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redwizard007
2019-08-23, 08:45 PM
So I was inspired by several of the alignment based threads running at the moment, but didn't want to derail them any further.

It seems to me, very generally, that people who I would consider evil under the D&D alignment rules see themselves more as neutral. That those I see as neutral see themselves as good. No one seems to seriously consider themselves evil. This applies to real world personas as well as those posting online.

WITHOUT CALLING OUT ANYONE ON GiTP, is it just me, or is anyone else seeing this?

Should something like this affect world building?

Do those of you with formal training in philosophy have a specific take?

I'm genuinely curious.

Koo Rehtorb
2019-08-23, 08:55 PM
In a universe where evil is a measurable metaphysical fact and worshiping evil gods is a legitimate lifestyle choice I don't see any particular reason to avoid thinking of yourself as evil. One could consider evil to correspond to being someone who does what's necessary, or someone with a healthy and natural degree of self-interest.

FaerieGodfather
2019-08-23, 09:20 PM
From my perspective, a lot of the problem with the Alignment Discourse-- and hence, the Alignment Mechanic as it appears in play-- is that more than 90% of humanity is morally Neutral, and more than 90% of humanity considers itself morally Good.

With an added touch of very few people-- least of all the designers-- being capable of differentiating between Lawful and Good, hence the execrable state of the Book of Exalted Deeds.

For the record, I self-identify as Chaotic Evil with my friends trying to convince me I'm merely Chaotic Neutral. My worldview is something akin to the offspring of a CN Druid and an NE Druid... trying to be a Paladin.

Lord Raziere
2019-08-23, 09:38 PM
Well personally to me, perspectives are coins: if you only have one, your in trouble. but if your rich, you probably have more than you can ever need or use.

As for considering oneself evil.....hm. generally I would consider self-analysis to be worst possible way of identifying whether your a good person or not, there is too much bias. whether your a good person or not is something determined by what other people think of you, not of what you think of yourself. you can call yourself good or evil, but what really matters is whether the people you know and society agree with the assessment.

thus I cannot rightly say I'm any alignment, there is one I'd like to think I am, but that just my opinion, and it cannot be accurately said whether I'm any of them, for any assessment could potentially contain biases coming from one perspective or another.

I mean I can think of a couple people who self-proclaim themselves to be "evil" but I'm not going to name any names and I half think they're roleplaying a persona more than anything else, even if they deny it, but even they see the label they gave themselves as something they can feel powerful from, but again, self-analysis and such is bad at identifying whether your a good person, as your inherently biased to reassuring yourself that you are, and even these "evil" identifying people do it with a certain confidence, as a way of feeling better about themselves, maybe in a less conventional way than others, but nevertheless they do so.

so thinking of yourself in a positive light is arguably just....healthy psychological behavior, think too negatively of yourself and you start spiraling into depression and that is never good. thus any label applied to oneself has a bias of reassurance of some kind, and they are not always the same kind of self-reassurance. this is because people are different, and require different ways to be healthy. and if someone identifies as "evil" but does a bunch of acts that contradict this, are at least a decent person when you know them, and they do not seem to psychologically unhealthy or doing anything bad to others, what does it matter if they do ascribe to the label if it helps them be a healthy person, if they are not going to actually be evil? aside from of course questions of accuracy and clarity that could arise from someone appropriating a term that is meant to be negative and using it positively, but I think that might be a different issue altogether.

problem is, you can't really judge morality free of perspective, because morality is born from perspective. thus you first have to determine whether a perspective is useful and sound before determining morality. and to do that, you must get specific, really specific to determine whether that perspective will fit the specific situation. some rules of morality fit some situations better than others, and some perspectives are better at applying them than others. you don't ask an artists perspective on how to fix a car so that its safe do you? conversely, you don't ask a car mechanic on how to best portray something in art so that its accurate and meaningful rather than offensive and wrong.

thus before any serious discussion of morality can be had, the situation has to become so specific, the people and perspectives involved so specific, that general labels of self-identification probably become irrelevant to discussing the actual details of the situation in question, and thus the general labels of self-identification as "good" "neutral" or "evil" are more for what helps you sleep at night, and what you actually are is for the world to decide based on your actions. so...whatever you are, don't DO anything bad.

hamishspence
2019-08-24, 01:57 AM
From my perspective, a lot of the problem with the Alignment Discourse-- and hence, the Alignment Mechanic as it appears in play-- is that more than 90% of humanity is morally Neutral, and more than 90% of humanity considers itself morally Good.

I prefer Eberron's take - that about a third of humanity is morally Neutral - but that's me. Maybe boost it a little to 40% or so - but not 90%+.

Pleh
2019-08-24, 09:30 AM
So I was inspired by several of the alignment based threads running at the moment, but didn't want to derail them any further.

It seems to me, very generally, that people who I would consider evil under the D&D alignment rules see themselves more as neutral. That those I see as neutral see themselves as good. No one seems to seriously consider themselves evil. This applies to real world personas as well as those posting online.

WITHOUT CALLING OUT ANYONE ON GiTP, is it just me, or is anyone else seeing this?

Should something like this affect world building?

Do those of you with formal training in philosophy have a specific take?

I'm genuinely curious.

I assume we're talking about how RPG characters view themselves? It seems a little pointless to try to apply RPG morality mechanics to real world people. It's just a bad model for people, but it wasn't made for people. It was made to describe game characters (and to some extent, play style).

To that end, yeah, there are a lot of D&D villains who wouldn't describe themselves as evil. There are many more who couldn't deny the fact, since a simple Detect spell will reveal their Aura.

But even characters who make deals with devils to sacrifice the souls of their entire civilization probably aren't cackling and twirling their mustaches. They probably have some pragmatic justification for their evil deeds. In D&D, these justifications just have little to no bearing on their alignment.

So yeah, most characters are somewhat blind to their own alignment. Most people intend to pursue what they consider an optimal course of action. If they feel there are moral compunctions about it, they rationalize and/or justify it. That's just how people (and characters that replicate people) work.

Zhorn
2019-08-24, 10:10 AM
I assume we're talking about how RPG characters view themselves?
I think redwizard007 was meaning how players are viewing their character's alignments. I could be wrong, but that's how I was reading their post to mean.

The gist of it being players are choosing actions and are justifying it as within their alignment, and there is a disagreement of perspective from an outside view of what is considered good/neutral/evil between first person and third person.

OldTrees1
2019-08-24, 01:41 PM
No one seems to seriously consider themselves evil.

Do those of you with formal training in philosophy have a specific take?

I'm genuinely curious.

I do have a formal training in philosophy and here is my take despite it not being universally held:

At its root the subject of morality is the question "What ought one do?" rather than "What should one do in order to X?". This difference is one that people can grasp intuitively over time but has also lead to criticism of the former question. That discussion is for another thread, so let's assume the question "What ought one do?".

How do people relate to that question in practice? When you are faced with a choice, you need to make a decision even if that decision is being indecisive about options. Once you have decided what you will do, then you do what you will do (again even if your decision is to delay the decision for a moment).

As a result I believe we can say that nobody ever did other than what they chose to do. They might not have predicted the outcomes and might change their mind afterwards, but at the moment of decision & action they did what they chose to do.

So how does that tie back into morality? When someone make a decision about a choice they see pertaining to the question "What ought one do?", they are choosing what they think they ought to do (even if it differs from what they have been told they ought to do).

Therefore everyone only makes choices they felt, at the time of the decision, were moral or amoral. If all of your decisions were moral or amoral, how could you possibly be evil? There still are ways to think oneself is evil but it takes some extra steps and mental hurdles.

That is why almost nobody realistically thinks of themselves as evil in their own morality.

Inchhighguy
2019-08-24, 04:15 PM
It seems to me, very generally, that people who I would consider evil under the D&D alignment rules see themselves more as neutral. That those I see as neutral see themselves as good. No one seems to seriously consider themselves evil. This applies to real world personas as well as those posting online.



Not really, you are more seeing social peer pressure.

In the Beyond D&D world evil is very much considered wrong, bad and vile. So, naturally, no one admits to being evil. Evil folks will say they are something else.

And nearly everyone in the beyond society will shun an evil person. So you have no choice but to say you are not evil.

The beyond D&D society says you MUST act and think this way....acting any other way is bad/wrong and evil.

(this is also true of a lot of things....say the ''wrong thing" and watch how fast people turn against you)

D&D, however, presents a world where both Good and Evil are perfectly valid choices. And everyone accepts that.


So in D&D, you have view A and view B....and both are accepted by each other as simply diffrent views.

In philiospy, do evil people consider themselves evil?

Well....yes and no. Yes, they do consider themselves ''evil", or more accuterly they have a view point that is not the default good society viewpoint. But, no, they don't think they are ''bad or wrong" in any way.

Max_Killjoy
2019-08-24, 04:25 PM
From my perspective, a lot of the problem with the Alignment Discourse-- and hence, the Alignment Mechanic as it appears in play-- is that more than 90% of humanity is morally Neutral, and more than 90% of humanity considers itself morally Good.

With an added touch of very few people-- least of all the designers-- being capable of differentiating between Lawful and Good, hence the execrable state of the Book of Exalted Deeds.


My perspective is that if we're really going to try to shoe-horn real people into Alignment's contrivance... then many people are Neutral, and like to think of themselves as Good, and are trying to be Good but not always succeeding. Sometimes they don't go out of their way to do the right thing because of fear, fatigue, confusion, hesitation, etc, but on the balance they're more likely to go out of their way to be Good than to be Evil. And, they'll go out of their way to be Good in some of the most surprising ways, just see how people respond during disasters when they might have the most "excuse" to be self-centered.

The sad thing, though, is that for whatever reasons, a lot of people mistake "following the rules" for "doing the right thing"... they don't see themselves as ever stuck between the rules and the right thing, they literally believe that the rules tell them the right thing to do, they talk about the rules as if they define the moral course of action, or they act as if following the rules absolves them of any possible moral culpability -- thus, the observation in your second paragraph. Maybe it's just that rules and checklists are easy, actually thinking is hard, IDK.




I do have a formal training in philosophy and here is my take despite it not being universally held:

At its root the subject of morality is the question "What ought one do?" rather than "What should one do in order to X?". This difference is one that people can grasp intuitively over time but has also lead to criticism of the former question. That discussion is for another thread, so let's assume the question "What ought one do?".

How do people relate to that question in practice? When you are faced with a choice, you need to make a decision even if that decision is being indecisive about options. Once you have decided what you will do, then you do what you will do (again even if your decision is to delay the decision for a moment).

As a result I believe we can say that nobody ever did other than what they chose to do. They might not have predicted the outcomes and might change their mind afterwards, but at the moment of decision & action they did what they chose to do.

So how does that tie back into morality? When someone make a decision about a choice they see pertaining to the question "What ought one do?", they are choosing what they think they ought to do (even if it differs from what they have been told they ought to do).

Therefore everyone only makes choices they felt, at the time of the decision, were moral or amoral. If all of your decisions were moral or amoral, how could you possibly be evil? There still are ways to think oneself is evil but it takes some extra steps and mental hurdles.

That is why almost nobody realistically thinks of themselves as evil in their own morality.


Which gets into why the whole idea of "cosmic forces of good and evil" is so mixed up, IMO.

If "good" and "evil" are real tangible forces inside the reality of the setting, do the people (and their languages) perceive synchronicity between "evil" and "evil"? Do people who are "evil" know that the universe itself is saying "those people are 'evil'"? How do they react to this? Unlike real life, they can't just tell themselves they're "good", can they?

"Are we the baddies?" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU)

Themrys
2019-08-24, 05:10 PM
D&D, however, presents a world where both Good and Evil are perfectly valid choices. And everyone accepts that.


I don't regularly play D&D and haven't read many rulebooks, but ... I highly doubt that.

There's a lot of politic opinions in the real world that are considered perfectly valid by those who hold them.

They are not accepted as perfectly valid choices by those who oppose them.


And the fact that, in D&D, Evil with a capital E seems to mean, among other things "egoistic above all else" ... would mean that there will still be no capital E evil communities where everyone admits to being like that.

Evil groups tend to choose a group of people they will oppress in order to satisfy their egoism. That group of people can be "everyone but us", but still, a choice needs to be made.

A character who is really just egoistic and sadistic and cooperates with no one ... in short, old Belkar, would be dead in mere moments if he were surrounded by evil characters more powerful than him. Belkar offends Vaarsuvius to the point that Vaarsuvius seeks to cause him extreme pain. Vaarsuvius is neutral-ish at this point, and definitely a teamplayer, so V doesn't kill Belkar. If Vaarsuvius was evil, Belkar would have been dead the moment after the sexual harassment incident, as he is not useful enough to the team to justify keeping him around.


That's why many DMs ban "evil characters" - because a character who is just "evil" doesn't fit into any group and will get very annoying very fast.

Inchhighguy
2019-08-24, 06:00 PM
I don't regularly play D&D and haven't read many rulebooks, but ... I highly doubt that.

There's a lot of politic opinions in the real world that are considered perfectly valid by those who hold them.

They are not accepted as perfectly valid choices by those who oppose them.

That is a good example, though:

Way one: Anything, and yes I do mean ANYTHING, a person thinks is just fine and they will not be treated diffrent in any way for thinking that.

Way two: You MUST agree with my way as my way is the only way and is right.

Most people will lie and say they are way one.....but show their true colors soon enough. Just take any social group of people....you KNOW there are things you can say/options you can have that will have them immediatly dismiss you, refuse to talk to you and even force you to go away. They won't be ''ok" with you thinking X, they will go all crazy opposed to you.

A good Game example is Railroading. Most in the social group will say it is ''bad, evil, always wrong", and won't even want to talk about it, as it's ''so obvious".




That's why many DMs ban "evil characters" - because a character who is just "evil" doesn't fit into any group and will get very annoying very fast.

Well, this is a bit more as people see evil as ''I can be a jerk".

redwizard007
2019-08-24, 08:27 PM
That is a good example, though:

Way one: Anything, and yes I do mean ANYTHING, a person thinks is just fine and they will not be treated diffrent in any way for thinking that.

Way two: You MUST agree with my way as my way is the only way and is right.

Most people will lie and say they are way one.....but show their true colors soon enough. Just take any social group of people....you KNOW there are things you can say/options you can have that will have them immediatly dismiss you, refuse to talk to you and even force you to go away. They won't be ''ok" with you thinking X, they will go all crazy opposed to you.

I'm not sure I agree with you on this. At least not in reducing it to 2 simple options. Right off the top of my head I get, "do whatever you want as long as it doesn't affect me." Some would probably expand it to "... doesn't affect anyone but you." Even that is really bare bones here.

Inchhighguy
2019-08-24, 08:46 PM
I'm not sure I agree with you on this. At least not in reducing it to 2 simple options. Right off the top of my head I get, "do whatever you want as long as it doesn't affect me." Some would probably expand it to "... doesn't affect anyone but you." Even that is really bare bones here.

Right, but just look at that ''effect me" bit....it sounds good to say....but it's hard to stay there.

I say: "I can own any weapon I want, carry it where every I want and use it as I see fit"

You say: "Ok, fine....does not effect me"

But....well....then it does ''effect" you. You might see me some day on the street, in a store or at a school.....and *suddenly* it does ''effect" you, right?

Just like I might say ''I will do X in my own home"

You start to say ''ok", but then quickly snap to.."oh wait I don't want that done anywhere anytime by anyone".

Lord Raziere
2019-08-24, 08:51 PM
D&D, however, presents a world where both Good and Evil are perfectly valid choices. And everyone accepts that.


you think world of eternal war and conflict, where people are constantly killing each other over these things because one side constantly creates things like demons, undead weapons, and so on to wipe out the other side to the point where adventurers killing monsters is considered a normal everyday thing, to be a world where people are "accepting" of that?

No. Thats the opposite of acceptance. people killing other people over something is the farthest possible state from accepting that. if both were considered valid choices, no one would be killing each other in the first place, because those choices are why people are killing each other. people don't kill people they don't like but think made a valid choice, they kill people who they have no reason to think is ever valid. the foes that respect one another then kill each other in fair combat is a romantic fiction.

Inchhighguy
2019-08-24, 09:00 PM
you think world of eternal war and conflict, where people are constantly killing each other over these things because one side constantly creates things like demons, undead weapons, and so on to wipe out the other side to the point where adventurers killing monsters is considered a normal everyday thing, to be a world where people are "accepting" of that?


Yes.

It's the two big viewpoints:

Not D&D: Good is the ONLY RIGHT way of LIFE, evil is always bad and wrong. Everything must be good and light always!

D&D: Both Good and Evil are part of the balance. You can not have Good without Evil and can not have Evil without Good. Both are an equal part of life.

Max_Killjoy
2019-08-24, 09:06 PM
Yes.

It's the two big viewpoints:

Not D&D: Good is the ONLY RIGHT way of LIFE, evil is always bad and wrong. Everything must be good and light always!

D&D: Both Good and Evil are part of the balance. You can not have Good without Evil and can not have Evil without Good. Both are an equal part of life.

Not sure that's actually the default D&D implied-setting viewpoint. It might be true in a few specific instances, such as the goofy mage orders in Dragonlance.

Inchhighguy
2019-08-24, 09:23 PM
Not sure that's actually the default D&D implied-setting viewpoint. It might be true in a few specific instances, such as the goofy mage orders in Dragonlance.

Well....you have in default D&D:

Elves vs Drow
Dwarves vs Dugear
Demons vs Angels (Celestials)
Paladins vs Anti Paladains (BlackGuards)
Clerics vs Undead
Rangers vs Humanoids..and "everything"

And the nice, near perfect split of Good and Evil dragons.

A lot of Balance...

Lord Raziere
2019-08-24, 09:32 PM
Yes.

It's the two big viewpoints:

Not D&D: Good is the ONLY RIGHT way of LIFE, evil is always bad and wrong. Everything must be good and light always!

D&D: Both Good and Evil are part of the balance. You can not have Good without Evil and can not have Evil without Good. Both are an equal part of life.

Pretty sure a setting where your entire goal is go out and kill evil things, where every book tells you that evil is negative, and you get nothing but rewards for killing evil things, is anything but a balance. in fact is actively encouraging people to think the first viewpoint, because an adventurer is rewarded and celebrated if they slay something evil, and thus they go kill more.

in fact lets change your statements to work with different words:



Not D&D: Health is the ONLY RIGHT way of LIFE, Unhealth is always bad and wrong. Everything must be Healthy and light always!

D&D: Both Health and Unhealth are part of the balance. You can not have Health without Unhealth and can not have Unhealth without Health. Both are an equal part of life.

See how little sense your idea makes? Good is just healthiness and Evil is just unhealthiness, and it doesn't make sense for healthiness to be "in balance" with unhealthiness. healthiness IS balance, and evil is not healthy. because really Evil is just Ungood. its why good is often depicted as healthy and happy. really Healthiness and Unhealthiness are probably better terms for this in general.

also narrowing it down to two viewpoints is overly simplistic by itself. pretty sure there are both more viewpoints in both DnD and not DnD than that.

Kaptin Keen
2019-08-25, 12:50 AM
So I was inspired by several of the alignment based threads running at the moment, but didn't want to derail them any further.

It seems to me, very generally, that people who I would consider evil under the D&D alignment rules see themselves more as neutral. That those I see as neutral see themselves as good. No one seems to seriously consider themselves evil. This applies to real world personas as well as those posting online.

WITHOUT CALLING OUT ANYONE ON GiTP, is it just me, or is anyone else seeing this?

Should something like this affect world building?

Do those of you with formal training in philosophy have a specific take?

I'm genuinely curious.

I think you're fundamentally wrong.

EVERYONE sees themselves as good! Basically, with the exception of the mentally disturbed, sees themselves as anything but. So whether saintly old priest or murderous dictator, everyone sees themselves as good.

The difference lies elsewhere. Remember A Few Good Men? The whole 'you can't handle the truth!' -thing? That's how evil men think. They'll convince themselves that those guys on the other side of town, or of the border, or those other-party-politicals - they cannot be reasoned with, if we ever show them any trust, they'll betray us, they understand only a show of force.

They'll also convince themselves that 'I am the only one who can get this job done!' Essentially, they think no one else is willing and able to make the hard decisions needed to keep this boat afloat. 'It takes a firm hand to keep all these factions from killing each other - and only I can do it!'

Oh - addendum: Only actions count. You cannot think yourself good, or evil. Only when you actually do something, does it count. And charity doesn't.

Inchhighguy
2019-08-25, 10:21 AM
Pretty sure a setting where your entire goal is go out and kill evil things, where every book tells you that evil is negative, and you get nothing but rewards for killing evil things, is anything but a balance. in fact is actively encouraging people to think the first viewpoint, because an adventurer is rewarded and celebrated if they slay something evil, and thus they go kill more.

Sure 1E was like that, but D&D 2E and on have put much more focus on story and doing set goals.



Not D&D: Health is the ONLY RIGHT way of LIFE, Unhealth is always bad and wrong. Everything must be Healthy and light always!

D&D: Both Health and Unhealth are part of the balance. You can not have Health without Unhealth and can not have Unhealth without Health. Both are an equal part of life.

It does make perfect sense: You can not be healthy, without unhealthyness also existing in the world. You need the dark to the light.

In middle school I did a Scared Stright program, and part of it was going to a hospital to visit all the people there with all types of aliments from smoking. Seeing people on machines to breathe and having to use voice boxes to talk had a HUGE impact: To make all of us kids think really, really hard that we'd never want that to happen to us.

Seeing the pain and suffering of an unhealthy life stlye is the best hands down way to convince people to be healthy. You can just ''tell people'' things or show them ''facts".....they NEED to see the unhealthy people and what their life is like.



EVERYONE sees themselves as good! Basically, with the exception of the mentally disturbed, sees themselves as anything but. So whether saintly old priest or murderous dictator, everyone sees themselves as good.


Well, not exactly: Everyone sees themselvs has ''Right" or "Postivie" or ''picking the best choice". But hold on, it gets a bit complcated....

If you give the choice between good: Right, Postive, Best Choice and Evil: Wrong, Negative, Worst Choice; then of course EVERYONE will say they are Good.

It's like a lot of things. Ask a person if they are decient or honest or charatible or kind or helpful and nearly EVERYONE will say they are. Very few people will say "I'm a dishonest scum bag", for example. This is even more true if the question is asked in public and goes on a perment record. People will Always, ALWAYS say they are the ''postive" one.

Ask a person if they are at least ''average intelligence", and they will say they ARE: very few people will say "Nope, i'm dumb".

A person my lie, cheat and deceve dozens of times a day, but they will STILL say they are Honest. Of course, in thier weird mind all the ''dishonest" stuff they do ''does not count".

So, if you have a neutral third party observing, you will see the Real Person soon enough....no matter what they say. And that Is what Alignment is: a cosmic force that does not care what you think or say, only what you DO.

(For fun you can find tons of examples of ''everybody lies" on such shows like Dateline, 20/20 and other such programs. They will ask people ''what would you do if you found a wallet full of cash?", and nearly everyone will say they are a good person and they would just return it. Want to guess what happens when they find such a wallet on a hidden camera?)

Max_Killjoy
2019-08-25, 11:33 AM
It does make perfect sense: You can not be healthy, without unhealthyness also existing in the world. You need the dark to the light.)


This whole "a thing can not exist without its opposite" is an artifact of naval-gazing philosophy, and nothing more.

Think about it -- you're claiming that unless there's at least one sick person, no one can ever be healthy.

:smallconfused:

Pleh
2019-08-25, 11:49 AM
This whole "a thing can not exist without its opposite" is an artifact of naval-gazing philosophy, and nothing more.

Think about it -- you're claiming that unless there's at least one sick person, no one can ever be healthy.

:smallconfused:

This is a mistranslation between descriptive and prescriptive labeling.

If a certain population had never experienced anything besides perfect health, they wouldn't have much of a concept of health. Physically, outside of their understanding, it is still an attribute they possess. But health is inherently a comparative term and it lacks half its meaning without its opposite to be compared to. It may still accurately describe the hypothetical people (their bodies do not suffer sickness or dysfunction), but they would be perplexed at the description. How else should they be expected to be?

The fact that this culture has no concept of health (beyond taking its benefits for granted as a part of being alive) doesn't mean they can't be healthy. It means they wouldn't understand what that means until you could somehow convey the concept.

Lord Raziere
2019-08-25, 01:50 PM
This is a mistranslation between descriptive and prescriptive labeling.

If a certain population had never experienced anything besides perfect health, they wouldn't have much of a concept of health. Physically, outside of their understanding, it is still an attribute they possess. But health is inherently a comparative term and it lacks half its meaning without its opposite to be compared to. It may still accurately describe the hypothetical people (their bodies do not suffer sickness or dysfunction), but they would be perplexed at the description. How else should they be expected to be?

The fact that this culture has no concept of health (beyond taking its benefits for granted as a part of being alive) doesn't mean they can't be healthy. It means they wouldn't understand what that means until you could somehow convey the concept.

And alignment is a physical thing in DnD, the them being physically healthy despite them being ignorant of healthiness is the logic that applies. ignorance of a concept means nothing.

Themrys
2019-08-25, 03:27 PM
EVERYONE sees themselves as good!

Not really. I'm more neutral-ish. I don't really measure up to my own high standards.

It is probably true, though, that no one sees themselves as evil. Not achieving one's own standards of goodness is one thing, but evilness can hardly be achieved through inaction.

@Inchhighguy: I never participated in such a program and don't smoke. Sometimes, just telling people is enough. People in Europe didn't smoke at all until tobacco was introduced. There needed to be no smoking for there to be non-smoking. Things can perfectly well exist without their opposite - it is just unlikely there would be a word for it.

Inchhighguy
2019-08-25, 05:41 PM
@Inchhighguy: I never participated in such a program and don't smoke. Sometimes, just telling people is enough. People in Europe didn't smoke at all until tobacco was introduced. There needed to be no smoking for there to be non-smoking. Things can perfectly well exist without their opposite - it is just unlikely there would be a word for it.

Right that is ''Way 1": Stuff just exists or it does not exist. Anything can be whatever you want it to be, on a whim, until you decide to change it.

Way 2 is the balance way, the way D&D does it. Things are balanced between each other: light and dark, good and evil and so forth.

Max_Killjoy
2019-08-25, 06:01 PM
This is a mistranslation between descriptive and prescriptive labeling.

If a certain population had never experienced anything besides perfect health, they wouldn't have much of a concept of health. Physically, outside of their understanding, it is still an attribute they possess. But health is inherently a comparative term and it lacks half its meaning without its opposite to be compared to. It may still accurately describe the hypothetical people (their bodies do not suffer sickness or dysfunction), but they would be perplexed at the description. How else should they be expected to be?

The fact that this culture has no concept of health (beyond taking its benefits for granted as a part of being alive) doesn't mean they can't be healthy. It means they wouldn't understand what that means until you could somehow convey the concept.


As far as I'm concerned, the part I bolded is the only part that matters.



Right that is ''Way 1": Stuff just exists or it does not exist. Anything can be whatever you want it to be, on a whim, until you decide to change it.

Way 2 is the balance way, the way D&D does it. Things are balanced between each other: light and dark, good and evil and so forth.

"Way 1" is not a whim, it's reality -- a thing exists, or it does not, a thing is true or it is not, a thing is real or it is not.

"Way 2" is a philosophical contrivance, and an authorial contrivance.

Inchhighguy
2019-08-25, 06:27 PM
"Way 1" is not a whim, it's reality -- a thing exists, or it does not, a thing is true or it is not, a thing is real or it is not.

"Way 2" is a philosophical contrivance, and an authorial contrivance.


Note: The D&D game world is not Reality.

Max_Killjoy
2019-08-25, 06:33 PM
Note: The D&D game world is not Reality.

See signature.

Plus consider that your post described the way the real world works, and any setting that seeks to work that way and not under your Rule of Opposites, as "a whim" and "whatever until you change it whenever" (paraphrasing).

Themrys
2019-08-25, 07:18 PM
Right that is ''Way 1": Stuff just exists or it does not exist. Anything can be whatever you want it to be, on a whim, until you decide to change it.

Way 2 is the balance way, the way D&D does it. Things are balanced between each other: light and dark, good and evil and so forth.

No, D&D is Way 1 - everything can be whatever you want it to be. That's generally the case with games. Any rule can be changed.

