PDA

View Full Version : Alignment. In-World, is it subjective? Are Illithids truly evil?



WitchyKitty
2020-10-08, 09:27 PM
Hi there! So.. I've never really posted here and mostly just lurked as a whole, un-logged in, and after talking with my SO in Discord about some stuff, I got curious.

In-World, whether Golarion, D&D, etcetera, is morality completely subjective based on one's In-character beliefs? And if so are 'evil' spells only seen as such because of what they do according to the victim?
If it's objective, is morality an actual force or power on its own? Is morality, i.e. evil, good, chaotic/neutral, etcetera, how does that interlace with the concept of 'Good' and 'evil' magic, or otherwise, parts of the universe that are affected by it?
---------
Following this question, my next question may seem oddball.

Are Illithids actually, truly evil? Is their 'evil' solely because of the way other sentient races are prey to them, i.e. based on perception?

Because, well... I've not found all too much lore on the Illithids/ Mindflayers, but from what I've heard... they don't exactly seem... Evil, as themselves? From what I've seen they just seem to emphasize the development of themselves as a power, developing their culture, and propagating their race- which, yes, has unsavoury implications for the other sentient race, but it's no different than elves trying to develop their race and culture.


... I have no idea if I'm making sense. I hope that I am, and I hope also that my message/ idea is getting across.

No brains
2020-10-08, 09:39 PM
Even if you go with the argument that illithids are just trying to survive by eating sentient creatures, what makes them evil is that they have no appreciation for the collateral damage caused by their expansion. A top example is that the 3.5 book Lords of Madness detailed that one of their goals is to extinguish the sun. That's going to cause way more problems than are strictly necessary for illithids trying to survive.

Now for the idea of them being inherently evil, that's another topic. In Book of Exalted Deeds, there was a mind flayer that got a ring of sustenance and thereby mellowed out on needing to kill people, so they aren't entirely irredeemable. If the magically adept illithid society were really just trying to survive, they would probably invest in alternate food sources rather than eating sentient brains.

Also, welcome to the forum.:smallsmile:

zarionofarabel
2020-10-08, 09:40 PM
I believe that I am in the minority, but I believe that DnD Alignment should be objective, "set in stone" by the gods themselves, or some such.

{{scrubbed}}

In a fantasy world where the gods are real and interact with humanity on a regular basis morality (alignment) MUST be objective. Want to know if something is Good or Evil, just ask the gods. In fact, in most fantasy, it is quite easy to tell the good gods from the bad, they advertise!

Zhorn
2020-10-08, 09:57 PM
There's a few different brands of evil.
Depending on your setting, some apply to more than they do for others
Wanting the destruction of things as a goal, that's you generic demon brand of evil
Delighting in the pain and suffering of others, that's your hag brand of evil.
Seeing other races as just a means to an end, be it slave labor, food sources, or hosts, this is the Illithid's brand of evil.

Unlike the other two, pain and destruction isn't a goal, so there isn't an inherent malevolence motivating them. And to an illithid, what they are doing is not 'evil', it's just about survival and prosperity. What is evil is how they don't consider what they are doing to other races as being morally objectionable. They don't have a need to try and ethically source their food, or labour, or hosts.
As No brains covered (nice post btw), if the biological needs for killing are removed, there are examples of illithids not going out of their way to inflict terrible acts on other races, but as such methods are achievable but not pursued demonstrates an uncaring form of evil as a core component of their phycology.

GentlemanVoodoo
2020-10-08, 10:06 PM
zarionofarabel said it best but there is some leeway to be given for magic users of a non-divine sense. A necromancer who summons undead spirits in a fantasy world is considered by default as evil. Yet have him be a part of some culture that has a holiday like Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) then they aren't as evil as all their doing is just chatting with long past relatives.

In most fantasy based around morality and magics, you will find much like the real world western themed countries do have the strict sense of evil and good in pretty much everything. Yet go to an Asian themed areas like Kara-Tur in the Forgotten Realms setting then the lines become blurred a bit. But even in that there still a strict division for the divine.

KillianHawkeye
2020-10-08, 10:08 PM
I believe that I am in the minority, but I believe that DnD Alignment should be objective

I'm pretty sure you're not in the minority at all on that one. Alignment being objective is pretty explicit in all the editions of D&D.

If alignment was subjective, you couldn't detect for it or use it as a basis for targeting other spells.

OldTrees1
2020-10-08, 11:29 PM
1) In-World, whether Golarion, D&D, etcetera, is morality completely subjective based on one's In-character beliefs? And if so are 'evil' spells only seen as such because of what they do according to the victim?
2) If it's objective, is morality an actual force or power on its own? Is morality, i.e. evil, good, chaotic/neutral, etcetera, how does that interlace with the concept of 'Good' and 'evil' magic, or otherwise, parts of the universe that are affected by it?
3) Are Illithids actually, truly evil? Is their 'evil' solely because of the way other sentient races are prey to them, i.e. based on perception?


1) I suggest using an objective morality. While it is true that people's beliefs about morality are subjective, there are no coherent claims about reality one can make if you presume subjective morality. Moral Relativism, unlike cultural relativism, disproves itself.
2) Objective morality is not an actual force. It just means that something is moral/immoral independent of your subjective beliefs about morality. If it were moral to slaughter indiscriminately, then my belief that such slaughter is immoral would not change that.

But now to the meat of the issue. Pun foreshadowed.

3) Illithids are obligate carnivores with the capacity to make choices that are moral/immoral. Aka they are moral agents that must kill other animals in order to live. They can, but usually don't, limit themselves to rothe (underdark sheep) brains rather than the more intelligent life. However they must kill or die.

Unfortunately, this question is less fantastical than it might first appear. Some IRL humans can't survive without eating meat.

So can one's continued existence be inherently immoral? Well, perhaps. It may seem unfair, but life does not need to be fair.

So, perhaps Illithids are doomed, or maybe eating roathe is morally permissible. It is hard to say.


That said, the Illithid empire is clearly evil at all 3 major points in history:
Distant future: Vast empire with a large foundation of slaves. But something went wrong.
Distant past: Vast spacefaring empire that enslaved a species call the Gith. But something went wrong and the Gith rebelled.
Distant present: Forced planetside and hiding deep inside the planet, the Illithids form small compounds where they collect slaves and plot their future empire.

Alcore
2020-10-08, 11:29 PM
To the common man it is subjective. The average commoner might not believe that good and evil are tangible forces. Without someone to detect it a man might live a long wholesome life on a farm while being Evil with a capital E.



In-World, whether Golarion, D&D, etcetera, is morality completely subjective based on one's In-character beliefs? And if so are 'evil' spells only seen as such because of what they do according to the victim?
If it's objective, is morality an actual force or power on its own? Is morality, i.e. evil, good, chaotic/neutral, etcetera, how does that interlace with the concept of 'Good' and 'evil' magic, or otherwise, parts of the universe that are affected by it?Yes, No (a spell with alignment descriptors are always made with part of that alignment force). Yes (example; every outsider). The spell descriptions and setting information tells us how it is interlaced or leave it nebulous for us to figure out before game play...

Mastikator
2020-10-09, 03:47 AM
Mind Flayers treat humans the way humans treat animals. For the exact same reason too: "they're lower beings". Farm them for food, hunt them for food, hunt them for sport, work them for labor. Most humans don't think humans are evil for what we do to animals, some humans do think humans are evil.
The consequences are the same too: entire species wiped out or turned into chattel, massive ecological and climatological damage, potential global disaster. Mass extinction.

Kaptin Keen
2020-10-09, 04:30 AM
I believe Mindflayers are a pretty good attempt at making the most completely, inherently evil race imaginable. They do everything we abhor - theirs is a culture based on slavery, mind control, and keeping sentients as livestock. They experiment on their slaves, boil them down to a paste with which to feed them, and rebuild creatures to suit their whims (at least, in my games they do).

They have a perfectly tailored ecological base, where every living thing slots neatly into what Mindflayer society needs.

Elbeyon
2020-10-09, 04:40 AM
I believe that I am in the minority, but I believe that DnD Alignment should be objective, "set in stone" by the gods themselves, or some such.

Morality in the real world is subjective because we can't ask God or Vishnu or Muhammad directly.

In a fantasy world where the gods are real and interact with humanity on a regular basis morality (alignment) MUST be objective. Want to know if something is Good or Evil, just ask the gods. In fact, in most fantasy, it is quite easy to tell the good gods from the bad, they advertise!Even if the gods set alignment, alignment can still be subjective. Gods change, die, and new ones are born. The rules of good and evil can change with them. The gods can change their answer after a mortal asks.

Pleh
2020-10-09, 04:59 AM
In D&D style worlds, Good and Evil can be cosmic forces of the multiverse. For example, Fire isn't just a chemical reaction anymore, because all fire is somehow related to the elemental Plane of Fire. So making fires increases the Plane of Fire's influence on the material plane.

Thus doing evil isn't just subjective based on whom it affects, there are literally evil actions that give Planes of Evil more power and influence in the world (if your setting subscribes to Cosmic Evil as a force). To take it further, denizens of the Plane of Evil will be "made of evil" to the same extent that denizens of the Plane of Fire are made of fire. Demons in this multiverse are at least partially Evil Elementals.

But if you set up your world as having a more grounded form of morality, then it becomes more likely that Illithids are merely culturally corrupt and any given Illithid may be more or less evil than the next.

I don't think there's much room to debate them not being evil in their canon depictions, which involve a society built on enslaving sentient humanoids as chattel for labor, consumption, and using them to create more mindflayers. Did you know the only way for a baby mindflayer to become a fully fledged, humanoid mindflayer is they have to stick the baby mindflayer into a living host, where it eats their brain and takes over the body, basically using the skull as a driver seat?

Oh yes, this plays some intricate moral implications about, "how can they be evil if they have no choice?"

But I think the intent their creators had is that they prey on sentient humanoids because illithids crave power, and the more intelligent a brain is, the more power they gain for consuming it. Basically, they never "had to" do these terrible things to people. It was just the optimal choice for giving themselves more power and they didn't give a lick about what terrible things that meant for other creatures. They see themselves as far above humans as humans see themselves above cattle.

RedMage125
2020-10-09, 05:53 AM
Hi there! So.. I've never really posted here and mostly just lurked as a whole, un-logged in, and after talking with my SO in Discord about some stuff, I got curious.

In-World, whether Golarion, D&D, etcetera, is morality completely subjective based on one's In-character beliefs? And if so are 'evil' spells only seen as such because of what they do according to the victim?
If it's objective, is morality an actual force or power on its own? Is morality, i.e. evil, good, chaotic/neutral, etcetera, how does that interlace with the concept of 'Good' and 'evil' magic, or otherwise, parts of the universe that are affected by it?
As someone who is a major proponent of alignment and alignment mechanics, I have an answer for you.

Ok, the "correct" answer to your question is that every DM has the right to determine for their game how alignment and morality are determined.

HOWEVER, the Rules As Written (RAW) do give us a default answer that is how most D&D worlds are set up. Some editions (like 3.xe, PF1) had more hard-coded mechanics that were impacted by this answer, while others (4e, 5e) had very few.

The default answer is that each individual may perceive their actions to be good or evil according to their own beliefs, but their actual alignment is judged objectively by completely dispassionate cosmic forces which are not swayed by semantics or self-justification. Even the gods are beholden to these forces (case in point, Cyric's dogma teaches that Mystra and Kelemvor are treacherous liars, and he is a heroic figure, but his is a CE god, and they are both Good and Neutral, respectively).

So Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos are bodiless, dispassionate, objective forces that shape the cosmos. None of these forces have goals or agendas. They can be measured, objectively ("Detect X" spells in 3.P), they can take physical form (outsiders with alignment subtypes are made of the physical manifestation of that kind of energy), and they can impact the physical world when they interact with it (Planar effects of being on an alignment plane, as well as Holy/Unholy/Lawful/Chaos spells).

These same energies are present in mortals, but in smaller amounts. Observe that a Detect Evil spell will detect only Moderate Evil in an 11-HD evil fighter, or a 3 HD demon. This plays into your question about magic. Some spells channel these energies directly (Holy smite, Chaos Hammer, etc), other spells get the alignment tag because they contact planes with these energies, and bring those energies here (hence why summoning a fiendish creature gives the spell the [Evil] tag). Others, because they only do Evil things. In 3.x, for example, Creation of Undead is one of those Always Evil actions. The justification is that it is a crime against nature to create a mockery of life, and we can tell from circumstantial evidence that the soul of the person whose body it was is affected in some way (i.e. if someone turned your corpse into a zombie, even True Resurrection cannot bring you back until the zombie is destroyed). So while Negative Energy by itself is not an "evil" energy, it is being used as a battery for an Evil act (making undead). Same way Fireball is not evil, but casting Fireball into an orphanage would be. So spells that ONLY make undead have the [Evil] tag as well, because the only thing those spells do is a Always Evil act. The "victim" of this act is, by the RAW, nature/"the universe". That is why the RAW makes it work that way. This ties into Detection spells because ALL undead in 3.x detect as Evil under a "Detect Evil" spell, because of the evil energies that animate their bodies, even if they are not evil themselves. So even though a zombie is mindless (and otherwise incapable of moral agency), there are Evil energies animating it. And same for a CG vampire holding onto her morality and sanity...she still will register as Evil to someone using Detect Evil.

My favorite example to highlight this is to imagine a prophecy that says that during a conjunction of moons (due to occur in 7 years), an orphan in his second decade of life will release Demogorgon into the world. So a zealous demon hunter, trying to prevent this apocalypse, starts killing every orphan between the ages of 4 and 14 that he comes across. He genuinely believes what he is doing serves "the greater good". Even if he commits no other acts of evil, the constant, repeated, and, above all unrepentant murder of hundreds of innocent children means his alignment is Evil. He would be quite surprised to find that he takes damage from a Holy Smite spell. His own perceptions color his ideals and his beliefs, but no manner of justification will change how his overall alignment is determined.



---------
Following this question, my next question may seem oddball.

Are Illithids actually, truly evil? Is their 'evil' solely because of the way other sentient races are prey to them, i.e. based on perception?

Because, well... I've not found all too much lore on the Illithids/ Mindflayers, but from what I've heard... they don't exactly seem... Evil, as themselves? From what I've seen they just seem to emphasize the development of themselves as a power, developing their culture, and propagating their race- which, yes, has unsavoury implications for the other sentient race, but it's no different than elves trying to develop their race and culture.


... I have no idea if I'm making sense. I hope that I am, and I hope also that my message/ idea is getting across.

Ok, I actually have an answer for this as well. At least, continuing to use 3.xe alignment mechanics and mores (because that was the last edition with the most mechanics related to this).

Mind Flayers are aberrations. Like many aberrations, their mindset is completely alien. Some aberrations come from the Far Realm, or completely different realities altogether. It's entirely possible that in the reality they are from, they are not considered "Evil". The thing is, when they are here (meaning the D&D world), they are now in a reality where their outlooks, beliefs, and, above all, their actions will determine their alignment. Keep in mind, that 3.xe defines "murder" as "killing a sentient creature for selfish or nefarious purposes". Mind flayers can survive off ANY kind of brain. But they prefer the brains of thinking, sentient creatures, don't they? Killing sentient creatures because they taste better than animals is a "selfish purpose", isn't it?

So, you are correct that one COULD empathize with the mind flayers, and, from a certain subjective view, they don't seem "evil" in the same way demons are. BUT, the "official" (read as: the answer you will get from reading what is written in the books) answer is that Mind Flayers' perceptions of themselves are still judged by the objective, cosmic forces of THIS reality (which is where they are now), and thus they are Evil.

I know that was long-winded, but I hope it helps.

Democratus
2020-10-09, 07:02 AM
Illithids generally fall into two categories in the campaigns I've seen

1) A force of pure evil.

- Slavers, cannibals, and destroyers of souls.

2) A force from the Far-Realms - beyond the concepts of good and evil.

- Totally alien beings who's actions have terrible effect on other sentient cultures

Anonymouswizard
2020-10-09, 07:58 AM
I believe that I am in the minority, but I believe that DnD Alignment should be objective, "set in stone" by the gods themselves, or some such.

Morality in the real world is subjective because we can't ask God or Vishnu or Muhammad directly.

In a fantasy world where the gods are real and interact with humanity on a regular basis morality (alignment) MUST be objective. Want to know if something is Good or Evil, just ask the gods. In fact, in most fantasy, it is quite easy to tell the good gods from the bad, they advertise!

I definitely agree for alignment, although I don't agree for morality or ethics.

Alignment is your stance and place in the Great Universal Conflict between the forces of Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos. Now the forces of Good are normally good, and the forces of Evil are generally evil. But these don't completely match to what the organisations, nations, and people on the Material Plane view as good or evil, and different Good or Evil gods promote different, potentially mutually exclusive moralities.

Or at least that's how I see it as working. You know what's endorsed by the Good gods, but you still need to work out what's good for yourself (tip: probably involves giving soup to orphans).

OldTrees1
2020-10-09, 08:22 AM
I believe that I am in the minority, but I believe that DnD Alignment should be objective, "set in stone" by the gods themselves, or some such.

Morality in the real world is subjective because we can't ask God or Vishnu or Muhammad directly.

In a fantasy world where the gods are real and interact with humanity on a regular basis morality (alignment) MUST be objective. Want to know if something is Good or Evil, just ask the gods. In fact, in most fantasy, it is quite easy to tell the good gods from the bad, they advertise!

That is not what subjective morality means.


1. Morality permits of two distinct perspectives of assessment.
2. A first, “objective”, perspective assesses the moral quality of
actions in a way that is not sensitive to agents’ epistemic circumstances.
3. A second, “subjective”, perspective assesses the moral quality
of actions in a way that is sensitive to agents’ epistemic circumstances.
4. Objective moral assessment is explanatorily prior to subjective moral assessment.
Source: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d1e5/b2eb08fa87d6a944ef185869bbcdd685bd89.pdf

Objective morality means something is moral or immoral regardless of my belief about it being moral or immoral.
Subjective morality means my moral beliefs affect whether something is moral or immoral.

If slaughtering the innocents is immoral, is it only immoral because I believe it is immoral, or would it still be immoral even if I believed something else?

Sources:
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d1e5/b2eb08fa87d6a944ef185869bbcdd685bd89.pdf
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-relativism/

Tanarii
2020-10-09, 08:41 AM
D&D alignment in all the default settings is, as far as I know, in-universe objective.

In-universe characters belief about their morality can be subjective. Depends on the edition and how easy it is to "prove" alignment.

Out of character, at the player (and depending on edition, DM) level, is always subjective. Determining what qualifies as what alignment (Specific actions, typical broad behavior), how exactly it works (proscriptive, descriptive, motivational, etc) varies from edition to edition, and within those definitions varies wildly from player to player (and DM to DM if they are involved). Alignment is a fictional construct, morality and ethics IRL are fictional constructs, and when you put that together the result must be subjective.

----------

Yes, Mind Flayers are evil. Because they have an evil alignment, or vice versa.

What does that mean? It means it's okay to kill the without worrying about it. That's why Team Evil exists in the first place. Orcs & Mind Flayers ... they're there to be enemies to sneak around, repel invasions from, and if necessary implacably massacre. They are the Them in Us vs Them.

---------



Objective morality means something is moral or immoral regardless of my belief about it being moral or immoral.
Subjective morality means my moral beliefs affect whether something is moral or immoral.

When you can't test something empirically, it's time to fall back on "common sense" (or if you're an intellectual, "logic"). And we all know how well that works.

gijoemike
2020-10-09, 09:48 AM
One must remember that in D&D angels are made up of the particles of the upper planes which are aligned to GOOD. The devils are aligned with the lower plains and are made up of EVIL. If one walks around for too long in the hells they become evil due to cross contamination. These particles of good and evil directly affect ones moral compass.

This means that no matter what an angel does, no matter what alignment they are, they will always detect as good. The reverse is true for demons/devils. No matter how much they try they will always be considered evil for the purpose of smite evil, holy word, detect spells.

There are also cursed items that change a persons moral compass instantly if encountered. An item can switch you from being a vile murdering rapist into a saint in a split second or turn a saint into a remorseless kidnapping pillager.

Does any of this make any sense? No not really. Half the time evil in D&D is like the dark side and is corrupting. But the alignment system in D&D is very odd to begin with. It is objective because it is 100% deterministic and unlike Schrodinger's cat we can pinpoint its exact location and state at any given time using a handful of spells.

LibraryOgre
2020-10-09, 09:54 AM
In a fantasy world where the gods are real and interact with humanity on a regular basis morality (alignment) MUST be objective. Want to know if something is Good or Evil, just ask the gods. In fact, in most fantasy, it is quite easy to tell the good gods from the bad, they advertise!

I don't think this is necessarily true... I can certainly see a setting where the Gods are real and individuals, and good and evil remain subjective. Babylon 5, for example, the Vorlons and the Shadows weren't quite gods, but both believed that their methodology was correct. While Shadows were presented as evil, that was arguably a matter of point of view, and we saw, in the course of the series, that the Vorlons were also quite willing to be monstrous.

However, I don't think that's really possible with the standard cosmology for D&D, where Good and Evil wind up objectively affecting real estate.... if your town in the Plane of Concordant Opposition winds up becoming too Lawful and Good, you slide to Arcadia or the Seven Heavens.

Jason
2020-10-09, 10:32 AM
There are real game effects that are tied to a being's alignment, and they work according to objective rules. Therefore yes, alignment is objective in-game. It's simply how the universe operates.

That doesn't mean there won't be characters in-game who believe good and evil are subjective..

EggKookoo
2020-10-09, 12:04 PM
I think the main problem with the objective/subjective thing is simply in the terminology. "Good" can have a moral meaning and a qualitative meaning. "It's good to be bad," for example.

I would hope in future editions of D&D, they come up with better words for the good/evil spectrum. Compassionate/Cruel or something like that (maybe something less bulky).

OldTrees1
2020-10-09, 12:26 PM
When you can't test something empirically, it's time to fall back on "common sense" (or if you're an intellectual, "logic"). And we all know how well that works.

Heh, yup. There are limits to how far logic can answer a question if you can't get empirical evidence. Despite standing on the shoulders of giants, the most humans can validly conclude is "The answer to morality would not be a self contradicting answer". That is not very satisfying, so most make some invalid leaps of intuition and start building from there, completely ignoring their own skyhook.


I don't think this is necessarily true... I can certainly see a setting where the Gods are real and individuals, and good and evil remain subjective. Babylon 5, for example, the Vorlons and the Shadows weren't quite gods, but both believed that their methodology was correct. While Shadows were presented as evil, that was arguably a matter of point of view, and we saw, in the course of the series, that the Vorlons were also quite willing to be monstrous.

Babylon 5 is not an example of subjective morality.

Subjective morality is when your beliefs about morality affect whether something is immoral or not. When the Vorlons did something monstrous, was it simultaneously moral (because Kosh felt it was moral) and immoral (because Kosh felt it was immoral)? OR would the moral character of that monstrous act be independent of the beliefs of the observers? In short "Subjective Morality" is better known as "Moral Relativism".

Objective morality on the other hand says the moral character of an action is independent on what the observers believe the moral character of the action is. Sort of like how my stove, when on, is hot even if I were foolish enough to believe it was cold. Observers having differing opinions about morality does not mean it is not objective morality. Objective vs Subjective here is asking whether those beliefs control reality.

More reading: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/#MorRel

Babylon 5 is an example of nuanced circumstances and without the audience being explicitly informed about what was moral/immoral, but it does not claim to be Moral Relativism. It does not say Londo's actions are both moral (because he believed they were moral) and immoral (because Gkar found them immoral).

That said, yes you could have a setting that is based on Moral Relativism. It might be a bit messy (eating Pasta is simultaneously Immoral, Moral, and Amoral) but it is possible. Most settings that are not perfectly coherent.



I think the main problem with the objective/subjective thing is simply in the terminology. "Good" can have a moral meaning and a qualitative meaning. "It's good to be bad," for example.

I would hope in future editions of D&D, they come up with better words for the good/evil spectrum. Compassionate/Cruel or something like that (maybe something less bulky).

Well assuming we are talking about the moral/immoral axis (as in an Immoral Angel is not Good), then the words "Moral, Amoral, & Immoral" become useful. This includes terms like Morally Supererogatory and Morally Permissible.

EggKookoo
2020-10-09, 12:36 PM
It does not say Londo's actions are both moral (because he believed they were moral) and immoral (because Gkar found them immoral).

That was how it was presented with the Vorlons and Shadows, though, no? Each thought the other's values were immoral and their own were moral. The narrative never comes down on one side or the other in any objective way, although there's some sleight of hand to make us pre-judge the Vorlons as good.

...simply rejects both of them equally, declaring that humanity (and allies) need to work out their own values.

One could make the argument that it applied to Londo and G'Kar as well. Londo certainly starts off the series believing or at least promoting his people's history as morally justified. He gets jaded as the series progresses but I don't recall him ever saying that he's reversed that position. More along the lines that he didn't realize how high the price would be. And yes, he developed a personal friendship with G'Kar, but that's not really the same thing as changing morality. More like, he came to terms with the idea that not everyone would see things his way and he learned to live with it (well, for as long as he could).

Darth Credence
2020-10-09, 12:40 PM
Even with in game effects that specify good and evil, that doesn't mean it has to be objective. It is easy enough to decide that "evil" beings believe that they are right and "good" is wrong. An effect that detects evil is detecting what people colloquially think of as "evil", but that is just baked into the spell.

