The game has a nine-part alignment spectrum ranging from 'Lawful Good' to 'Chaotic Evil' and stopping off at intervening points (consisting of Good/Neutral/Evil and Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic). The degree to which players follow this varies (some ignore it, some follow it and award harsh penalties for players who act 'against alignment' but it does seem to create limitations in the fiction, where the writers seem to be bearing it too much in mind.

Raistlin is more interesting in that the character pretty much ignores those rules. Some of the other more successful D&D tie-ins - such as Lynn Abbey's highly revisionist RISE AND FALL OF A DRAGON KING, which presents a not-entirely-condemning portrait of one of the DARK SUN world's biggest villains - are also ones which challenge some of those limitations.

One of Drizzt's problems is that Salvatore writes to his alignment (Chaotic Good) far too rigidly: "He doesn't follow laws but has his own code of honour and Always Does The Right Thing! Whilst being badass!"