The real world is, well, real. Things are not whatever you want them to be. If you have a lot of power you may be able to force others to pretend that things are what you want them to be, but you cannot really change them.
If you are human, you are not a squirrel, and no matter how much you want to be a squirrel, you will not turn into one. You may be able to make others pretend that you are a squirrel, and perhaps even change the meaning of the word over time, but the observable reality will remain the same no matter what you name it.

And if you don't smoke, you don't smoke, even if the idea of smoking never ever entered your mind and you don't even make a conscious decision to not smoke. You still do not smoke.

Willie the Duck
2019-08-25, 07:42 PM
See signature.

Amusingly, at least in my browser this post shows up as the one post you've made where your signature doesn't show up. I think because you edited it, perhaps. :smallbiggrin:


D&D: Both Good and Evil are part of the balance. You can not have Good without Evil and can not have Evil without Good. Both are an equal part of life.

Before we go too far down the authorial contrivance discussion or the whether people see themselves as good discussion, I think we should back up and look at this point. I don't think you've really shown this to be the case. I mean, there are snippets of this strewn about in small doses and in random places within the totality that is D&D -- late 1e and all of 2e this was a big bit of the druid's schtick, there have always been a bit of militant neutrality in various races and societies that show up in certain outer planes (and the Astral), etc. I'm going to take a shot in the dark and say we'd be able to pick any given edition or campaign setting of A/D&D and find something in it (spell, society, religion, planar arrangement, what-have-you) that espouses this mindset. However, on a whole, no, I would not say that this is a central theme of any version of D&D. Good and evil are not supposed to be balanced -- good would very much enjoy it if evil were unconditionally vanquished and the universe as a whole would have no problem with that. Mind you, the state of affairs isn't set up for that to really happen, which makes sense in a game set up to be played (what would your characters do in a world with all the problems solved?), and what might happen if it ever did might be completely un-fleshed-out. However, as far as I can see, there is no grand overarching imperative in the grand thematic structure of D&D that balance is a be all and end all of the setting as a whole (as opposed to a philosophy of individual groups within the game).

Inchhighguy
2019-08-25, 08:01 PM
No, D&D is Way 1 - everything can be whatever you want it to be. That's generally the case with games. Any rule can be changed.



Yes...the game of D&D does exist in the Way one ''Real World".

BUT the fictional game reality ''that does not exist for real" is way two: the universe of balanced algnments.


However, on a whole, no, I would not say that this is a central theme of any version of D&D. Good and evil are not supposed to be balanced -- good would very much enjoy it if evil were unconditionally vanquished and the universe as a whole would have no problem with that. Mind you, the state of affairs isn't set up for that to really happen, which makes sense in a game set up to be played (what would your characters do in a world with all the problems solved?), and what might happen if it ever did might be completely un-fleshed-out. However, as far as I can see, there is no grand overarching imperative in the grand thematic structure of D&D that balance is a be all and end all of the setting as a whole (as opposed to a philosophy of individual groups within the game).

Sure you won't find...er a "grand overarching imperative in the grand thematic structure" in a GAME.

There is just as much good as there is evil in D&D: creatures, gods, relgions, spells, magic items and so forth. so sure some book does not say it, but there is a LOT of balance.

If your character is a good hero, there will always be evil to fight (and if your a bad villian, there will always be good to fight).

And it's true that a lot of the ''dumb good" (and "dumb evil") would LOVE to wipe the other one out and then live forever in paradice. But, of course, all the wise good and evil folks know that is impossible and will never happen: You might swing the balance one way or the other, for a time, but things will always stay in balance.

Max_Killjoy
2019-08-25, 08:09 PM
BUT the fictional game reality ''that does not exist for real" is way two: the universe of balanced algnments.


Several of us are trying to point out that you have yet to actually make any sort of case that this claim is true about any of the D&D settings

Willie the Duck
2019-08-25, 09:14 PM
Sure you won't find...er a "grand overarching imperative in the grand thematic structure" in a GAME.

I will cop to throwing in a few to may excess words there, that was my mistake. It would also be trivially easy to make a GAME where balance was a central focus and game feature (certainly something you could say the game was 'about' if you didn't like my turn of phrase). That sounds like something Jenna Moran or Mark Rein•Hagen (or even Monte Cook, despite how most D&D gamers think of his name associated with the term 'balance' :smalltongue:) might make as a niche kickstarter game. Regardless, you can often point to things that might be considered defining qualities or themes to games, just like you can with stories, and I'm just not seeing that for balance and D&D.


There is just as much good as there is evil in D&D: creatures, gods, relgions, spells, magic items and so forth. so sure some book does not say it, but there is a LOT of balance.

Again, how so? Yes, there are good and bad creatures, gods, religions, spells (maybe, let's leave the other recent alignment thread as its' own thing), etc. But are they balanced? I very much doubt that they are balanced in terms of quantity (certainly if we go by Monster Manual entries, I'd expect more threats than allies. Magic items, on the flip side, will be mostly anti-villain stuff. I'm not saying you're wrong, I just don't think we've seen the case made for it yet. Where is this LOT of balance, and can you give us some examples?

redwizard007
2019-08-25, 09:51 PM
I will cop to throwing in a few to may excess words there, that was my mistake. It would also be trivially easy to make a GAME where balance was a central focus and game feature (certainly something you could say the game was 'about' if you didn't like my turn of phrase). That sounds like something Jenna Moran or Mark Rein•Hagen (or even Monte Cook, despite how most D&D gamers think of his name associated with the term 'balance' :smalltongue:) might make as a niche kickstarter game. Regardless, you can often point to things that might be considered defining qualities or themes to games, just like you can with stories, and I'm just not seeing that for balance and D&D.

[quote]There is just as much good as there is evil in D&D: creatures, gods, relgions, spells, magic items and so forth. so sure some book does not say it, but there is a LOT of balance. [quote]

Again, how so? Yes, there are good and bad creatures, gods, religions, spells (maybe, let's leave the other recent alignment thread as its' own thing), etc. But are they balanced? I very much doubt that they are balanced in terms of quantity (certainly if we go by Monster Manual entries, I'd expect more threats than allies. Magic items, on the flip side, will be mostly anti-villain stuff. I'm not saying you're wrong, I just don't think we've seen the case made for it yet. Where is this LOT of balance, and can you give us some examples?

I know it's not a popular setting but Dragon Lance was based entirely on a cosmic balance. So is the entirety of Planescape. I don't think anyone can realistically claim that balance isn't part of D&D.

Lord Raziere
2019-08-25, 10:04 PM
There is just as much good as there is evil in D&D: creatures, gods, relgions, spells, magic items and so forth. so sure some book does not say it, but there is a LOT of balance.

I know it's not a popular setting but Dragon Lance was based entirely on a cosmic balance. So is the entirety of Planescape. I don't think anyone can realistically claim that balance isn't part of D&D.

and look at how horrible Dragonlance is. its probably the originator of all the stupidest alignment memes, because its logic for "imbalance" wasn't the fact that evil existed at all, but that for some reason Good without evil somehow becomes evil but not Cosmic Evil and thus starts killing people for not being good enough, instead of acknowledging that moral extremism is just another form of Evil and cannot fall under the label of Good. just freaking stupid. its the worst setting in its treatment of alignment. if you make Good meaningless, you've failed.

while Planescape is more about belief than about balance. that status quo is mostly kept because of a plot-level divine being with no explanation behind her enforcing neutrality upon the center city of the cosmology with no reason why she is doing it. so basically author fiat in its purest form. take her out, and the setting gets different real fast.

redwizard007
2019-08-26, 07:17 AM
and look at how horrible Dragonlance is. its probably the originator of all the stupidest alignment memes, because its logic for "imbalance" wasn't the fact that evil existed at all, but that for some reason Good without evil somehow becomes evil but not Cosmic Evil and thus starts killing people for not being good enough, instead of acknowledging that moral extremism is just another form of Evil and cannot fall under the label of Good. just freaking stupid. its the worst setting in its treatment of alignment. if you make Good meaningless, you've failed.

while Planescape is more about belief than about balance. that status quo is mostly kept because of a plot-level divine being with no explanation behind her enforcing neutrality upon the center city of the cosmology with no reason why she is doing it. so basically author fiat in its purest form. take her out, and the setting gets different real fast.

So this is another example of "Raz doesn't like it so we are going to belittle and ignore it?"

Regardless of your personal opinion, Dragonlance was one of the major gateways into D&D in the 90s, as was Planescape. As such, they deserve to be given the same consideration as FR, DS, or any other major setting.

Max_Killjoy
2019-08-26, 08:49 AM
So this is another example of "Raz doesn't like it so we are going to belittle and ignore it?"

Regardless of your personal opinion, Dragonlance was one of the major gateways into D&D in the 90s, as was Planescape. As such, they deserve to be given the same consideration as FR, DS, or any other major setting.

Dragonlance started in 1984, in my early days of gaming and when I was actually a kid... over the years it formed a lot of my bad opinion of D&D... abject suffering for low-level characters who appeared to be leveling far more slowly than the challenges they faced, stupid "balance of good and evil" nonsense, neglectful hubris-addled deities and bizarro cosmology, etc...

Planescape was just another product of the 90s game designer fascination with "belief is reality" postmodernist clap-trap that we also saw in multiple WoD games, etc.

Willie the Duck
2019-08-26, 09:33 AM
I know it's not a popular setting but Dragon Lance was based entirely on a cosmic balance. So is the entirety of Planescape. I don't think anyone can realistically claim that balance isn't part of D&D.

Fortunately no one has. Regardless, we've already established that specific game settings, or factions within the settings (or the game as a whole) have balance as a feature or focus. That's not really in dispute and in many cases those of us asking Inchhighguy to make his case have been the one's presenting them. I think I brought up late 1e/2e druid's, and they are certainly a good example of a society in the D&D game (in the core books even) that hew to a balance-seeking philosophy.

However, look at this dichotomy set up:



It's the two big viewpoints:
Not D&D: Good is the ONLY RIGHT way of LIFE, evil is always bad and wrong. Everything must be good and light always!
D&D: Both Good and Evil are part of the balance. You can not have Good without Evil and can not have Evil without Good. Both are an equal part of life.

If you are going to say that all things not D&D are one way, and D&D is this other way, but this thing is true in D&D maybe only for specific game settings or specific groups within D&D, it really seems like we should stop and go back and see if we agree that this characterization of D&D is accurate before we move on to the downstream implications.

Inchhighguy
2019-08-26, 11:09 AM
Several of us are trying to point out that you have yet to actually make any sort of case that this claim is true about any of the D&D settings

This might be because I have not mentioned any D&D settings....



Regardless, you can often point to things that might be considered defining qualities or themes to games, just like you can with stories, and I'm just not seeing that for balance and D&D.

Well, I can only point to things like good and evil dragons; and Celestials and Feinds and so on.



Again, how so? Yes, there are good and bad creatures, gods, religions, spells (maybe, let's leave the other recent alignment thread as its' own thing), etc. But are they balanced? I very much doubt that they are balanced in terms of quantity (certainly if we go by Monster Manual entries, I'd expect more threats than allies. Magic items, on the flip side, will be mostly anti-villain stuff. I'm not saying you're wrong, I just don't think we've seen the case made for it yet. Where is this LOT of balance, and can you give us some examples?

Well, note cosmic alignment balance is not game rule balance.

All the basic 'core' good and evil is quite balanced. Clerics get a mix of gods of all alignments. Paladains and blackguards are together. There are good and evil magic items. There is a good and evil bonus type(in 3E ish). There are good ''monsters" and evil "monsters". Each have good and evil classes. Each have good and evil feats, or special abilities. And good and evil spells. And this idea does continue throughout the books.

Remember also we are talking about cosmic alignment balance.....not number obsesed game rule balance. So don't complain that ''creature X has a +5 to hit", but "creature Y only has a +4 to hit" and then say there is no balance. Balance does not mean the same in every way.



If you are going to say that all things not D&D are one way, and D&D is this other way, but this thing is true in D&D maybe only for specific game settings or specific groups within D&D, it really seems like we should stop and go back and see if we agree that this characterization of D&D is accurate before we move on to the downstream implications.

Well, I have never mentioned any settings.

Guess maybe I could define ''balance" as I'm sure people have like 1001 definations for it.


Cosmic alignmant Balance(with just two alignments): You have a neutral universe that is not on either side in anyway. Each side has plenty of creatures, spells, feats, classes, magic items, etc that are all roughly equal in power compared to such things of power on the other side(going by HD, class levels, spell level etc). Neither side has a huge over powering advantage. As the two sides fight, it is possible for a side to ''win", at least for a while: though the balance will always be restored. It is impossible for one side to obliterate the other(though the unwise folks on each side will continue to try).

Max_Killjoy
2019-08-26, 11:16 AM
This might be because I have not mentioned any D&D settings....


So which setting are you talking about, when you say:



D&D, however, presents a world where both Good and Evil are perfectly valid choices. And everyone accepts that.


????

Inchhighguy
2019-08-26, 11:18 AM
So which setting are you talking about?

Again, I'm not talking about a single D&D setting.

JNAProductions
2019-08-26, 11:19 AM
Again, I'm not talking about a single D&D setting.

So you're talking about the D&D mechanics?

Which edition?

Max_Killjoy
2019-08-26, 11:24 AM
Again, I'm not talking about a single D&D setting.


So you're talking about a world/setting, but not talking about a world/setting.

Yeah.

OK.

Inchhighguy
2019-08-26, 11:29 AM
So you're talking about a world/setting, but not talking about a world/setting.

Yeah.

OK.

I'm not sure why you are so hung up on a world/setting. You do know you don't have to use a published world/setting to play D&D right?

Max_Killjoy
2019-08-26, 11:36 AM
I'm not sure why you are so hung up on a world/setting. You do know you don't have to use a published world/setting to play D&D right?


So now it's supposedly "my issue"?

You brought up D&D settings, and now say you're not talking about specific settings.




D&D, however, presents a world where both Good and Evil are perfectly valid choices. And everyone accepts that.



This might be because I have not mentioned any D&D settings....


Yeah, perhaps because doing so would expose your original assertion to scrutiny it cannot withstand.

Got it.

JNAProductions
2019-08-26, 11:38 AM
I'm not sure why you are so hung up on a world/setting. You do know you don't have to use a published world/setting to play D&D right?

If you want to use D&D as an example of Good/Evil balance, it'd help to have facts on your side.

Currently, you've said a lot, but it's very light on anything specific or detailed. So what ARE you talking about? The settings? The mechanics? Your own setting?

Inchhighguy
2019-08-26, 11:44 AM
So now it's supposedly "my issue"?

You brought up D&D settings, and now say you're not talking about specific settings.


I never mentioned any setting by name. Again, I'm not sure how or why you got stuck on settings.


If you want to use D&D as an example of Good/Evil balance, it'd help to have facts on your side.

Currently, you've said a lot, but it's very light on anything specific or detailed. So what ARE you talking about? The settings? The mechanics? Your own setting?

There is lots of detail in the posts above.

And yet again, I'm talking about the game D&D. I'm not sure why this is so hard to under stand?

JNAProductions
2019-08-26, 11:47 AM
I never mentioned any setting by name. Again, I'm not sure how or why you got stuck on settings.

There is lots of detail in the posts above.

And yet again, I'm talking about the game D&D. I'm not sure why this is so hard to under stand?

Which part of D&D? The mechanics? And which edition?

Because, at least in 5E, alignment isn't really a mechanical thing. There's some stuff that mechanically uses it (there's a list somewhere on the forums) but they're pretty uncommon.
In 4E, I believe it's pretty similar. Not totally sure, though-if someone with more experience in 4E wants to confirm or correct me, please do so.
In 3.P, alignment plays a much larger mechanical role... But is still pretty ill-defined.
And earlier than that, I lack experience or knowledge to speak on it.

Inchhighguy
2019-08-26, 11:54 AM
Which part of D&D? The mechanics? And which edition?



The non-mechanical part of D&D. This applys to all editions.

JNAProductions
2019-08-26, 11:56 AM
The non-mechanical part of D&D. This applys to all editions.

So, the fluff? Because the fluff is tied up in the settings. Forgotten Realms is different from Dragonlance, is different from Dark Sun, is different from Planescape, is different from Eberron...

There's a general mish-mash of fluff in the rulebooks OUTSIDE of settings, at least in 3.X, but it's pretty vague. And you've yet to reference any actual D&D books to support your stance.

Max_Killjoy
2019-08-26, 11:58 AM
I never mentioned any setting by name. Again, I'm not sure how or why you got stuck on settings.


Stop trying to deflect this to some problem you'd rather pretend I have here, instead of two conflicting statements that were posted under your username:




D&D, however, presents a world where both Good and Evil are perfectly valid choices. And everyone accepts that.



This might be because I have not mentioned any D&D settings....


So which is it? Are you talking about D&D settings, or not?

Which "world" are you saying that "D&D presents" "where both Good and Evil are perfectly valid choices. And everyone accepts that"?

Or is there something else you're trying to get at that you refuse to clarify for some reason?


E: you know what, forgot it, I'm not in a mood where I can engage with that sort of evasiveness and not get myself in trouble.

Inchhighguy
2019-08-26, 12:03 PM
Which "world" are you saying that "D&D presents" "where both Good and Evil are perfectly valid choices. And everyone accepts that"?

Well, again you are the one making the leap here.

I type the word ''world".

You read D&D SETTING.


So, the fluff? Because the fluff is tied up in the settings. Forgotten Realms is different from Dragonlance, is different from Dark Sun, is different from Planescape, is different from Eberron...

There's a general mish-mash of fluff in the rulebooks OUTSIDE of settings, at least in 3.X, but it's pretty vague. And you've yet to reference any actual D&D books to support your stance.

I'm not sure fluff is the right word.

I'm not really sure why you don't see non mechanical alignment rules in D&D? They are there.

I reference the Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide and Monster Manual.

JNAProductions
2019-08-26, 12:06 PM
I'm not sure fluff is the right word.

I'm not really sure why you don't see non mechanical alignment rules in D&D? They are there.

I reference the Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide and Monster Manual.

Have you played 5E? Because you claim...


The non-mechanical part of D&D. This applys to all editions.

Yet 5E has basically no rules when it comes to alignment. There's a brief summary of what the various alignments mean, and it's recommended as a tool to flesh out your characters, but it certainly doesn't have any "Cosmic Balance" thing in it.

Willie the Duck
2019-08-26, 12:08 PM
Well, I can only point to things like good and evil dragons; and Celestials and Feinds and so on.
...
All the basic 'core' good and evil is quite balanced. Clerics get a mix of gods of all alignments. Paladains and blackguards are together. There are good and evil magic items. There is a good and evil bonus type(in 3E ish). There are good ''monsters" and evil "monsters". Each have good and evil classes. Each have good and evil feats, or special abilities. And good and evil spells. And this idea does continue throughout the books.

Thank you. This is helpful. You are correct that D&D, as a generalized setting implied in the core books (even, and especially, in those editions where none of the pre-made settings with actual names are spelled out as a default setting), still has general implications towards the world being divided roughly along team good and team evil (with a bunch of people in the middle). At least opposed to something like the various White Wolf games or Legend of Five Rings, where there are a bunch of factions and any team you picked is flawed but also not discretely coded as 'the bad guys,' or even more purely something like the Battle Beasts toys of the 80s where there were three factions: wood, fire, water, which represented... pretty much that and nothing more. So yes, one can see a good-evil split in the game, even without a specific setting.

Likewise, each side gets things. The distribution is uneven, mechanically and distributionally, but yes, both sides generally get a little bit of everything (although is some cases, the symmetry itself is often considered a bad idea, see: good-specific undeads and poisons)


Cosmic alignmant Balance(with just two alignments): You have a neutral universe that is not on either side in anyway. Each side has plenty of creatures, spells, feats, classes, magic items, etc that are all roughly equal in power compared to such things of power on the other side(going by HD, class levels, spell level etc). Neither side has a huge over powering advantage. As the two sides fight, it is possible for a side to ''win", at least for a while: though the balance will always be restored. It is impossible for one side to obliterate the other(though the unwise folks on each side will continue to try).

This is where I think it breaks down. There is no (I should say 'I see no, and know of no...') specified rulebook statements implying that the whole thing is at rough parity, nor that it is always going to be that way. Certainly I don't know of anything which will restore a balance, or any reason why it would be unwise of those on team good to try to vanquish the forces of evil. Certainly it's not a bad concept to explore in a game, but I don't see it in the base games' assumptions.

One thing that was more clear in a lot of the early game (the TSR era, especially pre-2e and RC-BECMI) was the frontier mentality that the game came from. Society was expanding -- be it a resurgence after a cataclysm or genuinely the first time civilization was expanding into the wilds. In that atmosphere, it's entirely possible that good (or evil) might eventually defeat the other, but more importantly the concept that the world is in some kind of overall balance and stasis simply might not be the case.

Inchhighguy
2019-08-26, 12:10 PM
Yet 5E has basically no rules when it comes to alignment. There's a brief summary of what the various alignments mean, and it's recommended as a tool to flesh out your characters, but it certainly doesn't have any "Cosmic Balance" thing in it.

Yup, at least a page ago i said there is no Cosmic Balance rule in D&D.....

Yes D&D 5E is the most Alignment Lite of all D&D edtions

Yes 5E is still balanced between good and evil.

Max_Killjoy
2019-08-26, 12:18 PM
Well, again you are the one making the leap here.

I type the word ''world".

You read D&D SETTING.


In this context, the two words are interchangeable. Setting = world, world = setting.

Also, I have learned a thing that makes me relieved to simply do this: /plonk.

Lord Raziere
2019-08-26, 12:21 PM
So this is another example of "Raz doesn't like it so we are going to belittle and ignore it?"

Regardless of your personal opinion, Dragonlance was one of the major gateways into D&D in the 90s, as was Planescape. As such, they deserve to be given the same consideration as FR, DS, or any other major setting.

No no no.

The very concept of "the balance between good and evil" is objectively bad for any measure of logic regarding morality. No, this is not an opinion. I will explain why now.:



{Scrubbed}

it doesn't work for Good Vs. Evil because the entire point of Good Vs. Evil is for Good to win. having a balance goes against its own cartoonish morality. because the point of such moralities is to be simple, to have a side representing the best in people so that someone can learn from their example, to be the paragon that one learns from, while the Evil side is supposed to be the opposite, the example of what NOT to do, and thus embody the WORST of people. so when you need to have a "balance" your somehow saying the best of people need to be "balanced" by the worst of people which does work for either real world or cartoon morality. it doesn't work on any level.

it doesn't even work for grey vs. grey morality, because this idea of balance between good and evil posits that good and evil exist at all and that one can tell the difference, while grey vs. grey is all about not knowing. the grey vs. grey would be just as confused as the white/black morality person, as while the balance thing makes sense, the existence of good and evil doesn't, because if things need to be balanced, isn't the balance itself the good? and imbalance itself the evil? why is Evil apart of the balance if its positive, why can't it be better defined?

it doesn't work for grey vs. black morality, because again, even if good is not perfect, why would it need to be balanced with a force that literally has no benefit to anything? it doesn't even work with black vs. black morality because the good exists at all so you can't just go off and do whatever you want because your evil, because you need to compulsorily do these good things to keep the universe from blowing up, its bad for the villains as well as the heroes.

{scrubbed} it doesn't matter whats published if it doesn't logically make sense.

Inchhighguy
2019-08-26, 12:24 PM
Thank you. This is helpful. You are correct that D&D, as a generalized setting implied in the core books (even, and especially, in those editions where none of the pre-made settings with actual names are spelled out as a default setting), still has general implications towards the world being divided roughly along team good and team evil (with a bunch of people in the middle). So yes, one can see a good-evil split in the game, even without a specific setting.

Well at least someone sees it.





This is where I think it breaks down. There is no (I should say 'I see no, and know of no...') specified rulebook statements implying that the whole thing is at rough parity, nor that it is always going to be that way. Certainly I don't know of anything which will restore a balance, or any reason why it would be unwise of those on team good to try to vanquish the forces of evil. Certainly it's not a bad concept to explore in a game, but I don't see it in the base games' assumptions.


D&D does present a static, unchanging world....in many ways.
As a combat heavy game, when you play D&D there will always be foes, or you would not have a game. The game will always have another evil lich or dragon, no matter what.

Max_Killjoy
2019-08-26, 12:43 PM
No no no.

The very concept of "the balance between good and evil" is objectively bad for any measure of logic regarding morality. No, this is not an opinion. I will explain why now.:

{Scrubbed post, scrubbed quote}

it doesn't work for Good Vs. Evil because the entire point of Good Vs. Evil is for Good to win. having a balance goes against its own cartoonish morality. because the point of such moralities is to be simple, to have a side representing the best in people so that someone can learn from their example, to be the paragon that one learns from, while the Evil side is supposed to be the opposite, the example of what NOT to do, and thus embody the WORST of people. so when you need to have a "balance" your somehow saying the best of people need to be "balanced" by the worst of people which does work for either real world or cartoon morality. it doesn't work on any level.

it doesn't even work for grey vs. grey morality, because this idea of balance between good and evil posits that good and evil exist at all and that one can tell the difference, while grey vs. grey is all about not knowing. the grey vs. grey would be just as confused as the white/black morality person, as while the balance thing makes sense, the existence of good and evil doesn't, because if things need to be balanced, isn't the balance itself the good? and imbalance itself the evil? why is Evil apart of the balance if its positive, why can't it be better defined?

it doesn't work for grey vs. black morality, because again, even if good is not perfect, why would it need to be balanced with a force that literally has no benefit to anything? it doesn't even work with black vs. black morality because the good exists at all so you can't just go off and do whatever you want because your evil, because you need to compulsorily do these good things to keep the universe from blowing up, its bad for the villains as well as the heroes.

{Scrubbed post, scrubbed quote}

On a similar issue of misunderstanding and mashing up philosophies in fiction -- George Lucas and "the force".

http://popculturephilosopher.com/jedi-philosophy/

E: I had this bookmarked, and after posting the link re-read the essay, and sadly I think it's one to read for thought, but not for discussion here beyond the vaguest level. It's not NSFW or offensive or anything, just might get someone unintentionally into grey rules areas here.

Willie the Duck
2019-08-26, 01:12 PM
Well at least someone sees it.

Yes, it was because of my previous interest in the history of the 1e/B/X-era of the game's development, and how the 'implied setting' of the game evolved before/concurrently with specific game settings. That's what made the difference, otherwise I would be in the same boat as the other people trying to suss out distinctions that you actively chose, when presented with people who did not catch your point, not to clarify.


D&D does present a static, unchanging world....in many ways.
As a combat heavy game, when you play D&D there will always be foes, or you would not have a game. The game will always have another evil lich or dragon, no matter what.

That sounds like one way, but let's take a look regardless. Certainly within the context of your players playing in the game world, you will not run out of foes to defeat. There's probably even a bit of an innate readjustment situation, where if you kill the biggest Lich-and-Dragon in a given area, another will rise to consolidate whatever baddies there are still there, and kind of rise to fill the Challenge Rating spot, or the like. However, there's no real indication that, provided continued success by you and the other Forces of Lich-and-Dragon-Defeatingness, that you could not succeed at wiping them out (or out of a given area, at least). Nor that, if they happen to start getting the upper hand, that the forces of evil might not be able to triumph completely. In fact, it'd have rather frightening implications if that were the case -- all those paladins you sent into the jaws of dragons, having done so for no reason, since the forces of evil couldn't have actually succeeded. So far as I can see, what we know is that we are looking at a short period in time, short enough that grand changes to the world are unlikely (at least those game settings where world-altering changes happening twice or more per generation are generally given grief for it), but with no clear trajectory (towards good winning or evil winning), but no clear evidence that one of them eventually couldn't.

Mike_G
2019-08-26, 01:56 PM
Once, there was a paradise of fantasy stories. Heroes, monsters, glittering treasures, daring escapes, epic quests, and all was as it should be. And RPGs took their cues from those stories.

And it was good.

The the serpent slithered up to the first gamers and said "Take a bite of this Alignment system"

Lord Raziere
2019-08-26, 02:03 PM
Once, there was a paradise of fantasy stories. Heroes, monsters, glittering treasures, daring escapes, epic quests, and all was as it should be. And RPGs took their cues from those stories.

And it was good.

The the serpent slithered up to the first gamers and said "Take a bite of this Alignment system"

Pretty much.