Let's say that a particular setting makes its divide more along natural world vs civilization. The sapient beings who live in civilization have decided that civilization is the force for "good" and progress, while the natural world is brutal and "evil". So when they create a spell to detect good and evil, they are simply detecting whether something is more natural or more the product of civilization. The Gods of "good" are just Gods that support making cities and growing populations, while the Gods of "evil" are those that would push for a return of all species to simple living off the land. But if everyone who matters - which is likely to be the massive numbers that live in cities and drive the culture of the world - agrees that that is what defines the terms, then that is what would show up as good and evil in a spell. The "evil" Gods might hate this, as they see their viewpoint as how things should be and thus good.

If, somehow, the gods of "evil" wage a long campaign and win, and nomadic societies and hunter gatherers become the primary societies, they may decide to take the mantle of good. Those people who band together in filthy conditions with people living on top of one another are evil, because they spread disease and attempt to break the natural laws. Someone developing a detect good and evil spell will apply that version, and city builders are now evil while druids are paragons of good.

This doesn't mean that a campaign can't have well defined, objective good and evil. If that's how someone wants to play it, great.

OldTrees1
2020-10-09, 12:41 PM
That was how it was presented with the Vorlons and Shadows, though, no? Each thought the other's values were immoral and their own were moral. The narrative never comes down on one side or the other in any objective way, although there's some sleight of hand to make us pre-judge the Vorlons as good.

...simply rejects both of them equally, declaring that humanity (and allies) need to work out their own values.

One could make the argument that it applied to Londo and G'Kar as well. Londo certainly starts off the series believing or at least promoting his people's history as morally justified. He gets jaded as the series progresses but I don't recall him ever saying that he's reversed that position. More along the lines that he didn't realize how high the price would be. And yes, he developed a personal friendship with G'Kar, but that's not really the same thing as changing morality. More like, he came to terms with the idea that not everyone would see things his way and he learned to live with it (well, for as long as he could).

No.
It was presented that different characters had different beliefs about whether those events were immoral.
It was not claimed that those different beliefs determine whether the event was moral or immoral.

This is an important distinction. People can disagree about reality, but is reality dictated by those beliefs? My stove, when on, is hot regardless of my belief that it is cold.

Babylon 5 presents us with the fact that different people can have different perspectives. That is normal.
Subjective Morality (aka Moral Relativism) says "well since people disagree, there is no independant truth".
Objective Morally rebutes with "different people can have different beliefs, but beliefs can be wrong".

In fact I suspect a common reading of the Vorlons vs Shadows is that both were doing immoral actions regardless of their differing beliefs about whether those actions were moral. Their beliefs about the moral character of their actions do not dictate the moral character of their actions. However the show does not explicitly state this either. The show is silent on Objective Morality vs Moral Relativism.

EggKookoo
2020-10-09, 12:51 PM
No.
It was presented that different characters had different beliefs about whether those events were immoral.
It was not claimed that those different beliefs determine whether the event was moral or immoral.


Forgive my ignorance, but what's the difference?

If Person A thinks a thing is moral and Person B thinks that thing is immoral, it can't actually be moral or immoral independently of those two people (as representatives of others perhaps).

OldTrees1
2020-10-09, 01:28 PM
Forgive my ignorance, but what's the difference?

If Person A thinks a thing is moral and Person B thinks that thing is immoral, it can't actually be moral or immoral independently of those two people (as representatives of others perhaps).

My stove can be hot independant of your belief about it being on or off. Our beliefs do not dictate that reality.

Why would morality be any different? If I ask the question "Is it morally permissible for me to eat spaghetti in this context?" I expect that question to have an answer that is separate from my beliefs or your beliefs about what that answer is. Notice we have beliefs about that answer, that answer is therefore separate from our beliefs about that answer.

Objective Morality vs Moral Relativism is a debate between beliefs about our beliefs about that answer. Both agree that moral truth is separate from moral beliefs but one side says our beliefs do not control reality and the other side says our beliefs control reality.

In other words if I make a claim about X is moral/immoral, can I be wrong? If I can be wrong then my belief does not dictate reality. If I can't be wrong...

KillianHawkeye
2020-10-09, 02:01 PM
This seems like the least useful hill to die on when it comes to a discussion about subjective morality.

What's important in a discussion is the practical application of morality, not whether or not our beliefs affect some abstract level of reality. The real question is not about if believing something is morally right makes it so, but whether or not acting in a way which you believe to be morally right should be acceptable to those who may disagree with you (or society at large).

IRL many people believe it's okay to eat animal meat, but most people agree it's not okay to eat human meat. The relevant questions become whether vegans should accept the practices of meat eaters, and whether society at large should accept the behaviors of the small number of cultures who practice cannibalism? Recognize that the answer may often have to do more with respecting different cultures and/or the freedom of individuals than with an unknowable objective moral truth.

D&D makes things a bit easier by giving us explicit guidelines for objective moral truths that we lack true consensus on IRL. Everyone believes their own morals are truth, but in D&D they actually know what's what.

EggKookoo
2020-10-09, 02:07 PM
My stove can be hot independant of your belief about it being on or off. Our beliefs do not dictate that reality.

Why would morality be any different? If I ask the question "Is it morally permissible for me to eat spaghetti in this context?" I expect that question to have an answer that is separate from my beliefs or your beliefs about what that answer is. Notice we have beliefs about that answer, that answer is therefore separate from our beliefs about that answer.

Objective Morality vs Moral Relativism is a debate between beliefs about our beliefs about that answer. Both agree that moral truth is separate from moral beliefs but one side says our beliefs do not control reality and the other side says our beliefs control reality.

In other words if I make a claim about X is moral/immoral, can I be wrong? If I can be wrong then my belief does not dictate reality. If I can't be wrong...

I genuinely get perplexed in conversations like this. Let me see if I'm getting this right.

Case #1: One of us is right about the stove and one of us is wrong (it is either "hot" or "not hot"). If I think it's not hot, I'm objectively wrong. It's possible to know if the stove his hot, which means it's possible for me to know I'm wrong. This sounds like pretty clear-cut objective morality to me, to the degree that we can even know that it's objective morality.

Case #2: Similar to #1, except that neither of us can really know if it's hot or not. It is hot or not hot, objectively, but we don't have access to that information and have to infer it. Still sounds more or less like objective morality, except you and I can't really know it's objective. So it might incorrectly look like subjective morality to us.

Case #3: The heat of the stove has no perceptible relevance to anything. Except that we believe it does. You think the stove is hot, I think it's not. This belief may cause us to perceive the stove differently, but it's still just an effect of perception. We behave as though the stove is hot/not, and that behavior causes certain results which may be seen as confirming that belief. The heat (or lack thereof) of the stove is a strong motivator for each of us, and each of us is certain we're perceiving it correctly, so we think the other is perceiving it incorrectly (otherwise how could this be?). This, as I understand it, is pretty clearly subjective morality. It's how I interpret most of the morality presented in B5.

Case #4: Going out on a limb here because I'm trying to parse what you're saying. In this case, the stove is hot because you believe/perceive it to be so. Your belief causes the heat in the stove. I'm not sure where this leaves me. Is the stove hot because your belief is stronger? Is the stove cold to me because I believe it to be so (mirroring #3)? Does the stove get caught up in a loop of logic and cease to exist?

LibraryOgre
2020-10-09, 02:38 PM
In fact I suspect a common reading of the Vorlons vs Shadows is that both were doing immoral actions regardless of their differing beliefs about whether those actions were moral. Their beliefs about the moral character of their actions do not dictate the moral character of their actions. However the show does not explicitly state this either. The show is silent on Objective Morality vs Moral Relativism.

We certainly perceive those actions as immoral, but that's because we have objections to genocide. The Vorlons and the Shadows do not have moral objections to genocide; they view it as a consequence of embracing the "wrong" ethos.

So, while humans (and Minbari) might view those actions as immoral, the Vorlons did not view the destruction of Arcata VII as immoral. If we'd been able to get straight answers out of the Vorlons, they'd no doubt say something along the lines of morality being determined by adherence to one's place in the Universe ("Who are you" being their question), and that the Arcatan's divergence from this, by allying with the Shadows, allied them with evil, as the Vorlons understood it.

Likewise, the Shadows would tell you that morality flowed from pursuit of goals ("What do you want" being their question), and that, by allying with the Vorlons, the people of Zander Prime forfeited their claim to moral behavior.

Both of these are at odds with more human conceptions of morality, which generally revolve around care and protection of sentient beings. Because of the human conception of moral behavior, the destruction of Arcata VII and Zander Prime *were* simultaneously moral (from a Vorlon/Shadow perspective) and immoral (from a human perspective), and remain so, barring a method of measuring their morality which would be the same across species (which might, perhaps, be Lorien), the actions are subjectively moral or immoral. Strangely, the Vorlons and Shadows might view each other's actions as moral... the Shadows being true to what they are, so being moral by Vorlon perspectives, and the Vorlons proceeding in pursuit of their goals, so being moral from Shadow perspectives. Absent some degree of objective measure, however, everyone is left to judge the morality of actions from their own perspective... which may change as they become informed about other ways of looking at things; q.v. Vir Cotto, whose attempts to free Narns from Centauri occupation would certainly be seen as immoral by Cartagia, but whose actions were viewed as moral by human and Minbari observers. Neither the humans nor Minbari, however, were objective... they were simply two related schema for viewing actions, who were observing from the outside.

But, still, we wrap this back to D&D, where Good and Evil (as well as Law and Chaos, which, arguably, the Vorlons and the Shadows embody) are objectively determined, and acts can be assessed as points on a coordinate grid, once all the factors are considered. Stealing might be a chaotic act; stealing to feed starving people would still be Chaotic, but it would be Chaotic and Good. Stealing the last loaf of bread from a starving family would be Chaotic and Evil, though it might skew slightly more neutral if you were using it to preserve someone else's life. The mean of where these points land is what determines a person's alignment, but it does so in an object manner. You can say "Bob's alignment put him at 2,3 on the alignment coordinate grid, so he's neutral, trending chaotic good." "Tina has a -10, -12 alignment coordinates, which means she is strongly lawful evil."

So, mind flayers are evil. They may not view being evil as particularly wrong, however; there's the old saw that many anti-heroes are simply "pragmatic" as they break someone's arm for a stolen loaf of bread. Their own language might not even consider questions of right and wrong, and certainly not in the way humans do. But, that does not change that they are objectively evil... and we know this because D&D morality is a science, and there's a meter stick one can compare actions to, and plot them on a coordinate grid that looks remarkably like a Great Wheel.

Jason
2020-10-09, 02:41 PM
"Hot" and "cold" really are subjective terms, so they make for a poor example of objectivity. A better example would be "my oven's current temperature is 450 degrees. (Fahrenheit)". You can argue whether or not that constitutes "hot", but the actual air temperature in the oven is a measurable objective fact.

In the same way, someone in D&D can believe they are Lawful Good, and everyone around them can believe they are Lawful Good, but if they register "evil" on a detect evil spell then the objective fact (assuming no shenanagins like wearing a crown around their neck that was worn by a lich for decades and therefore registers as "evil") is that they are not Lawful Good. Alignment in D&D is an objectively testable quality of creatures, like their mass or hit points.

OldTrees1
2020-10-09, 02:59 PM
Edit: Jason makes a good point. For those reading this subthread, pretend
Cold = 60 degrees fahrenheit
Warm/Hot = 120/180 degrees fahrenheit.



I genuinely get perplexed in conversations like this. Let me see if I'm getting this right.

I appreciate your attitude and your replies.


Case #1: One of us is right about the stove and one of us is wrong (it is either "hot" or "not hot"). If I think it's not hot, I'm objectively wrong. It's possible to know if the stove his hot, which means it's possible for me to know I'm wrong. This sounds like pretty clear-cut objective morality to me, to the degree that we can even know that it's objective morality.

Yes this is clear cut objective morality, but it would still be objective morality if you were wrong but could not know you were wrong. Currently you can be wrong about my stove and you will never know. (As you elaborate in case #2)


Case #2: Similar to #1, except that neither of us can really know if it's hot or not. It is hot or not hot, objectively, but we don't have access to that information and have to infer it. Still sounds more or less like objective morality, except you and I can't really know it's objective. So it might incorrectly look like subjective morality to us.

This is objective morality. We won't know if it is objective or subjective, but I would not say it looks, to us, like one or the other. We just have no information about whether it is objective morality or moral relativism.


Case #3: The heat of the stove has no perceptible relevance to anything. Except that we believe it does. You think the stove is hot, I think it's not. This belief may cause us to perceive the stove differently, but it's still just an effect of perception. We behave as though the stove is hot/not, and that behavior causes certain results which may be seen as confirming that belief. The heat (or lack thereof) of the stove is a strong motivator for each of us, and each of us is certain we're perceiving it correctly, so we think the other is perceiving it incorrectly (otherwise how could this be?). This, as I understand it, is pretty clearly subjective morality. It's how I interpret most of the morality presented in B5.

You said the heat of the stove has no perceptible relevance. That merely means its actual state is not relevant to our lives. If I have a belief about that actual state, my belief can still be wrong. My belief might even affect my perceptions. I might exhibit confirmation bias and perceive a warm stove because I expect the stove to be warm. However if the stove it cold it remains cold even if my belief about it being warm causes me to perceive it to be warm.

This is still objective morality. The focus has downplayed the significance of the actual state and increased the significance of the beliefs but it is still objective morality. We just stopped caring about the actual answer.

B5 is between case 2 and 3. In some sections I get the impression that the writers intended a moral lesson. In other sections I get the impression that the writers were focused on getting us to empathize with all sides involved. If running a setting with objective morality, this is the sweet spot I recommend hitting.


Case #4: Going out on a limb here because I'm trying to parse what you're saying. In this case, the stove is hot because you believe/perceive it to be so. Your belief causes the heat in the stove. I'm not sure where this leaves me. Is the stove hot because your belief is stronger? Is the stove cold to me because I believe it to be so (mirroring #3)? Does the stove get caught up in a loop of logic and cease to exist?

Here we go. This is subjective morality. Not only do you perceive the stove to be cold because you believe it is cold (and confirmation bias), the stove actually is cold as a result of your belief. That precise scenario of "caught up in a loop of logic and cease to exist" is one of the biggest criticisms of Moral Relativism (aka Subjective morality).

Not caring about moral truth (case #3) is different from rejecting the existence of moral truth (case #4). Cases number 1-3 are objective morality.

Bonus Case #5:
I have no stove. Now the question "Is the stove hot or cold?" is erroneous. What if claims and questions about morality are all erroneous because moral/immoral don't exist.

This case is unrelated to the topic at hand, but your cases were detailed so well, I wanted to provide an bonus.



We certainly perceive those actions as immoral, but that's because we have objections to genocide. The Vorlons and the Shadows do not have moral objections to genocide; they view it as a consequence of embracing the "wrong" ethos.

Yes, the show focuses on the moral beliefs without claiming whether the setting has objective morality or moral relativism.


Because of the human conception of moral behavior, the destruction of Arcata VII and Zander Prime *were* simultaneously moral (from a Vorlon/Shadow perspective) and immoral (from a human perspective), and remain so, barring a method of measuring their morality which would be the same across species (which might, perhaps, be Lorien)

I would reword that slightly. The Vorlons/Shadows believed the destruction moral and the Minbari believed it to be immoral, but observing those beliefs is not the same as observing if it actually was moral or immoral. Objective Morality vs Subjective Morality (Moral Relativism) is about whether the latter is independent of, or controlled by the former. Objective Morality does not need to be knowable for it to exist.

The show focuses on the moral beliefs without claiming whether the setting has objective morality or moral relativism.


So, mind flayers are evil. They may not view being evil as particularly wrong, however; there's the old saw that many anti-heroes are simply "pragmatic" as they break someone's arm for a stolen loaf of bread. Their own language might not even consider questions of right and wrong, and certainly not in the way humans do. But, that does not change that they are objectively evil... and we know this because D&D morality is a science, and there's a meter stick one can compare actions to, and plot them on a coordinate grid that looks remarkably like a Great Wheel.

Yes, when players can see the actual moral state rather than just the moral beliefs of the characters, then it becomes easy to tell if the setting is Objective Morality or Moral Relativism.

I was only nitpicking B5 does not actually demonstrate whether it is moral relativism or objective morality. B5 focuses on the cultural relativism (different people can have differing beliefs).

EggKookoo
2020-10-09, 04:28 PM
Here we go. This is subjective morality. Not only do you perceive the stove to be cold because you believe it is cold (and confirmation bias), the stove actually is cold as a result of your belief. That precise scenario of "caught up in a loop of logic and cease to exist" is one of the biggest criticisms of Moral Relativism (aka Subjective morality).

Right, this is what trips me up. If I perceive the stove to be cold, and you perceive it to be hot, what is it? Whose belief wins out? Seems like subjective morality can't exist.

At the same time, if I believe it's morally wrong to X, and you believe it's morally right to X, and subjective morality can't exist, what's the point in saying something has moral value? It seems like even objective morality can't exist in reality.

OldTrees1
2020-10-09, 04:44 PM
Right, this is what trips me up. If I perceive the stove to be cold, and you perceive it to be hot, what is it? Whose belief wins out? Seems like subjective morality can't exist.

At the same time, if I believe it's morally wrong to X, and you believe it's morally right to X, and subjective morality can't exist, what's the point in saying something has moral value? It seems like even objective morality can't exist in reality.

Yeah under Moral Relativism, if we disagree about if something is moral/immoral, then it is actually both, and exclusively one, and exclusively the other. I am not surprised that this trips you up. I have had formal education on this topic and that just makes it seem like crystal clear nonsense. But whether I like it or not, Moral Relativism is the opposite of Objective Morality. So when discussing Objective Morality vs Moral Relativism (Subjective Morality), I try my best to describe both.

Objective morality on the other hand is easier to explain. If my stove is off, it is cold, even if everyone in the world believes it is hot. If people disagree about it being hot vs warm, that is fine. They can disagree, and they can still all be wrong. If someone believes it is cold, well they lucked out. Their belief happens to be true.* But the cold stove is cold regardless of if someone believes it is cold.

IRL I think reality is either Objective Morality or Moral Error Theory. Questions of morality do have an answers, a single answers, even if that answer is "This question is erroneous".


However, in RPGs and fiction we don't truly need everything to be coherent. So a GM could have Moral Relativism if they wanted to. But D&D sticks to Objective Morality.


* This actually brings up the topic of knowledge. What is knowledge? Some define it as "a justified true belief". Well in this case that person has a true belief, but not a justified true belief. So they don't even know it is cold, they just accurately believe it to be cold.

Hellpyre
2020-10-09, 06:59 PM
IRL I think reality is either Objective Morality or Moral Error Theory. Questions of morality do have an answers, a single answers, even if that answer is "This question is erroneous".


For what it's worth, there is a defendable belief that morality doesn't have any sort of true existence and so only forms as a subset of cultural relativity, where morality can only be judged in the subjective framework of sociological effects that surround the actor. It really does fall more cleanly under Moral Error, but I know I've engaged people before who view that as the basis of a Morally Relativistic stance.

But then, I personally view morality as a null input, and would rather say that people ascribing motives to morality are instead lumping a number of emotional responses under the umbrella.

Either way - Dungeons and Dragons tends to present a strict Objective view on morality. There are things that are good or evil, regardless of the where, when, or why, and those things are quantifiable in a way that can be reproduced (such as by detect [alignment] or hallow/unhallow spells). But there is no problem in a DM eliminating the objectivism if they want to, so long as they consider mechanical implications of losing access to simple alignment-based effects.

EggKookoo
2020-10-09, 07:32 PM
Yeah under Moral Relativism, if we disagree about if something is moral/immoral, then it is actually both, and exclusively one, and exclusively the other. I am not surprised that this trips you up. I have had formal education on this topic and that just makes it seem like crystal clear nonsense. But whether I like it or not, Moral Relativism is the opposite of Objective Morality. So when discussing Objective Morality vs Moral Relativism (Subjective Morality), I try my best to describe both.

Objective morality on the other hand is easier to explain. If my stove is off, it is cold, even if everyone in the world believes it is hot. If people disagree about it being hot vs warm, that is fine. They can disagree, and they can still all be wrong. If someone believes it is cold, well they lucked out. Their belief happens to be true.* But the cold stove is cold regardless of if someone believes it is cold.

IRL I think reality is either Objective Morality or Moral Error Theory. Questions of morality do have an answers, a single answers, even if that answer is "This question is erroneous".

From what I understand of it, I think I come down on the moral error side as well.

Thanks for taking the time to explain it. I'm pleased to be broadened. :smallsmile:

Tanarii
2020-10-09, 09:00 PM
Objective Morality vs Moral Relativism is a debate between beliefs about our beliefs about that answer. Both agree that moral truth is separate from moral beliefs but one side says our beliefs do not control reality and the other side says our beliefs control reality.
That seems off. I've always viewed it as objective believes something has an reality, and subjective believes it does not. Regardless of the topic being considered (ie not just morality). Subjective doesn't mean you think your thoughts/opinions control reality.

OldTrees1
2020-10-09, 09:50 PM
That seems off. I've always viewed it as objective believes something has an reality, and subjective believes it does not. Regardless of the topic being considered (ie not just morality). Subjective doesn't mean you think your thoughts/opinions control reality.

Well I did oversimplify 1 step. Morality is actually 2 topics. There is the metaethical topic of "What do we actually mean when we make a moral claim?" vs the morality topic of "What ought one do?".

Objective Morality and Moral Relativism both accept the same metaethical position of "The claim 'X is immoral' means you ought not do X" and they consider it a valid question. So they do accept there is some kind of reality. Moral Relativism then rejects the objective part by making reality itself be subjective. I believe murder is immoral, therefore it is immoral, but ____ believed murder was morally permissive, therefore it is morally permissive. Due to this opposition with Objective morality it gained the nickname subjective morality despite that not quite fitting the pattern you noticed.

Moral Error Theory is actually a metaethical position that "What ought one do?" is an invalid question. All moral questions are invalid. It accepts the same implied meaning behind the question, it just rejects the question as invalid because it assumes morality does not exist.

There are other metaethical positions that step even further away from the norm. A subjective metaethical position (subjective metaethics) would be Ethical Subjectivism. That is even further into the weeds, so I don't want to dive into it but it exists.
Read More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_subjectivism

While I am at it
https://philosophicalapologist.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/metaethics.jpg?w=768
Source: https://philosophicalapologist.com/2018/10/


Basically when you say "X is moral", every possible interpretation of that claim has been dissected by metaethics. This is but a pruned example of the tree. And it is pruned fairly close to the root. It does not even show the descriptivism branch

Tanarii
2020-10-10, 01:04 AM
Basically when you say "X is moral", every possible interpretation of that claim has been dissected by metaethics. This is but a pruned example of the tree. And it is pruned fairly close to the root. It does not even show the descriptivism branch
What if we reject the question "is there a moral truth?"

I kid. I'm absolutely certain that philosophy has done that already somewhere somewhen.:smallamused:

OldTrees1
2020-10-10, 02:11 AM
What if we reject the question "is there a moral truth?"

I kid. I'm absolutely certain that philosophy has done that already somewhere somewhen.:smallamused:

You are right, it has covered that topic. However I am not sure if I should point you to Epistemology ("What is the difference between knowledge and opinion?") or Ontology ("What does it mean to say X exists?"). I think Ontology is closer.

RifleAvenger
2020-10-10, 02:33 AM
As others have said, by the books it's a pretty clear case of "mind flayers fit under what is defined as "Evil" in our setting's metaphysics, and so they are."

The disconnect to some players, of course, comes from the fact that the objective morality presented by D&D is a weak set of virtue ethics at best (sometimes contradictory or myopic to boot) and a set of deontological principles that rapidly produce unacceptable results at worst. Look at pretty much anything Gygax had to say on alignment for an example of the latter.

The easiest solutions are: to run with D&D's morality anyways, knowing it's flawed; remove alignment; or just ignore it as much as possible, which is like #2 except that you get to keep the alignment based effects and team jerseys.

---------------

I do think that there is some slippery middle ground where the game could explore alignment applied to different ethical systems, with different versions of Good and Evil existing simultaneously, but it does produce some cosmological questions. I don't think they're intractable though; the collective unconscious take on the planes, "the thoughts that MATTER" as OotS puts it, could be a surface level justification. Of course, that throws into doubt again the existence of "true" Good or Evil, if their physical manifestations are ultimately a construct of the mortal collective unconscious.

Tanarii
2020-10-10, 03:30 AM
You are right, it has covered that topic. However I am not sure if I should point you to Epistemology ("What is the difference between knowledge and opinion?") or Ontology ("What does it mean to say X exists?"). I think Ontology is closer.
I was thinking more along the lines of the potential answers being yes, no, and who cares?

Mechalich
2020-10-10, 05:55 AM
At the risk of shifting the topic slightly, it's worth noting that with regard to Illithids, specifically, their actual relationship to the alignment system is supposed to be: Error: Data does not fit Field. Illithids, along with a number of other strange things in D&D, have their origin in the Far Realm, and the Far Realm sits outside the cosmological principles of the Great Wheel to which alignment is bound. It operates according to a different, and from a human perspective incomprehensible, moral framework. This was why, in Planescape, the realm of Ilsensine, the Illithid deity, was located in the Outlands, because it opposed all other alignments equally.

hamishspence
2020-10-10, 06:17 AM
They weren't tied to the Far Realm till 4e. And even then, they still have a listed alignment of Evil in both 4e and 5e.

Far Realm creatures can still be Evil, because they behave very much like fiends, even if their reasons for doing so might be a little different.

