A three-alignment system for D&D

For my upcoming Western themed D&D game, I'm tempted to simplify the alignment system to somethng both easier to understand, and more genre appropriate:  I'd reduce everything down to three alignments:

GOOD: You get to wear the white hat: Helpin widders' across the street, tipping your hat, drinkin' sasparilla, etc.  You know what this means: Honest (mostly), loyal, thinking of the better good, clean, reverent, etc..

BAD: The wearer of the black hat.  More than mean, you make your plans to hurt people.  Killin.' stealin' and cheatin' the innocent is a true pleasure.  If there's someone who's going to tie the school marm to the track just to hear her scream, it'll be you.

UGLY: The mean SOB in the grey hat.  Ornery, angry, or just plumb crude and selfish, the Ugly may be a nasty piece of work, he's not malicious, and can be very loyal.  He never hurts anyone who wasn't trying to kill him.  Or looks like he might kill him.  Or if there's a woman involved.  Or for money.  Or if he has a firewater hangover.

Any comments?

NY Times: "We live in Gary's world"

There's a very nice obituary for Gary Gygax in the New York Times, one that basically assigns all of today's culture to Mr. Gygax and Dungeons and Dragons.  Hey, who am I to argue?

But the nice thing is the flowchart that shows exactly how much everything is connected to D&D.  

Now that i think would look nice as a poster on the wall...

Machiavelli and the Race Card

So we all know about Geraldine Ferraro's intemperate comments on Obama and race.  Ostensibly, her comments that Obama wouldn't be where he is now if he wasn't black were designed to be as hurtful to Obama as possible, and I've heard a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth that this is a sign that the Democratic party is tearing itself apart.

I'm going to take a position 180 degrees from the "this is destroying the party" line; this is all good. It's fine. In fact, it's fucking brilliant. Not only is all this not going to hurt Obama, it's doing him a favor- hell, if I was cynical enough, I'd suspect that Hillary has already quietly conceded, and is now trying to help Obama. Or at least Ferraro is getting kickbacks from the Obama campaign, instead of just being bigoted.

1. We knew the whole race thing was going to be brought up sometime- and now, it's been brought up early enough that by the time the Republicans will get to it, it will have been played out. the news media will realize they're repeating a story they did months ago, and the public will be bored. This is going to make it all that more difficult for Republicans to bring the issue up.

2. Has this actually turned ANYONE away from Obama? Has it done anything but cement support for Obama and make his supporters resistant to the race card? Even the people saying "yeah, his race is a factor" have been following up with "that doesn't mean I won't vote for him, because I am."

3. Meanwhile in other news , uhh...whatshisname, the Republican guy...umm...oh yeah- Huka, no, McCain! Yeah, McCain said in a speech today his policy toward- "HEY! CLINTON SAID SOMETHING ELSE ABOUT OBAMA! GET OVER HERE!" These fireworks are completely distracting people away from McCain's effort to get the Republicans behind him. The man has no public presence now. At this point, McCain could appear before the Senate stark naked, and the only person there would be a third-stringer from the Weather channel.

So, I'm sanguine, or at least forcing myself to be that way. I think Obama will win the nomination, and he's going to come out of this stronger than ever. At least, that's my Machiavellian story, and I'm going to stick to it.