If you want that kind of story, its actually best to throw away alignment entirely and not think about it at all.

its a system trying to emulate epic fantasy morality being forced upon an adventure fantasy genre game, which are not the same thing.

and even as far as epic fantasy goes, alignment system doesn't really do it well. in those stories even if cosmic good and evil exist, a lot of protagonists do have moral ambiguity to them and wonder if what they do is good or not because while the good and evil exists, they don't really provide any answers on how to act. the cosmic evil is just the big looming threat in the distance, cosmic good is the unseen providence that does little if anything in the open and you have the vast amount of people wondering if the complex interplay of nations, leadership and war and the suffering caused by the rise and fall of empires can ever be made better in between those two forces.

RedMage125
2019-08-26, 02:53 PM
{Scrubbed post, scrubbed quote}.
{Scrubbed}


Pretty much.

If you want that kind of story, its actually best to throw away alignment entirely and not think about it at all.

its a system trying to emulate epic fantasy morality being forced upon an adventure fantasy genre game, which are not the same thing.

and even as far as epic fantasy goes, alignment system doesn't really do it well. in those stories even if cosmic good and evil exist, a lot of protagonists do have moral ambiguity to them and wonder if what they do is good or not because while the good and evil exists, they don't really provide any answers on how to act. the cosmic evil is just the big looming threat in the distance, cosmic good is the unseen providence that does little if anything in the open and you have the vast amount of people wondering if the complex interplay of nations, leadership and war and the suffering caused by the rise and fall of empires can ever be made better in between those two forces.

You're making a huge mistake in your assertion here (although you do acknowledge that moral ambiguity is still possible within individuals, even in a setting with objective, cosmic alignment forces, which is nice). And that is that "Cosmic Evil" is, itself, some kind of threat. It is not. "Cosmic Evil" does no more than "Cosmic Good", they are simply the objective forces which shape the cosmos*. Cosmic Evil is the energy that fiends are made of. It is omnipresent in the Lower Planes. And a minute amount of it is present in mortals of Evil alignment (more is present in Blackguards, or Clerics of Evil Deities**). That is all. Demon Lords, Archdevils and Liches don't commune with "Cosmic Evil". It does not have an agenda, it simply is. Good, Law, and Chaos all are likewise, simply objective forces which shape the cosmos (the Great Wheel in particular). While sentient individuals may have moral ambiguity, because they think of themselves as "good" or even "neutral", the objective, dispassionate forces of Good/Evil/Law/Chaos are completely unswayed by any semantics or excuses. A mortal who travels the land, slaying as many orphans as he can in order to prevent a prophecy (due in 7 years) than an orphan will usher Demogorgon into the world may think of himself as an agent of "Good". He may genuinely believe that he is saving the world. but the continuous, repeated, and, above all, unrepentant murder of innocents means his alignment is objectively Evil. Even the gods are beholden to these faceless forces. And while some may claim to fight in the name of these forces, or to destroy the "opposite" force, the cosmic forces themselves do not care. They cannot be attacked or destroyed. A Host of angels may declare that they are "fighting for Good", and that the demons they kill are "agents of Evil itself", but the truth is that those demons were porbably agents of Orcus, or Graz'zt, or some other Demon Prince. An actual being who has an actual agenda.

*Of most bog-standard D&D worlds, according to the Core Rulebooks of several editions. Individual settings may vary.
**Using 3.5e as a base for thes examples, since it was the last edition to have hard-coded mechanics on this matter.

Alignment mechanics can bring very positive things to a game of D&D. Even in a system where they are hard-coded as 3.5e. And that is to give mechanical voice to some classic tropes of fantasy adventure in a fair, objective manner, not dependent on DM fiat***, assuming one is playing fairly close to the RAW, that is. In fact, that's where most people's problems with alignment mechanics seem to stem from, because some DM or other Player said "I say it works this way", and played that.

***Tropes like a lingering taint of Evil from a recently abandoned demon cultist sanctum that the Paladin can detect. Or a sword that is less effective in the hands of an evildoer, but is devastating against all with "darkness" in their hearts, from rapacious orcs to fiendish overlords.

Lord Raziere
2019-08-26, 03:13 PM
a force that produces beings that do nothing of benefit to anyone is nothing but a threat. nothing just ever "is". if the threat cannot be wiped out, that is a grim, dark world where the problem cannot be solved.

there is no living in peace or harmony with this force. it wants nothing but to exploit, or to kill, to torment, to benefit itself with no thought to the good and actively opposes the good which tries to stop it that promotes peace and the good. if there is no living in peace with this, no wiping out this force, then the only sane state is eternal war. if the only sane state is eternal war, the only sane society is a military. if the only sane society is a military, there is no freedom, for all a soldier in the war that never ends, protecting against a foe that cannot be defeated. you might as well join sisyphus in pushing his rock.

in the end, you'd end up with something similar to Warhammer 40k or A Practical Guide to Evil, neither of which are good states to be in at all. at best you manage to hold the walls forever, for an offense is useless to mount. at worst, you lose by inches until evil makes a temporarily win that the universe arbitrarily decides to destroy so that it can reset everything back to status quo and your stuck holding the wall. because if the universe is truly balanced and will right itself back to good and evil being equal- there is no actual point to fighting for good.

why? because lets say you win against evil, imbalance, you don't win, something happens to reset evil back to some semblance of equity. now lets say evil wins- something again happens to reset it back so that good is in equity again. there is no point to fight for either side, since these forces will default back to the balanced state eventually or the universe will destroy itself in imbalance. the suffering to try and be better or more powerful is pointless, because ultimately no progress can be made for either side. nor is there any danger of good being wiped out. therefore the sides don't matter.

at best, you'd have both sides agreeing to just leave each other alone and good forever weeps that it cannot help the people suffering under evil nations, and evil nations are forever dissatisfied that it can ever conquer more and do whatever it wants. everyone loses.

Pleh
2019-08-26, 03:56 PM
Once, there was a paradise of fantasy stories. Heroes, monsters, glittering treasures, daring escapes, epic quests, and all was as it should be. And RPGs took their cues from those stories.

And it was good.

The the serpent slithered up to the first gamers and said "Take a bite of this Alignment system"

Meh. It's the insistence that Alignment be MECHANICAL that skews the game experience. I started in 3.5 and alignment has never ruined one of my games. Period.

As always, Alignment works best when handled Descriptively and becomes far more of a hindrance than a help whenever you start trying to use it Prescriptively.

And let's not forget that a major part of the origin of the Alignment system was the Munchkin players who inspired the concept of Chaotic Aligned players. So, we find that it's the nature of the game itself that produces an effect others have tried to describe through Alignment, then still others that seek to use the descriptive model of alignment to prescribe munchkin behavior for their characters. And somehow people think if we forget that alignment exists, the problems will go away.

The problem was always inherent in the system (or, more particularly, the players). Alignment now is the scapegoat so players don't have to deal with the fact that the real problem is that they never sat down to do the hard work of resolving In Game Problems with Out of Game Conversations.

So let's not blame the Hammer for the Carpenter's User Error, shall we? It's not the hammer's fault that not every problem is a nail.

Lord Raziere
2019-08-26, 04:01 PM
Meh. It's the insistence that Alignment be MECHANICAL that skews the game experience. I started in 3.5 and alignment has never ruined one of my games. Period.

As always, Alignment works best when handled Descriptively and becomes far more of a hindrance than a help whenever you start trying to use it Prescriptively.

And let's not forget that a major part of the origin of the Alignment system was the Munchkin players who inspired the concept of Chaotic Aligned players. So, we find that it's the nature of the game itself that produces an effect others have tried to describe through Alignment, then still others that seek to use the descriptive model of alignment to prescribe munchkin behavior for their characters. And somehow people think if we forget that alignment exists, the problems will go away.

The problem was always inherent in the system (or, more particularly, the players). Alignment now is the scapegoat so players don't have to deal with the fact that the real problem is that they never sat down to do the hard work of resolving In Game Problems with Out of Game Conversations.

So let's not blame the Hammer for the Carpenter's User Error, shall we? It's not the hammer's fault that not every problem is a nail.

Except the hammer didn't even SOLVE anything.

Alignment was worse than useless in that regard, because people use the alignment system to justify their behavior, so its not even a hammer, its something thats actively pulling out nails to give the people that are a problem a way to keep being a problem. and worse its causing more problems by making paladins into problem players as well, really, its not even hammering in nails

RedMage125
2019-08-26, 04:11 PM
a force that produces beings that do nothing of benefit to anyone is nothing but a threat. nothing just ever "is". if the threat cannot be wiped out, that is a grim, dark world where the problem cannot be solved.

there is no living in peace or harmony with this force. it wants nothing but to exploit, or to kill, to torment, to benefit itself with no thought to the good and actively opposes the good which tries to stop it that promotes peace and the good.

I've bolded some parts that highlight the mistake I was talking about.

You are attributing agency to the "Cosmic Evil", which straight-up does not exist. The "Cosmic Evil" does not have an intelligence, it does not have desires, it does not reap benefits, and it takes no "active" actions to promote or oppose anything.

All of those are agents of Evil. Fiends want to exploit, kill, or torment. Fiends actively oppose the good which tries to stop them. Fiends are the ones who tempt mortal souls into contracts which leads them to become new fiends in the afterlife. "Cosmic Evil" doesn't have a consciousness, ergo it cannot do any of these things which you attribute to it. Not in the RAW of any edition of D&D, anyway. There is no "master consciousness of Evil" which oversees all devils, demons, and daemons (yugoloths), undead, evil mortals and whatnot. Fiends are created from Evil energies, yes, but slaadi, likewise, are created from Chaotic ones, and celestials from Good ones. These are the energies of the "cosmic forces" which shape the cosmos, but that's literally the same emergy that also suffuses the environment of the Outer Planes in the Great Wheel. That's why (in 3.5e) a Detect Evil spell detects the same energies in a level 2 human cutpurse as a Balor (obviously, a lot more in a balor). It's why either of those beings would find Celestia an oppressive environment. It's why they both take extra damage from a Holy Weapon.

Just because something exists as a "force which shapes the cosmos", doesn't mean it has an intelligence. And you're attributing the actions of actual beings to that cosmic force. Which is incorrect.

Lord Raziere
2019-08-26, 04:16 PM
I've bolded some parts that highlight the mistake I was talking about.

You are attributing agency to the "Cosmic Evil", which straight-up does not exist. The "Cosmic Evil" does not have an intelligence, it does not have desires, it does not reap benefits, and it takes no "active" actions to promote or oppose anything.

All of those are agents of Evil. Fiends want to exploit, kill, or torment. Fiends actively oppose the good which tries to stop them. Fiends are the ones who tempt mortal souls into contracts which leads them to become new fiends in the afterlife. "Cosmic Evil" doesn't have a consciousness, ergo it cannot do any of these things which you attribute to it. Not in the RAW of any edition of D&D, anyway. There is no "master consciousness of Evil" which oversees all devils, demons, and daemons (yugoloths), undead, evil mortals and whatnot. Fiends are created from Evil energies, yes, but slaadi, likewise, are created from Chaotic ones, and celestials from Good ones. These are the energies of the "cosmic forces" which shape the cosmos, but that's literally the same emergy that also suffuses the environment of the Outer Planes in the Great Wheel. That's why (in 3.5e) a Detect Evil spell detects the same energies in a level 2 human cutpurse as a Balor (obviously, a lot more in a balor). It's why either of those beings would find Celestia an oppressive environment. It's why they both take extra damage from a Holy Weapon.

Just because something exists as a "force which shapes the cosmos", doesn't mean it has an intelligence. And you're attributing the actions of actual beings to that cosmic force. Which is incorrect.

It does not matter whether this force is intelligent or not.

It is defined as Evil. Evil is the thing that is defined as unacceptable and wrong. When something is unacceptable, you get rid of it.

If you cannot get rid of it but it is unacceptable, you have grimdarkness, and it means that Good is just as unkillable and unintelligent.

therefore Evil or its beings cannot win.

nor can Good or its beings win.

Because neither force can stop existing.

Therefore there is no point to the conflict. As long the energies exist, they will gather into these being that will cause said conflict. the sources cannot be destroyed, therefore neither can the conflict. the intelligence or lack thereof has no bearing on the pointlessness of the situation.

Max_Killjoy
2019-08-26, 04:34 PM
Once, there was a paradise of fantasy stories. Heroes, monsters, glittering treasures, daring escapes, epic quests, and all was as it should be. And RPGs took their cues from those stories.

And it was good.

The the serpent slithered up to the first gamers and said "Take a bite of this Alignment system"


That about sums it up.



Meh. It's the insistence that Alignment be MECHANICAL that skews the game experience. I started in 3.5 and alignment has never ruined one of my games. Period.

As always, Alignment works best when handled Descriptively and becomes far more of a hindrance than a help whenever you start trying to use it Prescriptively.

And let's not forget that a major part of the origin of the Alignment system was the Munchkin players who inspired the concept of Chaotic Aligned players. So, we find that it's the nature of the game itself that produces an effect others have tried to describe through Alignment, then still others that seek to use the descriptive model of alignment to prescribe munchkin behavior for their characters. And somehow people think if we forget that alignment exists, the problems will go away.

The problem was always inherent in the system (or, more particularly, the players). Alignment now is the scapegoat so players don't have to deal with the fact that the real problem is that they never sat down to do the hard work of resolving In Game Problems with Out of Game Conversations.

So let's not blame the Hammer for the Carpenter's User Error, shall we? It's not the hammer's fault that not every problem is a nail.

So it was an attempt to solve a player-level problem with character-level rules?

Pleh
2019-08-26, 05:21 PM
Except the hammer didn't even SOLVE anything.

Alignment was worse than useless in that regard, because people use the alignment system to justify their behavior, so its not even a hammer, its something thats actively pulling out nails to give the people that are a problem a way to keep being a problem. and worse its causing more problems by making paladins into problem players as well, really, its not even hammering in nails

Your negative experiences do not negate my positive ones. The contrast between our experiences only highlights my point that the best alignment use requires understanding what it is useful for, which is mostly introducing players to the core common playstyles.


So it was an attempt to solve a player-level problem with character-level rules?

I'm sure someone will post the detailed history again at some point. I'm recalling a tale of Gygax being surprised when players chose to hoard loot for themselves and steal from fellow players, leading to the creation of the Chaotic Character label.

Kaptin Keen
2019-08-26, 05:38 PM
Well, not exactly: Everyone sees themselvs has ''Right" or "Postivie" or ''picking the best choice". But hold on, it gets a bit complcated....

If you give the choice between good: Right, Postive, Best Choice and Evil: Wrong, Negative, Worst Choice; then of course EVERYONE will say they are Good.

It's like a lot of things. Ask a person if they are decient or honest or charatible or kind or helpful and nearly EVERYONE will say they are. Very few people will say "I'm a dishonest scum bag", for example. This is even more true if the question is asked in public and goes on a perment record. People will Always, ALWAYS say they are the ''postive" one.

Ask a person if they are at least ''average intelligence", and they will say they ARE: very few people will say "Nope, i'm dumb".

A person my lie, cheat and deceve dozens of times a day, but they will STILL say they are Honest. Of course, in thier weird mind all the ''dishonest" stuff they do ''does not count".

So, if you have a neutral third party observing, you will see the Real Person soon enough....no matter what they say. And that Is what Alignment is: a cosmic force that does not care what you think or say, only what you DO.

(For fun you can find tons of examples of ''everybody lies" on such shows like Dateline, 20/20 and other such programs. They will ask people ''what would you do if you found a wallet full of cash?", and nearly everyone will say they are a good person and they would just return it. Want to guess what happens when they find such a wallet on a hidden camera?)

It's basic human psychology though: We all make excuses for ourselves, explain away the things we do that we actually know aren't really ok. Goes for everyone.

95% of everyone thinks they're above average IQ, like you mention. If you ask people, no one is unfaithful - but the statistics tell us that most of them are. Everyone knows that most marriages end in divorce (which personally I feel is a good thing, rather than staying in a marriage that doesn't work, just because), but everyone still believes that their own marriage is going to last forever.

Everyone thinks they're good - hardly anyone is. And that's because only actions count. Voting, or giving to charity, or whatever, doesn't more the meter. If you want to raise yourself over the bar for neutral, you need to actually go out and do good. Help a stranger for no good goddamned reason except that .... you're good. Then, maybe, you are.

Much simpler to be evil. Just do something for yourself and don't give a crap who might be hurt by it (or give a crap but do it anyways): Welcome to Team Black Hat!

Lord Raziere
2019-08-26, 05:42 PM
Your negative experiences do not negate my positive ones. The contrast between our experiences only highlights my point that the best alignment use requires understanding what it is useful for, which is mostly introducing players to the core common playstyles.


No, what I've heard are that there are many stories of people using the labels of alignment to justify why it should be acceptable, to the point of it being cliche with certain terms like "Lawful Stupid"/Chaotic Stupid/Neutral Stupid/Stupid Evil/Stupid Good used to describe people trying to justify stupid behaviors. While the terms are used by others to deride this behavior, its reported that its always the problem players themselves using alignment as justification for their behavior. it has nothing to do my personal experiences. the data disagrees with you on it being purely a personal experience or alignment being a scapegoat by those who don't like it.

Pleh
2019-08-26, 07:58 PM
No, what I've heard are that there are many stories of people using the labels of alignment to justify why it should be acceptable, to the point of it being cliche with certain terms like "Lawful Stupid"/Chaotic Stupid/Neutral Stupid/Stupid Evil/Stupid Good used to describe people trying to justify stupid behaviors. While the terms are used by others to deride this behavior, its reported that its always the problem players themselves using alignment as justification for their behavior. it has nothing to do my personal experiences. the data disagrees with you on it being purely a personal experience or alignment being a scapegoat by those who don't like it.

The data you reference is heavily skewed, though. We all know most people who present evidence are the people experiencing problems. The majority of the people with no problems tend to report less (probably the majority of successes just never join internet forums and evidence of their success stays at their table).

And yes, I've already said the problem with alignment is when it is used prescriptively as opposed to descriptively. I'm not arguing against that. But it doesn't mean alignment itself is bad. It means Prescriptive Alignment is the worst possible use for alignment. There are many great stories of alignment played *well*, they just don't get the headlines because they aren't sensational and descriptive alignment is more passive, which also leads to the structure receiving less credit for its positive contributions.

Alignment isn't a bad rule. It just needs to be kept in its place with a firm hand (which is expressing it in no uncertain terms to describe character behavior, not prescribing it).

Lord Raziere
2019-08-26, 08:06 PM
The data you reference is heavily skewed, though. We all know the place most people present evidence are the people experiencing problems. The majority of the people with no problems tend to report less (probably the majority of successes just never join internet forums and evidence of their success stays at their table).

And yes, I've already said the problem with alignment is when it is used prescriptively as opposed to descriptively. I'm not arguing against that. But it doesn't mean alignment itself is bad. It means Prescriptive Alignment is the worst possible use for alignment. There are many great stories of alignment played *well*, they just don't get the headlines because they aren't sensational and descriptive alignment is more passive, which also leads to the structure receiving less credit for its positive contributions.

Alignment isn't a bad rule. It just needs to be kept in its place with a firm hand (which is expressing it in no uncertain terms to describe character behavior, not prescribing it).

If it needs a firm hand, then thats a problem in of itself. a good system does not need a firm hand, it just works without needing careful usage of it. you basically admit to needing more than the tool itself to serve its function.

and the thing is about alignments, you could have all the awesome moments you get with them....without them. easily in fact. they're just bad descriptive codifications of things people already do, they just fail to guide them towards them and instead guide them badly because they do not communicate what they're supposed to emulate adequately, as they require someone to firm hand it. you could get much better results just by being reasonable and its existence is a symptom of trying to solve player problems with rules and mechanics that DnD tries to do and fails.

a good system functions regardless of who uses it, a bad system needs a competent person to function at all.

Max_Killjoy
2019-08-26, 08:50 PM
Well, while I've never personally seen good things come from Alignment, I'm not going to tell someone else who says that they got good results out of it "No, you're wrong, you didn't."

Pleh
2019-08-26, 10:51 PM
If it needs a firm hand, then thats a problem in of itself. a good system does not need a firm hand, it just works without needing careful usage of it. you basically admit to needing more than the tool itself to serve its function.

and the thing is about alignments, you could have all the awesome moments you get with them....without them. easily in fact. they're just bad descriptive codifications of things people already do, they just fail to guide them towards them and instead guide them badly because they do not communicate what they're supposed to emulate adequately, as they require someone to firm hand it. you could get much better results just by being reasonable and its existence is a symptom of trying to solve player problems with rules and mechanics that DnD tries to do and fails.

a good system functions regardless of who uses it, a bad system needs a competent person to function at all.

Well, alignment isn't really special in that regard. Everything in RPGs is guided with a firm hand (as firm as the players make it to be necessary, exactly as with alignment). I don't see much of a reason to be more harsh with alignment than anything else.

Lord Raziere
2019-08-26, 11:23 PM
your opinion on players and mechanics is just as subjective. I'm dropping this topic, Pleh. get the last word all you want, I'm not interested in your continuing defense of one of the worst rpg mechanics ever made.

Satinavian
2019-08-27, 12:30 AM
Your negative experiences do not negate my positive ones. The contrast between our experiences only highlights my point that the best alignment use requires understanding what it is useful for, which is mostly introducing players to the core common playstyles.Coming from a country where D&D is not that big, i know a lot of new players who never got that kind of guidance. And none of them needed it or would have benefittet from it.

So saying "Yes, it may be not that useful for everyone, but new players need it for orientation." is imho quite wrong. Actually it is the opposite. There is not much that new players get out of alignment because what kind of guidance is it even supposed to give ? Instead it comes with lots of pitfalls and implied assumptions which both are a problem for newcomers.

OldTrees1
2019-08-27, 12:53 AM
So saying "Yes, it may be not that useful for everyone, but new players need it for orientation." is imho quite wrong.

Are you sure they said what you think they said? Because your post looks like the definition of a Strawman.

Satinavian
2019-08-27, 01:52 AM
Are you sure they said what you think they said? Because your post looks like the definition of a Strawman.
They argued that beside the negative experiences with alignemt there are positive ones. And that the the stuff it is useful for consists mostly of introducing new players to playstyles. Which is another way of saying it is not useful for much else.

So i am indeed quite confident Pleh wrote what i read. I even quoted the part. {Scrubbed}

OldTrees1
2019-08-27, 07:18 AM
They argued that beside the negative experiences with alignemt there are positive ones. And that the the stuff it is useful for consists mostly of introducing new players to playstyles. Which is another way of saying it is not useful for much else.

So i am indeed quite confident Pleh wrote what i read. I even quoted the part. Maybe you need to work on your reading comprehension before accusing people of strawmanning ?

I noticed you changed "USEFUL for ... new players" to "new players NEED".
As a result I noticed you also changed the implication of "[some] new players" to the implication of "[all] new players".

So yes, I did see you drastically change how you represented their statement between the Quote (original text) and your paraphrase (looks like a Strawman).

Your objection (your counter examples were evidence against it being a NEED attributed to ALL new players) was fabricated by your paraphrase in your post.

However I did use soft language for a reason. I initially phrased it as a question rather than a claim to soften the observation.

PhoenixPhyre
2019-08-27, 07:32 AM
I think that the root cause of (some of the) problems with alignment come from collapsing continua down into discrete boxes with uniform interiors. That ends up looking like the following, with everyone collapsed to the extremes of their alignment. That is, Good people are GOOD, and Evil people are EVIL.


Good: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
.
.
.
.
.
.
Neutral: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
.
.
.
.
.
.
Evil: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


In my opinion, the distribution is much more like this (roughly)

G :
. : X
. : XX
. : XXX
. : XXXXX
. : XXXXXX
. : XXXXX
N : XXXX
. : XXXXX
. : XXXXXX
. : XXXXX
. : XXX
. : XX
. : X
E :


Most people are near the border of neutral and (good/evil) and may drift across in either direction multiple times during their life. I'd guess that most people aren't exactly N on this axis, because societal and other effects make that balance hard to maintain. But certainly more than people who are pure good or pure evil. That's for exemplars, not mortals. Strict trichotomies, where if you're not pure good, you're either pure neutral/pure evil don't work.

So most people see themselves as "about normal". Very few see themselves as paragons of virtue--most have more self-awareness than that. Very few see themselves as villains--because very few are (and those that are are often in a state of denial about it to suppress guilt). Instead, people see themselves "in the muddy middle, like everyone else". Which is where they really are.

Games, however, draw out the more elemental/broad-brush-strokes behaviors (due to the low cost of evil and/or good actions).

Conradine
2019-08-27, 07:37 AM
No one seems to seriously consider themselves evil.

I consider myself evil. Seriously. I'm the only one here?

Willie the Duck
2019-08-27, 08:25 AM
So it was an attempt to solve a player-level problem with character-level rules?

The law-chaos division existed in Chainmail before D&D was even conceived. It was literally a way to split up the fantasy monsters into different teams, based on the genre conventions of fantasy literature (anti-heroes, goblins, and vampires would be on one team and heroes, hobbits and ents would be on the other).
"It is impossible to draw a distnct line between "good" and "evil" fantastic
figures. Three categories are listed below as a general guide for the wargamer designing orders of battle involving fantastic creatures:
LAW
Hobbits
Dwarves
Gnomes
Heroes
Super Heroes
Wizards*
Ents
Magic Weapons

NEUTRAL
Sprites
Pixies
Elves
Fairies
Lycanthropes *
Giants*
Rocs
(Elementals)
Chimerea

CHAOS
Goblins
Kobolds
Orcs
Anti-heroes
Wizards *
Wraiths
Wights
Lycanthropes*
Ogres
True Trolls
Balrogs
Giants *
Dragons
Basilisks"

I'm not sure of the specific story he's referencing, but there are certainly stories of players playing quite dirty (it was just a game, after all), and even anti-hero character groups (including the infamous Sir Fang, vampire anti-hero, who inspired the creation of the cleric class).

Satinavian
2019-08-27, 09:50 AM
I noticed you changed "USEFUL for ... new players" to "new players NEED".
As a result I noticed you also changed the implication of "[some] new players" to the implication of "[all] new players".

So yes, I did see you drastically change how you represented their statement between the Quote (original text) and your paraphrase (looks like a Strawman).

Your objection (your counter examples were evidence against it being a NEED attributed to ALL new players) was fabricated by your paraphrase in your post.

However I did use soft language for a reason. I initially phrased it as a question rather than a claim to soften the observation.
You are correct if. Those would be important changes that would make it a strawman if i had argued that some new players don't need it and Pleh is wrong for this reason.

But actually my standpoint is far more extreme. I am doubting that any new players benefit from what alignment has to offer. I don't think it offers useful guidance at all. Which means that the change is not important for my argumentation.

I'll give you that need is stronger than useful. But this distincion is not a foundation of my argumentation either.

kyoryu
2019-08-27, 09:58 AM
(Being lazy and replying to the OP without reading the whole thread)

It's two different philosophical underpinnings - various versions of consequentialism/utilitarianism, vs. deontological thought.

If you steal bread from a rich person to feed a starving family, is that good?

Utilitarian thought says that we should do that which minimizes harm and maximizes pleasure/benefit. So, to the utilitarian, the answer is probably yes. The good done by feeding the family is greater than the harm done by stealing a loaf of bread from a rich person that probably won't even miss it.

A deontologist, however, believes that acts are good or bad in and of themselves, without context. So, if stealing bread is bad, then it's still bad, and nothing can be done to make it right, regardless of the balance. HOWEVER, at the end of the day, good is still done in this case (preventing a family from starving), so both "good" and "evil" acts have occurred. So the slightly more nuanced take is "yes, under deontological premises, you might steal the bread - but you would do so as a last resort, recognize the evil (in D&D terms) you have done, and attempt to make amends after the fact."

PhoenixPhyre
2019-08-27, 10:00 AM
You are correct if. Those would be important changes that would make it a strawman if i had argued that some new players don't need it and Pleh is wrong for this reason.

But actually my standpoint is far more extreme. I am doubting that any new players benefit from what alignment has to offer. I don't think it offers useful guidance at all. Which means that the change is not important for my argumentation.

I'll give you that need is stronger than useful. But this distincion is not a foundation of my argumentation either.

Except that that position is provably false--I, as a new player, benefitted. And some of my new players have. So your claim fails as a general statement.