OldTrees1
2020-10-10, 08:12 AM
At the risk of shifting the topic slightly, it's worth noting that with regard to Illithids, specifically, their actual relationship to the alignment system is supposed to be: Error: Data does not fit Field. Illithids, along with a number of other strange things in D&D, have their origin in the Far Realm, and the Far Realm sits outside the cosmological principles of the Great Wheel to which alignment is bound. It operates according to a different, and from a human perspective incomprehensible, moral framework. This was why, in Planescape, the realm of Ilsensine, the Illithid deity, was located in the Outlands, because it opposed all other alignments equally.


They weren't tied to the Far Realm till 4e. And even then, they still have a listed alignment of Evil in both 4e and 5e.

Far Realm creatures can still be Evil, because they behave very much like fiends, even if their reasons for doing so might be a little different.

1) In 3E there was a subset of Illithids that went to the far realms. When they returned they followed Thoon. However 3E continued the original origin being from the distant future. This was to contrast the Aboleth which is from a distant past. Honestly the "from the distant future" origin is more fitting for the Illithids than a "all weird things are exclusively from the Far Realms".

2) Blue Orange Morality Alignment (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality)
If you manage to run Illithids as having a Blue Orange moral framework, good on you. However aberrations are an empathy challenge. We try to make something incomprehensible and then we try to comprehend it.

Tanarii
2020-10-10, 09:58 AM
At the risk of shifting the topic slightly, it's worth noting that with regard to Illithids, specifically, their actual relationship to the alignment system is supposed to be: Error: Data does not fit Field. Illithids, along with a number of other strange things in D&D, have their origin in the Far Realm, and the Far Realm sits outside the cosmological principles of the Great Wheel to which alignment is bound. It operates according to a different, and from a human perspective incomprehensible, moral framework. This was why, in Planescape, the realm of Ilsensine, the Illithid deity, was located in the Outlands, because it opposed all other alignments equally.
Your lore is out of date. Now they are from the Astral.

Also it's irrelevant to the way Alignment now works. Alignment is about the typical but not required behavior. Whether you use that post-hoc ("judging") or pre-hoc (RP tool) it's about the overall behavior, not how a creature thinks or its actual morality system that results in the behavior.

All that stuff is, of course, just as useful to a DM as Alignment. Alignment is just a shorthand so a DM (or player for a PC) has a quick rough guideline for the broad overarching typical but not required behavior, for quick use as an RP tool. If you have an in depth understanding of the motivations of a creature, you can just use that instead of course. But good luck having that deep understanding of a creature that has alien does not compute thinking as an actual human being. It's already hard enough to do that for an Elf or Dwarf, which is why we have racial stereotypes related to behavior or easily identifiable human-equivalent emotions. And that's why we have 9 very broad classifications of typical but not required behavior, that have been carefully scrubbed so people stop using them as a straight jacket, and 1-2 personality traits, an ideal, a bond, and a flaw. Otherwise we often end up with humans with pointy ears or short humans with beard or humans with tentacle mouths.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-10-10, 10:06 AM
Even if the gods set alignment, alignment can still be subjective. Gods change, die, and new ones are born. The rules of good and evil can change with them. The gods can change their answer after a mortal asks.

Objective does not mean constant with respect to time. Subjective/objective are orthogonal to being time-varying.

Subjective morality means that at any instant, two or more people may have contradictory while simultaneously correct moral beliefs. Objective means that there is one set of correct moral beliefs at any instant. Even though those at a different instant may be different.

Tanarii
2020-10-10, 10:14 AM
Subjective morality means that at any instant, two or more people may have contradictory while simultaneously correct moral beliefs.It can also mean they have contradictory moral beliefs, and those beliefs are neither correct nor incorrect, because there's no in-game "reality" behind them. They're just like, their opinions. Man.

Also ... if the alignment is based on the gods opinions, and the gods can impose them on everyone else by rewriting the cosmos, does that make them any less opinion? Or is it just, like, a government law but on a cosmic scale and with really good enforcers so it's really hard to avoid getting caught? :smallamused:

Blackhawk748
2020-10-10, 10:16 AM
1) I suggest using an objective morality. While it is true that people's beliefs about morality are subjective, there are no coherent claims about reality one can make if you presume subjective morality. Moral Relativism, unlike cultural relativism, disproves itself.
2) Objective morality is not an actual force. It just means that something is moral/immoral independent of your subjective beliefs about morality. If it were moral to slaughter indiscriminately, then my belief that such slaughter is immoral would not change that.

But now to the meat of the issue. Pun foreshadowed.

3) Illithids are obligate carnivores with the capacity to make choices that are moral/immoral. Aka they are moral agents that must kill other animals in order to live. They can, but usually don't, limit themselves to rothe (underdark sheep) brains rather than the more intelligent life. However they must kill or die.

Unfortunately, this question is less fantastical than it might first appear. Some IRL humans can't survive without eating meat.

So can one's continued existence be inherently immoral? Well, perhaps. It may seem unfair, but life does not need to be fair.

So, perhaps Illithids are doomed, or maybe eating roathe is morally permissible. It is hard to say.


That said, the Illithid empire is clearly evil at all 3 major points in history:
Distant future: Vast empire with a large foundation of slaves. But something went wrong.
Distant past: Vast spacefaring empire that enslaved a species call the Gith. But something went wrong and the Gith rebelled.
Distant present: Forced planetside and hiding deep inside the planet, the Illithids form small compounds where they collect slaves and plot their future empire.

Them being obligate carnivores isn't why they are considered evil, otherwise Lions and Wolves would be evil. It's because they eat sapients in a rather horrific manner and have no need to do so. You say yourself that they can survive off of Rothe brains, and rothe's are just giant magical Musk Ox.

Basically, DnD Alignment works off of actions, and by the Illithid's actions, they are *****.


At the risk of shifting the topic slightly, it's worth noting that with regard to Illithids, specifically, their actual relationship to the alignment system is supposed to be: Error: Data does not fit Field. Illithids, along with a number of other strange things in D&D, have their origin in the Far Realm, and the Far Realm sits outside the cosmological principles of the Great Wheel to which alignment is bound. It operates according to a different, and from a human perspective incomprehensible, moral framework. This was why, in Planescape, the realm of Ilsensine, the Illithid deity, was located in the Outlands, because it opposed all other alignments equally.

That's only trues post 3.5, and partially in 3.5, and even then DnD morality works off of what you do not your motivation. It may partially take motivation into account as an amelorating factor, but when it all comes down to it, it's your actions.

So Illithids are Lawful Evil because they have a strict hierarchical system and are massive *****. Their motivations are weird and make no sense to us (ie: blotting out the sun) but that doesn't stop them from being Lawful and Evil.

EggKookoo
2020-10-10, 10:22 AM
It can also mean they have contradictory moral beliefs, and those beliefs are neither correct nor incorrect, because there's no in-game "reality" behind them. They're just like, their opinions. Man.

Is that not just moral error, then?

OldTrees1
2020-10-10, 10:38 AM
Your lore is out of date. Now they are from the Astral.

Oh wow. Now is that a new origin, or is that the Illithid empire during the era after the "escape to the past" time travel but before the Gith uprising?


It can also mean they have contradictory moral beliefs, and those beliefs are neither correct nor incorrect, because there's no in-game "reality" behind them. They're just like, their opinions. Man.

Is that not just moral error, then?
Yes, that is Moral Error Theory.


Also ... if the alignment is based on the gods opinions, and the gods can impose them on everyone else by rewriting the cosmos, does that make them any less opinion? Or is it just, like, a government law but on a cosmic scale and with really good enforcers so it's really hard to avoid getting caught? :smallamused:
Divine Command Theory was criticized by Socrates in the Euthyphro Dilemma.
Euthyfro (http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/euthyfro.html)
It basically is a more polished version of the critique you just made.


Them being obligate carnivores isn't why they are considered evil, otherwise Lions and Wolves would be evil. It's because they eat sapients in a rather horrific manner and have no need to do so. You say yourself that they can survive off of Rothe brains, and rothe's are just giant magical Musk Ox.

Lions and Wolves are not moral agents. There is an outstanding question about whether it is immoral for a moral agent to kill to live. That is what I find interesting about Illithids, they are obligate carnivores and moral agents. I was also taking that chance to explicitly mention the rothe brains because the OP thought they had to prey on people. If they had to kill people in order to live that would be an even more interesting dilemma, but not the one they face.

The typical illithid also does a bunch of immoral things like slavery, murder, and mind control. Others, like yourself, covered that boring angle well enough that I did not address it. I also didn't focus on it because it is not required behaviour. An illithid could behave differently.

Blackhawk748
2020-10-10, 10:55 AM
Lions and Wolves are not moral agents. There is an outstanding question about whether it is immoral for a moral agent to kill to live. That is what I find interesting about Illithids, they are obligate carnivores and moral agents. I was also taking that chance to explicitly mention the rothe brains because the OP thought they had to prey on people. If they had to kill people in order to live that would be an even more interesting dilemma, but not the one they face.

The typical illithid also does a bunch of immoral things like slavery, murder, and mind control. Others, like yourself, covered that boring angle well enough that I did not address it. I also didn't focus on it because it is not required behaviour. An illithid could behave differently.

You also missed the part where they suck the brains out of still living things. Illithids don't kill before they consume like, well, 98% of all living carnivores. They slap their tentacles on a living things head and then suck out their brains like smoothie.

So even before we get into the moral question of "is it moral to kill to survive" they are already doing it in a morally reprehensible way as they are causing far more suffering than is strictly necessary to gain sustenance.

Tanarii
2020-10-10, 11:41 AM
You also missed the part where they suck the brains out of still living things. Illithids don't kill before they consume like, well, 98% of all living carnivores. They slap their tentacles on a living things head and then suck out their brains like smoothie.
There are tons of predators that eat their prey alive. Humans as a whole find this particularly horrifying though. :smallamused:

Vahnavoi
2020-10-10, 12:15 PM
There are tons of humans who eat their prey alive. :smalltongue:

Blackhawk748
2020-10-10, 12:23 PM
There are tons of predators that eat their prey alive. Humans as a whole find this particularly horrifying though. :smallamused:

Yes, but what proprotion of the total number of predators are they? Big cats and wolves kill their prey before consuming because they can't risk injury and the majority of predators do this.


There are tons of humans who eat their prey alive. :smalltongue:

No they don't, specifically because the massive increase in stress turns the meat sour because of various hormones being released. SO not only are you being a ****, you're being an idiot when you cause prolonged suffering to something you are going to eat.

Tanarii
2020-10-10, 12:31 PM
Yes, but what proprotion of the total number of predators are they? Big cats and wolves kill their prey before consuming because they can't risk injury and the majority of predators do this.
Most insects. Since that's the largest number of predators on earth ....
On a macro scale: Sharks, carnivorous whales, dolphins & orcas, many hunting birds, bears. As far as I know, many big cats are perfectly happy to cripple their prey and start eating it too.
As far as I'm aware, your basic premise isn't the case. Most predators do not kill their prey.

Vahnavoi
2020-10-10, 01:27 PM
No they don't, specifically because the massive increase in stress turns the meat sour because of various hormones being released. SO not only are you being a ****, you're being an idiot when you cause prolonged suffering to something you are going to eat.

This trivia 1) does not apply to all prey animals humans eat and 2) has not actually stopped all humans from doing it where it does apply. :smalltongue:

RifleAvenger
2020-10-10, 02:23 PM
Yes, but what proportion of the total number of predators are they? Big cats and wolves kill their prey before consuming because they can't risk injury and the majority of predators do this. Wolves and other pack canids, as well as hyaenas, may begin some degree of consumption prior to the death of the prey.

Some sharks will partially consume before the prey dies. Fish in general commonly consume their prey alive.

Most insectivores don't not kill the prey before it gets into their mouth; usually it dies IN the mouth, but I'd presume some of the insects my bearded dragon ate still had some awareness as they slid down its throat.

Many venomous arthropods don't care whether the prey is dead, only that it is paralyzed. The same goes for other types of venomous animal.

This list is examples, it is FAR from being inclusive of all such examples. I'm not looking through a complete database of extant species to write a forum post.

No predator really cares about whether prey is dead, only that it no longer poses a threat to the predator (as you said). Predators with means to ensure safety of live consumption, like strength of numbers, poison, or a massive size difference, will readily consume living and aware prey.

OldTrees1
2020-10-10, 11:10 PM
You also missed the part where they suck the brains out of still living things. Illithids don't kill before they consume like, well, 98% of all living carnivores. They slap their tentacles on a living things head and then suck out their brains like smoothie.

So even before we get into the moral question of "is it moral to kill to survive" they are already doing it in a morally reprehensible way as they are causing far more suffering than is strictly necessary to gain sustenance.

I did not miss that part. I ignored it because it is not required. I was focusing on the inherent condition of the illithid.
1) Need to consume brain matter.
2) Do not need to experience ceremorphosis in their lifecycle.
3) Arguably not moral agents at the time of the ceremorphosis.
4) Lions, tigers, and bears are not moral agents.

So before we can get to the question of "is eating still living rothe immoral?" we first would have to address "is killing rothe immoral?". I don't expect that question to be addressed, let alone solved, today. However, the possibility of continued existence being morally questionable is one of the reasons I find illithids interesting. Since that is a rare situation, I thought it worth mentioning.

Vahnavoi
2020-10-10, 11:44 PM
It's pretty clear in most versions of D&D alignment that eating meat is not universally judged as Evil, so eating non-sapient animals must be Neutral. Anthrophagy - eating of humans and demihumans - correlates pretty well with being Evil, but not perfectly: for example, lizardmen in AD&D were notorious for eating those fallen in battle, both their own and those of their enemies'. But they were Neutral. There might be other examples that I do not remember right now.

Elbeyon
2020-10-11, 01:51 AM
It's pretty clear in most versions of D&D alignment that eating meat is not universally judged as Evil, so eating non-sapient animals must be Neutral. Anthrophagy - eating of humans and demihumans - correlates pretty well with being Evil, but not perfectly: for example, lizardmen in AD&D were notorious for eating those fallen in battle, both their own and those of their enemies'. But they were Neutral. There might be other examples that I do not remember right now.The lizardfolk are still very well known for eating people and being neutral in 3.5e and 5e as well. I think they get a pass because they do it purely for survival and they are dumb as a box of rocks. Seriously, lizardfolk have 7 int (orcs too) and apes have 6 int in 5e.

Sharur
2020-10-11, 02:43 AM
Regarding lizardfolk "anthrophagy", there is also the question of the intersection of alignment and culture.

For example, during the conflict between the British and the Zulus, the former held that "proper treatment of the dead" included burying the dead along with the majority of their possessions, while the latter held (IIRC) that one should slit the belly of the deceased, and take and display "trophies" of garments, etc., from the slain.

Now a satisfying answer that I have found to this is that what matters is the "function" of what you are trying to do, rather than the "implementation". E.g. in our above example, both groups are trying to "honor the dead", but guided by their cultures, do so in opposing ways; also compare mummification vs cremation.

Although, in a D&D world, one must consider as a consideration "keeping the dead down", as well. Something like the lizardfolk eating the dead would prevent the creation of zombies (and if they broke if not ate the bones while eating, this might prevent the raising of skeletons as well).

Luccan
2020-10-11, 02:45 AM
The lizardfolk are still very well known for eating people and being neutral in 3.5e and 5e as well. I think they get a pass because they do it purely for survival and they are dumb as a box of rocks. Seriously, lizardfolk have 7 int (orcs too) and apes have 6 int in 5e.

5e, at least, seems to have dropped the "Intelligence is a real-world intelligence measurement" thing. However, I would say that the fact they don't specifically and purposefully hunt sapient prey is probably connected to their neutrality. Also, a severe lack of slavery, humanoid experimentation, and torture.

We can make comparisons to human treatment of animals, but for one thing there's no evidence the cognitive gap is anywhere near as large and for another most humans don't torture animals. Meanwhile Mind-Flayers are basically all about treating "lesser" creatures as poorly as possible.

Vahnavoi
2020-10-11, 02:59 AM
The lizardfolk are still very well known for eating people and being neutral in 3.5e and 5e as well. I think they get a pass because they do it purely for survival and they are dumb as a box of rocks. Seriously, lizardfolk have 7 int (orcs too) and apes have 6 int in 5e.

Probably. In AD&D, it was described as an instinctive impulse that they have to actively resist - they were more likely to fall into that sort of behavior when demoralized and panicked.

This implies that eating people because you are or feel hungry, or because you're scared out of your wits, is Neutral. The corollary to that would be that in order for anthrophagy to be Evil, it has to be a reasoned, malicious decision. This falls in line with what OldTrees1 said: Illithids aren't Evil because they have to eat people; they're Evil because they choose to eat people because, I dunno, existential terror makes brains more delicious.

Keltest
2020-10-11, 04:56 PM
Probably. In AD&D, it was described as an instinctive impulse that they have to actively resist - they were more likely to fall into that sort of behavior when demoralized and panicked.

This implies that eating people because you are or feel hungry, or because you're scared out of your wits, is Neutral. The corollary to that would be that in order for anthrophagy to be Evil, it has to be a reasoned, malicious decision. This falls in line with what OldTrees1 said: Illithids aren't Evil because they have to eat people; they're Evil because they choose to eat people because, I dunno, existential terror makes brains more delicious.

That's actually canon in, at least, the forgotten Realms. Illithids like the taste of fear and helplessness. Lizardfolk meanwhile eat what they have because they live in a hostile environment where food is unreliable at best. If it shows up, you dont waste it.

Duff
2020-10-11, 06:03 PM
I think most of us use objective alignment in actual D&D play. The Giant clearly does - See Miko's fall, she thought she was doing good but was wrong, hence loss of Paladin privileges.

You could use subjective alignment, but it would have a very different feel. The paladin murdering all the halflings because she was convinced they were evil will still be a good paladin. The mage summoning demons "for the greater good" still pings as good. Maybe the demons themselves ping as good because they are doing what they are supposed to.

The existence of objective evil makes it much easier to play the sort of heroic game that is traditional in D&D

Quertus
2020-10-11, 09:17 PM
Are Illithids evil?


"Yes, we know you lesser species like to think yourselves 'sentient', and, to some extent, that is true. Your minds are certainly more developed than those of apes or rothe. We alone are in a position to judge such things, as only we Illithids possess the capacity to consume and experience the minds of others. Both you and the rothe are sentient, self aware, capable of experiencing delicious fear. We have master artists, capable of performance eating, who can share these experiences with the rest of the colony, so we all know first hand the truth of this. Similarly, we are uniquely positioned to tell you that you are so far beneath us that our consumption of you must inherently be more ethical than your consumption of your food animals.

'But wait,' you say, 'could not Illithids live off the brains of rothe, or utilize Rings of Sustinance?' An excellent question - or several excellent questions, really. Allow me to answer your questions with questions of my own. Could you not live off the gruel created by Create Food and Water, or survive as vegetarians? How, then, do you justify your slaughter and consumption of sentient beings capable of thoughts and emotions to continue your own existence?

No, you lack the faculties to be true moral agents, lack the perspective to understand the truth of the universe as we do. We technically could survive off such bland sustenance, but we could not truly live. Just as your artists require inspiration, so, too, do our great minds demand the ongoing influx of external experiences - the more rich the experiences, the better.

You claim that we do 'evil' acts, like 'enslave' or 'murder'. Tell me, do you enslave your work horses? Do you murder your veal cattle?

The gods have set the rules of the universe to call our actions 'evil'. It is no surprise that they have done so - many of them are no smarter than you lot. Of course they would want to continue the lie that their feeble brains are worth designating as 'sentient'.

Fear not. Some day, we will succeed in blotting out the accursed day star, wiping out the bulk of you lesser life forms. This will result in the old gods losing their power, and, with our rise to prominence, Ilsensine will reset the universe to true morality, where you lesser beings are counted as the mere tools you are."

How's that for an answer from their PoV?


I did not miss that part. I ignored it because it is not required. I was focusing on the inherent condition of the illithid.
1) Need to consume brain matter.
2) Do not need to experience ceremorphosis in their lifecycle.
3) Arguably not moral agents at the time of the ceremorphosis.
4) Lions, tigers, and bears are not moral agents.

So before we can get to the question of "is eating still living rothe immoral?" we first would have to address "is killing rothe immoral?". I don't expect that question to be addressed, let alone solved, today. However, the possibility of continued existence being morally questionable is one of the reasons I find illithids interesting. Since that is a rare situation, I thought it worth mentioning.

Illithids do not need to experience ceremorphosis? :smallconfused:

OldTrees1
2020-10-12, 12:36 AM
How's that for an answer from their PoV?

That is a lovely response from their PoV.


Illithids do not need to experience ceremorphosis? :smallconfused:

Indeed, although this is a taboo topic for the Illithids. The post ceremorphosis adult form is but 1 of 2 adult forms of the Illithid. The other form is the Neothelid. However these are rare because the post ceremorphosis adult form strongly promotes more ceremorphosis and the Elder Brain loves eating the Illithid larva. So a would be Neothelid has to survive an entire Illithid society, which usually requires that society to have collapsed.

WitchyKitty
2020-10-12, 12:37 AM
Are Illithids evil?

<polite snip>

If that's a quote of an actual mindflayer from somewhere, that actually does give some perspective. To me at least, it sounds like they're...
Not evil? But not good either. More that they are such an... alien intelligence on their own, that their non-understandable machinations are such that our only accurate way to describe them as evil from our moral perspective as 'lesser beings'.

hamishspence
2020-10-12, 04:28 AM
That is a lovely response from their PoV.


Yup - and textbook "evil creature's rationalisation of its own actions". The dimmest gods statted in Deities & Demigods and Faiths & Pantheons are all Int 24 or higher - definitely in "mind-flayer Intelligence territory".

So their sneering at the gods as "mostly no smarter than you lot" is illithid arrogance, rather than an accurate perspective.

Talakeal
2020-10-12, 05:44 AM
Yup - and textbook "evil creature's rationalisation of its own actions". The dimmest gods statted in Deities & Demigods and Faiths & Pantheons are all Int 24 or higher - definitely in "mind-flayer Intelligence territory".

So their sneering at the gods as "mostly no smarter than you lot" is illithid arrogance, rather than an accurate perspective.

Also unnecessary, as the gods aren’t the ones who decide what is good or not in D&D.

Vahnavoi
2020-10-12, 06:42 AM
By D&D rules, that's textbook example of Lawful Evil: we the better people can do whatever we want to you inferior people, because it lets us reach our ends. There is nothing alien about it - it's fundamentally how many humans approach animals, or even other groups of humans. Don't let the details obfuscate that.

Jason
2020-10-12, 10:22 AM
Also unnecessary, as the gods aren’t the ones who decide what is good or not in D&D.
More accurately, there is one god who decides what is good and what is evil in D&D, and he sits on the other side of the DM's screen from the players.
His decisions are sometimes open to appeals.

Enixon
2020-10-31, 05:33 PM
One must remember that in D&D angels are made up of the particles of the upper planes which are aligned to GOOD. The devils are aligned with the lower plains and are made up of EVIL. If one walks around for too long in the hells they become evil due to cross contamination. These particles of good and evil directly affect ones moral compass.

This means that no matter what an angel does, no matter what alignment they are, they will always detect as good. The reverse is true for demons/devils. No matter how much they try they will always be considered evil for the purpose of smite evil, holy word, detect spells.




I always found it interesting how the Succubus Paladin from that one 3.5 module would actualy register on all four of Detect Evil, Detect Good, Detect Law, and Detect Chaos becasue of that fact. Both their actual alignment and the one they're "made of" count for their subtypes so she was labeled as having [Good] [Law] [Evil] AND [Chaos]. I think she also needed to wear specially enchanted gauntlets to hold her own Holy Sword without getting burnt by it too, but I might be misremembering it. It's a shame she's barely in her own module, it was made becasue "Succubus Paladin" won a "weird monster" poll but she's essentially just something in between a Mcguffin and a damsel in distress.

RedMage125
2020-10-31, 07:11 PM
I always found it interesting how the Succubus Paladin from that one 3.5 module would actualy register on all four of Detect Evil, Detect Good, Detect Law, and Detect Chaos becasue of that fact. Both their actual alignment and the one they're "made of" count for their subtypes so she was labeled as having [Good] [Law] [Evil] AND [Chaos]. I think she also needed to wear specially enchanted gauntlets to hold her own Holy Sword without getting burnt by it too, but I might be misremembering it. It's a shame she's barely in her own module, it was made becasue "Succubus Paladin" won a "weird monster" poll but she's essentially just something in between a Mcguffin and a damsel in distress.

The worst part is, since she;s an outsider with the Chaotic and Evil subtypes, if and when she dies, her energies will return to the Abyss and make a whole new succubus, who will likely be Chaotic Evil.

Unless she undergoes the rituals in Savage Species to remove her subtypes, and perhaps gain the Good and Lawful subtypes. Then she would no longer register on Detect Evil/Chaos, no longer take damage from Holy Word/Dictum and so on.

KillianHawkeye
2020-10-31, 10:24 PM
I always found it interesting how the Succubus Paladin from that one 3.5 module would actualy register on all four of Detect Evil, Detect Good, Detect Law, and Detect Chaos becasue of that fact. Both their actual alignment and the one they're "made of" count for their subtypes so she was labeled as having [Good] [Law] [Evil] AND [Chaos]. I think she also needed to wear specially enchanted gauntlets to hold her own Holy Sword without getting burnt by it too, but I might be misremembering it. It's a shame she's barely in her own module, it was made becasue "Succubus Paladin" won a "weird monster" poll but she's essentially just something in between a Mcguffin and a damsel in distress.

I believe she was taking the negative levels for wielding a holy weapon, but she wouldn't take any damage from it.

