 9 of that adventure. If you have never played or run this module I recommend it. This is a spoiler alert if you intend to run or play B2! The jovial priest is in fact Chaotic (or Chaotic Evil in AD&D). Yet, he put on a facade of happiness and fellowship. He does this to lure victims to the Caves of Chaos. If a PC in the group that encounter the jovial priest is also Chaotic, they should have some ability to understand the ploy only by making eye contact. Body language and basic empathy would allow the Chaotic PC to see right through the ploy. At the same time using Alignment Empathy could work with the jovial priest secretly! Very much in the same way and the bartender helped Charlie Prince. 

This is intriguing and nuanced. The idea of some fully realized phonetic language for each alignment is silly especially in AD&D (10 distinct languages!!). If this empathic communication seems to easy, use a Charisma ability check to see if the desired communication is effective. Until next time, thanks for reading!