Sure, alignment might not benefit you, or the people you play with. Don't over-generalize. Some new players benefit. Others do not.

And I'm not an alignment fundamentalist--I don't use alignment for anything other than a "here's a fall-back way of figuring out how to approach things if nothing else about your character dictates otherwise" role-play aid.

sleepy hedgehog
2019-08-27, 10:13 AM
I think that the root cause of (some of the) problems with alignment come from collapsing continua down into discrete boxes with uniform interiors. That ends up looking like the following, with everyone collapsed to the extremes of their alignment. That is, Good people are GOOD, and Evil people are EVIL.

I agree with you.

Though for real life, I'd probably draw the chart a little different:

G :
. :
. :
. : X
. : XXX
. : XXXXXXXX
. : XXXXXXXX
N : XXXXXXXXX
. : XXXXXXXX
. : XXXXXXXX
. : XXX
. : X
. :
. :
E :


So then the question is, when discussing life, do we re-calibrate it, such that the whole chart is used.
Or do we leave blank chunks of nothing.

Which is why instead of saying I'm lawful evil or whatever.
I think it's more correct to say something like: neutral with lawful evil tendencies.

Pleh
2019-08-27, 10:21 AM
your opinion on players and mechanics is just as subjective. I'm dropping this topic, Pleh. get the last word all you want, I'm not interested in your continuing defense of one of the worst rpg mechanics ever made.

But that was my point. I believe I said exactly that treating alignment as a mechanic is right where it usually goes completely wrong.

So, to that end, I agree. It is a terrible mechanic. I don't think it should be used as a mechanical feature. But that doesn't make it worthless or something that ought to be discarded.

It only means it needs to come with a disclaimer in the PHB and DMG: "descriptive fluff, not prescriptive mechanics."

It's honestly the same as Flaws, Bonds, and Ideals in 5e. That system is basically identical to alignment, except it isn't tied to universal concepts or powers related to morality or ethics. But there's not exactly mechanical rules about your bonds and flaws. That's how alignment should be handled as well.


Coming from a country where D&D is not that big, i know a lot of new players who never got that kind of guidance. And none of them needed it or would have benefittet from it.

So saying "Yes, it may be not that useful for everyone, but new players need it for orientation." is imho quite wrong. Actually it is the opposite. There is not much that new players get out of alignment because what kind of guidance is it even supposed to give ? Instead it comes with lots of pitfalls and implied assumptions which both are a problem for newcomers.


I noticed you changed "USEFUL for ... new players" to "new players NEED".
As a result I noticed you also changed the implication of "[some] new players" to the implication of "[all] new players".

So yes, I did see you drastically change how you represented their statement between the Quote (original text) and your paraphrase (looks like a Strawman).

Your objection (your counter examples were evidence against it being a NEED attributed to ALL new players) was fabricated by your paraphrase in your post.

However I did use soft language for a reason. I initially phrased it as a question rather than a claim to soften the observation.

Thank you, Old Trees. That's more or less how I feel about it.

My point on that end, Satinavian, was that because some people have positive experiences with alignment, we shouldn't discourage people from using it. We should instead inform them the pitfalls and encourage them not to view alignment as something that dictates character behavior.

Sure, cutting it out entirely doesn't hurt the game, but there's a reason all of those alignment assignment memes and threads are so popular.

Alignment is FUN, when used descriptively.

RedMage125
2019-08-27, 10:49 AM
Pleh, I just want to say that you've made some very good points.


It does not matter whether this force is intelligent or not.

It is defined as Evil. Evil is the thing that is defined as unacceptable and wrong. When something is unacceptable, you get rid of it.

If you cannot get rid of it but it is unacceptable, you have grimdarkness, and it means that Good is just as unkillable and unintelligent.

therefore Evil or its beings cannot win.

nor can Good or its beings win.

Because neither force can stop existing.

Therefore there is no point to the conflict. As long the energies exist, they will gather into these being that will cause said conflict. the sources cannot be destroyed, therefore neither can the conflict. the intelligence or lack thereof has no bearing on the pointlessness of the situation.
I mean, why play D&D at all then? There's no "point" to that, either, right? Do you see how your argument goes?* It's a fantasy game. It is a world where dragons fly overhead, undead stalk the dark parts of the world, fiends plot to steal souls or engage in widespread carnage...but it also a world for heroes. Heroes to fight against this darkness with sword and spell. "Evil" may never be defeated forever, but taht does not mean that "there's no point" to stopping evil creatures. The Core Assumptions of D&D, which include Cosmic Forces of Good/Evil/Law/Chaos create a framework for worlds in which adventure will always be possible. D&D isn't a videogame where evil gets destroyed forever and you get the "good ending" that solves all problems for all time.

So yes, Cosmic Good is just as unintelligent and unkillable as Cosmic Evil. Yes, both forces are eternal, and cannot be destroyed. Yes, neither "cosmic force" will ever "win" because they are not actually in conflict. The beings aligned with those forces are the ones in conflict, not the forces themselves.

It's not a flaw, it's a feature. That your personal preference is for a different paradigm doesn't make the existing system "bad". Nor does it mean your preference is somehow "wrong". It just means you have an opinion and a preference for something other than the default idiom of D&D. That is all.

*I'm aware that this is a borderline straw man, I am not claiming you are saying this. It is an example to highlight my perception of your "there's no point to the conflict" point, something I see as silly, when, to me, the conflict IS the point.

No, what I've heard are that there are many stories of people using the labels of alignment to justify why it should be acceptable, to the point of it being cliche with certain terms like "Lawful Stupid"/Chaotic Stupid/Neutral Stupid/Stupid Evil/Stupid Good used to describe people trying to justify stupid behaviors. While the terms are used by others to deride this behavior, its reported that its always the problem players themselves using alignment as justification for their behavior. it has nothing to do my personal experiences. the data disagrees with you on it being purely a personal experience or alignment being a scapegoat by those who don't like it.
Okay, and in my personal experiences, every single example I have ever heard on these or any other forums about "why alignment mechanics are bad" stem from either Players or DMs deviating from the RAW in some way. Either forcing player behavior as if alignment was prescriptive, using alignment as an excuse for jerkbag behavior, radically altering a player's alignment for a single act, altering alignment for acts that do not, by the RAW count as an act of another alignment, and so on.

I would like to invite you to provide this "data" you speak of. Please. But there's some things I would like you to consider...

Because I will tell you right now, that I have played D&D in 6 states (in midwest, west coast and the Rockies), and on 3 US Navy ships. I have played in people's homes, at conventions, at gaming stores, and with civilians and service members from all parts of the country and walks of life. My experiences have been diverse and not really subject to "local trends", and I can tell you I have NEVER ONCE met a person who frequented the forums, or even ever looked at them. I tell you this to highlight a significant point that you may have overlooked in your zeal. The forums do not represent a majority of D&D players. I mean, I suppose it's possible that through circumstance, I've been only playing with those few that don't, but it's unlikely. Next point, as Pleh alluded to...people who do come to the forums often have questions, concerns or problems. That means that even if you could provide data that say "a majority of forum-goers have problems with alignment", your data collection is potentially skewed because your pool of data collection is already pre-disposed to be the ones with problems. Which ties in to my last point, there isn't data to suggest that a majority of forum-members, even, have problems with alignment. I participate in a lot of alignment threads, and I make no secret that I am usually in favor of alignment and its mechanics. That's not to denigrate the opinions and preferences of others. I don't care about "changing anyone's opinion", but I do usually step in an correct people when they make claims about things being "facts" that a verifiably false, or are just opinions.

So please, provide this "data" you speak of. In order to provide a scientifically acceptable survey without bias, you'll of course need to have data collected that shows a majority of people who play D&D have problems with alignment. Only surveying the forums is not necessarily providing an accurate cross-section, so you'll need to make sure this data is collected from people outside the forums, too. And in a combination of those who play Aventurer's League/RPGA, and those who only play home games, and from a variety of experience in years playing, and across multiple editions of the game. If you can actually provide such a study, I would genuinely be fascinated to read it, because I have spent years being of the opinion that such a study is not a thing. that is not sarcasm, i would love to read such a study.

Or, if this seems not feasible, you could say something to the extent of "It is my (LordRaziere's) opinion that this is a very widespread problem, due to how many problems I have experienced and the shared experiences of others on the internet". That would also suffice. I'm not interested in changing your opinion, or in making you like alignment. Only in making you recognize the disparity between what is true for you (which is entirely a valid personal truth for you), and what is objectively Fact.


If it needs a firm hand, then thats a problem in of itself. a good system does not need a firm hand, it just works without needing careful usage of it. you basically admit to needing more than the tool itself to serve its function.

and the thing is about alignments, you could have all the awesome moments you get with them....without them. easily in fact. they're just bad descriptive codifications of things people already do, they just fail to guide them towards them and instead guide them badly because they do not communicate what they're supposed to emulate adequately, as they require someone to firm hand it. you could get much better results just by being reasonable and its existence is a symptom of trying to solve player problems with rules and mechanics that DnD tries to do and fails.

a good system functions regardless of who uses it, a bad system needs a competent person to function at all.
By the same token, if a system works when used in accordance with the rules, and only presents problems when people misuse the rules, then how is it an indictment of a problem with the system and not the people misusing it? Because your claim seems to be "a system is only a good system if even intentional misuse cannot possibly affect the result of the system", which is absurd, because nothing in the world works that way. It's an unrealistic standard, and it means nothing is ever going to meet it. That's like saying "tire irons are bad tools", because someone beat his neighbor to death with one, or "internal combustion engines are bad designs" because drunk drivers get in accidents.

And what you said about "you could have all those awesome moments without alignments"...while it is true that you could have some of the fantasy tropes in your game, yes, I refer you to the way I parsed it several posts up. Which is: [alignment mechanics] give mechanical voice to some classic tropes of fantasy adventure in a fair, objective manner, not dependent on DM fiat. Tropes like a lingering taint of Evil from a recently abandoned demon cultist sanctum that the Paladin can detect. Or a sword that is less effective in the hands of an evildoer, but is devastating against all with "darkness" in their hearts, from rapacious orcs to fiendish overlords.

See, I am a person who is of the opinion that concrete rules and mechanics protect players from capricious DM fiat. I started playing D&D when there wasn't hard rules of things like "a Jump check means you jump a number of feet equal to 1/2 your check result". The DM just had you roll a die, and then he decided on whether you succeeded or failed. And as far as alignment mechanics, if you had a "Holy Sword", what would determine whether the extra damage happened or not? There's no alignment, so...whenever the DM says it's okay, and therefore only when the DM wants it to. There was nothing measurable or quantifiable or in any way objective about it.

That's a positive thing about having alignment mechanics. Yes, some DMs override whatever rules they want in favor of fiat, and there's not a whole lot you can do about it. That's true of ANY of the mechanics of the system, though. If you were playing 3.5e, and there was a 5 foot gap, and your character got a running start, made a Jump check and rolled a 3, but because of bonuses and such, you get a total of 12, you have a strong case to say that, by the rules, you made the jump. A DM might want to be like "oh you rolled a 3, I think I'll make you fall into the gap", but then you know that you're in a game where the rules don't matter. If your Holy Sword doesn't do its extra damage to the orc warlord, even though your paladin clearly detected him as evil ,earlier, just because he wanted to limit how much damage you could do so the fight would last longer, you've got a case to be like "wtf, dude?". But by and large, most follow the general rules of the system. And it's nice if everyone knows what those rules (and even house rules) are in advance.


95% of everyone thinks they're above average IQ, like you mention. If you ask people, no one is unfaithful - but the statistics tell us that most of them are. Everyone knows that most marriages end in divorce (which personally I feel is a good thing, rather than staying in a marriage that doesn't work, just because), but everyone still believes that their own marriage is going to last forever.

I don't think that's necessarily true, I've met dozens of people who believe that "humans are not meant to be monogamous". And the statistic of "most marriages end in divorce" is meaningless tripe, because it doesn't account for seriel infidelity that leads to multiple divorces. Example, 3 men: A, B, and C. Man A marries once, and lives happliy ever after. Man B marries, after a few years, it ends in divorce. A few years later he marries again, and then lives happily ever after. That's already 1 in 3 marriages that ended in divorce. Man C is terminally unfaithful, but he keeps trying. Over the course of his life, he marries and divorces 5 times, and dies single. So that's 8 marriages, 6 of which ended in divorce, which is 75%. Do you understand why that statistic is meaningless drivvel? The data does not say "75% of people who get married will get divorces", it says "x% of marriages themselves end in divorce".

Understanding how data is collected and what it really says is always important.

PhoenixPhyre
2019-08-27, 10:50 AM
I agree with you.

Though for real life, I'd probably draw the chart a little different:

G :
. :
. :
. : X
. : XXX
. : XXXXXXXX
. : XXXXXXXX
N : XXXXXXXXX
. : XXXXXXXX
. : XXXXXXXX
. : XXX
. : X
. :
. :
E :


So then the question is, when discussing life, do we re-calibrate it, such that the whole chart is used.
Or do we leave blank chunks of nothing.

Which is why instead of saying I'm lawful evil or whatever.
I think it's more correct to say something like: neutral with lawful evil tendencies.

The whole chart is used, just not by mortals. If we include aligned outsiders, they're literally made of Evil/Good/Law/Chaos. Sure, judge an angel by those extreme standards. But applying those to even the most saintly paladin is overkill, expecting mortals to be beyond the borders. And those extremes should be alien. Good Is Not Nice, at least at the extremes. That level of uncompromising PURITY should cause problems for mortals, just like uncompromising VILLAINY should cause problems for mortals (if less directly in the case of good).

If it's a 0-100 chart, mortals kinda cover the central 2/3 or 3/4 of the chart. The outsides are for Outsiders.

Lord Raziere
2019-08-27, 04:27 PM
I mean, why play D&D at all then? There's no "point" to that, either, right? Do you see how your argument goes?* It's a fantasy game. It is a world where dragons fly overhead, undead stalk the dark parts of the world, fiends plot to steal souls or engage in widespread carnage...but it also a world for heroes. Heroes to fight against this darkness with sword and spell. "Evil" may never be defeated forever, but taht does not mean that "there's no point" to stopping evil creatures. The Core Assumptions of D&D, which include Cosmic Forces of Good/Evil/Law/Chaos create a framework for worlds in which adventure will always be possible. D&D isn't a videogame where evil gets destroyed forever and you get the "good ending" that solves all problems for all time.

So yes, Cosmic Good is just as unintelligent and unkillable as Cosmic Evil. Yes, both forces are eternal, and cannot be destroyed. Yes, neither "cosmic force" will ever "win" because they are not actually in conflict. The beings aligned with those forces are the ones in conflict, not the forces themselves.

It's not a flaw, it's a feature. That your personal preference is for a different paradigm doesn't make the existing system "bad". Nor does it mean your preference is somehow "wrong". It just means you have an opinion and a preference for something other than the default idiom of D&D. That is all.

*I'm aware that this is a borderline straw man, I am not claiming you are saying this. It is an example to highlight my perception of your "there's no point to the conflict" point, something I see as silly, when, to me, the conflict IS the point.

When I think upon these things, whether its a personal preference of mine is not a thing I care about. I look at it logically and reasonably and determine the logical outcome before all else. all other factors are meaningless in comparison to making sense. so when you say it is my personal preference, I find it distasteful. it takes beautiful logic and cause and effect that I constructed and makes it valueless. useless. void.

your logic takes this in a direction that ends with nothing but "well its all subjective, so why even bother talking?" that is stupid and boring to me. you have signaled to me that there is nothing to talk about, because all we'll say has nothing of value to the other. every time I find this, I do not like this.

But I will respond to your real points so that I may defy the pointlessness of opinion for at least one more post.

Why Play DnD? Because the best stories can be made from defying and destroying the stupidest and most common of assumptions and conventions to make something better. whether or not this goes against any "point of the game" which is also subjective, is beside the point.

Fantasy attributes has no impact upon the world's own self-design of pointlessness. You have not stated why its not pointless even though it is pointless, the burden of explaining why its not pointless to fight is on you.

nor does it mean that the system is "good", or that my preference is somehow "right". congratulations have made these things valueless, indistinct and useless. are you happy now? shall we make all other words not mean what they mean and de-apply them for the sake of nothing? shall you proclaim that they never applied to make it less meaningful?

I was not aware that you needed to meet some minimum requirement of liking DnD to critique or talk about DnD. or that it is somehow not possible to have uses for DnD that are not its alignment system. to me, alignment is not useful at all, its the least valuable part. whats more valuable is the ability to play a lot of concepts and crazy creatures. the settings I care about (Eberron, Dark Sun) would barely change if you took out alignment. and I could make an argument for Planescape not changing much either. whether you find it illogical whether I continue talking about DnD or not is also subjective as you do not have any say over how I spend my time, or what the value of it is.

in short, once you invoke the subjectivity meme, it can be invoked back upon you to point out how everything is meaningless, which you have. I was focused on the pointlessness of an internal self-consistency, its your fault that you decided to bring it outwards. this uselessness, is why I avoid speaking the word as discussions get really repetitive and tedious with pointing out how this and that are subjective endlessly as a result and just makes me lapse staring into the abyss of perceptual imperfection and how all human beings have a narrow perception of the world and thus can not truly know things or improve upon things due to said imperfect perception, for how can you know what to improve? subjectivity is depressing and prefer keep away from it for this very reason.

RedMage125
2019-08-27, 05:56 PM
Gallowglass, thank you, that was very well put.

When I think upon these things, whether its a personal preference of mine is not a thing I care about. I look at it logically and reasonably and determine the logical outcome before all else. all other factors are meaningless in comparison to making sense. so when you say it is my personal preference, I find it distasteful. it takes beautiful logic and cause and effect that I constructed and makes it valueless. useless. void.

your logic takes this in a direction that ends with nothing but "well its all subjective, so why even bother talking?" that is stupid and boring to me. you have signaled to me that there is nothing to talk about, because all we'll say has nothing of value to the other. every time I find this, I do not like this.

But I will respond to your real points so that I may defy the pointlessness of opinion for at least one more post.

Why Play DnD? Because the best stories can be made from defying and destroying the stupidest and most common of assumptions and conventions to make something better. whether or not this goes against any "point of the game" which is also subjective, is beside the point.

Fantasy attributes has no impact upon the world's own self-design of pointlessness. You have not stated why its not pointless even though it is pointless, the burden of explaining why its not pointless to fight is on you.

nor does it mean that the system is "good", or that my preference is somehow "right". congratulations have made these things valueless, indistinct and useless. are you happy now? shall we make all other words not mean what they mean and de-apply them for the sake of nothing? shall you proclaim that they never applied to make it less meaningful?

I was not aware that you needed to meet some minimum requirement of liking DnD to critique or talk about DnD. or that it is somehow not possible to have uses for DnD that are not its alignment system. to me, alignment is not useful at all, its the least valuable part. whats more valuable is the ability to play a lot of concepts and crazy creatures. the settings I care about (Eberron, Dark Sun) would barely change if you took out alignment. and I could make an argument for Planescape not changing much either. whether you find it illogical whether I continue talking about DnD or not is also subjective as you do not have any say over how I spend my time, or what the value of it is.

in short, once you invoke the subjectivity meme, it can be invoked back upon you to point out how everything is meaningless, which you have. I was focused on the pointlessness of an internal self-consistency, its your fault that you decided to bring it outwards. this uselessness, is why I avoid speaking the word as discussions get really repetitive and tedious with pointing out how this and that are subjective endlessly as a result and just makes me lapse staring into the abyss of perceptual imperfection and how all human beings have a narrow perception of the world and thus can not truly know things or improve upon things due to said imperfect perception, for how can you know what to improve? subjectivity is depressing and prefer keep away from it for this very reason.

I find it ironic that you utterly ignored the real points of my post and focused only on that which was posed as a rhetorical and ironic question to highlight how I percieved your stance on the matter we are discussing.

Which is why there was an asteriked point to begin with. The question "why play D&D?" was, at no point, the real question. That's why I even made it a point to clarify that. Because your statement of "the conflict has no point because it will never end" (paraphrased), when I see the undending conflict AS the point (because it allows for endless stories and campaigns to be woven in a single setting*), makes me view such a stance as viewing anything without "conclusion" and "final victory" as "pointless". I thought it was very clear from my post that I was not ACTUALLY asking "why play D&D?". For crying out loud, this is a D&D forum. Obviously, we are all here because we share a hobby, which is playing a game we enjoy, and enjoy talking about. That's certainly reason enough for anyone.

{Scrubbed}

As Gallowglass said, there ARE things about the RAW which are objective facts. House Rules, despite being something that makes this game vibrant and thriving, are too varied to ever be considered in such a discussion, and therefore -for the purposes of forum discussions- only what is written in the rules is FACT. There are also opinions and personal experiences. And those things are perfectly valid for the individual. I do not, despite what you claim, denigrate these things as being less valuable. {Scrubbed}. I actually said that your preference is fine for you, I said "what is true for you (which is entirely a valid personal truth for you)"...so claiming that I was in any way "disparaging" subjectivity or personal preference is a provably false thing. I said it just isn't "objective fact", which is how you were couching your statements, something gallowglass likewise called you out on. Now, if you are saying that me telling you that opinion not equalling objective fact "is disparaging", then that sounds more like something you need to reflect on and figure out how you want to be perceived.

There's no need to be so offended,{Scrubbed}, I would love to discuss the matter further in a calm and civilized manner. But it is impossible to have a discussion when you do. My entire last post can be summed up as "I get that you have your preference, but that doesn't make it an objective fact that is true for everyone". I was just trying to get you to realize that. You will see that there were times when I was expressing an opinion or preference in my post. And you will note that they are easy to find, because I qualified my statements as such.

So, ironically, the REAL points of my post, which you did NOT respond to were:

1) Please provide this "data" you spoke of that "disagrees" with the people saying alignment is not a problem. You said you had "beautiful logic and cause and effect". i would like to see your logic, because logic is based in data and facts.

2) Your definition of a Good System, which was "a good system functions regardless of who uses it, a bad system needs a competent person to function at all." (Direct quote copy/pasted). I pointed out that, contrariwise, if a system ONLY causes problems when it is MISUSED, how is that a fair indictment of the system itself, rather than just those users? To wit: Are "internal combustion engines are bad designs" because drunk drivers get in accidents? I also shared my preference and opinion in regards to why I see concrete mechanics for those tropes as being a good way to have those tropes, because while you are correct that a game can still have them without alignment, it puts those things entirely into the realm of pure DM Fiat, which is, in my opinion, bad.

THAT was the "real points" of my post.

*For the record, this was my answer to "You have not stated why its not pointless even though it is pointless, the burden of explaining why its not pointless to fight is on you", that I clearly stated even before you claimed this. The struggle between the forces of Good and Evil is not pointless, because those forces can be stopped for good. The fact that the Cosmic Force of Evil continues to exist doesn't have any bearing on the horde of demons that needs to be stopped before they overrun the world. But the Eternal Struggle means that there will always be tales and campaigns of Good Vs Evil to tell in that setting. Ergo, the conflict itself IS the point.

Lord Raziere
2019-08-27, 06:23 PM
For the record, this was my answer to "You have not stated why its not pointless even though it is pointless, the burden of explaining why its not pointless to fight is on you", that I clearly stated even before you claimed this. The struggle between the forces of Good and Evil is not pointless, because those forces can be stopped for good. The fact that the Cosmic Force of Evil continues to exist doesn't have any bearing on the horde of demons that needs to be stopped before they overrun the world. But the Eternal Struggle means that there will always be tales and campaigns of Good Vs Evil to tell in that setting. Ergo, the conflict itself IS the point.

You do not need a metaphysical reason to endlessly tell stories in a setting. its called "starting a new campaign." thats like claiming that if a sun blows up in one campaign, it stays blown up in the next, thats ridiculous. the conflict can be solved in one campaign and guess, because another campaign is not the one before it, things.....reset without needing in-setting metaphysical reason for characters to realize things reset and thus make it pointless IN SETTING, because there does need to continuity between campaigns. there is no need for the concept your talking, just acknowledge one campaign is not this campaign and thus doesn't have continuity, the metaphysical excuse is an unnecessary flourish that only works if your going to advance things in some direction while keeping continuity with another campaign. which of little consequence to the group currently playing. regardless, I do not really care for whether this is a useful tool for you, "the balance between good and evil" does not make sense, it is morally problematic and therefore it should not be used regardless. if I want to play a game about morality, the base assumption is that its worth being moral, and no amount of sisyphuses rock is worth it.

the rest of your post is exactly why I avoid subjectivity. you have spun my attempt to help you understand my viewpoint, my dislike, my pain, into an portrayal of "victim complex" and so on, that was not intended. I understand not being sympathetic if someone is trying to manipulate to tug their heart strings cynically, but do not be surprised if I am not sympathetic towards you in turn. what goes around, comes around.

Kraynic
2019-08-27, 06:43 PM
You do not need a metaphysical reason to endlessly tell stories in a setting. its called "starting a new campaign." thats like claiming that if a sun blows up in one campaign, it stays blown up in the next, thats ridiculous. the conflict can be solved in one campaign and guess, because another campaign is not the one before it, things.....reset without needing in-setting metaphysical reason for characters to realize things reset and thus make it pointless IN SETTING, because there does need to continuity between campaigns.

You are right that there doesn't NEED to be continuity. There is also no reason not to have continuity. I know 2 Pathfinder DMs that have events from all their collective games turn up in rumors in the others. It isn't just continuity, what happens in one can indirectly have at least a small affect on the others. Surviving PCs from a tpk in one may show up in another game to shore up a party that has suffered some deaths. NPCs may interact with more than one party (depending on distance and travel time). I personally am running a game that was basically dealing with the fallout of choices made in another game, while the first game was still going on. Yes, each game/campaign can be run in a vacuum. There are probably quite a few of us that specifically don't run games totally separate from others. If a game world/setting is run with continuity, then the actual ebb and flow of good and evil forces (for whatever your definition of good and evil) and influence is something that can be followed from game to game.

I know this isn't the way some people play, and if you are running published material, then there is likely a "hard reset" between most/all games.

Max_Killjoy
2019-08-27, 07:25 PM
Continuity or non-continuity of the same setting between campaigns set there both serve legitimate purposes and scratch legitimate itches.

Neither is wrong, neither is always right.

Satinavian
2019-08-28, 01:40 AM
Except that that position is provably false--I, as a new player, benefitted. And some of my new players have. So your claim fails as a general statement.

Sure, alignment might not benefit you, or the people you play with. Don't over-generalize. Some new players benefit. Others do not.

And I'm not an alignment fundamentalist--I don't use alignment for anything other than a "here's a fall-back way of figuring out how to approach things if nothing else about your character dictates otherwise" role-play aid.
Yes, my position can be wrong and can be proven wrong. That is why we can have a discussion about it instead of falling back to "matter of taste".

Please explain how exactly alignment did help you as a new player or some of your new players. And how that could not have been achieved as easily or easier with other tools.



My point on that end, Satinavian, was that because some people have positive experiences with alignment, we shouldn't discourage people from using it. We should instead inform them the pitfalls and encourage them not to view alignment as something that dictates character behavior.
If you play with alignment and regularly have positive experiences while playing, you will likely have positive experiences with alignment. But i doubt that any of those got more positive due to alignment and guess all of them could have happened as awesome in a system without it.

Do you have examples where you think differently ? (I will use the medium crunch systems TDE4 and Splittermond to try to recreate them as examples of alignment-less traditional fantasy systems. Should work before high levels)


Because i really think we should encourage people to ditch alignment completely.

PhoenixPhyre
2019-08-28, 06:41 AM
Yes, my position can be wrong and can be proven wrong. That is why we can have a discussion about it instead of falling back to "matter of taste".


Not "can be" proven wrong. Was proven wrong. You made an absolute statement about a subjective matter, and I gave a case where your statement was wrong. Therefore, your statement is globally wrong. You can modify it to weaken it, but "has never helped any new player" is a factually wrong statement.



Please explain how exactly alignment did help you as a new player or some of your new players. And how that could not have been achieved as easily or easier with other tools.


Irrelevant. You made a global claim. That claim does not hold across the entire domain. Your claim is wrong.

But to humor you, it helped me as a new player to portray Ragnar, the LN dwarven knowledge cleric, as I had imagined him. It gave me a touchpoint for "how would Ragnar react" when none of Bond, Ideal, or Flaw had anything to say. It served as a fallback role-play aid. As a DM, it helps me with the less-fleshed-out NPCs, giving them a basic pattern of action/reaction. Sure, it can be overriden by other traits, but it sets a baseline.