JusticeZero
2020-11-01, 03:08 AM
My approach to alignment is that it is objective, not subjective, and also rigid—even if it makes no sense. Usually it makes sense. When it doesn't, it's some Cold Equations stuff.

Kaerou
2020-11-01, 02:22 PM
I believe Mindflayers are a pretty good attempt at making the most completely, inherently evil race imaginable.

Even better, I believe in one of the 3rd editon splatbooks it as established that they dont even need to eat humanoids brains to survive: they do it purely because they *taste good*. They could eat animals brain or even sustain themselves on normal food and learn a simple psionic trick to absorb latent psionic energy that occurs naturally around sentient life.

They *choose* to commit this evil act. They dont even need to. All the suffering and death is purely for their equivalent of adding sugar to their coffee. Its excellently villainous.

OldTrees1
2020-11-01, 02:45 PM
Even better, I believe in one of the 3rd editon splatbooks it as established that they dont even need to eat humanoids brains to survive: they do it purely because they *taste good*. They could eat animals brain or even sustain themselves on normal food and learn a simple psionic trick to absorb latent psionic energy that occurs naturally around sentient life.

They *choose* to commit this evil act. They dont even need to. All the suffering and death is purely for their equivalent of adding sugar to their coffee. Its excellently villainous.

Yes, that was confirmed in a few places in 3E and in literature including illithids. They farm the livestock rothe to have extra brains and to feed their mind controlled slaves.

This is also one reason I think they are not inherently evil. They choose this evil action, which means they are evil by choice rather than by some intrinsic quality inherent in their nature.

Wizard_Lizard
2020-11-01, 04:02 PM
I will say in rime of the frostmaiden in 5e, there are gnome illithids who can be of any alignment this is because gnome brains are weird. This distinction however, implies that other illithids don't have a choice..

OldTrees1
2020-11-01, 04:58 PM
I will say in rime of the frostmaiden in 5e, there are gnome illithids who can be of any alignment this is because gnome brains are weird. This distinction however, implies that other illithids don't have a choice..

Thanks for mentioning this. Upon further research:
The gnome ceremorphs retain partial memory / personality of the gnome. Other Illithids still have a choice, but the gone ceremorphs are likely to inherit the gnome's cultural norms, and it is well known that gnomes are squeamish about eating the brains of other people.

hamishspence
2020-11-01, 06:20 PM
Yes, that was confirmed in a few places in 3E and in literature including illithids.

There's an element of "they do need brains in general, and free brains in particular rather than thrall brains" in Lords of Madness.

"The process of ceremorphosis creates something closer to parasite than brain. That parasite becomes an indispensable part of the body. Its great weakness is that it does not produce the critical enzymes, hormones, or psychic energy that the body needs to survive and function. Those components must come from consumed brains."

"Illithids are known for consuming brains, but they eat other foods as well, most of which contain various amounts of these needed enzymes and hormones. Internal organs are good sources, and they rank high on illithid menus. Brains are ripe with all three and are the only source of psychic energy."

"A mind flayer must have a minimum of one fresh brain per month. Any less than that and it suffers physical debilitation, becoming so weak that it could die."

And it suggests that thrall brains are insufficiently nourishing, rather than just "not tasty".

"A thrall has few true experiences to remember, and even fewer emotions, which are the "meat and potatoes" of a nourishing, fulfilling mind".



They could eat animals brain or even sustain themselves on normal food and learn a simple psionic trick to absorb latent psionic energy that occurs naturally around sentient life.
I don't remember anything about this "simple trick" in Lords of Madness.

RedMage125
2020-11-01, 07:14 PM
Even better, I believe in one of the 3rd editon splatbooks it as established that they dont even need to eat humanoids brains to survive: they do it purely because they *taste good*. They could eat animals brain or even sustain themselves on normal food and learn a simple psionic trick to absorb latent psionic energy that occurs naturally around sentient life.

They *choose* to commit this evil act. They dont even need to. All the suffering and death is purely for their equivalent of adding sugar to their coffee. Its excellently villainous.

A bunch of back and forth on this, but I said it WAY back on page 1 (post #13):


Ok, I actually have an answer for this as well. At least, continuing to use 3.xe alignment mechanics and mores (because that was the last edition with the most mechanics related to this).

Mind Flayers are aberrations. Like many aberrations, their mindset is completely alien. Some aberrations come from the Far Realm, or completely different realities altogether. It's entirely possible that in the reality they are from, they are not considered "Evil". The thing is, when they are here (meaning the D&D world), they are now in a reality where their outlooks, beliefs, and, above all, their actions will determine their alignment. Keep in mind, that 3.xe defines "murder" as "killing a sentient creature for selfish or nefarious purposes". Mind flayers can survive off ANY kind of brain. But they prefer the brains of thinking, sentient creatures, don't they? Killing sentient creatures because they taste better than animals is a "selfish purpose", isn't it?

So, you are correct that one COULD empathize with the mind flayers, and, from a certain subjective view, they don't seem "evil" in the same way demons are. BUT, the "official" (read as: the answer you will get from reading what is written in the books) answer is that Mind Flayers' perceptions of themselves are still judged by the objective, cosmic forces of THIS reality (which is where they are now), and thus they are Evil.

I know that was long-winded, but I hope it helps.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-01, 07:15 PM
The inherent morality of mind flayers (much like that of ghouls or vampires or anything else that "eats people") depends on two questions (three in the general case, but Mind Flayers pretty clearly can't feed non-lethally). First: do they need to eat people? Second: do they need to eat living people? If they don't need to eat people, them choosing to do so is immoral, but there's nothing in principle stopping them from opting to live off of sheep brains. If they don't need to eat living people, and can get their brains from people who've died of natural causes, they're effectively afflicted with a chronic medical condition that requires frequent (and gross) organ transplants. There is the potential for perverse incentives, but it's not quite as strong as you might think, since in the long run the number of brains per person is 1, regardless of whether you let them die of natural causes or kill them for their delicious grey matter. But if mind flayers need living human (or elf or orc) brains, that's pretty much a non-starter in terms of compatibility with humanoid society.

Quertus
2020-11-01, 08:36 PM
if mind flayers need living human (or elf or orc) brains, that's pretty much a non-starter in terms of compatibility with humanoid society.

Could they live off communally eating the brain of a single Illithid Savant who had eaten a Tarrasque brain for regeneration?

SandyAndy
2020-11-01, 10:21 PM
So, I know I'm late to the party here and I'm not trying to be mean but does anyone actually use alignment anymore? Most games that I've played in acknowledged that morality is largely subjective. Is it really good to uphold the laws of a bad king? How does a lawful character handle it when the laws of the land differ from the laws of their faith? Its really much more effective to decide what ideals a character subscribes to and let that determine how they do things. The alignment chart was always super restrictive and less useful than it was intended.

OldTrees1
2020-11-02, 02:09 AM
So, I know I'm late to the party here and I'm not trying to be mean but does anyone actually use alignment anymore? Most games that I've played in acknowledged that morality is largely subjective.

Yes, I use alignment because, in my campaigns, Morality is objective and Alignment is descriptive.

Morality is complex and nuanced, but I do not believe it is subjective*, so my campaigns use objective morality.

*Beliefs about morality are subjective, but morality is probably objective if it exists. Theories of subjective morality run into contradictions.

If you are already using an objective morality, then you are already using half of a descriptive alignment system.


Is it really good to uphold the laws of a bad king? How does a lawful character handle it when the laws of the land differ from the laws of their faith? It's really much more effective to decide what ideals a character subscribes to and let that determine how they do things. The alignment chart was always super restrictive and less useful than it was intended.

Have you considered using a descriptive alignment system instead of a prescriptive alignment system? Consider "Jane Doe does all these things, therefore they are good" instead of "Jane Doe is good, therefore they do all these things". If you accept alignment is descriptive instead of prescriptive, then the alignment chart is not "super restrictive".

JusticeZero
2020-11-02, 05:13 AM
I consider Alignment to be objective, and Morality to be a subjective, slippery mess. Things that affect alignment are mostly good for tagging necromancers, healers, and the like, when not being used against outsiders who are made of alignment. Characters have an alignment, but it doesn't necessarily reflect how they behave morally.
This is an active design decision on my part. I don't like spells reliably telling people how characters will behave, and I've been in positions as a human being where I was declared 'Evil' for doing morally neutral or positive actions far too often already.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-02, 08:01 AM
Could they live off communally eating the brain of a single Illithid Savant who had eaten a Tarrasque brain for regeneration?

Possibly. You might also be able to get away with popping of True Resurrections on people after eating them. Advanced healing magic has strange effects on moral decision-making.

Jason
2020-11-02, 10:16 AM
The overall behavior of the character (or creature) is delineated by alignment, or, in the case of player characters, behavior determines actual alignment.
Alignment has always been intended as descriptive for player characters. That is, if they have a Lawful Good alignment it is because they do mostly Lawful Good things. If they do mostly Chatic Evil things then they are Chaotic Evil.

Is alignment subjective? After a basic statement of the ethos of each alignment, the DMG has this to say:

Each of these cases for alignment is, of course, stated rather simplistically and ideally, for philosophical and moral reasonings are completely subjective according to the acculturation of the individual. You, as Dungeon Master, must establish the meanings and boundaries of law and order as opposed to chaos and anarchy, as well as the divisions between right and good as opposed to hurtful and evil.
In other words, yes what any given character thinks of alignment and what actions should fall into what alignment is subjective and at least in part a result of their cultural views, but the DM determines what alignment their actions actually are categorized as, and therefore the objective alignment of the character.


It is of importance to keep track of player character behavior with respect to their professed alignment. Actions do speak far more eloquently than professions, and each activity of a player character should reflect his or her alignment. If a professed lawful evil character is consistently seeking to be helpful and is respecting the lesser creatures, he or she is certainly tending towards good, while if he or she ignores regulations and consistent behavior the trend is towards chaotic alignment (see PLAYERS HANDBOOK, APPENDIX III, CHARACTER ALIGNMENT GRAPH). Such drift should be noted by you, and when it takes the individual into a new alignment area, you should then inform the player that his or her character has changed alignment (see CHANGING ALIGNMENT). It is quite possible for a character to drift around in an alignment area, making only small shifts due to behavior. However, any major action which is out of alignment character will cause a major shift to the alignment which is directly in line with the action, i.e., if a lawful evil character defies the law in order to aid the cause (express or implied) of chaotic good, he or she will be either lawful neutral or chaotic neutral, depending on the factors involved in the action. The DMG goes on to say that tracking PC alignment is especially important for clerics and paladins, and that good-aligned characters shouldn't be allowed to "look the other way" while their less savory party members do evil stuff.

You could argue that alignment is still actually subjective because it's the DM's perspective and culture that ultimately determines a character's alignment, but the DM's rulings are the closest any RPG ever gets to objective reality anyway.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-02, 11:20 AM
Objective alignment does not mean objective morality. If the DM says an action is "Evil", that doesn't make it "objectively Evil", because objective morality is a contraction in terms. All the notion of "objective alignment" has ever accomplished is to make it more difficult to have useful discussions about moral claims. If the Drow think it is right to backstab your boss, they will use the word "Good" to describe backstabbery. Declaring that there is a separate objective Good that does not include backstabbery just makes discussions of Drow morality into an Abbott and Costello bit.

Jason
2020-11-02, 12:28 PM
Objective alignment does not mean objective morality. If the DM says an action is "Evil", that doesn't make it "objectively Evil", because objective morality is a contraction in terms.
I disagree. If the DM rules that an action was evil then it was, within the realm of the game, objectively evil. The evilness of the action is completely independent of the perspective or opinion of any of the other players of the game (unless of course they convince the DM to change his ruling or replace him with another DM who makes a different ruling and retcons things. Such is the nature of RPGs).

Any change to a character's alignment as a result of a DM's ruling on the morality of a player's actions will also be an objective fact within the frame of the game. Any magical or other effects that key off of alignment will use the new alignment the DM ruled, regardless of what anyone else thinks the character's alignment is or should be.

Alignment is as objective as a character's strength score or remaining hit points. The DM might have "fuzzier" rules for determining the morality of an action and its effect on a character's alignment than he does for how many hit points a character loses from any given attack, but that morality has real in-game effects that are independent of the opinions or perspectives of any other observers. It is, in a word, objective.

RedMage125
2020-11-02, 01:27 PM
Objective alignment does not mean objective morality. If the DM says an action is "Evil", that doesn't make it "objectively Evil", because objective morality is a contraction in terms. All the notion of "objective alignment" has ever accomplished is to make it more difficult to have useful discussions about moral claims. If the Drow think it is right to backstab your boss, they will use the word "Good" to describe backstabbery. Declaring that there is a separate objective Good that does not include backstabbery just makes discussions of Drow morality into an Abbott and Costello bit.

You've got "objective" and "subjective" switched. If the Drow consider backstabbery "good", then that is SUBJECTIVE. And it has no bearing on the OBJECTIVE Evil nature of murder.

So when a DM makes the call that an action is "Evil" then, in-world, that is objectively Evil. If this deviates from what the RAW say is evil, then the DM should let their players know in advance. Players have a right to know what deviations from RAW are in effect. If no deviations are specified, players have a right to expect that what is said in the RAW stands as true.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-02, 01:30 PM
I disagree. If the DM rules that an action was evil then it was, within the realm of the game, objectively evil.

No, that's not how it works. We've been over this, the term "Evil" is not an objective one. It means different things to different people with different moral systems. When you talk about the possibility of "objective Evil", you are talking about something that does not correspond to how the word "Evil" is actually used. "Evil" in D&D is a force, like Cold or Fire or Positive Energy. You can go to the Planes of Evil and dig up some raw Evil. That's a thing that exists, but the only relationship it has to discussions of morality is its name.


Any change to a character's alignment as a result of a DM's ruling on the morality of a player's actions will also be an objective fact within the frame of the game. Any magical or other effects that key off of alignment will use the new alignment the DM ruled, regardless of what anyone else thinks the character's alignment is or should be.

You are conflating separate concepts because you are using the same word to mean different things. Which is exactly the problem with alignment. "What does Holy Word do to you" and "which outer plane do you become a petitioner on" are not moral questions. They are factual questions, about which we might or might not make moral judgements. Evil cultures have moral philosophy. The Drow have written a bunch of words about how "Iron Sharpens Iron" or whatever to justify their society. In that body of work, they doubtless refer to things like "setting your boss up to fail a test imposed by the priesthood of Lolth so she gets eaten by spiders and you get her job" as "good". And they are going to do that whether there is a physical force called "good" or not, because the word "good" related to moral philosophy, not physics. All you do by insisting on objective alignment is confuse matters.

OldTrees1
2020-11-02, 01:46 PM
No, that's not how it works. We've been over this, the term "Evil" is not an objective one. It means different things to different people with different moral systems. When you talk about the possibility of "objective Evil", you are talking about something that does not correspond to how the word "Evil" is actually used. "Evil" in D&D is a force, like Cold or Fire or Positive Energy. You can go to the Planes of Evil and dig up some raw Evil. That's a thing that exists, but the only relationship it has to discussions of morality is its name.

If murdering babies is immoral according to the GM of the campaign, then it is objectively immoral in that campaign.
If murdering babies is evil according to the GM of the campaign, then it is objectively evil in that campaign.

You can choose to use Evil as a misnomer, and I will admit that WotC has contradicted themselves many times over which model they are using. However GMs can also choose to have Evil not be a misnomer. Both ways are consistent with D&D (at least as far as D&D is consistent with itself).

As for this thread, it has been rather consistently using Evil as related to Immoral.


Objective alignment does not mean objective morality. If the DM says an action is "Evil", that doesn't make it "objectively Evil", because objective morality is a contraction in terms. All the notion of "objective alignment" has ever accomplished is to make it more difficult to have useful discussions about moral claims. If the Drow think it is right to backstab your boss, they will use the word "Good" to describe backstabbery. Declaring that there is a separate objective Good that does not include backstabbery just makes discussions of Drow morality into an Abbott and Costello bit.

Objective morality is not a contradiction in terms. If I make the claim "It is not morally supererogatory to murder babies", we can wonder if that claim
1) Is a statement with either a True or a False value. <-- This is not a contradiction in terms.
2) Is an erroneous statement because morality does not exist.
3) Is not a statement
4) Is a statement that is simultaneously both True and False. <-- This is a self contradicting position.

To pull in your example:
If the Drow starts talking about how they think it is right to backstab your boss, they are making a claim. Objective morality claims that the Drow's claim of "stabbing bosses is morally permissible" is a claim that would resolve to either a True or a False value. Just like the claim "1+3=24525" resolves to either a True or False value (False in the case of 1+3=24525). There is not "separate" involved. The Drow made a claim and that claim is either True or False (I think False but I am not all knowing :smallbiggrin:). OR to expand / elaborate:

The Drow said "I believe that if one claimed 'It is moral to backstab one's boss.', that the claim would have a value of True."
Just like when I claim "1+1=2" I am saying "I believe that if one claimed '1+1=2' that the claim would have a value of True."

RedMage125
2020-11-02, 01:59 PM
No, that's not how it works. We've been over this, the term "Evil" is not an objective one. It means different things to different people with different moral systems. When you talk about the possibility of "objective Evil", you are talking about something that does not correspond to how the word "Evil" is actually used. "Evil" in D&D is a force, like Cold or Fire or Positive Energy. You can go to the Planes of Evil and dig up some raw Evil. That's a thing that exists, but the only relationship it has to discussions of morality is its name.
In the last edition with the most concrete alignment mechanics (3.5e), you are incorrect.

The Evil in the lower planes is the same Evil in a fiend, in an Unholy weapon, and in a common bandit. Want proof? In the Detect Evil spell, a fiend, unholy weapon, and evil person are all the same energy that gets detected.

Jason
2020-11-02, 02:06 PM
You are conflating separate concepts because you are using the same word to mean different things. Which is exactly the problem with alignment. "What does Holy Word do to you" and "which outer plane do you become a petitioner on" are not moral questions. They are factual questions, about which we might or might not make moral judgements. They are factual questions that are resolved by the cumulative morality of a character's actions, described in game terms as the character's alignment. Because alignment is determined by the morality of the character's actions, alignment is inseperable from morality.

You act as if who Holy Word affects is completely arbitrary. It is in fact a consequence of the morality of past actions undertaken by the victim. There are definite actions which, if the victim takes them, will reduce and eventually eliminate his vulnerability to Holy Word. Because they will result in an alignment change to good.


Evil cultures have moral philosophy.
Yes they do. And when they follow a moral philosophy that calls evil actions good, that results in their having an evil alignment. Because their judgement of what is good does not accurately describe what actually is good in the gameworld. They don't get to decide what alignment they are assigned as a result of their actions - the DM determines whether their actions were really good or evil and assigns them an alignment, and that alignment is an objective fact within the game world. If they want to change their alignment they have to change their actions, not just their philosophy.

Friv
2020-11-02, 02:26 PM
5e, at least, seems to have dropped the "Intelligence is a real-world intelligence measurement" thing. However, I would say that the fact they don't specifically and purposefully hunt sapient prey is probably connected to their neutrality. Also, a severe lack of slavery, humanoid experimentation, and torture.

I would go with this as well.

It's one thing to say, "If we kill enemies in battle, we eat their flesh to sustain ourselves." It's certainly disrespectful, provided that your enemies don't think that it's okay to be eaten by a superior warrior, but it's not evil. You've already killed them, and you are not intending further harm.

What is evil is hunting sentient beings for the purpose of eating them. At that point, you're inflicting harm deliberately for the cause of food. (In general, there might be wiggle-room if there is literally nothing else to eat, but that gets into some weird 'is it okay to murder an innocent to save your life' territory that is a whole branch of philosophy and ethics.) Similarly, if you killed non-dead defeated enemies in order to eat them, that would be evil.

As a general rule, humans outlaw cannibalism because (a) it's considered harmful to most survivors to learn that their loved ones were eaten, and (b) when you say that 'it's okay to use a person as a resource if they die', there is a very distressing tendency towards a slippery slope that suggests finding excuses to create corpses to use as resources. It's more because of what could happen than because of what is happening. The former doesn't apply to a species that doesn't feel like corpses are still people, or who believe that eating a corpse is respectful, and the latter might or might not apply depending on the culture and situation.

OldTrees1
2020-11-02, 02:58 PM
What is evil is hunting sentient beings for the purpose of eating them. At that point, you're inflicting harm deliberately for the cause of food. (In general, there might be wiggle-room if there is literally nothing else to eat, but that gets into some weird 'is it okay to murder an innocent to save your life' territory that is a whole branch of philosophy and ethics.) Similarly, if you killed non-dead defeated enemies in order to eat them, that would be evil.

Well summarized. Illithid inherent nature does get into that branch you mentioned (they have to eat brains, and I guess some editions require intelligent brains on occasion), however Illithid general practice (hunt humans to kill for food & hosts) is well evaluated by the main trunk.


As a general rule, humans outlaw cannibalism because (a) it's considered harmful to most survivors to learn that their loved ones were eaten, and (b) when you say that 'it's okay to use a person as a resource if they die', there is a very distressing tendency towards a slippery slope that suggests finding excuses to create corpses to use as resources. It's more because of what could happen than because of what is happening. The former doesn't apply to a species that doesn't feel like corpses are still people, or who believe that eating a corpse is respectful, and the latter might or might not apply depending on the culture and situation.

(c) Health concerns. Diseases find it easier to pass from dead human to cannibal human than from dead cow to human eating dead cow. Whether this is a valid reason to outlaw depends on the context, but it is a historic reason.

Personally I would consider (b) >> (a) >> (c)

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-02, 03:36 PM
If the Drow starts talking about how they think it is right to backstab your boss, they are making a claim. Objective morality claims that the Drow's claim of "stabbing bosses is morally permissible" is a claim that would resolve to either a True or a False value.

No, it doesn't. D&D-style "objective morality" means that it would have an effect on your alignment, but alignment is not morality. Alignment is just a bit of physics. It means that certain actions have certain consequences. But not all moral systems are consequentialist. If you don't believe that an action is or is not moral because of what results from it, changing what results from it does not change your assessment of its morality. And that's all that D&D changes. Even within the consequentalist framework, being Evil or Good is just another consequence, one you are not obligated to weigh at any particular level.


You act as if who Holy Word affects is completely arbitrary. It is in fact a consequence of the morality of past actions undertaken by the victim. There are definite actions which, if the victim takes them, will reduce and eventually eliminate his vulnerability to Holy Word. Because they will result in an alignment change to good.

That's arbitrary! Why those actions and not other actions?


the DM determines whether their actions were really good or evil and assigns them an alignment

Again, that is arbitrary. Moreover, it's beside the point. If the Drow are "really Evil", but call themselves "good", all having them be "Evil" is doing is adding confusion. Far better to have a Lolth alignment. The we can coherently talk about "Lolth-ists believe X is good" without having to say completely absurd things like "Evil believes X is good". What you are asking for is that we make terminology more confusing for no reason in the service of a concept that does not make sense. Stop doing it.

Jason
2020-11-02, 03:58 PM
That's arbitrary! Why those actions and not other actions? Because the DM has determined that those actions are good in his game world. It's only arbitrary in so far as his judgements are arbitrary. He may have very solid reasons for saying "devouring live innocent children is an evil action that will result in an immediate change to evil alignment, Mr. Paladin."


Again, that is arbitrary. Moreover, it's beside the point. If the Drow are "really Evil", but call themselves "good", all having them be "Evil" is doing is adding confusion. Far better to have a Lolth alignment. The we can coherently talk about "Lolth-ists believe X is good" without having to say completely absurd things like "Evil believes X is good". What you are asking for is that we make terminology more confusing for no reason in the service of a concept that does not make sense. Stop doing it.
Grouping "Lolth alignment" under "Chaotic Evil" does simplify things. Instead of each species, or even each individual character having their own alignment we have game effects keyed off of just nine alignments. Nine fairly broad groups is much more simple than one alignment for each possible philosophy.
It might be confusing to the drow that what they call good isn't really good (if they're ever forced to confront that fact), but it's usually not that confusing to the players.
Grouping into nine categories also serves to give the DM some idea of what "Lolth alignment" might include where the published description of drow philosophy isn't specific enough.
And it does makes sense, because many if not most of the actions that are often described as evil in the real world are also evil in game. The DM doesn't have to say "backstabbing your boss would be an evil act" to most players any more than he has to say "jumping off a cliff will mean you fall (unless you have some way to fly)." Real world experience makes this obvious and largely intuitive. The Law and Chaos axis is a little less intuitive, but players get the hang of it.

Friv
2020-11-02, 04:49 PM
(c) Health concerns. Diseases find it easier to pass from dead human to cannibal human than from dead cow to human eating dead cow. Whether this is a valid reason to outlaw depends on the context, but it is a historic reason.

Excellent point, and one that I should have considered! Doubly so as it's another one that probably doesn't apply for most lizardfolk --> mammalian humanoid eating.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-02, 04:59 PM
Grouping "Lolth alignment" under "Chaotic Evil" does simplify things. Instead of each species, or even each individual character having their own alignment we have game effects keyed off of just nine alignments. Nine fairly broad groups is much more simple than one alignment for each possible philosophy.

Except that it isn't. All those philosophies still exist. It's not like the existence of Chaotic Evil means you can't be a Social Darwinist, or the existence of Lawful Good means you can't be a Kantian. And since those categories are both broad and meaningless, in practice the game ends up getting into details anyway. Drow society and Orc society aren't "the same" in any real sense, which means that alignment has already failed to be better than just giving people philosophies.


And it does makes sense, because many if not most of the actions that are often described as evil in the real world are also evil in game.