And I'm not a strong alignment defender. I don't use mechanical or cosmological alignment at all in my games. Not even for outsiders. But for the purpose it was designed for (in 5e at least), it works fine. To help players (or DMs) decide what a character should do in the absence of anything else.

And does it work better than the alternative? I have yet to see an alternative that covers that ground, so MU.

OldTrees1
2019-08-28, 07:27 AM
Yes, my position can be wrong and can be proven wrong. That is why we can have a discussion about it instead of falling back to "matter of taste".

Please explain how exactly alignment did help you as a new player or some of your new players. And how that could not have been achieved as easily or easier with other tools.

If you play with alignment and regularly have positive experiences while playing, you will likely have positive experiences with alignment. But i doubt that any of those got more positive due to alignment and guess all of them could have happened as awesome in a system without it.

Do you have examples where you think differently ? (I will use the medium crunch systems TDE4 and Splittermond to try to recreate them as examples of alignment-less traditional fantasy systems. Should work before high levels)


Because i really think we should encourage people to ditch alignment completely.

In answer to both your sections:
The philosophy branch Ethics greatly impacts how I view the world IRL and how I view entities. Regardless of whether Alignment had been invented, I would need to use terms like Moral, Amoral, Immoral, etc while playing the game. Alignment was my first exposure to the concept of Blue-Orange morality (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality) via the two new axes of "Order vs Chaos" and "Lawful vs Rebel". If you look at the article you will see "Lawful vs Chaos" presumed prior to explaining what a Blue-Orange morality is, but for me it was the first Blue-Orange morality. Being exposed to that new idea, especially after understanding it as 2 new axes, improved both how I treated character motivations/ideals in game AND it improved how I approached the philosophy branch Ethics IRL.

So, without referencing or diving into their blue-orange morality, how would you enable players to understand a creature like a Modron? To me the motivations of the Modron are impossible to describe if you don't talk about their blue-orange morality. Encountering a Rogue Modron without Alignment has none of the tragedy as encountering one where the session is willing to touch upon and explain that blue-orange morality.

redwizard007
2019-08-28, 07:38 AM
Yes, my position can be wrong and can be proven wrong. That is why we can have a discussion about it instead of falling back to "matter of taste".

Please explain how exactly alignment did help you as a new player or some of your new players. And how that could not have been achieved as easily or easier with other tools.

If you play with alignment and regularly have positive experiences while playing, you will likely have positive experiences with alignment. But i doubt that any of those got more positive due to alignment and guess all of them could have happened as awesome in a system without it.

Do you have examples where you think differently ? (I will use the medium crunch systems TDE4 and Splittermond to try to recreate them as examples of alignment-less traditional fantasy systems. Should work before high levels)


Because i really think we should encourage people to ditch alignment completely.

How did alignment help me, as a new player? M: "wtf is an orc?"
DM: "CE gamorian guard."
M: "Ahhhhhh."

How does it help me now?
M: "you mind CN characters?"
DM: "not if you make him group friendly."

It's short hand. It allows the communication of complex ideas with a simple abbreviation. That alone is enough to justify its use. In fact, I have used it in other games and even to describe characters in other media. It is a tool.

Max_Killjoy
2019-08-28, 08:40 AM
I think I said this in the other thread, but...

If other people have benefited from using Alignment, I won't tell them that they're wrong, or that they shouldn't use Alignment.

Personally, I've never had a good experience with Alignment, it's either been transparent to the point of pointlessness, or actively detrimental.

If all of the cosmological and metaphysical and prescriptive elements of Alignment were removed, and it really was just a purely descriptive tag, if all the horrible moral implications of "EVIL" and evil being grotesquely misaligned didn't exist, and I'd never hear another gamer say "but an X character wouldn't do that", that would address most of my issues with it. 5e appears to go part way down that road, but between the elements that remain and all the baggage from earlier editions, I don't know if it can ever be made into something that's not going to actively push me away.

Pleh
2019-08-28, 09:22 AM
A lot of these responses are better than how I could have phrased it, so I'll leave that where it is. Just this one part I want to comment on.


"but an X character wouldn't do that"

I think even a descriptive label might prompt this kind of question. It just wouldn't be a barrier. It's like paint on the pavement. It doesn't tell you where you can go, just what that space is defined to mean.

If a LG paladin is being a muderhobo and killing the innocent, there should be a question of why their motivational alignment allows this conduct. It may or may not be hard to justify, but the need to question is fair. Sometimes players lose sight of their character while playing the game and a quick reminder is helpful.

PhoenixPhyre
2019-08-28, 09:45 AM
I think even a descriptive label might prompt this kind of question. It just wouldn't be a barrier. It's like paint on the pavement. It doesn't tell you where you can go, just what that space is defined to mean.

If a LG paladin is being a muderhobo and killing the innocent, there should be a question of why their motivational alignment allows this conduct. It may or may not be hard to justify, but the need to question is fair. Sometimes players lose sight of their character while playing the game and a quick reminder is helpful.

In a descriptive scenario, saying "would a LG person do that" boils down to one of:
* are you sure that that action fits what you said you were?
* is what you said you were really the way the character is?
* how will your (LG) character feel about doing something (for whatever reason) that goes against their normal tendencies?

You can do the action without changing alignment, but it should represent a notable deviation from the person's "default behavior". If it becomes the default, you probably should consider either changing the conduct or changing the alignment label (and being honest about it).

In a prescriptive scenario, saying "A LG character can't do that" says that you can't take that action unless you change your alignment to !LG.

One says "would you", the others say "you can't."

Gallowglass
2019-08-28, 09:53 AM
In a descriptive scenario, saying "would a LG person do that" boils down to one of:
* are you sure that that action fits what you said you were?
* is what you said you were really the way the character is?
* how will your (LG) character feel about doing something (for whatever reason) that goes against their normal tendencies?

You can do the action without changing alignment, but it should represent a notable deviation from the person's "default behavior". If it becomes the default, you probably should consider either changing the conduct or changing the alignment label (and being honest about it).

In a prescriptive scenario, saying "A LG character can't do that" says that you can't take that action unless you change your alignment to !LG.

One says "would you", the others say "you can't."

I can't take that as a serious criticism of alignment because I've personally heard:

"A ranger wouldn't do that."
"An elf wouldnt' do that."
"A Halfling wouldn't do that.'
"An Aasimar wouldn't do that."
"A sorcerer wouldn't do that."
"Someone with a low int wouldn't do that."
"A hero wouldn't do that."

and outside of D&D

"A clan ghost bear wouldn't do that."
"A torreador wouldn't do that."
"Your canadian cyborg cowboy lawman wouldn't do that."

and my absolute favorite

"A jedi wouldn't do that."

etcetera etcetera.

That's not a complaint about alignment. That's a complaint about bad players with low imagination trying to control your character. Again, Alignment is no better or worse a tool enabling that behavior than any other. Don't blame the system for the bad actors using it.

PhoenixPhyre
2019-08-28, 10:18 AM
I can't take that as a serious criticism of alignment because I've personally heard:

"A ranger wouldn't do that."
"An elf wouldnt' do that."
"A Halfling wouldn't do that.'
"An Aasimar wouldn't do that."
"A sorcerer wouldn't do that."
"Someone with a low int wouldn't do that."
"A hero wouldn't do that."

and outside of D&D

"A clan ghost bear wouldn't do that."
"A torreador wouldn't do that."
"Your canadian cyborg cowboy lawman wouldn't do that."

and my absolute favorite

"A jedi wouldn't do that."

etcetera etcetera.

That's not a complaint about alignment. That's a complaint about bad players with low imagination trying to control your character. Again, Alignment is no better or worse a tool enabling that behavior than any other. Don't blame the system for the bad actors using it.

It wasn't really intended as a complaint. Just pointing out that descriptive alignment (like descriptive anything) is a warning flag against unintentional or seemingly-odd character decisions, while a prescriptive alignment denies actions (or punishes actions) that go against type.

D&D works best with a descriptive alignment with (very mild) side effects at most.

RedMage125
2019-08-28, 11:09 AM
You do not need a metaphysical reason to endlessly tell stories in a setting. its called "starting a new campaign." thats like claiming that if a sun blows up in one campaign, it stays blown up in the next, thats ridiculous. the conflict can be solved in one campaign and guess, because another campaign is not the one before it, things.....reset without needing in-setting metaphysical reason for characters to realize things reset and thus make it pointless IN SETTING, because there does need to continuity between campaigns. there is no need for the concept your talking, just acknowledge one campaign is not this campaign and thus doesn't have continuity, the metaphysical excuse is an unnecessary flourish that only works if your going to advance things in some direction while keeping continuity with another campaign. which of little consequence to the group currently playing. regardless, I do not really care for whether this is a useful tool for you, "the balance between good and evil" does not make sense, it is morally problematic and therefore it should not be used regardless. if I want to play a game about morality, the base assumption is that its worth being moral, and no amount of sisyphuses rock is worth it.
So, you're saying that the system is a "bad system", because it creates an idiom which would make it plausible for some people to run a game where they do not have to "reset"? Because that's what it seems like your whole point is. At least as far as attributing this argument towards your overall point about why "Cosmic and Eternal Good/Evil" goes.


the rest of your post is exactly why I avoid subjectivity. you have spun my attempt to help you understand my viewpoint, my dislike, my pain, into an portrayal of "victim complex" and so on, that was not intended. I understand not being sympathetic if someone is trying to manipulate to tug their heart strings cynically, but do not be surprised if I am not sympathetic towards you in turn. what goes around, comes around.

Beg Pardon? At no point did your post come across as "attempting to help me understand your viewpoint". You straight-up blamed me for making your points "valueless". Which, given that I expressly stated in the post you were responding to that your perceptions are totally valid, and that what is true for you is a valid personal truth to you, is a blatant and intentional misrepresentation of what I said, and is absolutely portraying yourself as a "victim". Which is, as I said, Argumentum Ad Miserecordium from a Straw Man. And what "pain" was I "not symnpathetic" of? The very fact that you are couching it as "pain" shows that you are claiming that you have been "victimized", even in the same breath that you deny such.

You claimed, to Pleh, that problems with alignment "[have] nothing to do with personal expereience", and that "the data disagrees with [Pleh]". You were couching your statements as objective fact, and telling another poster that he was objectively wrong (and claiming you had "data" to prove such) when he said that your negative experiences do not negate the positive experiences of himself (and others). I have invited you to provide this "data" you claim. Twice now. You would not. Instead you told me that I took "beautiful logic and cause and effect that [you] constructed and makes it valueless. useless. void.". What "beautiful logic" did you construct? And in what way did I "make it useless/void"? And how can you possibly claim that saying such was not "playing a victim"?

The only "logic you constructed" was in pointing out that Cosmic Good, like Cosmic Evil was equally unintelligent and unkillable. Which I agreed was true. You pointed out that neither Cosmic good nor Cosmic Evil can ever "win". Which I also agreed was true. However, your conclusion that you draw from those facts is that "there's no point to the conflict because the conflict itself cannot be destroyed". And that isn't an actual FACT, because as soon as you make the claim of "there's no point", you are expressing an opinion, based on your particular preferences. And you couched this opinion as if it were a FACT.

Spoiler Alert: it is not.

My counter-point (which you completely ignored in favor of responding to my rhetorical and ironic question of "why play D&D?", something I explicitly said was not a serious question), was that just because Cosmic Evil will never be destroyed does not mean that there's "no point" to stopping the agents of Evil. Furthermore, the Cosmic Forces themselves aren't actually in conflict, any more than the north and south poles of a magnet are in "conflict". The Cosmic Forces themselves have no intelligence, and therefore no agency or agenda to even be in conflict. The beings composed of the energies of said forces (Good/Evil/Law/Chaos) are in conflict with each other. Furthermore, the trope that the struggle against Evil is a never-ending one is a powerful motif throughout human history and literature. "Defending Good requires constant vigilance" and so forth. Because Cosmic Evil is faceless, dispassionate, and eternal, there will always be forces of it which seek to do Evil things, either for their own benefit/enjoyment, or out of some philisophical dsire to "spread Evil" (although that last is overly simplistic in my book). Thus, the Core Assumption of this means that it is easy for DMs to have continuity in a world they create, because even if one Evil Plot is stopped, there may be another one down the line, or in a different part of the world. That doesn't make the previous victory "menaingless", the world can be saved, and need saving, multiple times, in multiple ways. You made it abundantly clear that you think there's only a "point" if it possible to end all Evil, forever.

And my exact words were: It's not a flaw, it's a feature. That your personal preference is for a different paradigm doesn't make the existing system "bad". Nor does it mean your preference is somehow "wrong". It just means you have an opinion and a preference for something other than the default idiom of D&D. That is all. (post #91, still unedited, if you doubt me).

But you only responded with even more subjectivity (which you claimed makes things "meaningless" in the same breath) about how "it doesn't make the system good or my preference right". Which, given your tone with regards to how "meaningless/valueless" you think making something subjective is, I perceived as a complete cop-out, and abrogation of your own culpability to what you had been saying previously. Which is: it was, in fact, your claim that the paradigm of "unkillable Cosmic Evil" was a "bad system". Something you couched as a "Fact". Just like how you claimed to Pleh that alignment itself being bad was a "Fact". When I pointed out a different conclusion than you came to...a different way of looking at the "unkillable Cosmic Evil" that did not dismiss it as "pointless" (which means that your claim of it being "pointelss" was just and opinion and not a Fact), you became very defensive, accused me of "making your points meaningless", and so on. Which is, once again, playing the victim.

I never denigrated you or your preferences. I absolutely said -specifically even- that your preferences are valid. I even couched it as saying "what is true for you" (to show that I acknowledge that this is something that you hold as truth). I simply pointed out that your stance was based on your preferences for a different paradigm that the one assumed by the default Core rules of D&D. And that not everyone shares your preferences, which means it was not objectively true. And if you think that me saying "your conclusion is not objectively true for everyone" is somehow an "attack" on the "meaning and value" of your perspective, then that's on you. And you may want to reflect and consider what kind of perception that you give off if you cannot be comfortable saying "this is my preference, and some others don't share it, and that's okay".

{Scrubbed}So imagine my shock that when I simply point out that your conclusions (based on your preference for a different paradigm) are not universally true for everyone, that you outline yourself in chalk, and accuse me of making your "beautiful logic" "meaningless". Just because your conclusions are different than mine does not make either one "meaningless", it makes them different. That is all.

I hope that clears things up, since I have been quite taken aback by your apparent vitriol. I once again would like to invite you to take a deep breath, maybe see how your words led to you being perceived in such a manner, and try to continue in a calm and civilized manner.

I am, as I said before, very interested in seeing this data which you said "disagrees" with Pleh's assertion that alignment problems are a matter of personal experiences. I have long believed such a study with objectively gathered raw data did not exist. You said there was data, which I assume means that you can link it somehow.

RedMage125
2019-08-28, 11:20 AM
I can't take that as a serious criticism of alignment because I've personally heard:
*snip*

That's not a complaint about alignment. That's a complaint about bad players with low imagination trying to control your character. Again, Alignment is no better or worse a tool enabling that behavior than any other. Don't blame the system for the bad actors using it.

Lol. I've seen an heard some of those, too. I like pointing out taht if they were right, Paladins would not be able to "fall".

And so right about blaming the system vis the people using it.


and my absolute favorite

"A jedi wouldn't do that."


So...fun side story. I once played a SWSE game where I joined in after the rest of the party had been playing for awhile. The game was set between Ep3 and Ep4, and most of the party were renegade jedi who survived Order 66. I played a Falleen Noble with a few levels in Crime Lord. My character was a part of the fledgling Dark Sun crime syndicate. So...at one point, I came up with a plan to do something (this was years ago, and I forget the details) that involved some shady dealings. The other members of the party were like "No, we're Jedi, we won't do that kind of thing". And my response was "Last time I checked, being a Jedi was a crime, punishable by death. That makes you a criminal, so we're going to do it my way.". The other players all got a laugh out of that, and while they admitted out-of-character that it was a good point, they decided to stick to their guns and we did some other option that didn't make the jedi feel icky.

Still a fun story, though.

Lord Raziere
2019-08-28, 11:32 AM
Fine. Sorry. I apologize. I should not said those things. I was subjective and did all that and should not have.

I just really don't like ideas like "Balance between good and evil" if it is wrong-headed to my point of view, there is simply no reason to use it to me. other ideas that I simply cannot stand are things like : can't fight fate, always evil races, things like that. I have nothing against your or other people, its ideas that find both morally and logically problematic that I cannot stand.

your probably right about a bunch of things about the stuff I said. I didn't both to read all of it, since I'm tired of this discussion and just want to make sure we patch things up rather leave it on a vitriolic note.

{Scrubbed}

RedMage125
2019-08-28, 12:24 PM
Fine. Sorry. I apologize. I should not said those things. I was subjective and did all that and should not have.

I just really don't like ideas like "Balance between good and evil" if it is wrong-headed to my point of view, there is simply no reason to use it to me. other ideas that I simply cannot stand are things like : can't fight fate, always evil races, things like that. I have nothing against your or other people, its ideas that find both morally and logically problematic that I cannot stand.

your probably right about a bunch of things about the stuff I said. I didn't both to read all of it, since I'm tired of this discussion and just want to make sure we patch things up rather leave it on a vitriolic note.
Quite all right, old bean.


{Scrubbed post, scrubbed quote}

{Scrubbed}

Lord Raziere
2019-08-28, 12:29 PM
{Scrubbed post, scrubbed quote}.

Ah, I see. That makes more sense, thank you.

Pleh
2019-08-28, 06:00 PM
I just really don't like ideas like "Balance between good and evil" if it is wrong-headed to my point of view, there is simply no reason to use it to me. other ideas that I simply cannot stand are things like : can't fight fate, always evil races, things like that. I have nothing against your or other people, its ideas that find both morally and logically problematic that I cannot stand.

Honestly, I didn't know you were including all this within the topic of alignment. While I find proper use of alignment to describe characters valuable, I've always disliked the Cosmic Wheel explanation that tried to say that Good wasn't better than Evil and the universe needed both to be balanced. Fine and fair enough for folks who like that system, but for me, if Good isn't describing the ideal universe where everything is as ot should be, it isn't really Good, just a cosmic sports team that for some reason gets away with being called the Good Guys.

Can't Fight Fate is a trope that works a lot better in novels than TTRPGs. I mean, if you truly can't fight fate as a PC, then the end is already determined and what's the point of the choices that make up the game?

Always Evil Races is anpther trope that suits different folks differently. My preference is to have a *reason* for absolute racial alignment if that's the way a table wants to go. Like if Orcs are always evil because (in this world) all Orcs are created through demon pacts that invariably corrupt the soul. At that point, I don't want to see any Drizzt special exceptions, it's now a cosmic law, so no take backs for "special" characters. If you aren't going to write it into setting specific cosmic law, then racial alignment isn't universal, no matter how homogenous the culture seems.

But I see all these things as optional plugins for TTRPGS that are separate, if tangentially related, to alignment.

You can have alignment without balance based philosophy, predeterministic fate, and universal racial alignment.

Lord Raziere
2019-08-28, 06:04 PM
those were just random examples, even the universal race one was tangentally related. I wasn't linking them to anything with this specifically. I don't do that kind of thing.

Zhentarim
2019-08-30, 05:44 PM
No, D&D is Way 1 - everything can be whatever you want it to be. That's generally the case with games. Any rule can be changed.

The real world is, well, real. Things are not whatever you want them to be. If you have a lot of power you may be able to force others to pretend that things are what you want them to be, but you cannot really change them.
If you are human, you are not a squirrel, and no matter how much you want to be a squirrel, you will not turn into one. You may be able to make others pretend that you are a squirrel, and perhaps even change the meaning of the word over time, but the observable reality will remain the same no matter what you name it.

And if you don't smoke, you don't smoke, even if the idea of smoking never ever entered your mind and you don't even make a conscious decision to not smoke. You still do not smoke.

I’m surprised this didn’t stir up a storm of controversy.

I prefer the mtg color wheel system to alignment. I am strongly black-blue aligned or black-white aligned, depending on who wrote the test. I personally favor black-blue, but I’m not that secretive online. In person, though, I do try to be discreet about my ambitions.

Karl Aegis
2019-08-31, 01:43 AM
2nd edition was pretty clear that Good and Evil was cultural and that most Evil persons don't actively seek to cause harm or destruction.

3rd edition had guys that ran around and killed everything they could find that could defend itself ping as Chaotic Neutral. Erythnul was pretty baller.

The question really depends on whether you're running Gygaxian Alignment, TSR Alignment or WotC alignment.

I prefer aligning myself to an Outer Plane when I want to play an alignment. I get a better idea of playing a Chaotic Neutral wannabe hero if I align myself with the Heroic Domains of Ysgard so I don't end up being a Chaotic Good Elf who fits their behavior with the Tartarian Depths of Carceri. They stabbed the party priest when they were performing last rites. Kind of not a Good thing to do.

hamishspence
2019-08-31, 02:44 AM
3rd edition had guys that ran around and killed everything they could find that could defend itself ping as Chaotic Neutral. Erythnul was pretty baller.

Erythnul is CE, not CN, in 3e.

Some CN monsters in 3e are extremely aggressive (Cloakers and Fang Dragons spring to mind) - but there may be a certain amount of overlap. Eberron in particular stresses that Evil characters don't necessarily deserve to be attacked by adventurers.

Pleh
2019-08-31, 05:59 AM
I prefer the mtg color wheel system to alignment. I am strongly black-blue aligned or black-white aligned, depending on who wrote the test. I personally favor black-blue, but I’m not that secretive online. In person, though, I do try to be discreet about my ambitions.

Had to look up the color wheel alignment stuff. Not a bad way to a just a couple more dimensions to alignment, but you could do about the same work the way 5e did by supplementing Alignment with Flaws, Bonds, and Ideals. Thus you get Alignment as your "primary color" and F/B/I are your "secondary color"

Lord Raziere
2019-08-31, 09:09 AM
Had to look up the color wheel alignment stuff. Not a bad way to a just a couple more dimensions to alignment, but you could do about the same work the way 5e did by supplementing Alignment with Flaws, Bonds, and Ideals. Thus you get Alignment as your "primary color" and F/B/I are your "secondary color"

Personally I also prefer the color wheel and looking at it so narrowly as to only use two colors a bit simplistic to me.

some characters are only one. some can be two, or three, four, or even all five. this doesn't really change how good of a character they are either way. just what they focus on in life, what they value and how balanced out they are. one character when I tried to apply the color wheel to her, I found she changed colors in different stages of her life:
-when she was in high school being a delinquent, beating up bullies and not really paying attention in class to do her own thing she was solidly Red.
-after kidnapped, turned into a slave-weapon while also finding the love of her life she actually became more Black as she became more cynical and selfish in her outlook on life even as she broke free from the kidnappers control and did things to save others, reasoning to herself that all she did was enlightened self interest.
-when she worked to fight against an oppressive empire, she gradually went from someone justifying everything through enlightened self-interest to someone who was more thoughtful, gradually learning to trust others more, becoming more Blue and known as a teacher and a survivor.
-when she finally overthrew that oppressive empire she had a super form transformation where for one moment she could be argued to be all five colors, as she was fighting for herself (Black), her friends (Red), a better society (White and Blue), and the preservation of worlds (Green).
-after that, she has a measure of White to her, being seen as a heroic figure by the world and having a reputation for goodness to uphold, but she her personality is still a sarcastic cynical person who is kind of jaded about the world who just wants to have fun (Black/Red) who can get real cold, analytical and controlling when she is assessing threats to the world (Blue), or being more Green-like when she is acting like a wise mentor to younger heroes she is teaching.

the color wheel can sometimes be more of a journey than an identity, and the best characters often dip into most if not all the colors in one form or another.

Pleh
2019-08-31, 09:53 AM
Personally I also prefer the color wheel and looking at it so narrowly as to only use two colors a bit simplistic to me.

some characters are only one. some can be two, or three, four, or even all five.

It's about the same as cartesian alignment, if you're not too rigid with alignment shifts. Some characters are best described as being all alignments, selfish/altruistic, ethical/freethinking simultaneously (such as if you tried to roleplay RDJ's Tony Stark).

Color wheels could be just as rigid if the designers applied mechanical restrictions to spells or class features based around it (assuming we're using the color wheel for a TTRPG and not just mtg). Like if paladins were barred from using black and/or red spells (or actions).

So, yeah. The idea of a primary/secondary color is more of a construct to introduce the concept.

NNescio
2019-08-31, 10:12 AM
Personally I also prefer the color wheel and looking at it so narrowly as to only use two colors a bit simplistic to me.

some characters are only one. some can be two, or three, four, or even all five. this doesn't really change how good of a character they are either way. just what they focus on in life, what they value and how balanced out they are. one character when I tried to apply the color wheel to her, I found she changed colors in different stages of her life:
-when she was in high school being a delinquent, beating up bullies and not really paying attention in class to do her own thing she was solidly Red.
-after kidnapped, turned into a slave-weapon while also finding the love of her life she actually became more Black as she became more cynical and selfish in her outlook on life even as she broke free from the kidnappers control and did things to save others, reasoning to herself that all she did was enlightened self interest.
-when she worked to fight against an oppressive empire, she gradually went from someone justifying everything through enlightened self-interest to someone who was more thoughtful, gradually learning to trust others more, becoming more Blue and known as a teacher and a survivor.
-when she finally overthrew that oppressive empire she had a super form transformation where for one moment she could be argued to be all five colors, as she was fighting for herself (Black), her friends (Red), a better society (White and Blue), and the preservation of worlds (Green).
-after that, she has a measure of White to her, being seen as a heroic figure by the world and having a reputation for goodness to uphold, but she her personality is still a sarcastic cynical person who is kind of jaded about the world who just wants to have fun (Black/Red) who can get real cold, analytical and controlling when she is assessing threats to the world (Blue), or being more Green-like when she is acting like a wise mentor to younger heroes she is teaching.

the color wheel can sometimes be more of a journey than an identity, and the best characters often dip into most if not all the colors in one form or another.

Alright, first we take a color wheel, which technically is a color cylinder, making it a three-axis system: 'hue' (whatever arbitrary alignment type you want using polar coordinates), 'saturation' (intensity), 'lightness' (abstractness/concreteness in outlook).

Next we turn this into a 3D radar plot to represent different alignment 'aspects' of a character (with corresponding intensity/abstractness values).

Now let's parameterize the plot with respect to time, to show how the character takes on different aspects during different phases of time (or lifecycle 'trend' moments). Or both, because nothing stops us from encoding both periodic and trend data, really.

I call this the vectorized color cylinder radar plot Colorful Timey-Wimey Alignment Ball. (CTWAB)

OldTrees1
2019-08-31, 12:47 PM
Personally I also prefer the color wheel and looking at it so narrowly as to only use two colors a bit simplistic to me.

some characters are only one. some can be two, or three, four, or even all five. this doesn't really change how good of a character they are either way. just what they focus on in life, what they value and how balanced out they are. one character when I tried to apply the color wheel to her, I found she changed colors in different stages of her life:


To me the color wheel starts by asking about 10 different topics and asks you to give 10 answers. None of those answers map to any color. But specific pairs of answers can be summarized by how much the character currently identifies with a specific color.

Personally I suggest creating a decagon on the Color Wheel as a visual description of your character's current color identity. This even shows how the character has a different affinity with different aspects of a color.

And I agree this answer changes across their life.

In broad strokes the difference between the Color Wheel and Alignment is:
The Color Wheel asks about your personality in 5d space
Alignment asks about how you answer "what ought one do?" in 2d space
Both are obviously too few dimensions to fully answer the question but

tordirycgoyust
2019-09-04, 01:19 PM
To expand a bit on why the colour wheel works as a system: it only asks the player how their character views themselves and what they value, not how they actually behave.

The greatest failing of alignment is that it tries to measure multiple mostly orthogonal things on a single scale.

As OP correctly points out, most people think of themselves as Good, usually Lawful Good... but in practice it's really hard to live up to those ideals and you end up behaving "Neutral". Getting these very different things (self-concept vs actions) confused is the source of at least 95% of alignment debates (and Wittgenstein rolls in his grave).