Except that makes alignment less useful, not more. I don't need the game to remind me to not eat babies, as I am already solidly on team "don't eat babies". Alignment doesn't need to explain how you're supposed to deal with demons that eat people, you can already figure that out from the fact that they eat people. Where alignment is potentially useful are the ambiguous cases. Drow culture is different from your culture. It has different values, some of which you might be okay with tolerating (matriarchy) and some of which you might not (feeding criminals to spiders). But declaring "Drow are Evil" is not helpful in that context.

Tvtyrant
2020-11-02, 05:04 PM
Except that it isn't. All those philosophies still exist. It's not like the existence of Chaotic Evil means you can't be a Social Darwinist, or the existence of Lawful Good means you can't be a Kantian. And since those categories are both broad and meaningless, in practice the game ends up getting into details anyway. Drow society and Orc society aren't "the same" in any real sense, which means that alignment has already failed to be better than just giving people philosophies.



Except that makes alignment less useful, not more. I don't need the game to remind me to not eat babies, as I am already solidly on team "don't eat babies". Alignment doesn't need to explain how you're supposed to deal with demons that eat people, you can already figure that out from the fact that they eat people. Where alignment is potentially useful are the ambiguous cases. Drow culture is different from your culture. It has different values, some of which you might be okay with tolerating (matriarchy) and some of which you might not (feeding criminals to spiders). But declaring "Drow are Evil" is not helpful in that context.

Although you should really join team Eat Babies, we have the best snacks.

Wizard_Lizard
2020-11-02, 05:56 PM
Although you should really join team Eat Babies, we have the best snacks.

Clearly you are referring to your many flavours of crisp, which are superior in every way to team no baby eating's celery and carrot sticks.

Jason
2020-11-02, 06:11 PM
I've made my case. The defense for alignment rests.

RedMage125
2020-11-02, 07:08 PM
OldTrees, we may be wasting our breath, Nigel often does not distinguish between his Opinion and Fact. He also thinks very poorly of alignment in general, and thinks his perspective is superior (again, thinks this is a "fact", and not just his opinion).


No, it doesn't. D&D-style "objective morality" means that it would have an effect on your alignment, but alignment is not morality. Alignment is just a bit of physics. It means that certain actions have certain consequences. But not all moral systems are consequentialist. If you don't believe that an action is or is not moral because of what results from it, changing what results from it does not change your assessment of its morality. And that's all that D&D changes. Even within the consequentalist framework, being Evil or Good is just another consequence, one you are not obligated to weigh at any particular level.
The problem is you're using "alignment" and "morality" interchangeably, which isn't entirely correct. Often people use "moral axis" for the Good/Evil axis and "ethical axis" for the Law/Chaos one.

But what one must remember is that using those terms is just shorthand. Alignment is a simplified summary of one's general outlooks, attitudes and beliefs, as evidenced by one's actions.

And yes, it is absolutely consequentialist. That is what is meant by DESCRIPTIVE. Alignment stems FROM one's actions. That is by design, it is not a flaw.


That's arbitrary! Why those actions and not other actions?
No...it's ALL actions. Someone who frequently commits Good acts and never or very rarely commits evil acts is probably Good or Neutral ("Indecisiveness Indicates Neutrality", 3.5e DMG, page 134). ALL of one's actions that have moral weight could potentially affect alignment.




Again, that is arbitrary.
Actually, having the change be a result (i.e. consequence) of a player's actions is the exact opposite of arbitrary.

I'm reminded of the Princess Bride. "You keep using that word..."


Moreover, it's beside the point. If the Drow are "really Evil", but call themselves "good", all having them be "Evil" is doing is adding confusion. Far better to have a Lolth alignment. The we can coherently talk about "Lolth-ists believe X is good" without having to say completely absurd things like "Evil believes X is good". What you are asking for is that we make terminology more confusing for no reason in the service of a concept that does not make sense. Stop doing it.
There's no confusion is you understand and accept the founding design premise that Good and Evil exist objectively in the universe, and that mortal actions can have Good/Evil/Lawful/Chaotic weight. The overall weight OF those actions weighs on the person, regardless of that person's perspective. In some editions (like 3.5e), those Good/Evil/Lawful/Chaotic energies would also be IN those people (because they are aligned with them), and can be detected with magic.

This is better than a "Lolth alignment", because it allows for more wide-reaching abilities to work, "Smite Evil", Holy Sword, Holy Word, that need not be specific to targeting only a narrow band of enemies.

Holy power being useful against Evil foes is also a strong classic trope of fantasy.



Except that makes alignment less useful, not more. I don't need the game to remind me to not eat babies, as I am already solidly on team "don't eat babies". Alignment doesn't need to explain how you're supposed to deal with demons that eat people, you can already figure that out from the fact that they eat people. Where alignment is potentially useful are the ambiguous cases. Drow culture is different from your culture. It has different values, some of which you might be okay with tolerating (matriarchy) and some of which you might not (feeding criminals to spiders). But declaring "Drow are Evil" is not helpful in that context.

Alignment and its mechanics are useful in giving mechanical voice to classic fantasy tropes in a fair and objective manner. Things like a Holy sword that is more effective against ALL forms of evil. Or the lingering taint of Evil from the lair of a cult of diabolists. Or the fact that the Paladin finds the environment of the Abyss actively hostile to her, while the Chaotic Neutral Bard does not suffer as much.

If you didn't have alignment, but had a Holy Sword (+2d6 damage against evil creatures), how would you determine who the extra damage applied to? Answer: DM fiat. I am of the opinion that more widespread and hard-coded mechanics protect players from DM fiat, which I consider fickle.



As a general rule, humans outlaw cannibalism because (a) it's considered harmful to most survivors to learn that their loved ones were eaten, and (b) when you say that 'it's okay to use a person as a resource if they die', there is a very distressing tendency towards a slippery slope that suggests finding excuses to create corpses to use as resources. It's more because of what could happen than because of what is happening. The former doesn't apply to a species that doesn't feel like corpses are still people, or who believe that eating a corpse is respectful, and the latter might or might not apply depending on the culture and situation.



(c) Health concerns. Diseases find it easier to pass from dead human to cannibal human than from dead cow to human eating dead cow. Whether this is a valid reason to outlaw depends on the context, but it is a historic reason.

Personally I would consider (b) >> (a) >> (c)

AND, let's not forget, this is D&D. Cannibalism may result in someone becoming a Wendigo, or a Ghoul/Ghast.

There are very real possible supernatural consequences of cannibalism in D&D.

Tanarii
2020-11-02, 11:32 PM
And yes, it is absolutely consequentialist. That is what is meant by DESCRIPTIVE. Alignment stems FROM one's actions. That is by design, it is not a flaw. This may have been the case in 3e, but it's not necessarily true in 5e. In 5e, it's possible to use associated typical (but not required) as a roleplaying aid. Another of the 5-6 short personality traits that a player can use to help inform their decision making for the character in the fantasy environment.


No...it's ALL actions. Someone who frequently commits Good acts and never or very rarely commits evil acts is probably Good or Neutral ("Indecisiveness Indicates Neutrality", 3.5e DMG, page 134). ALL of one's actions that have moral weight could potentially affect alignment.
Actions having moral weight and affecting alignment is a 3e thing. In 5e, with one exception (necromancy), no single action carries moral weight. Alignment is explicitly about the associated typical but not required behavior. It's explicitly not proscriptive. But again there's no explicit indication that it's descriptive, just a label, a judgement on previous behavior. It can (and IMO should) be used in a forward thinking fashion by the player. Neither descriptive, nor proscriptive, but instead on of many traits for character 'motivations' in determining decisions (aka roleplaying).

3e Alignment thinking is 20-12 years out of date at this point. We might as well be quoting gygax and AD&D.

hamishspence
2020-11-03, 01:19 AM
Alignment change still exists in 5e. Zariel used to be Good (and an angel). Now she's a Evil (and a fiend). And Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (the book with Zariel's stats in) makes it pretty clear that this was because of her actions.

Radiant Idots in Eberron, are angels who have become evil, but who haven't lost their celestial type, unlike Zariel.

Tanarii
2020-11-03, 08:59 AM
Alignment change still exists in 5e. Zariel used to be Good (and an angel). Now she's a Evil (and a fiend). And Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (the book with Zariel's stats in) makes it pretty clear that this was because of her actions. Sure. Alignment change can be a thing. Nothing about the player or DM using it as a roleplaying aid makes that impossible. In fact, it's easier.

If I, a player, erase Lawful good, then write down Chaotic Evil, then use the new typical but not required behavior to assist in informing my decision making, my PC's Alignment has changed. And assuredly my characters actions will be modified as least occasionally due to the new Alignment.

In-universe, this might seem chicken and egg, as in when the alignment actually changes may be before or after or during the change in overall behavior. Because it's not tied to specific actions, you cannot nail it down. But from a player perspective, it doesn't have to be the result of specific character actions. It can be prior to the new alignment being used as a roleplaying aid, which results in some actions being different from what might have occurred before.

Edit: this is why I say it's in world objective, but table & player subjective. In world, it is whatever is written in the stat block or on the character sheet. That is objectively the in-world alignment. At the DM or Player level, it's however they choose to interpret the associated typical behavior and use it, so it's subjective.

OldTrees1
2020-11-03, 09:47 AM
No, it doesn't. D&D-style "objective morality" means that it would have an effect on your alignment, but alignment is not morality. Alignment is just a bit of physics. It means that certain actions have certain consequences. But not all moral systems are consequentialist. If you don't believe that an action is or is not moral because of what results from it, changing what results from it does not change your assessment of its morality. And that's all that D&D changes. Even within the consequentalist framework, being Evil or Good is just another consequence, one you are not obligated to weigh at any particular level.

Sorry for the late reply but:

Objective morality is a philosophy term that was defined before D&D was invented. D&D-style objective morality is the same as non D&D-style objective morality, because "objective morality" is defined independent of D&D.

Deontological ethics systems are a form of objective morality
Virtue ethics systems are a form of objective morality
Consequentialist ethics systems are a form of objective morality

Objective morality is the metaethical position that claims moral statements resolve to either a True or a False value. If the statement "murdering babies is immoral" resolves to True then that is consistent with Objective Moralities metaethical model about what moral sentences are.

Now I get that you are trying to divorce "immoral" from "evil". However neither result impacts the consistency of objective morality. If evil becomes a misnomer, then objective morality continues to talk about immoral. If evil is not a misnomer, then objective morality continues to talk about immoral (which evil, not being a misnomer, is related to).

So now we return to my sentences:

If the Drow starts talking about how they think it is right to backstab your boss, they are making a claim. Objective morality claims that the Drow's claim of "stabbing bosses is morally permissible" is a claim that would resolve to either a True or a False value.

This is absolutely true unless you have a time machine and can go visit ancient greece to change the definition of a term that predates D&D.


OldTrees, we may be wasting our breath, Nigel often does not distinguish between his Opinion and Fact. He also thinks very poorly of alignment in general, and thinks his perspective is superior (again, thinks this is a "fact", and not just his opinion).

If this results in me posting another lesson about metaethics, and if only lurkers benefit from that lesson, that would still be acceptable. However don't be hasty, in a brief scan I saw a mistake on your part too.


And yes, it is absolutely consequentialist. That is what is meant by DESCRIPTIVE. Alignment stems FROM one's actions. That is by design, it is not a flaw.

That is not what consequentialism means. Consequentialism is a branch of moral theories (and thus a form of objective morality) that holds that the consequences of an event's intent/action/consequence package can have moral significance. Often to the point of exclusively focusing on the consequences. Consider utilitarianism evaluating the morality of an event based on the amount it increases or decreases utility (utility translates to roughly pleasure/happiness/value).

So descriptive alignment is not directly related to consequentialism. The GM could be using deontological or virtue ethics for their campaign and still use descriptive alignment. (Often I think WotC is presuming deontological ethics, because that focuses on the action in the intent/action/consequence package, but they do not restrict D&D to only that branch)


AND, let's not forget, this is D&D. Cannibalism may result in someone becoming a Wendigo, or a Ghoul/Ghast.

There are very real possible supernatural consequences of cannibalism in D&D.

Very good points. I had forgotten about that source of ghouls / wendigos.


Again, that is arbitrary. Moreover, it's beside the point. If the Drow are "really Evil", but call themselves "good", all having them be "Evil" is doing is adding confusion. Far better to have a Lolth alignment. The we can coherently talk about "Lolth-ists believe X is good" without having to say completely absurd things like "Evil believes X is good". What you are asking for is that we make terminology more confusing for no reason in the service of a concept that does not make sense. Stop doing it.

Let's take a step back from alignment, and even from morality. Let's talk about the shape of the moon.

Jacob believes the moon is a square.
Jane believes the moon is a circle.
In reality the moon is an oblate spheroid
.
Jacob claims "the moon is a square". If evaluated that claim will result in either a True or False value. Since the moon is actually a oblate spheroid, Jacob's claim "the moon is a square" evaluates to false. Jacob's claim that "the moon is a square" is false. This does not prevent Jacob who believes the moon is a square from believing the moon is a square. Beliefs about reality are different from reality. A belief can match reality (in this case a belief the moon is a oblate spheroid would be true) or they can not match reality (in this case Jacob's claim is false).

Beliefs about reality & reality's state are separate

Now let's step back to morality (still not to alignment yet)

Jill believes pushing Jack off a cliff to his death is moral. We know Jill's belief, but we also know that "beliefs about reality & reality's state are separate". Jill's belief could be true, or it could be false.

We might not know the answer, but the GM controls reality's state in the campaign. They will decide/have decided what reality's state is on that matter. In this case they have decided that "pushing Jack of a cliff to his death" would be immoral. With that information we now know that Jill's belief "pushing Jack off a cliff to his death is moral" does not match reality "pushing Jack off a cliff to his death is immoral".

Once again "beliefs about reality & reality's state are separate".

Now let's step back to alignment.

Jeffery believes murdering Jennifer is good. We know Jeffery's belief, but we also know that "beliefs about reality & reality's state are separate". Jeffery's belief could be true, or it could be false.

We might not know the answer, but the GM controls reality's state in the campaign. They will decide/have decided what reality's state is on that matter. In this case they have decided that "murdering Jennifer" would be evil. With that information we now know that Jeffery's belief "murdering Jennifer is good" does not match reality "murdering Jennifer is evil".

Once again "beliefs about reality & reality's state are separate".

So how does this relate to that Drow? If a particular Drow (Jeffery) happens to be evil and happens to believe something (murdering Jennifer) is good, and reality (as defined by the GM) differs by having that something (murdering Jennifer) be evil, then the Drow's belief is false. They are mistaken. Which is possible because "beliefs about reality & reality's state are separate".

Also notice I did not say something like "Evil believes X is good". I said "this being, happens to be evil, and happens to belief X is good".

Now is this terminology complex? Is it confusing? Is there an entire branch of higher level education on the topics of metaethics, ethics, and moral theories? Yes, the full picture takes time to understand. It it unnecessarily confusing? No. People eventually learn that "beliefs about reality & reality's state are separate" and when they do, then they understand reality has always been this more complex place.

Vahnavoi
2020-11-03, 11:13 AM
3e Alignment thinking is 20-12 years out of date at this point. We might as well be quoting gygax and AD&D.

You should be quoting Gygax, because 1st edition AD&D had a better definion of the Alignment system than 5th edition has. Luckily for you, another person, Jason, already did. :smalltongue:

5th edition Alignment system is not any real improvement over 1st edition AD&D, anymore than 2nd edition was.

To recap some history:

1) 2e Alignment was screwed over by TSR's decision to market the game to kids and appeal to moral guardians. They didn't really change the system, but they subtly changed the definitions so that Evil is what would make your mom angry and so is naughty-naughty, and even non-Good is pushing it. Players were heavily encouraged to play Good and "heroic" characters, but only in a way that adhered to contemporary PG-13 standards.

Notably, even people at TSR thought a lot of this was ridiculous, and if TSR had seriously stuck to their guns, things like Planescape, Dark Sun and Ravenloft probably wouldn't exist.

2) 5e Alignment was screwed over by WotC's crisis over 4e. They'd tried to kill or change many "sacred cows" of older editions in order to make a more functional game, including condensing Alignment to CE - E - Un - G - LG... only to find out that people actually liked those sacred cows and Paizo made a business for itself essentially selling a 3e retroclone.

So they had to walk it back, but at the same time, they were under crossfire from people who hated Alignment in earlier editions. As a result, 5e doesn't stand on its own. It's Alignment is vestigial lip service to older fans, with most of its features removed so it's easy to ignorr. Seriously. The most positive remarks I've heard of 5e Alignment come from people who hated it in 3e and love how the new version "doesn't get in the way". That's a case of damned by faint praise if there ever was one.

Jason
2020-11-03, 11:36 AM
To recap some history:

1) 2e Alignment was screwed over by TSR's decision to market the game to kids and appeal to moral guardians. They didn't really change the system, but they subtly changed the definitions so that Evil is what would make your mom angry and so is naughty-naughty, and even non-Good is pushing it. Players were heavily encouraged to play Good and "heroic" characters, but only in a way that adhered to contemporary PG-13 standards.
They also did stuff like taking out half-orcs and assassins as player options, removing devils and demons as opponents, etc. You're right, they basically bowed to their critics and made the game more kid-friendly. Some of those things eventually came back late in the line.


2) 5e Alignment was screwed over by WotC's crisis over 4e. They'd tried to kill or change many "sacred cows" of older editions in order to make a more functional game, including condensing Alignment to CE - E - Un - G - LG... only to find out that people actually liked those sacred cows and Paizo made a business for itself essentially selling a 3e retroclone.

So they had to walk it back, but at the same time, they were under crossfire from people who hated Alignment in earlier editions. As a result, 5e doesn't stand on its own. It's Alignment is vestigial lip service to older fans, with most of its features removed so it's easy to ignorr. Seriously. The most positive remarks I've heard of 5e Alignment come from people who hated it in 3e and love how the new version "doesn't get in the way". That's a case of damned by faint praise if there ever was one.
Yeah, Alignment in 5th edition is mostly vestigial. It's probably my least favorite change in the new system (a system I generally like).

My group only played 4th edition for one session before deciding we didn't like it, so the alignment system there didn't really ever come up. We went back to 3.5 for all our D&D games until 5th came out.

EggKookoo
2020-11-03, 11:44 AM
So they had to walk it back, but at the same time, they were under crossfire from people who hated Alignment in earlier editions. As a result, 5e doesn't stand on its own. It's Alignment is vestigial lip service to older fans, with most of its features removed so it's easy to ignorr. Seriously. The most positive remarks I've heard of 5e Alignment come from people who hated it in 3e and love how the new version "doesn't get in the way". That's a case of damned by faint praise if there ever was one.

I continue to maintain 5e could have given alignment some bite and appeal to folks who feel it's too constraining by making it part of your background. You can select "chaotic evil" but that describes the sum total of your life up to the point where you become 1st level. It should inform your history, and provide fuel for that history to perhaps catch up to you at some point. But once you become a bona fide 1st-level PC, you're not bound by it.

Then they could have had some fun with playing, say, a cleric with an evil background but who now serves a good deity.

OldTrees1
2020-11-03, 12:22 PM
I continue to maintain 5e could have given alignment some bite and appeal to folks who feel it's too constraining by making it part of your background. You can select "chaotic evil" but that describes the sum total of your life up to the point where you become 1st level. It should inform your history, and provide fuel for that history to perhaps catch up to you at some point. But once you become a bona fide 1st-level PC, you're not bound by it.

Then they could have had some fun with playing, say, a cleric with an evil background but who now serves a good deity.

That could be interesting.

Personally, I prefer to focus on who my character is now. So if I am considering morality at all, I would want to consider their current moral character rather than their past moral character (except in as far as it impacts their current moral character).

Oh, and I still prefer moral character to be descriptive instead of prescriptive. You are never "bound" by your moral character. Your moral character is a result of who you are. A liar is a liar because they lie, not vice versa ("lie because they are a liar").

For example: An ex criminal Paladin used to be a criminal and now is not.

EggKookoo
2020-11-03, 01:49 PM
Personally, I prefer to focus on who my character is now. So if I am considering morality at all, I would want to consider their current moral character rather than their past moral character (except in as far as it impacts their current moral character).

The two approaches aren't mutually-exclusive. You can continue to act how you like. But a lot of people feel alignment is confusing and restrictive, even if it really isn't. If I put down "good," do I have to act good? If I don't have to act good, why am I checking off the "good" box on my sheet?

In my experience as DM, most players don't really think strongly about their PC's alignment. Only those who are actively trying to roleplay a particular alignment tend to pay attention to it.

Mystral
2020-11-03, 01:54 PM
No, alignment is not purely subjective. Good and Evil, as well as Law and Chaos are active, powerfull forces that govern the multiverse, even if they don't have any agency or personality. Actions can conform to those alignments and influence a creatures alignment, which is the sum total of its actions over its entire lifetime.

And while the vast majority of illithids are evil, there are probably a good number which are neutral and a rare few that are good-aligned. You could probably count the good aligned illithids that live during a century on one hand.

OldTrees1
2020-11-03, 02:04 PM
The two approaches aren't mutually-exclusive. You can continue to act how you like. But a lot of people feel alignment is confusing and restrictive, even if it really isn't. If I put down "good," do I have to act good? If I don't have to act good, why am I checking off the "good" box on my sheet?

I think that is fair (and why I switched from a general statement to a person statement) but let me answer that rhetorical question:
If you put down "good" you don't have to act good. How you act will determine what the GM puts down in that box (under descriptive alignment that box describes how you have been, not prescribe how you must be). Maybe you are like Miko and your actions have the GM write down Neutral. If you want it to continue to say "good" then you should continue to act good. If you want it to change, then you should act differently.


In my experience as DM, most players don't really think strongly about their PC's alignment. Only those who are actively trying to roleplay a particular alignment tend to pay attention to it.

This goes for those staying at an alignment and those that are roleplaying a transition from one alignment to another (falls, redemption, becoming more wild, or settling down)

Although, as someone that does think strongly about my PCs' moral character, I am glad 5E designed alignment in a way that it can be ignored when unwanted or exist when wanted.

Vahnavoi
2020-11-03, 02:29 PM
The two approaches aren't mutually-exclusive. You can continue to act how you like. But a lot of people feel alignment is confusing and restrictive, even if it really isn't. If I put down "good," do I have to act good? If I don't have to act good, why am I checking off the "good" box on my sheet?

In my experience as DM, most players don't really think strongly about their PC's alignment. Only those who are actively trying to roleplay a particular alignment tend to pay attention to it.

It's basically a pledge: "I'm going to play my character this way". Then the GM, in their role as a referee, decides if you're successful. Fail the pledge, and you acrue some temporary penalty, your alignment changes to match the way you play, and the game moves on. (In its original conception, you never had to to be good - you could be of any alignment.)

Really, if there's one true improvement to make for alignment, it's allowing the player to give TBD (To Be Determined) as their character's starting alignment, leaving it completely up to their GM to decide based on their actual in-game behaviour. That way, if you don't understand what alignments mean and how they operate in that GM's setting, you don't have to make any pledges you can't commit to and can find out how the setting approaches you by experiencing it.

EggKookoo
2020-11-03, 02:43 PM
Really, if there's one true improvement to make for alignment, it's allowing the player to give TBD (To Be Determined) as their character's starting alignment, leaving it completely up to their GM to decide based on their actual in-game behaviour. That way, if you don't understand what alignments mean and how they operate in that GM's setting, you don't have to make any pledges you can't commit to and can find out how the setting approaches you by experiencing it.

That's how I handle it. I assume all PCs are neutral (in the "undecided" sense rather than the "balance" sense) until they inform me otherwise through their actions.

The real problem I run into is that most players play PCs that will be good if it's easy to do so. If the cost of being good starts to get too high, they weigh that cost and act accordingly. They want to lean toward good and will look for justifications for doing so (and feel genuinely bad if they can't), but in the end it's just a matter of what it takes. Waving your fingers and curing someone of a painful disease is a no-brainer. Any "good" person would do that. But giving up your life savings to do so? You still want the person to be free of the disease but the cost (to you) might be too high. Even giving up 10% of your life savings may be too high. There's some point where it's worth it, which will vary by person, even if everyone involved would be happy to relieve the sick person's suffering in the abstract and feel sad that they can't help.

Luccan
2020-11-03, 02:50 PM
It's basically a pledge: "I'm going to play my character this way". Then the GM, in their role as a referee, decides if you're successful. Fail the pledge, and you acrue some temporary penalty, your alignment changes to match the way you play, and the game moves on. (In its original conception, you never had to to be good - you could be of any alignment.)

Really, if there's one true improvement to make for alignment, it's allowing the player to give TBD (To Be Determined) as their character's starting alignment, leaving it completely up to their GM to decide based on their actual in-game behaviour. That way, if you don't understand what alignments mean and how they operate in that GM's setting, you don't have to make any pledges you can't commit to and can find out how the setting approaches you by experiencing it.

This would be where background Ideals would really help, but, sadly, in my experience no one pays attention to those

Tanarii
2020-11-03, 04:29 PM
As a result, 5e doesn't stand on its own. It's Alignment is vestigial lip service to older fans, with most of its features removed so it's easy to ignorr. Seriously. The most positive remarks I've heard of 5e Alignment come from people who hated it in 3e and love how the new version "doesn't get in the way". That's a case of damned by faint praise if there ever was one.
This is a common position by folks that haven't dug into the 5e personality system. And 5e Alignment is designed to complement it.

It's definitely a sacred cow. They could have eliminated it and stuck with the Ideal trait alone. But in conjunction with personality traits, it's by far the best and most useful system for Alignment D&D has ever had.