Now, at that point there comes a question of how failing to live up to ideals and the consequences thereof is treated. It's up to the person making the setting and the DM to determine the cutoffs, what the gods care about, whether Outsiders are treated differently than mortals, etc. It also demands that a lot more attention be paid to what magic that interacts with alignment actually does, if such magic exists at all.

It also avoids charged terminology like good and evil, which helps one avoid bias when considering their self-conception and ideals. If Evil is a valid lifestyle choice in D&D, it's got to have some actual validity. By which I mean a relatively PR-friendly name (at least in Evil-dominant places like Menzobaranzan; the Kingdom of Light is still going to call the Drow Evil, just as the Drow call the Kingdom of Light a bunch of weak-ass hippies) and some actual ideals that can at least be spinned as positive (drive, ambition, and a willingness to make hard choices and sacrifices, for example).

Lord Raziere
2019-09-04, 02:05 PM
It also avoids charged terminology like good and evil, which helps one avoid bias when considering their self-conception and ideals. If Evil is a valid lifestyle choice in D&D, it's got to have some actual validity. By which I mean a relatively PR-friendly name (at least in Evil-dominant places like Menzobaranzan; the Kingdom of Light is still going to call the Drow Evil, just as the Drow call the Kingdom of Light a bunch of weak-ass hippies) and some actual ideals that can at least be spinned as positive (drive, ambition, and a willingness to make hard choices and sacrifices, for example).

See, for high fantasy like this, I prefer the terms "Light" and "Dark"

Light isn't really good.

Dark isn't really evil.

they do however have different set of values that set them at odds with each other. Light wants people to be safe, Dark wants people to be free. Light wants a perfect orderly world where everything has its place, everything runs smoothly and all the rules are followed. Dark just wants a world where everyone can do their own thing, not have to be bound by oppression and be able to explore their full potential and individuality. Light can be oppressive. Dark can be selfish. At its best its Lawful Good Vs. Chaotic Good, at its worst its Lawful Evil Vs. Chaotic Evil.

both have a morality of sorts, both have an ideal they're working towards, and the pursuit of that ideal can lead down some very bad roads for some people, but both have potential to be good. (I'm not sure where selfish evil tyrants fits in though- perhaps as something that both Light and Dark hates?) but it gives more complexity while still having a way to make clear villains from it, by making sure one thing or the other is taken too far whether its selflessness or selfishness, as well as more grey conflicts between the two.

but then again I never like to be normal or vanilla, so I doubt anyone else likes such a system.

NNescio
2019-09-04, 02:33 PM
TAnd I agree this answer changes across their life.

In broad strokes the difference between the Color Wheel and Alignment is:
The Color Wheel asks about your personality in 5d space

It isn't 5D so much as 2D with polar coordinates.
(Unless one insists on paradox 'alignments' like one primary tinged by two opposing colors.)


See, for high fantasy like this, I prefer the terms "Light" and "Dark"

Light isn't really good.

Dark isn't really evil.

they do however have different set of values that set them at odds with each other. Light wants people to be safe, Dark wants people to be free. Light wants a perfect orderly world where everything has its place, everything runs smoothly and all the rules are followed. Dark just wants a world where everyone can do their own thing, not have to be bound by oppression and be able to explore their full potential and individuality. Light can be oppressive. Dark can be selfish. At its best its Lawful Good Vs. Chaotic Good, at its worst its Lawful Evil Vs. Chaotic Evil.

both have a morality of sorts, both have an ideal they're working towards, and the pursuit of that ideal can lead down some very bad roads for some people, but both have potential to be good. (I'm not sure where selfish evil tyrants fits in though- perhaps as something that both Light and Dark hates?) but it gives more complexity while still having a way to make clear villains from it, by making sure one thing or the other is taken too far whether its selflessness or selfishness, as well as more grey conflicts between the two.

but then again I never like to be normal or vanilla, so I doubt anyone else likes such a system.

That's how Chainmail and OD&D used to work, sorta (less on the safety/freedom part). Law, Neutral, and Chaos, with alignment determining a character/creature's allegiance instead of its personality.

(First Fantasy Campaign actually had it as Good, Neutral, Chaos. Presumably this was changed in Chainmail to de-emphasize the 'morality' baggage and instead shift focus to the team allegiance part. AD&D 1e brought back Good and Chaos, presumably for more... nuanced teams, but even then it mostly remained an allegiance determiner instead of actual outlooks on morality/ethics.)

Then 2e came by and started* using alignment as a straitjacket for personality/attitudes (including moral/ethical outlooks.) Later editions then relaxed the straitjacket, but the basic idea is still there.

(*Maybe it was done to mollify moral panic groups back in those days. Presumably the Good/Evil split allowed TSR to issue a 'moral' statement, basically "Yes, those options are in the game but we don't exactly condone them. They are more like villain options that the players are supposed to oppose." But this whole part is just speculation on my part.)

OldTrees1
2019-09-04, 05:21 PM
It isn't 5D so much as 2D with polar coordinates.
(Unless one insists on paradox 'alignments' like one primary tinged by two opposing colors.)
You might want to review the color wheel system again. Those "paradox alignments" are normal and expected. There are even entire organizations based around them. This is because they are not paradoxical in the slightest. A biologist might very well be biased towards (Logic, Technology, and Interdependence)
https://i.imgur.com/KKKaooM.gif?1
https://image.slidesharecdn.com/howtofigureoutstuff-190306141426/95/how-to-figure-out-stuff-5-638.jpg?cb=1551881707

If someone identifies with:
Morality over Amorality
Logic over Impulse
Chaos over Order
Interdependance over Parasitism
Technology over Instinct
How well does your 2D attempt capture their personality?
Did you place them smack dab in the middle of the Order section of White?
Or did you waffle between putting them as Green/White vs Blue?
Or did you just put them in the middle?

https://astro.temple.edu/~tuf94748/Images/0c111bd549e8f9d52d01658fc6fe9d0abfd788ec_hq.jpg

Max_Killjoy
2019-09-04, 09:02 PM
Always found the "interdependence" vs "parasitism" one... just odd. As if one could neither reject both at the same time, nor seek neither.

OldTrees1
2019-09-04, 09:38 PM
Always found the "interdependence" vs "parasitism" one... just odd. As if one could neither reject both at the same time, nor seek neither.

I think they are going for "For the Good of the Group" vs "For the Good of the Self".

Alternatively you can answer both sides independently and then treat it as a 10 sided polygon.

RedMage125
2019-09-05, 10:42 AM
You might want to review the color wheel system again. Those "paradox alignments" are normal and expected. There are even entire organizations based around them. This is because they are not paradoxical in the slightest. A biologist might very well be biased towards (Logic, Technology, and Interdependence)
https://i.imgur.com/KKKaooM.gif?1
https://image.slidesharecdn.com/howtofigureoutstuff-190306141426/95/how-to-figure-out-stuff-5-638.jpg?cb=1551881707

If someone identifies with:
Morality over Amorality
Logic over Impulse
Chaos over Order
Interdependance over Parasitism
Technology over Instinct
How well does your 2D attempt capture their personality?
Did you place them smack dab in the middle of the Order section of White?
Or did you waffle between putting them as Green/White vs Blue?
Or did you just put them in the middle?

https://astro.temple.edu/~tuf94748/Images/0c111bd549e8f9d52d01658fc6fe9d0abfd788ec_hq.jpg

Thank you for that. I don't play M:tG, and I don't use Ravnica, and so I've never understood what the colors stood for.

I now know that I am White/Blue, lol.

Quarian Rex
2019-09-05, 02:28 PM
It seems to me, very generally, that people who I would consider evil under the D&D alignment rules see themselves more as neutral. That those I see as neutral see themselves as good. No one seems to seriously consider themselves evil. This applies to real world personas as well as those posting online.
...
Should something like this affect world building?




It is defined as Evil. Evil is the thing that is defined as unacceptable and wrong. When something is unacceptable, you get rid of it.




It also avoids charged terminology like good and evil, which helps one avoid bias when considering their self-conception and ideals. If Evil is a valid lifestyle choice in D&D, it's got to have some actual validity. By which I mean a relatively PR-friendly name (at least in Evil-dominant places like Menzobaranzan; the Kingdom of Light is still going to call the Drow Evil, just as the Drow call the Kingdom of Light a bunch of weak-ass hippies) and some actual ideals that can at least be spinned as positive (drive, ambition, and a willingness to make hard choices and sacrifices, for example).

I think that one of the biggest stumbling blocks when discussing the alignment system is speaking solely from the perspective of good, and that colors the entire conversation. Good has no problem justifying itself in opposition to Evil, but Evil has a much harder time when you accept Good's definitions of it.

If the alignments are on a four sectioned wheel then you need to spin that wheel and rename the opposing forces when another alignment is on top. Evil wouldn't see itself as 'Evil', with all of the connotations put upon it by Good, but as Strength standing in opposition to crippling Weakness. Chaos would see itself as Freedom standing in opposition to Slavery. Law would see itself as Security standing in opposition to Vulnerability.

When looking at the alignment system from a worldbuilding perspective I think that this would be of utmost importance. You need a way to look at societies of varying alignments as being valid from their own perspective. And you need a way to do so that doesn't just have each side declare themselves to be 'good', something that usually leads to useless navel gazing and can be instantly subverted by a simple Detect Alignment spell. While the axes can generally agree about the actions covered by each alignment it doesn't imply that they have to believe the other sides propaganda of what that actually means.

Lord Raziere
2019-09-05, 03:25 PM
I think that one of the biggest stumbling blocks when discussing the alignment system is speaking solely from the perspective of good, and that colors the entire conversation. Good has no problem justifying itself in opposition to Evil, but Evil has a much harder time when you accept Good's definitions of it.

If the alignments are on a four sectioned wheel then you need to spin that wheel and rename the opposing forces when another alignment is on top. Evil wouldn't see itself as 'Evil', with all of the connotations put upon it by Good, but as Strength standing in opposition to crippling Weakness. Chaos would see itself as Freedom standing in opposition to Slavery. Law would see itself as Security standing in opposition to Vulnerability.

When looking at the alignment system from a worldbuilding perspective I think that this would be of utmost importance. You need a way to look at societies of varying alignments as being valid from their own perspective. And you need a way to do so that doesn't just have each side declare themselves to be 'good', something that usually leads to useless navel gazing and can be instantly subverted by a simple Detect Alignment spell. While the axes can generally agree about the actions covered by each alignment it doesn't imply that they have to believe the other sides propaganda of what that actually means.

Your right. Thanks I hate it. Now I have to deal with people redefining this or that in an escapist fantasy too when I already hate it when people do in real life. Ugh.

Pleh
2019-09-05, 03:54 PM
Your right. Thanks I hate it. Now I have to deal with people redefining this or that in an escapist fantasy too when I already hate it when people do in real life. Ugh.

I'm trying to follow along:

You call it, "redefining." But it looks to me like it's more a subjective expression of perspective (definitions tend to be more objective). I think there's a bit of a chicken or egg question with fundamental perspectives like alignment.

It seems quite natural that a character would espouse values that coincide with the best aspects of their alignment (e.g. chaotic characters might see the benefits of freedom in their chaotic nature, but be less sensitive to the lack of security that it also entails).

In fact, you might say that a character's value of freedom over security might be part of their definition as chaotic. Rather than viewing characters trying to obscure facts about their behavior with thought experiments, it might be better to view alignment as their subjective perspective on ethics.

"You're supporting that noble's ascension to power by engaging in the state's political process. You're not chaotic."

"But I support this noble because I believe they want to support citizens having more freedoms, thus advancing my goals of having more freedom."

It seems to me nothing is being redefined, just viewed through a different frame of reference.

tordirycgoyust
2019-09-05, 04:01 PM
It took a bit of doing since the blog moved, but I was able to track down [part of] the blog series (https://loreleywrites.tumblr.com/search/aligning+the+colors) that best systematized the mapping of the alignments to the colours. Of particular note is the conceit that each colour does have its own names for the axes from its own perspective. Green, for instance, labels its axes Humble/Vain and Honest/Manipulative, and a properly Green person would list their alignment as Honest/Humble as they decry their greatest enemies as Vain/Manipulative, whereas Blue would label the axes as Logical/Rash and Progressive/Cowardly. D&D is very much written from a mono-White perspective, and thus we inherit its axes of Good/Evil and Lawful/Chaotic across the entire game and end up with blinders that make it almost impossible to coherently write "Evil" or "Chaotic" societies or even worshippers of Chaotic/Evil gods (or for that matter the gods themselves) because they inevitably get strawmanned to oblivion.

If you accept that non-White societies can be functional (which you don't have to, but D&D categorically does), then to understand them you have to interact with them on their own terms.

I also imagine two distinct forms of Detect Alignment. One simply measures self-conception as a sort of heat map of the colours. The other measures which afterlife one would end up in were they to die at the time of measurement. One is obviously a lot more useful for solving mysteries than the other (though neither will ever be a smoking gun by itself), and would be significantly higher level and on a much more restricted set of spell lists.

Lord Raziere
2019-09-05, 04:15 PM
In fact, you might say that a character's value of freedom over security might be part of their definition as chaotic. Rather than viewing characters trying to obscure facts about their behavior with thought experiments, it might be better to view alignment as their subjective perspective on ethics.

"You're supporting that noble's ascension to power by engaging in the state's political process. You're not chaotic."

"But I support this noble because I believe they want to support citizens having more freedoms, thus advancing my goals of having more freedom."

It seems to me nothing is being redefined, just viewed through a different frame of reference.

Uuuuuuugh, I hate it even more now. Words. what do they even mean anymore. They're just talking past each other. thats not useful at all. they might as well be in completely different realities. perspective is what makes me cynical about anything because if anything can be viewed from different frames of reference, those frames of reference can be abused for bad things to happen and no one to have a solid ground to protest against things that are bad. it muddles everything in uncertainty. is there a name for this problem? because there should be, I can't be the only one who has this problem with people talking perspectives like this:
"ooooh behold a completely different frame of reference! its so novel and just as valid as yours, how can you protest against a man being stabbed to death, are you sure a man being stabbed to death isn't actually right from some obscure perspective you haven't considered?"

I'm rapidly starting to think "perspective" discussion is just another form of gotcha.

PhoenixPhyre
2019-09-05, 04:47 PM
To be quite honest, I don't believe that most people think that whatever they do is right, or that they're always justified in their actions. This whole "it's all relative" idea is does not match with what I see around me.

Everyone does things they know are wrong according to their own moral code. And most of these things are wrong on the moral code formed by intersecting all the various moral codes--everyone believes they're wrong. There's a wide agreement about most of the daily "sins" (wrong things) that people commit. Someone who can't tell right from wrong is insane (by legal standards). Just about every person justly convicted of a crime they actually committed did something they knew was wrong or at least had reckless disregard for the consequences of their actions.

Sure, they may not consider themselves bad people, because they have excuses. For some, it was a one-time deviation from the norm. But hardened criminals, for whom such acts are normal still often don't see themselves as bad because they've blamed other things/conditions/people. They don't think the acts themselves are good, they think that they had no choice/someone else made them/etc. But this is (and they know it) just deflection to salve the wounded conscience. And I've met people who knew they were evil and gloried in that fact. They knew they were doing things that were morally wrong and didn't care. They had murdered their own conscience and were openly wearing its blood on their hands.

So good and evil are not matters of perspective. There is right and there is wrong. And mentally-healthy (and most mentally-ill, for that matter) people know the difference at least in the broad brush-strokes.

Translated into the tabletop--lots of truly evil people know they're evil by any normal standard. And don't care. Or consider that to be a strength. They "mercilessly take what they want", either within the confines of "the game of society" (Lawful) or not (Chaotic/Neutral). A D&D devil knows he's evil. Accepts that fact. It just doesn't matter. The assassin who kills without qualm knows that what he does stains his soul. And doesn't care (or at least doesn't care enough to change his behavior and attitudes). The slaver takes slaves and tortures them/works them to death/sells them into bondage because no one stops him, not because he believes he's in the right (at least in the main).

So sure, some people are self-deluded. Mainly "crusader" types who do evil "for the greater good" or those who tote around evil underlings or companions and claim that their own hands are clean because they weren't the ones holding the skinning knife. But that's delusion, and everyone else is under no such confusion. Most people know that
a) they're trying to do what's good and help others in good ways. These are the Good people.
b) they're just making it through life without too much care for the goodness or evilness of their actions. These are the Neutral people.
c) they're routinely taking morally-questionable actions and don't care that much about others (or at least not enough to sacrifice anything). These are the Evil people.

Even the Good people usually don't get too far from the Neutral line, because people are fallible and imperfect, not angels. Even the Evil people usually don't get far from the Neutral line in the other direction, because they're not cackling-mad cartoons or fiends.

And I prefer it this way. There is good, there is evil. Not a mishmash of "perspectives", but truth that everyone knows deep down unless they've openly murdered their own conscience. And those that have are not justified by not knowing it--they're even more condemned for having known it and shutting up that quiet voice saying "no, that's wrong". Supernatural beings take this a step further and are pure(r) good and evil. There are villains, who are evil and know they're evil. There are good antagonists who are doing good, but whom the party disagrees with as to how to do good, or what the end result should look like. There are people who started off thinking they were doing good but slipped into error and have become evil by doing so, even for "good" intentions. There are people who started out with bad intentions but did good things, liked it, and are now doing good but wearing edgy clothes. Wait...I think I've gotten off track here...:smallamused:

Max_Killjoy
2019-09-05, 04:54 PM
Uuuuuuugh, I hate it even more now. Words. what do they even mean anymore. They're just talking past each other. thats not useful at all. they might as well be in completely different realities. perspective is what makes me cynical about anything because if anything can be viewed from different frames of reference, those frames of reference can be abused for bad things to happen and no one to have a solid ground to protest against things that are bad. it muddles everything in uncertainty. is there a name for this problem? because there should be, I can't be the only one who has this problem with people talking perspectives like this:
"ooooh behold a completely different frame of reference! its so novel and just as valid as yours, how can you protest against a man being stabbed to death, are you sure a man being stabbed to death isn't actually right from some obscure perspective you haven't considered?"

I'm rapidly starting to think "perspective" discussion is just another form of gotcha.

The word for the "everything is perception / perspective / relative" problem is postmodernism. 😒

Lord Raziere
2019-09-05, 05:00 PM
The word for the "everything is perception / perspective / relative" problem is postmodernism. 😒

I personally am more the fan of the jokey fun aspects of postmodernism than any real philosophy. like fourth-wall breaking and referential humor.

tordirycgoyust
2019-09-05, 05:04 PM
Uuuuuuugh, I hate it even more now. Words. what do they even mean anymore. They're just talking past each other. thats not useful at all. they might as well be in completely different realities. perspective is what makes me cynical about anything because if anything can be viewed from different frames of reference, those frames of reference can be abused for bad things to happen and no one to have a solid ground to protest against things that are bad. it muddles everything in uncertainty. is there a name for this problem? because there should be, I can't be the only one who has this problem with people talking perspectives like this:
"ooooh behold a completely different frame of reference! its so novel and just as valid as yours, how can you protest against a man being stabbed to death, are you sure a man being stabbed to death isn't actually right from some obscure perspective you haven't considered?"

I'm rapidly starting to think "perspective" discussion is just another form of gotcha.
Three moral relativists walk into a bar and get to debating as they imbibe their beverages of choice.

The normative moral relativist says that all moral systems are equally valid, and as such one should hold off from judging those with different moral systems than one's own.

The meta-ethical moral relativist points out the hypocrisy of making the claim that holding off from judging other moral systems due to their equal validity is more moral than not, as that claim is merely as valid as every moral system that doesn't make that claim.

The descriptive moral relativist continues by pointing out that most conceivable moral systems are non-functional and any society that adopted them wouldn't last more than a day, even if in principle they are in fact equally valid. Those comparative few moral systems that are functional just happen to all be, by and large, pretty similar in the end even if the way they get there is very different. He then points out that a rather suspiciously high number number of functional moral systems reserve the right to call normative moral relativists idiots.

Lord Raziere
2019-09-05, 05:10 PM
Three moral relativists walk into a bar.

The normative moral relativist says that all moral systems are equally valid, and as such one should hold off from judging those with different moral systems than one's own.

The meta-ethical moral relativist points out the hypocrisy of making the claim that holding off from judging other moral systems is more moral than not, as that claim is merely as valid as every moral system that doesn't make that claim.

The descriptive moral relativist continues by pointing out that most conceivable moral systems are non-functional and any society that adopted them wouldn't last more than a day, even if in principle they are in fact equally valid. Those comparative few moral systems that are functional just happen to all be, by and large, pretty similar in the end even if the way they get there is very different.

See, I was at the part where I realized societies would be non-functional if they adopted most of the moralities, but the part where the functional ones are very similar even if where they start is very different is what I didn't have. Thanks.

Pleh
2019-09-05, 05:52 PM
"ooooh behold a completely different frame of reference! its so novel and just as valid as yours, how can you protest against a man being stabbed to death, are you sure a man being stabbed to death isn't actually right from some obscure perspective you haven't considered?"

I'm rapidly starting to think "perspective" discussion is just another form of gotcha.

In the hands of bad actors, sure, but ignoring difference of perspective will not protect you from bad actors trying to pull the wool over your eyes. They would just use different methods, and you pay a cost that you lose the opportunity to learn new and perfectly valid things from people who simply see a portion of reality that has escaped your notice.

Far better, imo, to take the time to evaluate the merits of new perspectives offered, as an extension of the effort to remain open-minded.

Of course, being stabbed is a scenario where you just don't have time to consider new perspectives. You have to just defend yourself as necessary and wait to quibble about what you should have instead done later in hindsight.

So, sure. It is completely reasonable to consider a new perspective to forfeit consideration if it is actively leading to intolerable conclusions (such as having the right to stab people with impunity). That doesn't jump to the conclusion that therefore we shouldn't consider ANY differences of perspective EVER.

It's about knowing where to place good boundaries. Perspectives offered in a constructive, respectful manner might be worth paying attention to. Those that present in an offensive and/or aggressive manner don't deserve our attention even if they happen to be right.

Quarian Rex
2019-09-05, 09:29 PM
Your right. Thanks I hate it. Now I have to deal with people redefining this or that in an escapist fantasy too when I already hate it when people do in real life. Ugh.


Not redefining anything really...


You call it, "redefining." But it looks to me like it's more a subjective expression of perspective (definitions tend to be more objective). I think there's a bit of a chicken or egg question with fundamental perspectives like alignment.

It seems quite natural that a character would espouse values that coincide with the best aspects of their alignment (e.g. chaotic characters might see the benefits of freedom in their chaotic nature, but be less sensitive to the lack of security that it also entails).

...

It seems to me nothing is being redefined, just viewed through a different frame of reference.

This guy gets it. One of the advantages of viewing it like this is that you (as a player) don't have to jump through any philosophical hoops if you don't want to. Your assumptions of the actions of the other alignments are still mostly correct, they just happen to think that their actions were worth it. Remember that Good has its own weaknesses that the other alignments see as abhorrent. How many Good people have been struck down turning the other cheek to someone who chose to press their advantage? How many have died when an ill timed act of mercy resulted in an enemy returning for more blood? Does this have to come up during play? Not unless you happen to stop and have a discussion with a particularly philosophical Orc Chieftain or Sithlord.

When looking at D&D-land you need to recognize that there are fundamental differences in what would be their 'human' experience and that of our own. While we stumble around questioning the meaning of a life worth living without the meaningful guidance of any true authority, D&D-land has objective paths of meaning with actual afterlives that 'reward' their adherents. While we are all pretty familiar with the idea of following the virtues of Good to earn a place in the afterlife, we need to understand (in the context of the game world) that the other axes have their own 'virtues'. Ruthlessness and cruelty are just as useful in this life and as richly rewarded in the afterlife (a very different afterlife to be sure) for the Evil as are mercy and compassion for the Good. Recognizing that can allow you to portray evil/chaotic/lawful societies/characters/etc. as both valid and interesting, instead of making them look stupid for not being good.

Max_Killjoy
2019-09-05, 10:07 PM
Not redefining anything really...

This guy gets it. One of the advantages of viewing it like this is that you (as a player) don't have to jump through any philosophical hoops if you don't want to. Your assumptions of the actions of the other alignments are still mostly correct, they just happen to think that their actions were worth it. Remember that Good has its own weaknesses that the other alignments see as abhorrent. How many Good people have been struck down turning the other cheek to someone who chose to press their advantage? How many have died when an ill timed act of mercy resulted in an enemy returning for more blood? Does this have to come up during play? Not unless you happen to stop and have a discussion with a particularly philosophical Orc Chieftain or Sithlord.

When looking at D&D-land you need to recognize that there are fundamental differences in what would be their 'human' experience and that of our own. While we stumble around questioning the meaning of a life worth living without the meaningful guidance of any true authority, D&D-land has objective paths of meaning with actual afterlives that 'reward' their adherents. While we are all pretty familiar with the idea of following the virtues of Good to earn a place in the afterlife, we need to understand (in the context of the game world) that the other axes have their own 'virtues'. Ruthlessness and cruelty are just as useful in this life and as richly rewarded in the afterlife (a very different afterlife to be sure) for the Evil as are mercy and compassion for the Good. Recognizing that can allow you to portray evil/chaotic/lawful societies/characters/etc. as both valid and interesting, instead of making them look stupid for not being good.

Those aren't paths of meaning, they're just carrots and sticks.

Quarian Rex
2019-09-06, 12:56 AM
Those aren't paths of meaning, they're just carrots and sticks.

{Scrubbed}

Lord Raziere
2019-09-06, 01:10 AM
@ Quarian Rex: I mean if you ignore the fact that DnD alignment is clearly emulating modern fantasy genre morality with its rules I guess you can come up with an interpretation that is "deeper" than anyone intended and all the people who like DnD clearly don't play for. Who am I to stop you from looking at something only you see?

At the end of the day, DnD is mostly for people who like to keep it shallow and fun to them, and most people who dig deeper, dig in the direction of making it become more relatable and realistic to them rather than more alien and full of intentional unfortunate moral implications we don't like, especially since DnD already has a long laundry list of unexamined unfortunate moral implications we don't like already. there is not much appeal to "hey lets make this less simple to the average DnD player, and even less appealing to the people who dig deeper about it and thus criticize it". your trying to sell us on an idea that is antithetical to both desires there, since generally the simplest solution to the problems of alignment from people who don't like it is to just ax it. which is only really a problem at all in 3.5.

Max_Killjoy
2019-09-06, 07:02 AM
{Scrubbed post, scrubbed quote}

And I'm saying that carrots and sticks, fiat from on high, and "might makes right" are not meaning or morality, no matter what world you're in.

Have to be careful to stay on the history side of the line and out of the real world religion side, but generally speaking "afterlife destination" has not been anything like a universal concern in belief systems and moral philosophies across the span of human history.

Railey66
2019-09-06, 07:20 AM
From my point of view, a great deal of the issues with the Alignment Discourse- - and thus, the Alignment Mechanic as it shows up in play- - is that over 90% of humankind is ethically Neutral, and over 90% of mankind sees itself as ethically Good.

hamishspence
2019-09-06, 07:24 AM
From my point of view, a great deal of the issues with the Alignment Discourse- - and thus, the Alignment Mechanic as it shows up in play- - is that over 90% of humankind is ethically Neutral, and over 90% of mankind sees itself as ethically Good.

Whether or not this is true in the real world (a question that falls out of the scope of this thread), in at least some D&D settings (most famously, Eberron) it's not true - with only just over 1/3 of humankind being ethically Neutral, rather than 90%.

I will agree at over 90% of humankind, even in D&D, believes itself to be Not Evil (and a hefty chunk of those believers being wrong)- but I don't know about "believes itself to be Good".

Quarian Rex
2019-09-06, 11:00 AM
@ Quarian Rex: I mean if you ignore the fact that DnD alignment is clearly emulating modern fantasy genre morality with its rules I guess you can come up with an interpretation that is "deeper" than anyone intended and all the people who like DnD clearly don't play for. Who am I to stop you from looking at something only you see?

That's the point though, I'm ignoring nothing, I'm actually just paying attention. I'm leaning hard into the mechanical weirdness. If you want to just approach D&D from the standard trope-y perspective that is fine and completely compatible. But if you want to play an (N)PC from a more non-standard point of view then realizing that Evil/Law/Chaos can have their own actual ethics, not merely being defined as various forms of not-Good, can make such things actually playable instead of defaulting to mustache twirling idiocy and disruptive anarchy.



At the end of the day, DnD is mostly for people who like to keep it shallow and fun to them,

D&D can be played any number of ways and most of those ways are not incompatible if done with some thought.



and most people who dig deeper, dig in the direction of making it become more relatable and realistic to them rather than more alien and full of intentional unfortunate moral implications we don't like

You are absolutely right, that is what a lot of people do, to their detriment. Evil and Chaos (and true Law to a lesser extent) are alien concepts to most of us. Trying to make them more relatable usually results in them becoming less realistic (no longer Evil, just Good standing in another spot and such). This just devolves into moral relativism, something that a lot of people find deeply unsatisfying in this kind of setting, and then declare (with no small justification) that the alignment system doesn't make sense and should just be thrown out (this is apparently quite familiar to you).

I'm trying to suggest that playing the alignments 'straight' but with internal consistency can be much more interesting and realistic. Can that look alien? Yes, it can and perhaps it should. When looking at the perspectives of a villain who feels completely justified in his actions they should be "full of intentional unfortunate moral implications we don't like". That is why you oppose them.




And I'm saying that carrots and sticks, fiat from on high, and "might makes right" are not meaning or morality,

{Scrubbed}



Have to be careful to stay on the history side of the line and out of the real world religion side, but generally speaking "afterlife destination" has not been anything like a universal concern in belief systems and moral philosophies across the span of human history.

{Scrubbed} I just think that it would have a much greater role in D&D-land since it would now be an observable and obvious reality, and so have real influence on mortal lives.

Additionally, how do you personally define meaning? I'm curious as to where you are coming from on this.

RedMage125
2019-09-06, 11:28 AM
I think what Pleh, Phoenixphyre, and Quarian Rex are trying to convey is that Alignment in D&D still permits for the "morally relative" as a subjective perception, so that you can have characters who genuinely do not believe they are "Evil". But with objective cosmic forced of Good/Evil/Law/Chaos, those are sometimes post-hoc semantic justifications. Phoenix goes into a little more depth pointing out that many who are truly Evil simply do not care.

Lord Raziere, you appear to be painting that as if it somehow implies an acceptance of subjective perception as "true", which would lead to the kind of "redefining" that you find such an anethma. You clearly have your own preferences for "Good=positive", "Evil=negative" and "goal should be removal of Evil", but that's kind of talking past what the other posters are discussing. They're discussing the status quo of the world/cosmology of D&D worlds within the confines of RAW. How those things are defined and can be implemented, potentially. You appear to only want to discuss things from the point of view of a player who is playing a Good character with a desire to see Evil "removed".

That's my perception, at least.


@ Quarian Rex: I mean if you ignore the fact that DnD alignment is clearly emulating modern fantasy genre morality with its rules I guess you can come up with an interpretation that is "deeper" than anyone intended and all the people who like DnD clearly don't play for. Who am I to stop you from looking at something only you see?

At the end of the day, DnD is mostly for people who like to keep it shallow and fun to them, and most people who dig deeper, dig in the direction of making it become more relatable and realistic to them rather than more alien and full of intentional unfortunate moral implications we don't like, especially since DnD already has a long laundry list of unexamined unfortunate moral implications we don't like already. there is not much appeal to "hey lets make this less simple to the average DnD player, and even less appealing to the people who dig deeper about it and thus criticize it". your trying to sell us on an idea that is antithetical to both desires there, since generally the simplest solution to the problems of alignment from people who don't like it is to just ax it. which is only really a problem at all in 3.5.

I'm sorry, but I perceive this as kind of a cop-out to the discussion. You're being very closed-off about this topic, unwilling to entertain discourse that doesn't fit into your preferred narrative, and thus this statement which reads to me as "D&D Alignment is bad anyway, and everyone knows it. It's either too simple to be relatable, and digging into the complexity is less fun because it's still bad". Which isn't a talking point. That's not a discussion. That's saying "It's a given that what I don't like is just Bad", and not engaging honestly and openly.

I understand that some people don't like alignment. And personal opinions and preferences are totally okay. But that doesn't make those opinions "facts", let alone a "given" to launch a debate point from. As I've discussed before, problems with alignment are not universal, and may not even be a prevalent as you believe. Understand that 1) most people who play D&D do not go to the forums. 2)Of the people who do frequent the forums, you are more likely to see people who have had problems or issues with the game, as well as those who seek to implement changes and are looking for feedback from a think tank. 3) So the forums (these ones, the old Gleemax ones, or ENworld) don't actually represent an accurate cross-section of D&D players, for purposes of collecting data for a study. And 4) even a poll of the forum community ONLY would still likely not show that "a majority have problems with alignment", since most forum dwellers simply do not participate in discussions about topics they don't have input on. Alignment threads, any of them, are ONLY going to attract the types of people who either A) have pre-existing dislike of alignment or B) have something to say to defende, or increase understanding of it.

I've still yet to see the data you spoke about before. If you have access to a study that was conducted that has a sample population that more accurately reflects the D&D playing population that does, indeed show that people who problems with alignment are more prevalent than people who do not, I would love to see it, because I have been operating under the understanding that such a study does not exist. If you have such a study, I would absolutely be more willing to engage you in a discussion that entertains the notion of "alignment is problematic". But until you can actually furnish such a study (which must, of course, include mention of how the data was collected to avoid perception of bias), myself and many others are going to appear "dismissive"* of your alignment problems as subjective.

*Please note that the word "dimissive" is in quotes because while I -and others- are not operating with the intent to denigrate or dismiss your experiences and preferences, it may seem that way to you. Things that you hold to be true for you, are just that...to you. Please understand that when told your problems are "subjective" that it just means "this thing that is true for you is not true for everyone", and that's it. No one is telling you that it is "not true for you".



And I'm saying that carrots and sticks, fiat from on high, and "might makes right" are not meaning or morality, no matter what world you're in.

Have to be careful to stay on the history side of the line and out of the real world religion side, but generally speaking "afterlife destination" has not been anything like a universal concern in belief systems and moral philosophies across the span of human history.

{Scrubbed}

Max_Killjoy
2019-09-06, 11:33 AM
{Scrubbed post, scrubbed quote}


{Scrubbed}

Beyond that, or in response to some other assertions by others in this thread, I'd have to get into specific examples of belief systems to make my point, and I'm not willing to cross that Rubicon.




Additionally, how do you personally define meaning? I'm curious as to where you are coming from on this.


I don't.

As in, "meaning" is subjective, each person finds their own, or doesn't, and no one else can impose or provide it.

Quarian Rex
2019-09-06, 01:33 PM
I think what Pleh, Phoenixphyre, and Quarian Rex are trying to convey is that Alignment in D&D still permits for the "morally relative" as a subjective perception, so that you can have characters who genuinely do not believe they are "Evil". But with objective cosmic forced of Good/Evil/Law/Chaos, those are sometimes post-hoc semantic justifications. Phoenix goes into a little more depth pointing out that many who are truly Evil simply do not care.


To be clear, I'm trying to go one step further by saying that in this cosmology the subjective perceptions are backed up by objective realities. In the standard D&D cosmology there are multiple moral 'truths' that exist in opposition to each other, demanding that each individual choose a side and take a stand, to lesser or greater extent. I think that they actually have concrete, fundamental, differences that are irreconcilable, not merely just matters of perspective. I think that each side can accuse the opposite of abhorrent (to them) views and have the opposites completely own those accusations, not say 'It only seems that way because...'. When Good accuses Evil of being ruthless and cruel Evil says, "Of course, where do you think we get our strength?". When Evil points to the weaknesses of mercy and charity Good says, "Of course, from our unity we become great". Saying that they are 'morally relative' implies that they are all really just the same and I think that does a disservice.

This still allows a broad spectrum of RP and possibilities for change though. A loyal citizen on the lower end of a corrupt LE society can still believably be seduced to a Chaotic revolutionary movement, but Judge Dredd would never be swayed from THE LAW, and both can be completely justified.



{Scrubbed post, scrubbed quote}

Morality = "principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior". That's the definition. Google it. {Scrubbed}



{Scrubbed post, scrubbed quote}

{Scrubbed} But, again, that wouldn't really apply in D&D-land. Even the lowest level Cleric is direct proof of said divine influence.

Gotta go, come back to this latter.

Max_Killjoy
2019-09-06, 01:53 PM
Morality = "principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior". That's the definition. Google it. {Scrubbed post, scrubbed quote}


Because then its basis is not what's right or wrong, but a decree -- it's just based on fiat, or might-makes-right, and the entity making the decree can at any point change the decree.

Willie the Duck
2019-09-06, 02:14 PM
Morality = "principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior". That's the definition. Google it. What of that implies that supernatural decree cannot be it's basis? The Norse, Romans, and Aztecs all had different moralities that were largely shaped/influenced by their religions and superstitions. Do you think that these societies did not have morality? Do you not think that there can be different moralities? The distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior could be quite drastic when looking at the followers of a death god and those of a healing god.

QR, what Max is referring to is often referred to as the Euthyphro dilemma (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma). Basically, it asks (and I'll use a D&D gawd to quickly move this away from real-world religion), "are good things loved by Lathander, Torm, and all the other 'gawds of good' because they are good, or are they good because they are loved by the gawds?" If it is the latter, and the gawds get to decide that something is actually good, it becomes relatively arbitrary. Tomorrow, said gods could say, 'y'know, I'm really tired of rewarding healing the sick, giving to the needy, and protecting the weak. From now on, murder and mayhem is what gets you into heaven, and not kicking puppies is what will land you in eternal torment.' If that's the case, well, apparently these gods have the power to enforce these rewards and punishment, so that's not in question, but does it make it morality, or just what you have to do to be rewarded?

Lord Raziere
2019-09-06, 02:19 PM
I think what Pleh, Phoenixphyre, and Quarian Rex are trying to convey is that Alignment in D&D still permits for the "morally relative" as a subjective perception, so that you can have characters who genuinely do not believe they are "Evil". But with objective cosmic forced of Good/Evil/Law/Chaos, those are sometimes post-hoc semantic justifications. Phoenix goes into a little more depth pointing out that many who are truly Evil simply do not care.

Lord Raziere, you appear to be painting that as if it somehow implies an acceptance of subjective perception as "true", which would lead to the kind of "redefining" that you find such an anethma. You clearly have your own preferences for "Good=positive", "Evil=negative" and "goal should be removal of Evil", but that's kind of talking past what the other posters are discussing. They're discussing the status quo of the world/cosmology of D&D worlds within the confines of RAW. How those things are defined and can be implemented, potentially. You appear to only want to discuss things from the point of view of a player who is playing a Good character with a desire to see Evil "removed".

That's my perception, at least.

I'm sorry, but I perceive this as kind of a cop-out to the discussion. You're being very closed-off about this topic, unwilling to entertain discourse that doesn't fit into your preferred narrative, and thus this statement which reads to me as "D&D Alignment is bad anyway, and everyone knows it. It's either too simple to be relatable, and digging into the complexity is less fun because it's still bad". Which isn't a talking point. That's not a discussion. That's saying "It's a given that what I don't like is just Bad", and not engaging honestly and openly.

I understand that some people don't like alignment. And personal opinions and preferences are totally okay. But that doesn't make those opinions "facts", let alone a "given" to launch a debate point from. As I've discussed before, problems with alignment are not universal, and may not even be a prevalent as you believe. Understand that 1) most people who play D&D do not go to the forums. 2)Of the people who do frequent the forums, you are more likely to see people who have had problems or issues with the game, as well as those who seek to implement changes and are looking for feedback from a think tank. 3) So the forums (these ones, the old Gleemax ones, or ENworld) don't actually represent an accurate cross-section of D&D players, for purposes of collecting data for a study. And 4) even a poll of the forum community ONLY would still likely not show that "a majority have problems with alignment", since most forum dwellers simply do not participate in discussions about topics they don't have input on. Alignment threads, any of them, are ONLY going to attract the types of people who either A) have pre-existing dislike of alignment or B) have something to say to defende, or increase understanding of it.

I've still yet to see the data you spoke about before. If you have access to a study that was conducted that has a sample population that more accurately reflects the D&D playing population that does, indeed show that people who problems with alignment are more prevalent than people who do not, I would love to see it, because I have been operating under the understanding that such a study does not exist. If you have such a study, I would absolutely be more willing to engage you in a discussion that entertains the notion of "alignment is problematic". But until you can actually furnish such a study (which must, of course, include mention of how the data was collected to avoid perception of bias), myself and many others are going to appear "dismissive"* of your alignment problems as subjective.

*Please note that the word "dimissive" is in quotes because while I -and others- are not operating with the intent to denigrate or dismiss your experiences and preferences, it may seem that way to you. Things that you hold to be true for you, are just that...to you. Please understand that when told your problems are "subjective" that it just means "this thing that is true for you is not true for everyone", and that's it. No one is telling you that it is "not true for you".


Clarification: I did not say DnD players are like me.
I meant that most players accept the setting as it is and have fun with its black and white morality, like you.

The ones who dig deeper with alignment and find problems with it are a minority compared to them. Clearly.

I mean just meant of this subset of people who find problems with it, tend to want to change it in ways so that they don't have to deal with alignment rather than fix something we don't want to fix from what I personally observed.

Aside from that:
Generally I save such "post-hoc semantic justifications" for insane villains spouting them out at a climatic battle. they're not for serious discussion, unless your trying to give me headaches. its getting to the point where my next villain I make is going based on an idiots interpretation of moral subjectivism to point this kind of thing out, mostly because I find the best supervillains are embodiments of singular stupid ideas made into people and allowed to act out whatever evil results from taking something too far in a semi-mythical manner, unless I'm making the villain have nuance in which case my players tend to want to redeem them anyways.

I'm weird because I like both awesome fights and thinking deeper about stuff in my games, so I have to figure out how to have awesome fights without doing something morally wrong. thats where I'm coming from? I doubt I have the same priorities as other people who like awesome fights, my impression is they tend to throw out things that don't lead to them, like moral grey areas and lack of alignment.

RedMage125
2019-09-06, 05:28 PM
Clarification: I did not say DnD players are like me.
I meant that most players accept the setting as it is and have fun with its black and white morality, like you.

The ones who dig deeper with alignment and find problems with it are a minority compared to them. Clearly.

I mean just meant of this subset of people who find problems with it, tend to want to change it in ways so that they don't have to deal with alignment rather than fix something we don't want to fix from what I personally observed.
To be fair, you DID claim that "it has nothing to do with personal experience. the data disagrees with you on it being purely a personal experience or alignment being a scapegoat by those who don't like it." Those were your exact words to Pleh. So while you did not claim that "all DnD players are like you", you DID, in fact, claim that problems with alignment being so widespread was an objective fact.

And I dig deeper into alignment plenty, and I don't find that it gives me any problems. Do you know why? Because when I play D&D, I set aside my personal biases and preconceptions of things like Good/Evil, and use what the RAW says they are. This is a matter of choice for me, because it is my personal value that, as a DM, my players should be able to look to the same sources I am using to adjudicate the rules. I want players to be able to plan effectively in advance and say "how is he likely to rule on this?", and have some reasonable expectation. I also make all my house rules clear to players before play begins.

I understand that some people don't like alignment and want to remove it from their games (which in 3.5e, this was a herculean task, as those mechanics had their tentacles in DEEP). But what I personally observe is that 100% of every story that an alignment detractor has about "why alignment is bad", stemmed from someone deviating from the RAW. That is not hyperbole. Every example.
Again, I don't insist that there is somehow a "right way to play", nor do I think a "strict RAW" kind of game is even "more correct than others". My point is that, when you deviate from the rules of a system, that system is no longer the things to blame when fun was comprimised. You said earlier that "a good system functions regardless of who uses it, a bad system needs a competent person to function at all." (exact quote). To me, this is an absurd criteria. Because if a system only fails when people misuse the rules for it, how is that an indictment of the system and not only an indictment of those people?


Aside from that:
Generally I save such "post-hoc semantic justifications" for insane villains spouting them out at a climatic battle. they're not for serious discussion, unless your trying to give me headaches. its getting to the point where my next villain I make is going based on an idiots interpretation of moral subjectivism to point this kind of thing out, mostly because I find the best supervillains are embodiments of singular stupid ideas made into people and allowed to act out whatever evil results from taking something too far in a semi-mythical manner, unless I'm making the villain have nuance in which case my players tend to want to redeem them anyways.

I'm weird because I like both awesome fights and thinking deeper about stuff in my games, so I have to figure out how to have awesome fights without doing something morally wrong. thats where I'm coming from? I doubt I have the same priorities as other people who like awesome fights, my impression is they tend to throw out things that don't lead to them, like moral grey areas and lack of alignment.
I'm with you on most of that. Really. I just generally don't concern myself too much with the "don't do something morally wrong", because I'll instinctively shy away from options like that out of habit. I suppose if I were in a world like D&D with objective Good/Evil/Law/Chaos, I'd most likely be Lawful Neutral. It takes more concentration and "trying" for me to do something outside my default idiom.

But I do like morally gray areas. I just think the meta-presence of objective alignment forces adds a unique dimension to those areas, rather than "dumb them down". I ran a side plot with a Lawful Good Paladin of Bahamut as the antagonist. Against a party that included a cleric of Bahamut and a lay worshipper of Bahamut (Fighter). It was a refreshing change of pace.


QR, what Max is referring to is often referred to as the Euthyphro dilemma (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma). Basically, it asks (and I'll use a D&D gawd to quickly move this away from real-world religion), "are good things loved by Lathander, Torm, and all the other 'gawds of good' because they are good, or are they good because they are loved by the gawds?" If it is the latter, and the gawds get to decide that something is actually good, it becomes relatively arbitrary. Tomorrow, said gods could say, 'y'know, I'm really tired of rewarding healing the sick, giving to the needy, and protecting the weak. From now on, murder and mayhem is what gets you into heaven, and not kicking puppies is what will land you in eternal torment.' If that's the case, well, apparently these gods have the power to enforce these rewards and punishment, so that's not in question, but does it make it morality, or just what you have to do to be rewarded?

But...that's not a dilemma in D&D. Torm, Lathander, Selune...they have no power over the cosmic forces of Good/Evil/Law/Chaos, they are just as beholden to them as mortals. Cyric, for example, attempted to paint Mystra, Torm, and Oghma as villainous in his teachings, and himself as a heroic figure. He had no power to actually affect the alignment of himself or his worshippers. He was CE because he was a wildly individualstic sadistic murderer who only acted for his own benefit and enjoyment.

So, there' an actual answer to that in D&D, and it's the former of the two options. The gawds are Good because they do and promote Good things. They have no power to make "puppy murder" a Good thing.

Lord Raziere
2019-09-06, 05:41 PM
@ redmage: Man, are you still on about those previous posts? I was only talking about my post before that one, I don't care about the posts that are even longer in the past, I don't have time to dig up what my reasoning was then or whether I was in my right mind so long ago, if its wrong its probably wrong, past a certain point I'm just in a different mind set and don't really care what past me said, if its stupid, its stupid.

Gallowglass
2019-09-06, 05:47 PM
QR, what Max is referring to is often referred to as the Euthyphro dilemma (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma). Basically, it asks (and I'll use a D&D gawd to quickly move this away from real-world religion), "are good things loved by Lathander, Torm, and all the other 'gawds of good' because they are good, or are they good because they are loved by the gawds?" If it is the latter, and the gawds get to decide that something is actually good, it becomes relatively arbitrary. Tomorrow, said gods could say, 'y'know, I'm really tired of rewarding healing the sick, giving to the needy, and protecting the weak. From now on, murder and mayhem is what gets you into heaven, and not kicking puppies is what will land you in eternal torment.' If that's the case, well, apparently these gods have the power to enforce these rewards and punishment, so that's not in question, but does it make it morality, or just what you have to do to be rewarded?

My problem with the Euthyphro dilemma is that, once you look deep enough, either way its arbitrary.

Take "Gods" out of the equation entirely.

YOu have two rational, thinking, logical elves. Bear in mind that we are taking Gods out of the equation, so we will assume both are agnostic or identical in such beliefs.

Without being "told" what is right or wrong (good or evil) both have their own rational, logical belief about what is right and what is wrong. It seems rudimentary and obvious to both of them.

Lets say elf 1 believes "harming others is evil." But elf 2 believes "allows others to be harmed is evil."

The two elves, walking down the street see someone being assaulted. They don't know who the person is being attacked, or who the people are who are attacking them. They don't know the reason of the assault.

Elf 1 does not intervene. He goes home and bemoans the attack, but does not feel that he commited any moral wrong. He harmed no one. He followed his precept. In his rational, logical mind he did just fine.

Elf 2 however either intervenes in some way or, failing that, feels that he commited a moral wrong because he allowed harm to happen to the other without trying to stop it.

Neither of them are basing their beliefs on something they were told or read in a book. Both have seemingly rational, logical beliefs. When talking to each other and discussing the difference they have one of two reactions.

1> Right and Wrong are not constants, but exist only as personal constructs, so what is right for me may be different than what is right for you.

2> My definition of right and wrong is correct, and yours is not.

You see? The basic core question is "Is good absolute or arbitrary" and has NOTHING TO DO WITH GODS AT ALL. And by Euthyphro framing it as such, all it does it mask the question, mask the argument and turn it into "do you believe in gods or not." rather than "do you believe morality is a constant or a construct."

Taking this back to D&D, the system assumes it is a constant, not a construct. *shrug*

And, sadly, it seems to me that a lot of the people who hate and despise the system, don't do so because they think morality is a construct, but because they believe that their own personal self-defined constant of morality is true and the one posited in the imaginary universe of the game is wrong. "Don't tell me what to do" writ large.


Stretching to keep this on topic here, so in D&D, you have to ask yourself "Do I believe that not harming others or not letting others come to harm is moral because it simply IS moral or because Lathandar and Torm and the rest of the Gawds encoded that belief when they made us." You take the Goblins, and their evil terrible Gawds, and the goblins supposedly innately have a desire to hurt others. Is that because they are taught that, or because it was encoded in them by their creator God Ublach or whatever his name is. The Dark One.

Some sourcebooks say "because that's how they were encoded." Some say "that's how they were taught." So its up to each DM to decide for their own game and own world, innit?

Lord Raziere
2019-09-06, 05:56 PM
1> Right and Wrong are not constants, but exist only as personal constructs, so what is right for me may be different than what is right for you.

2> My definition of right and wrong is correct, and yours is not.

Or y'know,

3> It doesn't matter whether we say this or that, someone clearly did something physically wrong and something needs to be done about it regardless of our opinions. any emotional feelings on our part is just needless self guilt-tripping, and arguing over whether its right or where its inconstant is potentially letting more people get hurt because we were too concerned our own selfish definitions to do something about it. therefore we drop it like smart people and agree to do something, because it clearly can't continue.

Gallowglass
2019-09-06, 05:58 PM
Or y'know,

3> It doesn't matter whether we say this or that, someone clearly did something physically wrong and something needs to be done about it regardless of our opinions. any emotional feelings on our part is just needless self guilt-tripping, and arguing over whether its right or where its inconstant is potentially letting more people get hurt because we were too concerned our own selfish definitions to do something about it. therefore we drop it like smart people and agree to do something, because it clearly can't continue.

So 2> Then.

Lord Raziere
2019-09-06, 06:20 PM
So 2> Then.

Well gee, its easy to side with 1 when one doesn't have to act, isn't it? Cause when one stands on the sidelines and pontificate about how its all subjective, one can watch the world fall to ruin while one sits there being the good man who does nothing, secure in their knowledge that they themselves did nothing wrong by not dirtying their hands, because they can't overrule anyone else's morality, even if they're completely crazy. complete moral selfishness.

but while 2 may be self-righteous and imperfect, at least its something. its action. its substance. its trying at all. Its bravery. because guess what, if telling someone they're wrong is already a moral failing, then ho boy, do adventurers do a lot worse than that every day! they KILL people over their moral disagreements. man they are such monsters for killing slavers, genocidal maniacs, evil wizards who can abuse their power in so many ways and killing monsters that are threats to people and so on! they should really be more considerate of the people that want to take over the world and torment and exploit people.

redwizard007
2019-09-08, 07:36 PM
Well gee, its easy to side with 1 when one doesn't have to act, isn't it? Cause when one stands on the sidelines and pontificate about how its all subjective, one can watch the world fall to ruin while one sits there being the good man who does nothing, secure in their knowledge that they themselves did nothing wrong by not dirtying their hands, because they can't overrule anyone else's morality, even if they're completely crazy. complete moral selfishness.

but while 2 may be self-righteous and imperfect, at least its something. its action. its substance. its trying at all. Its bravery. because guess what, if telling someone they're wrong is already a moral failing, then ho boy, do adventurers do a lot worse than that every day! they KILL people over their moral disagreements. man they are such monsters for killing slavers, genocidal maniacs, evil wizards who can abuse their power in so many ways and killing monsters that are threats to people and so on! they should really be more considerate of the people that want to take over the world and torment and exploit people.

I get that you are dipping deep into the endless well of sarcasm, but this is kind of where I wanted the discussion to end up when I started the thread. Because, while sarcastically presented, you are right. PCs are not your typical "good guys" in many instances, regardless of what they enter in the alignment section of their character sheet. At what point does that matter?

Max_Killjoy
2019-09-08, 07:50 PM
You see? The basic core question is "Is good absolute or arbitrary" and has NOTHING TO DO WITH GODS AT ALL. And by Euthyphro framing it as such, all it does it mask the question, mask the argument and turn it into "do you believe in gods or not." rather than "do you believe morality is a constant or a construct."


It's as much about fiat as it is about deities.

That is, does morality rest on "might makes right" / "because I said so" / "because that's the law we wrote", or does no one, not matter how powerful, have the actual ability to alter what's really moral and what's really not?

Lord Raziere
2019-09-08, 08:11 PM
I get that you are dipping deep into the endless well of sarcasm, but this is kind of where I wanted the discussion to end up when I started the thread. Because, while sarcastically presented, you are right. PCs are not your typical "good guys" in many instances, regardless of what they enter in the alignment section of their character sheet. At what point does that matter?

It matters when someone presents a plan to fix the world better than them backed up by power enough to make sure that someone can succeed if the adventurers oppose them, realistically speaking. Better moral standards can only come about from circumstances changing enough that people can become powerful enough to enforce them, Many of our most moral achievements only happened because we had the technological achievement to communicate them, and communication is power.

So if you want to hold the adventurers responsible for things, convince all of them that they make more money by being monitored magically so that they turn their lives into magical live TV shows for entertainment while keeping enforcers to teleport on standby to deal with any adventurer that steps out of line of the rules. This will convince adventurers to seek fame and fortune by allowing you to have power over them through surveillance and their sudden need to conform to the audiences desires while giving you a cut of the treasure they find so that they better behave in civilization. this will bypass any heavy-handed attempt at forcing them to be monitored through law, provide a natural way to moderate them, and make them dependent on you for money.

Of course to achieve this, you need a lot of magical power and money in the first place. Hm. what is the best way to do that within your lifetime in DnDland? oh right, adventuring. so you'd have to make it big in the system before you can change the system, y'see? no positive change can come without the power to make it happen and no power comes without the courage to go out and take it. that and the character to see all this as problem at all needs to have experience in how much of a problem this is and therefore interact with many adventurers and such in their travels to figure out exactly what rules are needed to be implemented as apart of your Adventure Show Network, and thus go to many dangerous places and face many villains as a result and thus probably foil them to get the trust of said adventurers because they like people who help with that and if your going to make this your going to have to do some networking, gather peoples trust, make friends so that years down the road, they trust you enough to accept your offer of being magical tv stars because they remember you as a friend and hey this seems like a pretty good offer you giving them, their name will spread far and wide across the world!

So unless that happens, it doesn't matter because you don't have a better solution to dealing Evil monsters popping up and killing/enslaving/torturing everyone and their dog then adventurers abusing their power with good folks by making them fan them and give them grapes for the privilege of them being there to kill them. Its just a fact that you live with unless you have the right plan and enough power to make that plan happen.

redwizard007
2019-09-08, 08:19 PM
It matters when someone presents a plan to fix the world better than them backed up by power enough to make sure that someone can succeed if the adventurers oppose them, realistically speaking. Better moral standards can only come about from circumstances changing enough that people can become powerful enough to enforce them, Many of our most moral achievements only happened because we had the technological achievement to communicate them, and communication is power.