OldTrees1
2020-11-03, 04:56 PM
Seriously. The most positive remarks I've heard of 5e Alignment come from people who hated it in 3e and love how the new version "doesn't get in the way". That's a case of damned by faint praise if there ever was one.

Oh, well then let me change that. I love that D&D references morality and I love that it also includes a separate order - chaos axis. I even love that some outsiders treat the order - chaos axis as a basis for a blue - orange morality. In 3E there were many great example of different features that made more sense for a moral or a immoral character. AND I greatly appreciated the disclaimer that "always X does not actually literally mean always X".

However, despite my appreciation for alignment in 3E, I do like how 5E allows it to be ignored when not in use without harming it when it is in use (see 4E implying order is more good than chaos).

Although I think 5E alignment does owe credit to 3E alignment. If 3E alignment did not exist, 5E alignment would be worse off for lack of something to reference.

There, now you have someone that loved 3E alignment that appreciates 5E alignment being togglable.


Really, if there's one true improvement to make for alignment, it's allowing the player to give TBD (To Be Determined) as their character's starting alignment, leaving it completely up to their GM to decide based on their actual in-game behaviour. That way, if you don't understand what alignments mean and how they operate in that GM's setting, you don't have to make any pledges you can't commit to and can find out how the setting approaches you by experiencing it.

This works well. I have seen it used in 3E and 5E.

Actually it reminds me of the character I played when I tried to do blue - orange morality. For that campaign I asked the GM to keep track of the character's actual alignment without telling me (because the character would not know or understand it). This was in Pathfinder 1 so there could have been moments where a detect alignment was used and the GM would have to determine an answer. However by the time one was used the character had enough time for the GM to have a good idea of the answer.

Vahnavoi
2020-11-03, 05:02 PM
@Tanarii: Prior to you, I haven't seen people laud how 5e's alignment complements its personality system.

OldTrees1
2020-11-03, 05:18 PM
@Tanarii: Prior to you, I haven't seen people laud how 5e's alignment complements its personality system.

I dislike, 5E's ideal/bond/flaw system to the point that I ignore it for my PCs and actively encourage players to likewise ignore it and just create personalities themselves.

However I can see how 5E's alignment system is not only compatible with the ideal/bond/flaw system but complements it. And begrudgingly I will admit the ideal complements 5E's alignment system vice versa.

Not quite a "laud" but...

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-03, 05:38 PM
This would be where background Ideals would really help, but, sadly, in my experience no one pays attention to those

Probably because the game sticks in Alignment like it's useful or makes any sense. Also because 5e's setup isn't really especially good. But on a basic level, personality traits like "Competitive" or "Dedicated" and concrete ideals like "protect the weak" or "acquire and share knowledge" are about a million times better than traditional D&D Alignment for anything you might care about.

RedMage125
2020-11-03, 07:24 PM
This may have been the case in 3e, but it's not necessarily true in 5e. In 5e, it's possible to use associated typical (but not required) as a roleplaying aid. Another of the 5-6 short personality traits that a player can use to help inform their decision making for the character in the fantasy environment.

Actions having moral weight and affecting alignment is a 3e thing. In 5e, with one exception (necromancy), no single action carries moral weight. Alignment is explicitly about the associated typical but not required behavior. It's explicitly not proscriptive. But again there's no explicit indication that it's descriptive, just a label, a judgement on previous behavior. It can (and IMO should) be used in a forward thinking fashion by the player. Neither descriptive, nor proscriptive, but instead on of many traits for character 'motivations' in determining decisions (aka roleplaying).

3e Alignment thinking is 20-12 years out of date at this point. We might as well be quoting gygax and AD&D.

This is an edition-neutral forum, and not a 5e forum. Ergo, citations from previous editions are valid. And as 3.x was the last edition to have the most thorough alignment mechanics (and specific rules vis a vis alignment weight of actions and how alignment changed), I maintain that 3e references ARE valid to this discussion.



If this results in me posting another lesson about metaethics, and if only lurkers benefit from that lesson, that would still be acceptable. However don't be hasty, in a brief scan I saw a mistake on your part too.

A noble effort, to be sure.



That is not what consequentialism means. Consequentialism is a branch of moral theories (and thus a form of objective morality) that holds that the consequences of an event's intent/action/consequence package can have moral significance. Often to the point of exclusively focusing on the consequences. Consider utilitarianism evaluating the morality of an event based on the amount it increases or decreases utility (utility translates to roughly pleasure/happiness/value).

So descriptive alignment is not directly related to consequentialism. The GM could be using deontological or virtue ethics for their campaign and still use descriptive alignment. (Often I think WotC is presuming deontological ethics, because that focuses on the action in the intent/action/consequence package, but they do not restrict D&D to only that branch)
You are correct, but the way Nigel was using "consequentialist" seemed to be in reference to one's own alignment being a "consequence". Which is true. I was responding to him using the kind of language he was using, attempting to frame my responses to his understanding.

I'm going to spoiler block my next bit, because it's copy/pasted from an older thread, and takes up a LOT of space.

3.xe D&D most closely resembles Deontological ethics. Good and Evil (as well as Law and Chaos) are objective forces that shape the cosmos (PHB, Chapter 6, first paragraph). These forces can be observed, measured and quantified in an objective fashion (Detect line of spells). These forces can be manipulated to protect or harm others (Protection From X, Holy Smite/Unholy Blight, etc). There are environments (Outer Planes) where these energies are so omnipresent that they have effects on individuals there.

Now, if we look to the DMG (page 134) where it talks about changing alignments, that occurs when an individual character's behavior is more in keeping with an alignment other than his/her listed one, in a pattern of consistent behavior, over a period of time which shall be no less than one week of in-game time.

Furthermore, the books which give us treatises on how alignment work (BoVD, BoED), tell us that consequences are not what determine the alignment weight of an act, but rather action and intent (BoVD Chapter 2, under header of "Intent and Context"). The listed example has a Paladin named Zophas who tries to climb some rocks to escape some owlbears. He accidentally triggers a rockslide, which kills several innocent peasants in a hut below. If it is a genuine accident, it is not an Evil act. but if Zophas' friend points out the instability of the rocks and the hut below and Zophas climbs anyway...then it is an Evil act, because he willingly endangered those innocents and caused their deaths. He loses his Paladin powers. However, the same books also tell us that certain acts can be objectively Evil, regardless of context (Consorting With Fiends, Creation of Undead, etc).

This more closely models deontological ethics than consequentialist ones, although not perfectly. Because sometimes, consequences have a small factor (in so much as they create a framework of "Context" as the BoVD tells us). The BoVD tells us, for example, that the killing of a creature of "consumate, irredeemable evil", such as a fiend or a chromatic dragon, even for selfish reasons (thus meeting that same book's definition of "murder"), is not an Evil act. If you want to slaughter a Red Dragon just because you want the treasure it hoards, or kill a specific fiend just to exact vengeance for your family, it's not Evil. It won't be a Good act, since, you know...murder...but not evil if the being meets certain criteria. Contrariwise, a hero who sets out to slay that same dragon to save lives and prevent its rampage of slaughter has committed a Good act.
The contrast between deontological and consequentialist ethical ramifications is exactly why the standard Trolley problem proposed by Foot is utterly useless in a D&D framework. The Trolley Problem is not about a "moral dilemma", because there is no true "moral" answer. The Trolley Problem only highlights whether the person being asked it values Utlitarianism (or consequentialism, if you prefer) vis Personal Accountability (or deontological ethics). That is, whether they believe it is more important to save a net of 4 lives vis feeling personally responsible for the death of even one.

It's useless in D&D because by 3.xe D&D mores, the Evil Act was committed by the villain who tied all 6 people to the tracks in the first place. The PC at the lever has no actual agency to "murder" anyone. Even a 3.5e paladin at the switch would not fall for not pressing the switch, since they only fall for "intentionally committing an evil act", which we know requires Action, Intent, and Context. So if the paladin does nothing, he does not fall. And that's where it gets REAL screwy. Because, if the Paladin chooses not to throw the switch, has he placed his value of his own purity over the lives of 4 people? Isn't that selfishness? Contrariwise, if he was willing to risk falling by throwing the lever, because saving 4 lives is more important than him having Paladin powers, isn't that actually a very selfless act? Isn't he actually sacrificing his own power to save them? Like I said, it's all screwy, and moreso, because by the RAW, the Paladin has no agency to actually "murder" anyone in this scenario. I always maintain that the best and "most paladin-like" thing to do is throw his own armored body in front of the Trolley to stop it. That, or summon his Celestial Warhorse (a Clydesdale weighing about 2,000 pounds and likely wearing armor), to stop the trolley. Reject the dichotomy of choice, if you will.

OTOH, there are 2 variants to the Trolley Problem that are relevant to D&D alignment, and to Paladins. The Fat Man and Fat Villain variants.

In the Fat Man variant, the Paladin is on a bridge over the runaway trolley, which is speeding towards 5 people tied to the tracks. Also on the bridge is a grossly obese man. The fat man is a total innocent. If the paladin pushed this innocent fat man off the bridge onto the tracks in front of the trolley, his weight will be sufficient to arrest the momentum of the trolley before it hits the 5 people tied to the tracks. This is "killing an innocent" to save lives. Not the standard Trolley Problem. And it is an Evil act, because this Paladin still should have chosen to sacrifice himself and not killed someone else to avoid that. Saving lives is a Good Act. But Committing an Evil Act to achieve a Good End, even if you succeed, is still, by 3.5e mores, committing an Evil Act, followed by a Good Act.

The Fat Villain variant is very similar to above, but that obese man? He's the one who tied the 5 other people to the tracks, and the querent knows this. While this may still pose some ethical problems IRL, D&D is actually quite simple. A Paladin does not fall for pushing the Fat Villain in front of the Trolley. Much how it is not an evil act in D&D to defend yourself with lethal force when attacked with lethal force. Killing an evil person who is in the process of attempting to murder 5 people by throwing them into their own trap which also saves the 5 intended victims? Not evil. Period.
But that's because D&D has specific mores of "Evil" and "not Evil" that don't always line up with the real world, mostly to accomodate for fantasy adventuring (which is why deontological ethics don't perfectly model it either). In D&D, if you are attacked with lethal force and lethal intent, it is not evil to defend yourself with lethal means. If you are a level 10 Paladin, and a bunch of level 2 bandits attack you, doing their level best to murder you for your stuff, you are carte blanche to kill them where they stand. Obviously, the most Good thing to do in a situation where you obviously out-power such individuals would be to defeat them nonlethally, since they are not a true threat to your life, but you're not obliged to spare the life of anyone trying to kill you.

Because Good and Evil are objective, quantifiable forces, though, D-ethics is the ones that it bears the most similarity to.
But Consequences ONLY really matter as they frame context. Keep in mind, absolute D-ethics were designed in the real world, where we do not have beings who are literally made of evil, and even the concept of an "innately" evil being that is intelligent without having the kind of free will that we associate with ourselves is alien to the concept of D-ethics, or V-ethics, for that matter. As soon as you begin applying thse processes to a world with such fantastical elements, some of the absolutes are going to break down. A demon is not a disturbed individual who needs mental health help, nor is it a foreigner with a different world perspective; it is evil and chaos incarnated into flesh, and it's worldview is in many ways, alien to us.

If you mistakenly kill an innocent person because you thought they were a demon, then it was still an evil act, and will always remain so. If you find out the truth (and let's assume you're a good-aligned person), you will probably be filled with guilt and seek to make amends. Thus no danger of an alignment shift. if your response to finding out that it was not a demon is to coldly shrug it off as "casualty of war against demons", you're becoming less Good (because concern for the well-being of sentient beings is one of the hallmarks for Good), and are likely starting to shift towards a Neutral alignment. If that trend continues, and you demonstrate, through your actions, that your outlook has changed, your alignment will as well.

Because that's all alignment is, a grotesquely oversimplified summation of your general outlooks and beliefs, which are shown through your actions.




Very good points. I had forgotten about that source of ghouls / wendigos.
Always happy to provide interesting factoids from the peanut gallery, lol.



Really, if there's one true improvement to make for alignment, it's allowing the player to give TBD (To Be Determined) as their character's starting alignment, leaving it completely up to their GM to decide based on their actual in-game behaviour. That way, if you don't understand what alignments mean and how they operate in that GM's setting, you don't have to make any pledges you can't commit to and can find out how the setting approaches you by experiencing it.
I've always allowed character alignment to be fluid until several sessions have passed. Someone who was going to be Lawful Good, but after 4 or 5 sessions is clearly Chaotic Good, I just allow them to switch. The way we plan characters in our heads before the games and how we have them react to the actual stimuli of the game can be markedly different.


The most positive remarks I've heard of 5e Alignment come from people who hated it in 3e and love how the new version "doesn't get in the way". That's a case of damned by faint praise if there ever was one.



Oh, well then let me change that. I love that D&D references morality and I love that it also includes a separate order - chaos axis. I even love that some outsiders treat the order - chaos axis as a basis for a blue - orange morality. In 3E there were many great example of different features that made more sense for a moral or a immoral character. AND I greatly appreciated the disclaimer that "always X does not actually literally mean always X".

However, despite my appreciation for alignment in 3E, I do like how 5E allows it to be ignored when not in use without harming it when it is in use (see 4E implying order is more good than chaos).

Although I think 5E alignment does owe credit to 3E alignment. If 3E alignment did not exist, 5E alignment would be worse off for lack of something to reference.

There, now you have someone that loved 3E alignment that appreciates 5E alignment being togglable.

I feel the same as OldTrees.

I liked 3e alignment, but I acknowledge that -for the people who didn't- it was a huge chore to remove it from the game. It's tentacles were deeply embedded, mechanically.

5e still gave it meaning, allowed it to still have teeth, but made it more easily removed or ignored.



For example: An ex criminal Paladin used to be a criminal and now is not.

This is a very compelling character concept, I like it.

Probably because the game sticks in Alignment like it's useful or makes any sense. Also because 5e's setup isn't really especially good. But on a basic level, personality traits like "Competitive" or "Dedicated" and concrete ideals like "protect the weak" or "acquire and share knowledge" are about a million times better than traditional D&D Alignment for anything you might care about.

In case there was any doubt about what I said vis a vis Nigel's intense dislike of alignment and his conviction that his opinions = "facts"...I have bolded for emphasis.

Tanarii
2020-11-03, 07:38 PM
I dislike, 5E's ideal/bond/flaw system to the point that I ignore it for my PCs and actively encourage players to likewise ignore it and just create personalities themselves.
It's a tool. If it doesn't work for you, it shouldn't be used. If inventing your own personality works better, I agree that should be done instead.

But the 5e one is great for new players, and even many experienced ones. Especially a) players who love to write long backstories, but don't do a good job of making usable in-game motivations explicit within it; b) players who get stuck trying to figure out how to roleplay a specific character X. Having 5 different categories, one of which is alignment, covering a broad spectrum of possible motivations and hooks, each with an easily referenced sentence or so as a reminder is practical and applicable for roleplaying.

Where alignment in all editions gets dangerous is when it's used prescriptively and becomes a single facet caricature. That's true for DM monsters like Mind Flayers too. Which is why I'm reading this thread, peoples insights into Mindflayer behavior and how and when I feel it relates to "Lawful evil (LE) creatures methodically take what they want, within the limits of a code of tradition, loyalty, or order" is interesting to me.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-11-03, 07:45 PM
This is a very compelling character concept, I like it.


I built a whole paladin "organization" (it's way too loose to really call it that, but a group of like-minded paladins and associated people) whose whole thing is that they believe themselves to be damned beyond redemption due to acts they did before taking up the path of a paladin. Things like "I betrayed a sacred relic of my god into the hands of his enemies out of spite for being overlooked for promotion" or "I made a deal with a devil and sacrificed my whole clan for power."

But after the fall, they're trying to...not so much repent (as they think that's pointless) as keep anyone else from making similar mistakes. Basically training and questing to stamp out evils before they grow to that extent. They're trying to put themselves out of business and prevent candidates for the order from ever having to be created. And they figure that when they die and the devils come to (figuratively) drag them down to the hells, they'll be ready to kick down those infernal gates from the inside and let everyone (else) out. And they strive to not add any more sins to their tally, beyond the necessary evils of putting down evil where it's found.

So classic paladins...who cry with Lady Macbeth "Out damned spot!" and similarly despair of ever truly being clean.

So "ex criminal, now reformed" would fit in pretty well there.

OldTrees1
2020-11-03, 09:51 PM
You are correct, but the way Nigel was using "consequentialist" seemed to be in reference to one's own alignment being a "consequence". Which is true. I was responding to him using the kind of language he was using, attempting to frame my responses to his understanding.

I stand corrected then. Using the same language is wise.


I'm going to spoiler block my next bit, because it's copy/pasted from an older thread, and takes up a LOT of space.

Ah, I remember that thread. We went in depth on the main moral theory branches in that thread. Good times.

Mechalich
2020-11-03, 11:21 PM
Ah, I remember that thread. We went in depth on the main moral theory branches in that thread. Good times.

In all likelihood that thread, and many others on various forums over the years have gone into a lot more detail with regard to the structure of alignment than any D&D design team ever has. Gygax, Arneson, and other early pioneers of D&D were an eccentric collection of hobbyists, not specialists. Alignment was derived from their lived background and the source material they were working at the time in an intuitive, rather than systematic, fashion. The result is a mostly, but not strictly, deontological system, with a lot of weird twists and turns and a number of contradictory issues where it struggles to bridge the gap between a system that mostly cribs from the backdrop of the USA in the 1970s and some of the truly bizarre fantasy creations they came up with and their implications.

The result is rather than an ethical graph with a coordinate system and two axes, a big ethical pie chart with a weird plug in the middle (representing true neutral), and like an actual pie, its not uniformly dense, so motion from one wedge of the pie to the other happens in an asynchronous fashion and the boundaries between those different wedges - corresponding to the different outer planes on the great wheel - are quite nebulous. In Planescape this got codified as shifting back and forth, meaning the deontological framework itself is constantly in flux, the very multiverse unable to quite make up its mind where the boundaries lie.

This is only made more complicated by various designers attempts to update the deontological framework both with new editions and even between editions in order to bring it more in line with the generalized values that both the designers themselves possess and those they believe their audience holds. The actual nature of those changes is political and should be avoided here, but it's very easy to find them if you compare the PHBs and DMGs of different editions to each other. At the same time the lore describing ethically complex or weird aspects of the universe - such as the Illithids this thread focuses upon - has been altered in a variety of ways, but usually without bothering to consider the alignment implications or changing the alignment of particular individuals, deities, or monsters.

Frustratingly, this means the questions of ethics in D&D, like questions of mechanics or world-building, depend on what edition you're using.

Jason
2020-11-03, 11:54 PM
Some more quotes about alignment from earlier editions:

Alignment is a shorthand description of a complex moral code. It sketches out the basic altitudes of a person, place, or thing. It is a tool for the DM to use. In sudden or surprising situations, it guides the DM's evaluation of NPC or creature reactions. By implication, it predicts the type of laws and enforcement found in a given area. It affects the use of certain highly specialized magical items.
For all the things alignment is, there are some very important things that it is not. It is not a hammer to pound over the heads of player characters who misbehave. It is not a code of behavior carved in stone. It is not absolute, but can vary from place to place. Neither should alignment be confused with personality. It shapes personality, but there is more to a person than just alignment.

Even if a character answers "what's your alignment?" truthfully, there is no way for him to know if he is right, short of the loss of class abilities (as in the case of paIadins). Player characters can only say what they think their alignment is. Once they have chosen their alignment, the DM is the only person in the game who knows where it currently stands.
A chaotic good ranger may be on the verge of changing alignment - one more cold-blooded deed and over the edge he goes, but he doesn't know that. He still thinks he is chaotic good through and through.

Some characters - the paladin, in particular - possess a limited ability to detect alignment, particularly good and evil. Even this power has more limitations than the player is likely to consider. The ability to detect evil is really only useful to spot characters or creatures with evil intentions or those who are so thoroughly corrupted that they are evil to the core, not the evil aspect of an alignment.
Just because a fighter Is chaotic evil doesn't mean he can be detected as a source of evil while he is having a drink at the tavern. He may have no particularly evil intentions at that moment.
At the other end of Ihe spectrum, a powerful, evil cleric may have committed so many foul and heinous deeds that the aura of evil hangs inescapably over him.
There is a lot more, including sections about regional alignments and whether alignments should drive a campaign or not. Interesting reading 31 years and 3 editions later.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-04, 07:25 AM
Frustratingly, this means the questions of ethics in D&D, like questions of mechanics or world-building, depend on what edition you're using.

They very within editions too. Alignment is a rule like any other rule, and like most rules in TTRPGs (generally, not just D&D), it is to some degree broken. Except that unlike the Hacking rules in Shadowrun or Monks in D&D 3e, you can't just mind caulk it, because the ways in which it is broken blow up into huge arguments. I've seen a lot of arguing over alignment, but I have yet to find anything the game actually needs alignment to accomplish.

OldTrees1
2020-11-04, 08:21 AM
Frustratingly, this means the questions of ethics in D&D, like questions of mechanics or world-building, depend on what edition you're using.

Luckily the questions are also dependent on the GM. So with a consistent GM or similar GMs the questions have consistent answers despite the changing editions.


They very within editions too. Alignment is a rule like any other rule, and like most rules in TTRPGs (generally, not just D&D), it is to some degree broken. Except that unlike the Hacking rules in Shadowrun or Monks in D&D 3e, you can't just mind caulk it, because the ways in which it is broken blow up into huge arguments. I've seen a lot of arguing over alignment, but I have yet to find anything the game actually needs alignment to accomplish.

How much argument do you see in actual play?
How many of your campaigns significantly touched upon either topics of morality OR on the ongoing debate between a tightly ordered reality vs a wild reality?

Personally I have not seen any arguments during actual play, and a handful of my campaigns touched upon these topics as major themes.

Tanarii
2020-11-04, 09:29 AM
How much argument do you see in actual play?Lots. It's one of the few things I've seen kill a single group campaign more than once. That's what I count as "lots". :smallyuk:


How many of your campaigns significantly touched upon either topics of morality OR on the ongoing debate between a tightly ordered reality vs a wild reality?Thats not necessary for Alignment to kill a campaign, especially in AD&D 1e, 2e, or 3e.

All it takes it the DM telling a player that they are now evil. Especially followed by "give me your character sheet, it's now an NPC". (Note that kind of thing is absolutely fine if the campaign is predicated on it and the players know it can happen.)

Alignment and Morality are core campaign concepts/topics in at least three published and popular campaign settings: Dragonlance, Ravenloft, and Planescape. Arguably also Darksun

Keltest
2020-11-04, 10:04 AM
This would be where background Ideals would really help, but, sadly, in my experience no one pays attention to those

In my games at least we tend to default to them whenever we have to make a decision where our characters could go either way. We dont force people to refer to them all the time, but when in doubt theyre a good decision maker.

OldTrees1
2020-11-04, 11:21 AM
Lots. It's one of the few things I've seen kill a single group campaign more than once. That's what I count as "lots". :smallyuk:

Thats not necessary for Alignment to kill a campaign, especially in AD&D 1e, 2e, or 3e.

All it takes it the DM telling a player that they are now evil. Especially followed by "give me your character sheet, it's now an NPC". (Note that kind of thing is absolutely fine if the campaign is predicated on it and the players know it can happen.)

Alignment and Morality are core campaign concepts/topics in at least three published and popular campaign settings: Dragonlance, Ravenloft, and Planescape. Arguably also Darksun

I was helping NigelWalmsley see "anything the game actually needs alignment to accomplish" by asking questions that would reveal to them why they had not seen it yet. A "reveal the blind spot" method.

My example was, campaigns whose major themes tightly involve alignment can exist without arguments.

Democratus
2020-11-04, 01:50 PM
Generating discussions like these is one of the big reasons I like RPGs.

You set up imaginary worlds, each with different assumptions and conditions, and then see how they play out.

Then you come here and bring your findings before your peers in the "RPG dissertation review board". :smallbiggrin:

Jason
2020-11-04, 02:37 PM
I've never had a campaign end over an alignment dispute. The closest I've come was a Legend of the Five Rings game about 10 years back where a player took the Dark Fate disadvantage, which means that fate will tend to keep you alive, but when the GM feels like it your destiny will find you and you will be remembered as a villain forever after, likely ending in your death or NPC-hood. I think my friend didn't expect me to actually pull the trigger on that disadvantage. When I did it caused some hard feelings in the party, and a duel to the death (not all that uncommon an occurrence in L5R, but usually not between PCs), and when he brought in a replacement character he was noticeably more subdued for the rest of that game. No one in my games has taken that particular disadvantage again.
L5R has an Honor system that serves as alignment and a Corruption system that works sort of like Sanity.

RedMage125
2020-11-04, 04:04 PM
I was helping NigelWalmsley see "anything the game actually needs alignment to accomplish" by asking questions that would reveal to them why they had not seen it yet. A "reveal the blind spot" method.

My example was, campaigns whose major themes tightly involve alignment can exist without arguments.
You're barking up the wrong tree. NigelWalmsley does not differentiate between "what is true for Nigel based off of his experiences" and "what is objectively a fact". I am not diminishing the significance of his experiences to him, I can recognize that by his own experiences, these things have been shown to be true. But that doesn't make them universal, objective fact. everywhere.

But Nigel will not see that. I've been trying for the better part of a year now to get him to see that "true for Nigel" and "fact" are not always the same thing.

I wish you luck, but we both may be wasting our time. Like you said earlier, though, hopefully other readers and lurkers will see what we are saying and have a better understanding, even if Nigel never sees it.