So if you want to hold the adventurers responsible for things, convince all of them that they make more money by being monitored magically so that they turn their lives into magical live TV shows for entertainment while keeping enforcers to teleport on standby to deal with any adventurer that steps out of line of the rules. This will convince adventurers to seek fame and fortune by allowing you to have power over them through surveillance and their sudden need to conform to the audiences desires while giving you a cut of the treasure they find so that they better behave in civilization. this will bypass any heavy-handed attempt at forcing them to be monitored through law, provide a natural way to moderate them, and make them dependent on you for money.

Of course to achieve this, you need a lot of magical power and money in the first place. Hm. what is the best way to do that within your lifetime in DnDland? oh right, adventuring. so you'd have to make it big in the system before you can change the system, y'see? no positive change can come without the power to make it happen and no power comes without the courage to go out and take it. that and the character to see all this as problem at all needs to have experience in how much of a problem this is and therefore interact with many adventurers and such in their travels to figure out exactly what rules are needed to be implemented as apart of your Adventure Show Network, and thus go to many dangerous places and face many villains as a result and thus probably foil them to get the trust of said adventurers because they like people who help with that and if your going to make this your going to have to do some networking, gather peoples trust, make friends so that years down the road, they trust you enough to accept your offer of being magical tv stars because they remember you as a friend and hey this seems like a pretty good offer you giving them, their name will spread far and wide across the world!

So unless that happens, it doesn't matter because you don't have a better solution to dealing Evil monsters popping up and killing/enslaving/torturing everyone and their dog then adventurers abusing their power with good folks by making them fan them and give them grapes for the privilege of them being there to kill them. Its just a fact that you live with unless you have the right plan and enough power to make that plan happen.

That is... interesting. Probably not the way I'd take it, but interesting.

The way I see it, and this is a very personal choice, is that moral gray areas are fun places to play. The extremes are ideals exemplified by planar creatures and can be great foils or sources of inspiration, but are unrealistic for most intelligent beings. Rarely are choices clear good vs evil. More likely they are small evil vs great evil or small good vs small evil. I dont punish players for that and would be disappointed if my DM did.

Lord Raziere
2019-09-08, 08:42 PM
That is... interesting. Probably not the way I'd take it, but interesting.

The way I see it, and this is a very personal choice, is that moral gray areas are fun places to play. The extremes are ideals exemplified by planar creatures and can be great foils or sources of inspiration, but are unrealistic for most intelligent beings. Rarely are choices clear good vs evil. More likely they are small evil vs great evil or small good vs small evil. I dont punish players for that and would be disappointed if my DM did.

See, my view of is that while grey areas exist and moral choices have to be made, I don't make any big drama about it, because I find most of the drama around most such decisions in fiction to be forced. The best you can do is simply that, and once you considered the problem enough, figured what is probably the most moral thing to do, and there is little point to trying to logic it out any further you might as well just do it. over-consideration and getting lost in pontificating leads to becoming Useless Jedi Sage from the star wars prequels, and pragmatically and logically speaking no different from becoming slothful/lazy/neglectful. in the end you either act or you don't, and if you make mistakes along the way, too bad guess your going to have to fix those to in the process of fixing the first problem. oh well.

redwizard007
2019-09-08, 09:01 PM
See, my view of is that while grey areas exist and moral choices have to be made, I don't make any big drama about it, because I find most of the drama around most such decisions in fiction to be forced. The best you can do is simply that, and once you considered the problem enough, figured what is probably the most moral thing to do, and there is little point to trying to logic it out any further you might as well just do it. over-consideration and getting lost in pontificating leads to becoming Useless Jedi Sage from the star wars prequels, and pragmatically and logically speaking no different from becoming slothful/lazy/neglectful. in the end you either act or you don't, and if you make mistakes along the way, too bad guess your going to have to fix those to in the process of fixing the first problem. oh well.

Sure, partly. I play characters, or NPCs, not alignments. Timmy doesn't get trapped in the well because it is _insert alignment_. Timmy is _insert alignment_ because he keeps getting trapped in wells, (or a more morally specific example.) Alignment is descriptive not prescriptive (for me.) That doesn't mean Timmy cant consider getting stuck in a mine shaft next time instead of a well, just that his norm is wells. If he starts getting stuck in a mine, or a chimney now we are seeing character growth. That can be a nice change. Alignment doesn't need to be something earth shattering and neither do breaks from it.

Re: your last few lines. You seem to be equating acting as a positive. That's not necessarily a given. Often times not acting can provide a better outcome.

Lord Raziere
2019-09-08, 09:54 PM
Re: your last few lines. You seem to be equating acting as a positive. That's not necessarily a given. Often times not acting can provide a better outcome.

not taking action is an action. as long as you know that said action is more beneficial than the other action and knowingly do it rather than stewing in your thoughts going "should I do something? I should do something. should I do something? I should do something." repeatedly back and forth uselessly. Hesitation is death. Apathy is death. Analysis Paralysis is death. knowing what your doing and do it, or the world will pass you by and make things happen regardless. if you come to the conclusion that best solution for something is nothing, you can do nothing about it perfectly well somewhere else by solving a problem that DOES need action.

Max_Killjoy
2019-09-09, 07:26 AM
not taking action is an action. as long as you know that said action is more beneficial than the other action and knowingly do it rather than stewing in your thoughts going "should I do something? I should do something. should I do something? I should do something." repeatedly back and forth uselessly. Hesitation is death. Apathy is death. Analysis Paralysis is death. knowing what your doing and do it, or the world will pass you by and make things happen regardless. if you come to the conclusion that best solution for something is nothing, you can do nothing about it perfectly well somewhere else by solving a problem that DOES need action.

So when faced with the choice of whether to do something bad, or not... how does that work with this "action is better" principle?

PhoenixPhyre
2019-09-09, 07:39 AM
On the broader point--

Often, I find the most interesting scenarios occur not when the choice is between good and evil, but when the choice is between good and "better". Specifically--what do you (the players or characters) value more? Both options are good, but one of them fits better with the rest of your personality. Not so much the "what do you do" questions, but the "how do you do X" questions. Conversely, I get good results from placing the characters in a fork where there is no pure win presented. They'll have to either
* sacrifice something (whether their principles, something they like, etc) to get what they want
* accept a lesser good to avoid a sacrifice
* find a third way (which I'm open to as long as it makes sense in the scenario provided.

I keep going back to the Babylon 5 Big Questions (my interpolations in []):
1. Who are you? [What is the core of your identity, of your self-concept? What role do others play in defining this?]
2. What do you want? [What is it you're after? Are you sure that's what you want? What are your moral priorities?]
3. Why are you here? [What brought you to this point in life? What experiences shaped who you are?]
4. Where are you going? [Do you have a goal or are you just drifting with the current?]
5. What do you have worth living for? Or dying for? [What will you give up? What will you refuse to give up?]


So when faced with the choice of whether to do something bad, or not... how does that work with this "action is better" principle?

Choosing to not act is a choice and must be judged on the same moral standards as acting. There's nothing special (in my mind) about inaction. So I guess I reject the stated principle as a general rule. It's good for games (because sitting around doing nothing is boring, even if it's right), but "first, do no harm" is a more important principle to me.

Willie the Duck
2019-09-09, 08:43 AM
My problem with the Euthyphro dilemma is that, once you look deep enough, either way its arbitrary.

Take "Gods" out of the equation entirely.

The point of the Euthyphro dilemma is that everyone, including gawds (/"Gods"/however we are keeping real world religions out of this) and/or those that use their blessing of thing/action X need to provide an argument for why X is indeed good, and not just rely on 'well the gawds say they are good.'


You see? The basic core question is "Is good absolute or arbitrary" and has NOTHING TO DO WITH GODS AT ALL. And by Euthyphro framing it as such, all it does it mask the question, mask the argument and turn it into "do you believe in gods or not." rather than "do you believe morality is a constant or a construct."

You've constructed a scenario where gods aren't relevant, and then bemoaned that gods aren't relevant to the situation. I'm not even sure what you're trying to accomplish with this. "Do you believe morality is a constant or a construct" is a perfectly reasonable thing to discuss in an ethics conversation. However the Euthyphro framing isn't masking 'the question,' it is literally addressing a different question. The Euthyphro dilemma isn't very good at addressing this specific moral quandary in the same way that an ambulance makes a very poor fire engine -- it was never designed for that purpose and it's not clear why you think it was supposed to.


And, sadly, it seems to me that a lot of the people who hate and despise the system, don't do so because they think morality is a construct, but because they believe that their own personal self-defined constant of morality is true and the one posited in the imaginary universe of the game is wrong. "Don't tell me what to do" writ large.

'A lot of people' is sufficiently subjective that this has to be true for certain values of a lot. However, D&D's alignment system seems to be one of the most-loved-to-complain-about facets of the game. Given that I don't think that we here are (or have proven ourselves to be, in any case) in any way a cut above the general populace of the gaming public, I don't think we do ourselves any benefit by assuming that the arguments of others exist simply from a combination of obstinance and onetruewayism.


Some sourcebooks say "because that's how they were encoded." Some say "that's how they were taught." So its up to each DM to decide for their own game and own world, innit?

That's true of all things D&D. None of this is required, and it is probably advisable to take what is written in edition ABC or sub-book XYZ as, at most, a light suggestion (which I deeply suspect is how most people playing the game do things). We are mostly just killing time/naval gazing at the implications of taking a given set of listed alignment rules to their logical conclusions.

Max_Killjoy
2019-09-09, 09:50 AM
* (Note to reader, the following two quotes were in response to the same thing, not directed at one another.) *



It's as much about fiat as it is about deities.

That is, does morality rest on "might makes right" / "because I said so" / "because that's the law we wrote", or does no one, not matter how powerful, have the actual ability to alter what's really moral and what's really not?




The point of the Euthyphro dilemma is that everyone, including gawds (/"Gods"/however we are keeping real world religions out of this) and/or those that use their blessing of thing/action X need to provide an argument for why X is indeed good, and not just rely on 'well the gawds say they are good.'


Probably a better way of framing the actual point of the dilemma.

When moral claims have to resort to Appeal to Authority, that should be a red flag, IMO.

RedMage125
2019-09-09, 12:00 PM
@ redmage: Man, are you still on about those previous posts? I was only talking about my post before that one, I don't care about the posts that are even longer in the past, I don't have time to dig up what my reasoning was then or whether I was in my right mind so long ago, if its wrong its probably wrong, past a certain point I'm just in a different mind set and don't really care what past me said, if its stupid, its stupid.
Except that your post before that one still reduced alignment to either "too simple to be relatable" or "even less appealing when people dig deeper into it". You're presenting, basically, a case where the only 2 answers you see as possible are A) "Alignment is bad", or B) "Alignment is even worse". This is a False Dichotomy.

There was subtext in the last post I responded to that clearly indicated you think only people who do not "dig deeper into it" are the ones who enjoy alignment. As well as the implication that "digging deeper into it" inevitably results in "having problems with it".

My point was that such is not the case. And also that your false dichotomy is a cop-out to any kind of actual discussion, because you utterly refuse to engage honestly. And since this is still consistent with your earlier statements, i saw no reason to assume that your stance on the matter had changed.

It's as much about fiat as it is about deities.

That is, does morality rest on "might makes right" / "because I said so" / "because that's the law we wrote", or does no one, not matter how powerful, have the actual ability to alter what's really moral and what's really not?
The latter. The cosmic forces of Good/Evil/Law/Chaos, within the default setting of D&D, are faceless, dispassionate, and immutable. Even the gawds are subject to them. Cyric can not change his alignment to Lawful Good just by virtue of being a god, he would have to genuinely change his behavior, just like how mortals change alignment.


When moral claims have to resort to Appeal to Authority, that should be a red flag, IMO.

That's because you generally fall int Galloglass' category #2:
"2> My definition of right and wrong is correct, and yours is not. "

At least, in regards to the rules. Any default design decision of RAW that runs contrary to your preferences is decried as "bad design" by you. This is a consistent motif of your posts.

And like I've said numerous times to LR in this thread (asnd to you in others), there is nothing wrong with having your own preferences, but that doesn't make D&D's default idiom "objecvtively bad".

See, when it comes to "morality" in D&D (or what they define as Good/Evil/etc), one must remember that D&D is a construct of fantasy. As such, the developers actually do have legitimate authority for design decisions, which can include "X is Good, Y is Evil". While that would be tautological in almost every other arena, as the developers and authors of a fantasy construct, it is valid in this case.

Now, D&D is not only a construct of fantasy like a novel, it is also a game. One in which individual DMs are given carte blanche (Rule 0) to alter or modify the rules as they wish. But, when discussing the rules on the forum, house rules are so many and varied that we cannot account for them all. Therefore, only what is in the RAW is ever objectively FACT. Again, that applies to forum discussions only.

What do those two things mean in tandem? Well, it means that in this instance, Appeal to Authority -WHEN said authority is the developers of D&D- is not a fallacy. The developer's ability to decide that "X is Good and Y is Evil", is actually factual, by virtue of them being the authors of a fantasy construct. Ergo, reference to what is in the RAW is not fallacious, as it need not be in line or cohesive with anything else. It could be entirely self-referential and otherwise nonsensical to the reader, if they wanted it to be so. Fortunately, this is not as discordant as it could be, because most of what constitutes "Good/Evil/etc" in D&D is coherent with Western moral/ethical mores. Which makes it easier to swallow for those of us who do not live in said fantasy construct.

PhoenixPhyre
2019-09-09, 12:16 PM
@RedMage125

I agree with the point about appeals to authority. Appeals to authority are only fallacies if the authority (or lack there of) is irrelevant to the point being argued. In this case, the authors are the ones defining what Good and Evil mean in this context. Their authority is central to the point being argued. Literally, D&D!Good means exactly (and only) what the authors define it to mean. It is not inherently restricted to meaning what RL!Good means...if we could ever get a definition of that. Which we can't.

I find all the arguments that the developers "didn't do a good enough job defining morality" to ring hollow. That's asking those people to solve a problem that
* has confounded the "best and brightest" moral philosophers for millennia
* in a short time
* for a world with features that are dissimilar to our own, so much of our philosophy is just not applicable
* in a format that's suitable for a game.

That's not just a hard task, that's an unreasonable one. The system they came up with, by and large, if not taken too seriously[1], works for the game. That's all it was intended to do, and it does that job as well as can be reasonably expected. And that's enough. I guarantee that anything you did beyond that would have at least one of the following effects:
* the game would only appeal to a tiny slice of the current player-base due to disagreements
* the game would bog down horrifically
* tons of time and space would be spent on things that just don't matter to 99% of the player-base.
* it would still be just as vulnerable to attacks, because what "good enough" means is not well defined and is a matter of taste, not objective fact.

[1] no system, moral or otherwise, can survive a determined hunt for loopholes and corner cases. Period. That's because we're imperfect beings in an imperfect world with an imperfect communication device (words). And people dedicated to hunting for loopholes don't have to restrain themselves to the plausible--they can claim to have found loopholes even in things that are tight. Because every one is the judge of their own satisfaction. No one can prove anything to anyone else outside of very restricted contexts (ie formal math or logic). Which these are not. So it's a hopeless cause, trying to make things bulletproof. In fact, trying to avoid loopholes often opens more loopholes than just letting the spirit of the words be clear and leaving it up to the judgement of the players.

Max_Killjoy
2019-09-09, 01:55 PM
@RedMage125

I agree with the point about appeals to authority. Appeals to authority are only fallacies if the authority (or lack there of) is irrelevant to the point being argued. In this case, the authors are the ones defining what Good and Evil mean in this context. Their authority is central to the point being argued. Literally, D&D!Good means exactly (and only) what the authors define it to mean. It is not inherently restricted to meaning what RL!Good means...if we could ever get a definition of that. Which we can't.

I find all the arguments that the developers "didn't do a good enough job defining morality" to ring hollow. That's asking those people to solve a problem that
* has confounded the "best and brightest" moral philosophers for millennia
* in a short time
* for a world with features that are dissimilar to our own, so much of our philosophy is just not applicable
* in a format that's suitable for a game.

That's not just a hard task, that's an unreasonable one. The system they came up with, by and large, if not taken too seriously[1], works for the game. That's all it was intended to do, and it does that job as well as can be reasonably expected. And that's enough. I guarantee that anything you did beyond that would have at least one of the following effects:
* the game would only appeal to a tiny slice of the current player-base due to disagreements
* the game would bog down horrifically
* tons of time and space would be spent on things that just don't matter to 99% of the player-base.
* it would still be just as vulnerable to attacks, because what "good enough" means is not well defined and is a matter of taste, not objective fact.

[1] no system, moral or otherwise, can survive a determined hunt for loopholes and corner cases. Period. That's because we're imperfect beings in an imperfect world with an imperfect communication device (words). And people dedicated to hunting for loopholes don't have to restrain themselves to the plausible--they can claim to have found loopholes even in things that are tight. Because every one is the judge of their own satisfaction. No one can prove anything to anyone else outside of very restricted contexts (ie formal math or logic). Which these are not. So it's a hopeless cause, trying to make things bulletproof. In fact, trying to avoid loopholes often opens more loopholes than just letting the spirit of the words be clear and leaving it up to the judgement of the players.

They could avoid all that if they refrained from making moral assertions.

Having made moral assertions (which is what Alignment and "morality as cosmic forces" does), they open themselves fully to the criticisms and discussions detailed in threads like this one.

Lord Raziere
2019-09-09, 02:02 PM
So when faced with the choice of whether to do something bad, or not... how does that work with this "action is better" principle?

you go do something else that is not bad. Doing something else, elsewhere, is the same thing as not anything bad in another place.

PhoenixPhyre
2019-09-09, 02:21 PM
They could avoid all that if they refrained from making moral assertions.

Having made moral assertions (which is what Alignment and "morality as cosmic forces" does), they open themselves fully to the criticisms and discussions detailed in threads like this one.

Except they can't avoid it. No one can avoid making moral assertions. Every action we do involves "this is better than that", which is a moral assertion. Any amount of "fluff" and worldbuilding requires making those types of assertions in one way or another. Heck, even keeping things muddy is a moral assertion--the assertion that those moral questions cannot be answered. Humans are moral engines. All that would result is that people would insert their own moral assertions from real life...and the problems would exist in exactly the same way.

More specifically, D&D without moral assertions would not be D&D--it would fail at one of its purposes. "Is this right? Should we do X? What is the right choice?" all require moral assertions, and one of the key tropes[1] that D&D wants to allow is exactly along those lines. The noble hero and the wicked villain all lose meaning without some notion of "noble" and "wicked".

And your criticisms are hollow, for the reasons I discussed. They're questions that cannot be answered at all, by anyone, with any certainty. It's pointless bickering. For the purposes they were intended, the moral assertions presented work well enough for most of the player-base. In my book, that's all that can be expected.

RedMage125
2019-09-09, 02:31 PM
They could avoid all that if they refrained from making moral assertions.

Having made moral assertions (which is what Alignment and "morality as cosmic forces" does), they open themselves fully to the criticisms and discussions detailed in threads like this one.

And yet, one of the most common tropes of all fantasy is the struggle of Good vs Evil. Alignment, and its mechanics (to include spell, effects, and how (N)PC alignment can change), allow for those tropes to be given mechanical voice in a D&D game in a manner that is concrete, measurable, and meaningful.

More to the point, the developers DID make alignment, so your comment about "they could have refrained from doing so" is rather trite, is it not? I mean, they also could have made "dwarves" 7-foot tall flamingo people, but they didn't.

And a great deal of the criticisms that you speak of largely stem from people complaining about how D&D's definition of "Good/Evil/Sandwich/Whatever" does not parallel their own, personal values. And they act like it's somehow a "valid criticism" of the rules to express such.

Spoiler alert: It is not.

That's just expressing their own opinions, or preferences. Which is fine, I'm not saying their opinions/preferences are somehow "wrong", but it's one thing to say "the rules say something different than that which resonates for me personally", and another to say "this is a failing".

The Giant himself once said: " Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?" I think that's an important lesson.

As for the rest of the criticisms of alignment...I can say, with absolute certainty that 100% of the stories I have heard from an alignment detractor about "why alignment is bad", stemmed from someone deviating from the RAW. That is not hyperbole. Every example. Either Jerkbag Players using it as an excuse for their bad/disruptive behavior, Over-Controlling DMs who make it a prescriptive thing, limiting Player Agency, or attributing alignment weight to deeds that runs contrary to the RAW, or radically changing alignment after only one such deed...the list goes on.
Again, I don't insist that there is somehow a "right way to play", nor do I think a "strict RAW" kind of game is even "more correct than others". My point is that, when you deviate from the rules of a system, that system is no longer the things to blame when fun was comprimised.

And I've yet to see one "criticism" of the system in this thread that isn't either the aforementioned "just doesn't resonate with my preferred view of these things" or doesn't reek of "don't tell me what to do!". Gallowglass pointed this out as well.

No one's saying you have to like alignment. No one's saying you need to use it in your games. But your preference for a different paradigm doesn't make it "objectively bad", which is what is implied by your assertions that it should not have been included in the game.

PhoenixPhyre
2019-09-09, 02:42 PM
And yet, one of the most common tropes of all fantasy is the struggle of Good vs Evil. Alignment, and its mechanics (to include spell, effects, and how (N)PC alignment can change), allow for those tropes to be given mechanical voice in a D&D game in a manner that is concrete, measurable, and meaningful.

More to the point, the developers DID make alignment, so your comment about "they could have refrained from doing so" is rather trite, is it not? I mean, they also could have made "dwarves" 7-foot tall flamingo people, but they didn't.

And a great deal of the criticisms that you speak of largely stem from people complaining about how D&D's definition of "Good/Evil/Sandwich/Whatever" does not parallel their own, personal values. And they act like it's somehow a "valid criticism" of the rules to express such.

Spoiler alert: It is not.

That's just expressing their own opinions, or preferences. Which is fine, I'm not saying their opinions/preferences are somehow "wrong", but it's one thing to say "the rules say something different than that which resonates for me personally", and another to say "this is a failing".

The Giant himself once said: " Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?" I think that's an important lesson.

As for the rest of the criticisms of alignment...I can say, with absolute certainty that 100% of the stories I have heard from an alignment detractor about "why alignment is bad", stemmed from someone deviating from the RAW. That is not hyperbole. Every example. Either Jerkbag Players using it as an excuse for their bad/disruptive behavior, Over-Controlling DMs who make it a prescriptive thing, limiting Player Agency, or attributing alignment weight to deeds that runs contrary to the RAW, or radically changing alignment after only one such deed...the list goes on.
Again, I don't insist that there is somehow a "right way to play", nor do I think a "strict RAW" kind of game is even "more correct than others". My point is that, when you deviate from the rules of a system, that system is no longer the things to blame when fun was comprimised.

And I've yet to see one "criticism" of the system in this thread that isn't either the aforementioned "just doesn't resonate with my preferred view of these things" or doesn't reek of "don't tell me what to do!". Gallowglass pointed this out as well.

No one's saying you have to like alignment. No one's saying you need to use it in your games. But your preference for a different paradigm doesn't make it "objectively bad", which is what is implied by your assertions that it should not have been included in the game.

I want to say AMEN to this in its entirety. Alignment is a problem because people weaponize it or use it as an excuse to do bad things.

But especially I agree with the preferences =/= objective reality part. It's a common thing, but it's a problem just like alignment can be. And for the same reason--people pushing their subjective opinions on others as if they were facts.

Max_Killjoy
2019-09-09, 02:53 PM
Except they can't avoid it. No one can avoid making moral assertions. Every action we do involves "this is better than that", which is a moral assertion. Any amount of "fluff" and worldbuilding requires making those types of assertions in one way or another. Heck, even keeping things muddy is a moral assertion--the assertion that those moral questions cannot be answered. Humans are moral engines. All that would result is that people would insert their own moral assertions from real life...and the problems would exist in exactly the same way.

More specifically, D&D without moral assertions would not be D&D--it would fail at one of its purposes. "Is this right? Should we do X? What is the right choice?" all require moral assertions, and one of the key tropes[1] that D&D wants to allow is exactly along those lines. The noble hero and the wicked villain all lose meaning without some notion of "noble" and "wicked".

And your criticisms are hollow, for the reasons I discussed. They're questions that cannot be answered at all, by anyone, with any certainty. It's pointless bickering. For the purposes they were intended, the moral assertions presented work well enough for most of the player-base. In my book, that's all that can be expected.


If the questions cannot be answered at all, by anyone, with certainty, then it makes no sense for the game authors -- who you yourself say are woefully ill-equipped to answer them -- to assert any sort of answer to them at all. Better for them to just remain silent on the matter.

And yet they do, by trying to bake Alignment's blue-and-ostrich "morality" into the game's rules and implicit setting and "physics".


But it's quite possible to not have any moral assertions in the game's mechanics or worldbuilding -- in both fantasy settings and the science-fiction setting I'm working on, I've avoided making any hard moral assertions. Note how I talk about deities not being "good" or "evil", how there are no cosmic forces of morality, etc. I know what I think is right and wrong, I'm not going to pretend otherwise, or make a world with baked-in blue-and-ostrich morality, or try to build up rules based on what I think.


EDIT: Clearly RedMage doesn't realize that I've had him on ignore for quite a while now. It's funny that "your opinion doesn't equal fact" is being used to defend a system that trips over itself constantly in the effort to assert a set of rather bizarre moral opinions as "fact".

PhoenixPhyre
2019-09-09, 03:04 PM
If the questions cannot be answered at all, by anyone, with certainty, then it makes no sense for the game authors -- who you yourself say are woefully ill-equipped to answer them -- to assert any sort of answer to them at all. Better for them to just remain silent on the matter.

And yet they do, by trying to bake Alignment's blue-and-ostrich "morality" into the game's rules and implicit setting and "physics".


But it's quite possible to not have any moral assertions in the game's mechanics or worldbuilding -- in both fantasy settings and the science-fiction setting I'm working on, I've avoided making any hard moral assertions. Note how I talk about deities not being "good" or "evil", how there are no cosmic forces of morality, etc. I know what I think is right and wrong, I'm not going to pretend otherwise, or make a world with baked-in blue-and-ostrich morality, or try to build up rules based on what I think.

EDIT: Clearly RedMage doesn't realize that I've had him on ignore for quite a while now.

To your edit: that's sad. Because he's fully right here. You're imposing your personal preferences on things that don't agree and claiming they're bad for not doing it the Max_Killjoy way.

Missing antecedent there--the things I was claiming were impossible to answer were your "criticisms". As evidenced that we (meaning the philosophical community at large) can't agree on them, or even agree if the criticisms have any meaning. Not questions of morality itself. Those (for the purposes of fiction) are answered just fine, the only way such things can be answered in such cases. Authorial fiat. "For the purposes of this universe, let Good be defined as ...", etc.

You cannot avoid questions of morality if you want to have certain ideas in play in the settings and game-play. Which the D&D authors do. You, personally, don't want those ideas in play. Which is fine. But you're not the audience here, nor are you the author. And your preferences and personal tastes aren't controlling or objective--they're preferences after all. Neither are mine. Without "moral assertions", as you call them, D&D would not be D&D. It's a core part of the game. Not necessarily the exact specifications of alignment (3e style), but the idea of Good vs Evil and that there is such a cosmic thing. Like it or not, there was no other way that reaches the same results.

Now understand, I'm not so fond of mechanized alignment myself. I don't use it in my games, and I try to avoid talking about things in big-G Good and big-E Evil terms. But I recognize that many people do find it useful and like to have those ideas and tropes in play. So it's not bad, it's just not to my taste. Like pecan pie, which I find awful (I hate nuts in general).

Lord Raziere
2019-09-09, 03:40 PM
But especially I agree with the preferences =/= objective reality part. It's a common thing, but it's a problem just like alignment can be. And for the same reason--people pushing their subjective opinions on others as if they were facts.

So? subjectivism =/= all morality.

If you can't even make the most basic of judgments about morality, how do you change anything for the better at all? if you can't even tell a single person they're wrong, how can you stop injustices? how can it be morality at all if it can't apply it outside yourself? this seems unworkable.

Ventruenox
2019-09-09, 04:29 PM
Mödley Crüe: Due to proliferation of real world religion and the quickly escalating semantic debate inherent to this topic, it shall stay closed.