They very within editions too. Alignment is a rule like any other rule, and like most rules in TTRPGs (generally, not just D&D), it is to some degree broken. Except that unlike the Hacking rules in Shadowrun or Monks in D&D 3e, you can't just mind caulk it, because the ways in which it is broken blow up into huge arguments. I've seen a lot of arguing over alignment, but I have yet to find anything the game actually needs alignment to accomplish.

Having alignment mechanics allows for classic fantasy tropes to be given mechanical voice in the game. A Holy weapon that does extra damage to evil creatures, for example. What determines who takes that damage if you don't have alignment rules? The DM's whim? Also, without alignment, demons are not the embodiment of pure evil and chaos, but rather a bunch of sentient outsiders with a different point of view. A paladin being able to sense the "lingering stink of evil" from an abandoned demon cult lair is also a benefit to alignment.

Alignment Mechanics in 3.5 served a very helpful purpose. Holy weapon that is an aneathma to evildoers? Without alignment assignations behind "this creature is evil", how does one fairly determine which creatures would take extra damage from such a weapon or gain negative levels from holding it? Leaving it up to DM fiat may appease some people, but from a completely objective standpoint it's not fair to the players. Players deserve consistent rulings and adjudications from their DMs. One of the things that made 3.x so player friendly was that fact the rules were so pervasive and encompassing that players had an idea of what the rules SHOULD be for something.

The bottom line is this: There is no objective way to judge alignment or alignment mechanics as "bad", because it's based off opinions and perceptions. Furthermore, a lot of alignment detractors sometimes cite "bad things" about alignment that are not in the RAW, and it is NOT a valid indictment of a ruleset to judge it based off an example that is a deviation from those rules, whether that ruleset is alignment or some other game element. We all have opinions on the matter. No one's opinion is so Vital and Universal that it should be accepted as Fact. Most of the posters on this thread have been stating their OPINIONS about alignment, which hold zero weight when discussing facts about game elements. Neither do houserules or homebrew. Since houserules can literally be anything, and not all houserules can be accounted for, only RAW is valid for purposes of discussions of facts about game elements.

I think there's some points that everyone on both sides can/should agree with:
1) Alignments in D&D are not NECESSARY to play D&D and have fun.
2) Some people can/do find enjoyment in using said mechanics. Others do not.
3) The only "wrong" way to play D&D is a way in which the people at the table are not having fun. To that end, both groups in point #2 are equally valid.
4) Alignment mechanics CAN have valuable/useful contributions to the game for those people who use them. This does not diminish the gameplay of those who do not use them.
5) Some DMs and players can/do misuse and abuse rules. This can include, but is not limited to, alignment.
6) The misuse/abuse of those rules reflects ONLY on the people involved and NOT on the rules in question.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-04, 04:17 PM
I guess if RedMage is going to keep talking at me, I should respond, just so no one gets confused into thinking I'm ignoring him because I agree with him, rather than because he is unable to engage with me rationally.


How much argument do you see in actual play?

Some. Not a huge amount; it's certainly not the most important problem I have with the game. But the more relevant question is the ratio of problems I've seen solved by alignment to problems I've seen caused by alignment. And I don't think I've ever actually seen a problem solved by alignment.


How many of your campaigns significantly touched upon either topics of morality OR on the ongoing debate between a tightly ordered reality vs a wild reality?

Most of them to some degree, but never through the lens of alignment. Because "Good v Evil" is not, despite what some people in this thread seem to think, an interesting moral debate. Because by definition Evil loses that debate. If it doesn't, it's no longer meaningfully "Evil".

That said, I have read some books I rather enjoyed where the setting postulates the kind of Inherent Morality that D&D does (The Second Apocalypse), and while I think those themes are interesting, they're not something I'd want to dump on most groups. Because, as I've said elsewhere, those themes are Cosmic Horror, and in a way that is actually quite offensive to the real-world moral sensibilities of many people.


I've been trying for the better part of a year now to get him to see that "true for Nigel" and "fact" are not always the same thing.

Don't confuse the weakness of your arguments for irrationality on my part. The very reason I'm so unpersuaded by the claims you make is that I once believed them and was convinced by others that they were not accurate.


Having alignment mechanics allows for classic fantasy tropes to be given mechanical voice in the game. A Holy weapon that does extra damage to evil creatures, for example. What determines who takes that damage if you don't have alignment rules?

Alignment really isn't a classic fantasy trope. It's a D&D-ism that gets projected onto the rest of the genre. Lord of the Rings, for example, doesn't have swords of "Evil" smiting, it has swords of "Goblin" smiting. I encourage you to find some examples of magical weapons that are really best modeled as "alignment bane" rather than "something else bane".


Also, without alignment, demons are not the embodiment of pure evil and chaos, but rather a bunch of sentient outsiders with a different point of view. A paladin being able to sense the "lingering stink of evil" from an abandoned demon cult lair is also a benefit to alignment.

Demons are always that. You can call their philosophy "Evil", but that doesn't mean any particular person (in-world or out) agrees with you. Most players presumably do, on account of demons being in favor of things like "eating people", but given the existence of demon cultists, presumably the message appeals to someone. Detecting the "lingering stink of evil" is exactly like detecting the "lingering stick of Red Mana" or the "lingering stink of the Abyss", neither of which needs alignment. Demons are also a bad example, because the real failure state of alignment isn't outsiders, but everything else (or rather, it fails for outsiders by pointlessness, rather than incoherence -- don't need mechanics to figure out Hagar The Baby Eater is a bad dude).


There is no objective way to judge alignment or alignment mechanics as "bad", because it's based off opinions and perceptions.

This is just FUD. By this standard, there's no way to judge any rule as "good" or "bad" and we should all just go home. If you have to appeal to "well I like it", you've lost the argument.


a lot of alignment detractors sometimes cite "bad things" about alignment that are not in the RAW, and it is NOT a valid indictment of a ruleset to judge it based off an example that is a deviation from those rules

No, you don't get to have it both ways. If "it's useful to me" is a valid argument for it, "I had a bad experience with it" is a valid argument against it. If rules encourage you to behave in a bad way, they are bad rules, even if following them strictly leads to good outcomes. TTRPG rules are implemented by humans, and their propensity towards particular human errors is a part of their merits or lack thereof.

OldTrees1
2020-11-04, 04:37 PM
Some. Not a huge amount; it's certainly not the most important problem I have with the game. But the more relevant question is the ratio of problems I've seen solved by alignment to problems I've seen caused by alignment. And I don't think I've ever actually seen a problem solved by alignment.

Most of them to some degree, but never through the lens of alignment. Because "Good v Evil" is not, despite what some people in this thread seem to think, an interesting moral debate. Because by definition Evil loses that debate. If it doesn't, it's no longer meaningfully "Evil".

That said, I have read some books I rather enjoyed where the setting postulates the kind of Inherent Morality that D&D does (The Second Apocalypse), and while I think those themes are interesting, they're not something I'd want to dump on most groups. Because, as I've said elsewhere, those themes are Cosmic Horror, and in a way that is actually quite offensive to the real-world moral sensibilities of many people.

So you have seen problems solved by alignment. Most of those campaigns had a need, that they filled by using alignment (and "not a huge amount" had problems from it). Just not whatever you meant by "lens of alignment". That honestly goes a long ways towards explaining why you are so adamantly against something nobody is talking about. You are talking about something nobody is talking about. Thanks for clearing that up.

You had campaigns that touched upon topics of morality. Yes, moral vs immoral is not the debate. Moral wins by definition. What is moral or how to be moral are debates. Ones that can be discussed about interesting contexts.

Or you had campaigns that touched upon the debate between order (tightly ordered reality) and chaos (wild reality). Possibly even with morality being a relevant topic.

Personally I have not seen any arguments during actual play, and a handful of my campaigns touched upon these topics as major themes. Alignment , as we are talking about it, was/is a positive component of those campaigns. Combined with your misuse of philosophy terms (objective morality, consequentialism, etc), I believe there is a BIG disconnect between what you are criticizing, and what we are talking about. You mentioning "Cosmic Horror" kinda is the final nail in the coffin for that conclusion.*

*The only "Cosmic Horror" I know in ethics/metaethics is the possibility for a being to have the responsibility of a moral agent without the ability to make informed choices. Aka the ability to make moral choices without the ability to observe any evidence relevant to those choices.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-04, 05:04 PM
So you have seen problems solved by alignment.

I literally just said that I have not.


Most of those campaigns had a need, that they filled by using alignment (and "not a huge amount" had problems from it). Just not whatever you meant by "lens of alignment".

I understand what these words mean individually, but collectively they do not parse. You seem to be asserting that campaigns solved a problem by using alignment, then brushing aside the notion that they did not use alignment as "whatever you mean".


You had campaigns that touched upon topics of morality.

Sure. But that does not inherently have anything to do with morality. Alignment is a particular (deeply flawed) approach to morality, which those campaigns largely did not use.


Or you had campaigns that touched upon the debate between order (tightly ordered reality) and chaos (wild reality). Possibly even with morality being a relevant topic.

Actually I was just too lazy to cut your quote to exclude that bit. As far as I can tell, that's not even a binary, let alone a fundamental theme.


Combined with your misuse of philosophy terms (objective morality, consequentialism, etc),

Could you clarify your objection to my usage of those terms? "Consequentalism" as "caring about the consequences of actions" is, as far as I know, an accurate usage.


*The only "Cosmic Horror" I know in ethics/metaethics is the possibility for a being to have the responsibility of a moral agent without the ability to make informed choices. Aka the ability to make moral choices without the ability to observe any evidence relevant to those choices.

The Cosmic Horror is in living in a universe where the moral arguments for ethics hold, but the universe arbitrarily punishes you for holding those ethics. Or: objective morality.

OldTrees1
2020-11-04, 05:29 PM
I literally just said that I have not.
And I read the rest of your post and it is paraphrasing that you did. Which revealed the miscommunication.


I understand what these words mean individually, but collectively they do not parse. You seem to be asserting that campaigns solved a problem by using alignment, then brushing aside the notion that they did not use alignment as "whatever you mean".

Sure. But that does not inherently have anything to do with morality. Alignment is a particular (deeply flawed) approach to morality, which those campaigns largely did not use.
Your conceptualization of what "alignment" is, is not something we share. Which is why I can honestly say that those campaigns solved a problem using alignment. And also why I can notice the miscommunication. You have been railing against something I have not been talking about, which has been quite confusing.


Could you clarify your objection to my usage of those terms? "Consequentalism" as "caring about the consequences of actions" is, as far as I know, an accurate usage.
I did already go in depth about the definition of objective morality and it is the bigger objection of the 2. https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24784882&postcount=111

For consequentialism the objection is a bit more nuanced but:
Consequentialism is the branch of moral theories that consider the consequence part of the intent/action/consequence package to be the morally relevant details to weigh in judging the package / making the choice. Which is why D&D is often described as more akin to Deontological ethics.


The Cosmic Horror is in living in a universe where the moral arguments for ethics hold, but the universe arbitrarily punishes you for holding those ethics. Or: objective morality.

You will have to explain that, because that is 1) misusing the term "objective morality" 2) talking about the universe punishing. Unfortunate things can happen to anyone. If being altruistic in a war zone gets me shot, that does not make real life a cosmic horror. 3) mentioning cosmic horror which usually needs elaboration because you are scared by different things than H. P. Lovecraft was.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-04, 05:47 PM
Which is why I can honestly say that those campaigns solved a problem using alignment.

Could you perhaps explain what it is you think alignment means?


I did already go in depth about the definition of objective morality and it is the bigger objection of the 2. https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24784882&postcount=111

That I missed, and I suppose I am misusing the term somewhat. What I mean is the notion of "objectively correct morality". A particular deontological framework is a set of moral judgements. Within that framework, actions can be objectively good or bad. But that framework isn't something that is inherently true. People could be consequentialists, or Virtue Ethicists, or have some other deontological framework they liked more. D&D morality is just some deontological framework (typically "a hash of what the authors have internalized from the real world, mixed with fantasy tropes and sacred cows" rather than anything particularly coherent). It has some bite to it in the universe, depending on the cosmology and the specifics of the edition, but those things don't make universally convincing. In the real world, people have lots of definitions of Good and Evil (they're fairly similar, of course, but they do differ). Simply asserting that one of those gets you into the Good afterlife isn't sufficient to change people's minds, for reasons that I can't discuss but should hopefully be obvious.


Consequentialism is the branch of moral theories that consider the consequence part of the intent/action/consequence package to be the morally relevant part. Which is why D&D is often described as more akin to Deontological ethics.

But that's missing the point. D&D's alignment may be Deontological in nature. But that doesn't mean consequentialist reasoning stops being correct or possible. From the consequentialist perspective, the assertion that an action is "Evil" is no more meaningful to its morality than the assertion that it is "fish-like" or "British" or "purple". Maybe it is, but if that doesn't effect the consequences of the action, that doesn't make it more or less moral. Which is what I mean by the notion that simply asserting objective Good and objective Evil would solve moral debates is nonsensical. What might have an effect is things like the afterlife but A) that doesn't inherently upend consequentialism and B) the D&D afterlife is actually "punishment for sin" but "punishment for failure", which changes the calculus a great deal.


You will have to explain that, because that is 1) misusing the term "objective morality" 2) talking about the universe punishing. Unfortunate things can happen to anyone. If being altruistic in a war zone gets me shot, that does not make real life a cosmic horror. 3) mentioning cosmic horror which usually needs elaboration because you are scared by different things than H. P. Lovecraft was.

1) Hopefully clarified above.
2) I would draw a distinction here between contingent and inherent punishments. It's true that sometimes if you try to save refugees from war, you will get shot. But in a world with cosmological morality (is that a clearer term?), it could be that saving refugees from war always resulted in you getting eaten by demons.
3) Isn't "Cosmic Horror" just "things that are scary because of the nature of the universe"? I don't see how that's terribly difficult to define.

RedMage125
2020-11-04, 06:17 PM
I guess if RedMage is going to keep talking at me, I should respond, just so no one gets confused into thinking I'm ignoring him because I agree with him, rather than because he is unable to engage with me rationally.
I'm perfectly willing to engage rationally. I've been trying to for the better part of a year.



Don't confuse the weakness of your arguments for irrationality on my part. The very reason I'm so unpersuaded by the claims you make is that I once believed them and was convinced by others that they were not accurate.
I understand that you, like everyone else, have had a specific set of experiences that affects how you view things. This is meant to be conveyed when I use words like "this is true for you".

But you failing to recognize that there even could be a gulf between "true for Nigel" and "objective fact that is true in all cases" is weakness of YOURS, not of mine. Your insistence that your OPINIONS are so vital and universal that they hold the weight of objective fact does not make my arguments "weak".



Alignment really isn't a classic fantasy trope. It's a D&D-ism that gets projected onto the rest of the genre. Lord of the Rings, for example, doesn't have swords of "Evil" smiting, it has swords of "Goblin" smiting. I encourage you to find some examples of magical weapons that are really best modeled as "alignment bane" rather than "something else bane".
I like how you can even QUOTE me and then immediately misrepresent what I said.

I did not say "alignment is a classic fantasy trope". I said "alignment mechanics allow for classic fantasy tropes to be given mechanical voice in the game". I literally just copy/pasted that from the quote box in YOUR post. I then cited only a few examples, just off the top of my head.

So you Straw Man my points in order to knock them down and call MY arguments "weak"? HA.



Demons are always that. You can call their philosophy "Evil", but that doesn't mean any particular person (in-world or out) agrees with you. Most players presumably do, on account of demons being in favor of things like "eating people", but given the existence of demon cultists, presumably the message appeals to someone.
...
Except that in Core D&D RAW, demons are actually MADE of Evil. Evil/Good/etc are the forces which shape the cosmos. There are literally infinite planes suffused with it.

So, you're actually factually wrong on that note.

And, fun fact, the existence of people who have different points of view about demons highlights that alignment is NOT the straightjacket you claim it to be. Gray areas and moral nuance 100% exist on the in-world level, at least as far as the perspective and opinions of individuals. Alignment never precluded that. Not in any edition. But although a given character might have a different perspective, their ACTUAL alignment is determined by objective, dispassionate cosmic forces.


Detecting the "lingering stink of evil" is exactly like detecting the "lingering stick of Red Mana" or the "lingering stink of the Abyss", neither of which needs alignment. Demons are also a bad example, because the real failure state of alignment isn't outsiders, but everything else (or rather, it fails for outsiders by pointlessness, rather than incoherence -- don't need mechanics to figure out Hagar The Baby Eater is a bad dude).
But the "lingering stink of red mana" isn't a classic trope of fantasy. The "lingering taint of EVIL" is.



This is just FUD. By this standard, there's no way to judge any rule as "good" or "bad" and we should all just go home. If you have to appeal to "well I like it", you've lost the argument.
Your entire point is based off "I don't like it, but I believe my opinions are so vital and universal that they are fact, so therefore I have facts on my side". Which is borderline narcissism.

And you missed the thrust of what I was saying. When you decry a rule as "a bad rule", you need to somehow PROVE that claim. Which you are not. You have cited a bunch of nonsense that ISN'T TRUE. Take your recent foray into Ethical Terms.

"Consequentialism" means that only the consequences of an action determine it's morality. So (let's assume a D&D type world here) if you chose to randomly execute the 17th person you laid eyes on tomorrow, but, as it turns out, that guy was a serial killer, your act of killing his was actually a Good act.

But that's not how D&D works. Action and Intent (framed by Context) determine the morality of an action in D&D. Consequences only matter as far as they frame Context. There's a spoiler-blocked exposition on this a page or so back, I was responding to OldTrees. I can cite a source for this if you like. From the last edition to HAVE concrete alignment mechanics, 3e. The BoVD, Chapter 2 has a section on Intent and Context. In this section, a paladin trying to flee some owlbears accidentally triggers a rockslide which crushes a hut and kills some innocent peasants. Now, when it is genuinely an accident, it is not an evil act and the paladin does not lose his powers. If, before he climbs, his friend points out "hey, that rock face is loose, you could cause a rockslide, and there's a village down below", it WOULD be an evil act if he climbed anyway. Because now he recklessly or carelessly knowingly endangered innocent lives to save his own skin. He would lose his powers (but still probably not change his alignment). now, if he noticed the potential danger himself and STILL did it, he DEFINITELY loses his powers and may be on the path to an alignment change.

That's actually an example from RAW of 3e. So what you are saying about "Consequentialism" is actually, objectively, and provably incorrect.


No, you don't get to have it both ways. If "it's useful to me" is a valid argument for it, "I had a bad experience with it" is a valid argument against it. If rules encourage you to behave in a bad way, they are bad rules, even if following them strictly leads to good outcomes. TTRPG rules are implemented by humans, and their propensity towards particular human errors is a part of their merits or lack thereof.


Listen, I understand that you've had bad experiences with it. I'm not trying to change your opinion. I would just like you to stop couching your opinion as if it were some kind of objective "fact". Your bad experiences are absolutely valid - FOR YOU. But that has little bearing, I'm afraid, on the factually good or bad nature of alignment or alignment mechanics on the system as a whole.

If ANY tool or system is ONLY bad when it is MISUSED, that is not a valid indictment of the system.

Wizard_Lizard
2020-11-04, 06:53 PM
Well this thread is getting a bit intense. I would like to note that if the paladin thought that they could climb away safe enough, that probably is just a bad decision. idk tho I'm not the best at morality philosophy.

It does appear that in dnd lore, devils and demons are inherently evil. By definition, as is necromancy, as it creates an evil creature. Although I will note, I have had a lawful good pc who's schtick was demon summoning (Used very sparingly and only when nescessary, and with sufficient failsafes should things go wrong). And necromancy can be used without being evil. It's the combination of intent and outcome. The intent of summoning demons to protect a village against invading devils, or summoning a devil to get vital lore and information, or summoning skeletons to do needed farming while the population of a town is decimated, can outway the evil acts that are done. However I do propose not using a cold numbers system of greater good or whatever because still.. that feels more neutral to me.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-04, 07:16 PM
I like how you can even QUOTE me and then immediately misrepresent what I said.

I like how you can quote me asking for examples of your point, not provide them, and then assert that I'm the problem. You do this a lot. I'll phrase something in a way that is different from, but equivalent to, the way you phrased it, you'll shout "Straw Man" and ignore the actual point being made.


Except that in Core D&D RAW, demons are actually MADE of Evil. Evil/Good/etc are the forces which shape the cosmos. There are literally infinite planes suffused with it.

They are made of a thing called Evil. The problem is your conflation of that specific thing with the concept of "moral wrong" in a general way. It's like having a [Tall] tag and insisting that things made with it are inherently Tall, regardless of how any particular person defines Tall.


Gray areas and moral nuance 100% exist on the in-world level, at least as far as the perspective and opinions of individuals. Alignment never precluded that.

Which is not what I said. I've repeatedly said that alignment does not effect morality, which why is the whole argument for insisting on using moral terminology for it is at best pointless and at worst harmful.


But the "lingering stink of red mana" isn't a classic trope of fantasy. The "lingering taint of EVIL" is.

But this is completely different from the idea of "Evil" (or: alignment) being a classic fantasy trope. You are in no way using "Straw Man" as a way to deflect from your arguments being bad.


That's actually an example from RAW of 3e. So what you are saying about "Consequentialism" is actually, objectively, and provably incorrect.

What? You seem to have missed the point entirely. I'm not saying whether Alignment is consequentalist or not. I don't care. What I'm saying is that alignment doesn't make consequentialism wrong.

Consider, for a second, your personal morality. To avoid stuff we're not supposed to discuss, I'll keep things vague. Imagine, for a second, something you consider really, horrifyingly wrong. Now imagine you're transported into a universe where that thing is explicitly Good (in whatever sense you believe that Alignment works), but is otherwise the same as our own. Would you do the horrifying thing? If you wouldn't, you're accepting that there's a disconnect between the notion of morality and Alignment. If not... well, suffice to say that I have deep disagreements with your personal views on moral philosophy, not just your opinions on D&D.

OldTrees1
2020-11-04, 10:03 PM
Could you perhaps explain what it is you think alignment means?
I think this is made clear immediately below but correct me if I should clarify further.


That I missed, and I suppose I am misusing the term somewhat. What I mean is the notion of "objectively correct morality". A particular deontological framework is a set of moral judgements. Within that framework, actions can be objectively good or bad. But that framework isn't something that is inherently true. People could be consequentialists, or Virtue Ethicists, or have some other deontological framework they liked more. D&D morality is just some deontological framework (typically "a hash of what the authors have internalized from the real world, mixed with fantasy tropes and sacred cows" rather than anything particularly coherent). It has some bite to it in the universe, depending on the cosmology and the specifics of the edition, but those things don't make universally convincing. In the real world, people have lots of definitions of Good and Evil (they're fairly similar, of course, but they do differ). Simply asserting that one of those gets you into the Good afterlife isn't sufficient to change people's minds, for reasons that I can't discuss but should hopefully be obvious.

Wow, that missing word changed a lot.

You don't need to presume D&D's default moral theory. D&D expects the DM to the arbiter, not WotC. And I expect the group to have enough communication that it makes the group the arbiter, not WotC.

Alignment is not WotC's "too many cooks in the kitchen" style of default moral theory. Alignment (when being a morality parallel) is the moral theory the DM is applying to the campaign.


But that's missing the point. D&D's alignment may be Deontological in nature. But that doesn't mean consequentialist reasoning stops being correct or possible. From the consequentialist perspective, the assertion that an action is "Evil" is no more meaningful to its morality than the assertion that it is "fish-like" or "British" or "purple". Maybe it is, but if that doesn't effect the consequences of the action, that doesn't make it more or less moral. Which is what I mean by the notion that simply asserting objective Good and objective Evil would solve moral debates is nonsensical. What might have an effect is things like the afterlife but A) that doesn't inherently upend consequentialism and B) the D&D afterlife is actually "punishment for sin" but "punishment for failure", which changes the calculus a great deal.
1) Hopefully clarified immediately above but repeated here. D&D's alignment is whatever the DM decided for that campaign. It could be a form of Virtue Ethics if they wanted. Or Utilitarianism. Or even Moral Error Theory (please look this up if you don't recognize it).
2) I have long ago mentally divorced the afterlife from the moral calculus of what the moral agent ought to do while alive. However when I try to care I can see why it would be a concern. I hope #1 fixes most of it.


1) Hopefully clarified above.
2) I would draw a distinction here between contingent and inherent punishments. It's true that sometimes if you try to save refugees from war, you will get shot. But in a world with cosmological morality (is that a clearer term?), it could be that saving refugees from war always resulted in you getting eaten by demons.
3) Isn't "Cosmic Horror" just "things that are scary because of the nature of the universe"? I don't see how that's terribly difficult to define.

1) That is a big difference and cleared a lot up. I have not scrolled down yet, but this might even help the spat you and RedMage125 are having.
2) Cosmological morality is not a clearer term. However I think a lot got cleared up above.
3) Cosmic Horror is an overloaded term with at least a handful of meanings. I did not predict that meaning. Thanks for clarifying.

Yes, the presence of an afterlife is Cosmic Horror. This is not due to Alignment, but rather due to the afterlife being inherently a terrifying concept. The horror is only sometimes calmed by either trusting the system, or becoming numb to the horror.

Luckily the DM is in control, not WotC's default moral theory. So the player has a decent chance to be able to trust the system.


Could you perhaps explain what it is you think alignment means?
So I think alignment means:
The moral axis is the moral theory the DM is applying as objective morality for the campaign. Yes, this does mean that the DM is also setting what is objectively correct morality for that campaign, but that is part of creating a world and thus set objectively correct values for many things. They don't need to follow the default moral theory WotC provides as a placeholder.

The law - chaos axis is whatever the DM thinks it means. Lawful vs Anarchy or Order vs Chaos are two common ones. It mostly exists to be another axis. Whether as a primary theme, a secondary theme to help provoke discussion of the primary theme, a source of blue-orange morality as a counterpoint, ignored, explored using the moral axis as a lens, or ... etc. Basically it is another axis.

And of course, I suggest the DM take the group's preferences into account when making important decisions, and I suggest communication is a very powerful and useful tool.



Given how I see Alignment, I hope you can see how it can be a useful tool to enhance the examination of moral theme or of the debate between order and chaos. While it is not immune to arguments, I have not seen one in actual play (they do exist in actual play, but are not inevitable) and I have seen alignment benefit my campaigns. I think that is a net positive. Although what is good for my group might not be for another group, so I also appreciate when alignment is toggleable (like 5E).


Now to go read the in between posts.
Edit: Yeah, I hope both of you calm down a bit.

OldTrees1
2020-11-04, 10:16 PM
I'm perfectly willing to engage rationally. I've been trying to for the better part of a year.

I believe there has been a pretty significant clarification. It might be worth a calming breath.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-04, 10:28 PM
You don't need to presume D&D's default moral theory. D&D expects the DM to the arbiter, not WotC. And I expect the group to have enough communication that it makes the group the arbiter, not WotC.

Expecting the DM to arbitrate "this is Good, that is Evil" doesn't really help either. The whole issue is the presupposition of a single "correct" morality, not whose it is per se. And, frankly, while D&D may pay some lip service to "it's your campaign, do what you want", it also makes pretty sweeping assertions about the morality of things. It's clear that there is an intended morality that is at least as strong as "things that are stereotypical fantasy bad guys Evil, things that are stereotypical fantasy good guys Good".

Fundamentally, the issue is that there isn't a single objectively correct moral theory, and simply asserting that one you like is doesn't really do anything useful. I just don't see what problem you solve by asserting that Kantian or Aristotelian or Baatoran or Pelorian ethics is "true". It's not a compelling argument for other people to convert to that ethical system (particularly because D&D cosmologies largely don't give particularly big carrots or sticks to go with alignment), and it doesn't simplify ethical debates for that same reason. Making alignment campaign-dependent also undermines a lot of the other reasons people push for alignment.


1) That is a big difference and cleared a lot up. I have not scrolled down yet, but this might even help the spat you and RedMage125 are having.

Honestly the resolution of that spat is probably going to be that I remember why I put him on ignore and go back to not reading his posts. He seems to have difficulty distinguishing between "paraphrase" and "strawman".


Yes, the presence of an afterlife is Cosmic Horror. This is not due to Alignment, but rather due to the afterlife being inherently a terrifying concept. The horror is only sometimes calmed by either trusting the system, or becoming numb to the horror.

I don't think afterlives are inherently cosmic horror (consider, for instance, the ending of The Good Place). That said, they obviously could end up that way. That doesn't necessarily require alignment, but it seems to me that alignment certainly has the potential for it. Imagine, for instance, that there's a heaven, but it's only for serial killers. That's pretty cosmically horrifying, and it's very much tied up with the idea of cosmically correct morality.


The law - chaos axis is whatever the DM thinks it means.

Then what's the benefit of calling it "Law" and "Chaos" at all? If alignment is whatever you want it to be, why bother with the loaded terminology? If every DM is going to decide what "Lawful Good" means, why are we using terms that invoke such strong feelings from people? At that point, what's the argument for not using something completely arbitrary like "the moral factions are Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Purple"? That way no one will ever have any confusion about whether "Purple" means "actions I think are Purple" or "actions that fit the DM's definition of Purple", because no one has a preconceived notion of what it means to be "morally Purple". And we sidestep all the need for obnoxious nested terminology when talking about the values of the specific sides. It sounds like what you're saying is basically "alignment has no objective meaning, but it's really important that the DM get to call you Evil if he's a Virtue Ethicist and you're a Deontologist". Which sounds... not great for the game.

OldTrees1
2020-11-04, 11:06 PM
Expecting the DM to arbitrate "this is Good, that is Evil" doesn't really help either. The whole issue is the presupposition of a single "correct" morality, not whose it is per se. And, frankly, while D&D may pay some lip service to "it's your campaign, do what you want", it also makes pretty sweeping assertions about the morality of things. It's clear that there is an intended morality that is at least as strong as "things that are stereotypical fantasy bad guys Evil, things that are stereotypical fantasy good guys Good".

Fundamentally, the issue is that there isn't a single objectively correct moral theory, and simply asserting that one you like is doesn't really do anything useful. I just don't see what problem you solve by asserting that Kantian or Aristotelian or Baatoran or Pelorian ethics is "true". It's not a compelling argument for other people to convert to that ethical system (particularly because D&D cosmologies largely don't give particularly big carrots or sticks to go with alignment), and it doesn't simplify ethical debates for that same reason. Making alignment campaign-dependent also undermines a lot of the other reasons people push for alignment.

When teaching utilitarianism the philosophy professor has the class look at some examples through utilitarianism's lens.
When considering virtue ethics, I could do so by adopting a virtue ethics lens.
If something like that is appealing to the group, then alignment is a useful too.

If you object to the thought experiment, don't use it? There is a reason I praised 5E for making it easy to toggle alignment off when the group does not want it.

However even if you object to the thought experiment, you probably have the ability to imagine people that might want to explore the thought experiment.


And we sidestep all the need for obnoxious nested terminology when talking about the values of the specific sides. It sounds like what you're saying is basically "alignment has no objective meaning, but it's really important that the DM get to call you Evil if he's a Virtue Ethicist and you're a Deontologist". Which sounds... not great for the game.

That does not sounds like what I said. It really sounds like you are uncomfortable with talking about morality in a thought experiment where a moral theory is presumed, and thus are trying to say it is bad for everyone. Even when proponents of alignment are praising 5E for letting you turn it off. I think I would appreciate if the empathy went in both directions.

But what do I know? Clearly I think it is really important that the DM gets to call you Evil. I definitely did not suggest in that post that the group communicate and decide together, if they were going to use alignment and what it would be.


Then what's the benefit of calling it "Law" and "Chaos" at all? If alignment is whatever you want it to be, why bother with the loaded terminology?

That was me making a snide comment at how the Law vs Chaos axis was written 2 different ways. However the benefit is words help communication, even if you have to specify which meaning. Since your issue is with the moral axis, I am going to consider this subthread concluded.


I don't think afterlives are inherently cosmic horror (consider, for instance, the ending of The Good Place). That said, they obviously could end up that way. That doesn't necessarily require alignment, but it seems to me that alignment certainly has the potential for it. Imagine, for instance, that there's a heaven, but it's only for serial killers. That's pretty cosmically horrifying, and it's very much tied up with the idea of cosmically correct morality.

That is comic horror, but I don't see it tied to morality. "Heaven for serial killers" is separate from "One ought to be a serial killer". Think about "what if heaven was a reward for immoral behavior" as an example of the separation. So I will consider this subthread concluded.

Mechalich
2020-11-04, 11:55 PM
However even if you object to the thought experiment, you probably have the ability to imagine people that might want to explore the thought experiment.

Exactly. And crafting a fictional world is a thought experiment, with moral frameworks as one of the parameters of said experiment. In fact some fantasy and science fiction worlds are produced entirely for the purposes of experiments with morality and function as moral parables.

Disliking or fervently objecting to the moral framework used by a fictional world doesn't invalidate the ability of the author to create it. Creators set the parameters of fictional worlds, and they can alter moral ones in precisely the same way they can alter physical ones like gravity (a pertinent example when discussing D&D, because Spelljammer was built using an alternative theory of gravity).

Now D&D alignment isn't actually trying to do anything revolutionary in terms of fantasy ethics. It's deontological because most fantasy and mythological moral systems are deontological. It's values are calibrated based on the intuitive standards of the small group of people who created them based on their cultural background, and they've been variously recalibrated over time in an attempt to reflect changes in the cultural background of the principle audience in the same way that pretty much every part of the product has, from art style to pronoun usage. The result is both messy and sloppy and tends to fall apart if examined particularly closely, but it retains utility for the sort of beer & pretzels low immersion, light-hearted games that remain the most common form of D&D in play.

PairO'Dice Lost
2020-11-05, 03:45 AM
Now D&D alignment isn't actually trying to do anything revolutionary in terms of fantasy ethics. It's deontological because most fantasy and mythological moral systems are deontological.

D&D morality isn't really deontological, though you're right that a lot of mythological morality is (because of the purpose of maintaining a mythical tradition and because they usually have one source/arbiter of morality instead of three). Whenever the game discusses alignment directly, it characterizes Law in terms of deontological duty, the rightness of social order, universal rules, and such:


Characters who believe in law maintain that order, organization, and society are important, indeed vital, forces of the universe. The relationships between people and governments exist naturally. Lawful philosophers maintain that this order is not created by man but is a natural law of the universe. Although man does not create orderly structures, it is his obligation to function within them, lest the fabric of everything crumble.

Those who consciously promote lawfulness say that only lawful behavior creates a society in which people can depend on each other and make the right decisions in full confidence that others will act as they should.

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.
...and Neutrality in terms of aretological principles, intrinsic virtues, approaching moral issues with the proper mindset, and such:


These characters believe that a balance of forces is important, but that the concerns of law and chaos do not moderate the need for good. Since the universe is vast and contains many creatures striving for different goals, a determined pursuit of good will not upset the balance; it may even maintain it. If fostering good means supporting organized society, then that is what must be done. If good can only come about through the overthrow of existing social order, so be it.

Someone who is neutral with respect to law and chaos has a normal respect for authority and feels neither a compulsion to obey nor a compulsion to rebel. She is honest but can be tempted into lying or deceiving others. [...] Some few such neutrals, however, espouse neutrality as superior to law or chaos, regarding each as an extreme with its own blind spots and drawbacks.

A virtue is generally agreed to be a character trait, such as a habitual action or settled sentiment. [...] A virtue such as honesty or generosity is not just a tendency to do what is honest or generous, nor is it to be helpfully specified as a “desirable” or “morally valuable” character trait. [...] To possess a virtue is to be a certain sort of person with a certain complex mindset. (Hence the extreme recklessness of attributing a virtue on the basis of a single action.) [...] Practical wisdom is an acquired trait that enables its possessor to identify the thing to do in any given situation. [...] As John McDowell puts it, practical wisdom involves a "perceptual sensitivity" to what a situation requires.
...and Chaos in terms of consequentialist calculus, individual determinism, freedom from arbitrary constraints, and such:


The believers in chaos hold that there is no preordained order or careful balance of forces in the universe. Instead they see the universe as a collection of things and events, some related to each other and others completely independent. They tend to hold that individual actions account for the differences in things and that events in one area do not alter the fabric of the universe halfway across the galaxy. Chaotic philosophers believe in the power of the individual over his own destiny and are fond of anarchistic nations.

A chaotic good character [...] believes in goodness and right but has little use for laws and regulations. [...] He follows his own moral compass, which, although good, may not agree with that of society.

Classic utilitarianism [...] denies that moral rightness depends directly on anything other than consequences, such as whether the agent promised in the past to do the act now. Of course, the fact that the agent promised to do the act might indirectly affect the act’s consequences if breaking the promise will make other people unhappy. Nonetheless, according to classic utilitarianism, what makes it morally wrong to break the promise is its future effects on those other people rather than the fact that the agent promised in the past.

Granted, there are some authors at WotC who wrote from a "LG is the 'right' alignment" perspective because they didn't get the memo and presumably let their personal philosophy bleed into their work (lookin' at you, whoever thought letting paladins use totally-not-poisons in BoED was morally justified because they're the Good Guys and whoever mangled the alignment grid in 4e because LG is "more good" than NG or CG) but on the whole the alignment system doesn't take the side of a single out-of-game ethical philosophy.

hamishspence
2020-11-05, 03:50 AM
Gygax had a far stronger "LG is the right alignment" and "CE is the worst alignment" bias than whoever wrote BoED did.

RedMage125
2020-11-05, 03:57 AM
I like how you can quote me asking for examples of your point, not provide them, and then assert that I'm the problem. You do this a lot. I'll phrase something in a way that is different from, but equivalent to, the way you phrased it, you'll shout "Straw Man" and ignore the actual point being made.
I provided 2 examples of something other than weapons in the post you were responding to, and mentioned so again. Which I found more pertinent that just "more weapons", as you specifically said:

I encourage you to find some examples of magical weapons that are really best modeled as "alignment bane" rather than "something else bane".
Sure. Fine.

Excalibur.
Durendal.
Caliburn.
Ascalon.
The Master Sword (Legend of Zelda) - While in BotW it is only gains extra power against foes explicitly allied with Ganon, all other games refer to it as a "Holy" weapon, one that is more effective against ALL evil foes.
Holy Avengers in D&D, because Paladin means "a noble knight" or "defender of a righteous cause", so their weapons should work against ALL forces of darkness from a human assassin to a rampaging orc, to a vampire, to a demon.


And, like I said, non-weapon examples are also pertinent. Detect Evil being a prime example. Sure, it could be broken up into "detect undead/aberration/dragon/fiend", but in a world where Evil is a tangible force, a champion of Good shouldn't have to specifically be a Knight of the Chalice, an Exorcist, Order of the Cerulean Sign or whatever. Heroes should be able to be broad in range.




They are made of a thing called Evil. The problem is your conflation of that specific thing with the concept of "moral wrong" in a general way. It's like having a [Tall] tag and insisting that things made with it are inherently Tall, regardless of how any particular person defines Tall.
Except that in (at least) some editions of D&D those are the SAME THING. 3.5e's Detect Evil spell detects the same energy in a level 1 Commoner who is a selfish, aggressive bully as is detected in a demon. When a person is "Evil" (in the sense that their alignment is Evil), they have in them an observable, quantifiable amount of that same energy that exists in the Lower Planes.

Your refusal to accept that is why you have an issue understanding that your viewpoints are not "facts".

Incidentally, that's why it is "Alignment". Which of these cosmic, dispassionate forces one is aligned with.


Which is not what I said. I've repeatedly said that alignment does not effect affect morality, which why is the whole argument for insisting on using moral terminology for it is at best pointless and at worst harmful.

And those are the ONLY two possibilities, huh? Because YOU say so, and there's just NO POSSIBLY WAY that your opinion and experiences are not "universal, objective fact", huh?

People use terms like "morality" and "ethics" in reference to alignment. Which can be a useful shorthand, but it's important to remember that that's an abstraction. Alignment does not "affect" morality. Alignment affects ALIGNMENT. As I said before, when one's alignment is Good, one actually has a detectable, quantifiable amount of that same cosmic energy we call "Good" in them. The same energy Celestials are literally made of. Obviously, I'm discussing 3.5e mechanics here, because it was the last edition with the most prevalent alignment mechanics and rules.



But this is completely different from the idea of "Evil" (or: alignment) being a classic fantasy trope. You are in no way using "Straw Man" as a way to deflect from your arguments being bad.
Again, "Evil" as a classic fantasy trope IS well served if the champions of Good are able to sense it, irrespective of if it is demonic, necromantic, or the lingering taint of more mundane evils. That actually IS a classic trope of fantasy.



What? You seem to have missed the point entirely. I'm not saying whether Alignment is consequentalist or not. I don't care. What I'm saying is that alignment doesn't make consequentialism wrong.
And because of what the word "Consequentialism" actually means, your statement is incorrect.

Consequentialism isn't correct in D&D. Period. Consequences only matter inasmuch as they shape Context. This has already been covered in depth, and citations were provided. Consequentialism boils down to essentially saying that the consequences determine the morality of the action. That's an extremely simplified summary, of course. But using alignment by RAW does make consequentialism wrong.


Consider, for a second, your personal morality. To avoid stuff we're not supposed to discuss, I'll keep things vague. Imagine, for a second, something you consider really, horrifyingly wrong. Now imagine you're transported into a universe where that thing is explicitly Good (in whatever sense you believe that Alignment works), but is otherwise the same as our own. Would you do the horrifying thing? If you wouldn't, you're accepting that there's a disconnect between the notion of morality and Alignment. If not... well, suffice to say that I have deep disagreements with your personal views on moral philosophy, not just your opinions on D&D.

Argumentum Ad Absurdum isn't any better than a Straw Man. Your whole point is "what if...like, you went to a world where eating babies was a thing that is morally Good?". Seriously? And I'm not trying to Straw Man your point, but you said "something really, horrifically wrong", so I assume you meant something of that degree. That is actually how I perceive your point here, so if I'm off base, feel free to clarify.

D&D is a construct of fantasy, but most of what constitutes "Good" and "Evil" resonate well with typical Western social norms. So, since D&D (what we're discussing) doesn't have that kind of dissonance between what the devs says is "Good/Evil" and what most people would consider so (not to the degree you spoke of), I don't really see this as a valid point.


Expecting the DM to arbitrate "this is Good, that is Evil" doesn't really help either. The whole issue is the presupposition of a single "correct" morality, not whose it is per se. And, frankly, while D&D may pay some lip service to "it's your campaign, do what you want", it also makes pretty sweeping assertions about the morality of things. It's clear that there is an intended morality that is at least as strong as "things that are stereotypical fantasy bad guys Evil, things that are stereotypical fantasy good guys Good".


Fundamentally, the issue is that there isn't a single objectively correct moral theory, and simply asserting that one you like is doesn't really do anything useful. I just don't see what problem you solve by asserting that Kantian or Aristotelian or Baatoran or Pelorian ethics is "true". It's not a compelling argument for other people to convert to that ethical system (particularly because D&D cosmologies largely don't give particularly big carrots or sticks to go with alignment), and it doesn't simplify ethical debates for that same reason. Making alignment campaign-dependent also undermines a lot of the other reasons people push for alignment.
But what's in the RAW is just the default. Obviously, anyone can make their own home settings and rule what they like, but with the developers trying to make a complete game, and have that game have means of giving mechanical voice to those tropes of fantasy that DO deal with "Good and Evil", they need to define what that means, at least as a default for the core rules of the game.

Wait...are you seriously telling me that your WHOLE OBJECTION comes from objecting to the idea that the developers even have the right to say "do what you like in your campaign, but the default for the D&D ruleset is that X is Good, Y is Evil"? Is that what your whole objection boils down to?



Honestly the resolution of that spat is probably going to be that I remember why I put him on ignore and go back to not reading his posts. He seems to have difficulty distinguishing between "paraphrase" and "strawman".
When you "paraphrase" in such a manner that my point is actually misrepresented, and then exclusively address the misrepresented point, it is actually called a Straw Man. That doesn't mean all Straw Men are intentional. If you were confused as to my meaning, you could ask for clarity, or express (kind of like I did above) something to the effect of "I assume you meant this". I've never once seen you acknowledge that you were wrong. Even when you've just been PROVEN wrong, you debate the point, or drop it and pretend it didn't happen.




However even if you object to the thought experiment, you probably have the ability to imagine people that might want to explore the thought experiment.

That does not sounds like what I said. It really sounds like you are uncomfortable with talking about morality in a thought experiment where a moral theory is presumed, and thus are trying to say it is bad for everyone. Even when proponents of alignment are praising 5E for letting you turn it off. I think I would appreciate if the empathy went in both directions.


And this is what I have never been able to get from Nigel, and why I continue to say that he "believes his opinions are so vital and universal that they are fact". Nigel has never once acknowledged that people who do not share his point of view are anything but mistaken. He says alignment is "at best pointless, and at worst harmful", and to him, any other perspective must be deluded.

I have even tried changing saying "your opinion" to "what is true for you", to show that I am not denigrating his own personal experiences, but rather I am recognizing and validating that his experiences are HIS truth. But getting him to then see that "what he experienced to be true" is not "objectively true everywhere as a fact"...that has never happened.

PairO'Dice Lost
2020-11-05, 04:08 AM
Gygax had a far stronger "LG is the right alignment" and "CE is the worst alignment" bias than whoever wrote BoED did.

Gygax definitely had his faults--he fell pretty hard on the side of "Lawful Good is not Lawful Nice" to the point of saying things like "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is by no means anything but Lawful and Good [...] justice tempered by mercy is a NG manifestation" and he set up 1e to punish alignment changes because he viewed them more as failing to maintain character consistency than as a character evolving through play--but I can't think of any writings where he presented LG as the best or CE as the worst.

hamishspence
2020-11-05, 04:22 AM
I can't think of any writings where he presented LG as the best or CE as the worst.



THE MEANING OF LAW AND CHAOS IN DUNGEONS & DRAGONS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIPS TO GOOD AND EVIL
by Gary Gygax FEBRUARY 1976


"As a final note, most of humanity falls into the lawful category, and most of lawful humanity lies near the line between good and evil. With proper leadership the majority will be prone towards lawful/good. Few humans are chaotic, and very few are chaotic and evil."

Jason
2020-11-05, 10:45 AM
Falling damage works incorrectly in all versions D&D. It's directly linear in D&D whereas in real life it's a curve. A commoner in D&D can easily die from a 10ft fall if they roll high on their d6, while a sufficiently high-level fighter could fall from orbit and walk away without any real injury.
Obviously "gravity" in D&D is not quite the same thing as gravity in the real world.

In D&D, an average-strength human can pick up 150 - 165 pounds, probably more than their own body weight, with no reduction in their ability to run a marathon or a high speed chase. This is all with medieval-level technology belts and backpacks and bags.
The same average person can lift 30 times their strength score, or 300 - 330 pounds and still walk around at 5 feet every 6 seconds. That's about twice what most people estimate the average person can lift in the real world.
If you use the optional encumbrance rules then the average person can still pick up a 50-pound bag of rice or flour and not be slowed down at all.
Obviously "pounds" in D&D are not quite what we mean by "pounds" in the real world.

A high-level fighter can take damage that would easily kill an average commoner ten times over, as widely varied as being burnt by fire and acid, frozen, blasted by sonic damage, piercing, bludgeoning, slashing, and being eaten alive by a T-Rex. Eight hours of rest will restore him to full health, with no lingering after effects. It doesn't even have to be eight hours of uninterrupted rest - he can sleep for 6 hours and stand watch for two hours. And this is with no magical healing aid at all. Characters never suffer broken bones or the loss of an eye or limb, or even scarring, no matter what type of damage they received during a day.
Obviously "injury" and "natural healing" don't mean the same thing in D&D that it does in the real world.

D&D groups every moral philosophy into one of nine broad categories, called "alignment". Three of these categories are labelled "good" and three "evil", and-

What? That's totally not how it works in the real world. That's completely unrealistic. How dare the game designers venture to decide what "good" and "evil" are. I'm certainly not going to include alignment in any of my games.

hamishspence
2020-11-05, 10:47 AM
A commoner in D&D can easily die from a 10ft fall if they roll high on their d6

A real person falling head-first with no opportunity to protect the head, can easily die from a 10 ft fall. Smashed skull, broken neck, or whatever.

Tvtyrant
2020-11-05, 01:14 PM
A real person falling head-first with no opportunity to protect the head, can easily die from a 10 ft fall. Smashed skull, broken neck, or whatever.

It also really hurts, as someone who has done this on asphalt.

Vahnavoi
2020-11-05, 02:23 PM
Guys, don't nitpick the joke. It was a fine joke. Don't kill it with pedantry. :smalltongue:

Wizard_Lizard
2020-11-05, 03:57 PM
I will say. Demons are evil. They exist to destroy all that exists, and kill all that is alive, slaughter, bloodshed, cruelty, pain, and chaos.
If you think an act is evil, a demon would do it. Without hesitation. OF course I will not tell anyone how to run their homegames, this is just what I have as a base presumption for mine.

Tvtyrant
2020-11-05, 04:06 PM
I will say. Demons are evil. They exist to destroy all that exists, and kill all that is alive, slaughter, bloodshed, cruelty, pain, and chaos.
If you think an act is evil, a demon would do it. Without hesitation. OF course I will not tell anyone how to run their homegames, this is just what I have as a base presumption for mine.

Yeah but demons are Evil, as in literal incarnations of mortal fantasies about what evil means. There was an old thread where someone explained the weird weights of demons in the MM as them being made of "Crueletrons and Malecrules." They are literally fitted to the mold of mortal morality, Ithiliads aren't incarnations of evil they just have a moral theory that departs from mortals.

They are also all of them deceived, which is one of the best parts of their fluff. They aren't the apex predators who look down the long line of the food chain, they are farm animals for Elder Brains who have been taught they are the apex predators. The meme of Starlord not realizing Thor is in charge and Thor condescendingly agreeing is in full force.

PairO'Dice Lost
2020-11-06, 03:10 AM
THE MEANING OF LAW AND CHAOS IN DUNGEONS & DRAGONS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIPS TO GOOD AND EVIL
by Gary Gygax FEBRUARY 1976


"As a final note, most of humanity falls into the lawful category, and most of lawful humanity lies near the line between good and evil. With proper leadership the majority will be prone towards lawful/good. Few humans are chaotic, and very few are chaotic and evil."

Firstly, "proper" in this case doesn't necessarily mean "the kind of leadership that Gary Gygax likes," it can very easily be referring to a King Theoden-type noble monarch setting an example for his subjects of what is right and proper. In fact, Patriarchs (name-level clerics) can be any Good alignment on the chart in the article and would count as "proper leadership" as well.

Secondly, that article starts off with a quote saying:


There is considerable confusion in that most dungeonmasters construe the terms “chaotic” and “evil” to mean the same thing, just as they define “lawful” and “good” to mean the same. This is scarcely surprising considering the wording of the three original volumes of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. When that was written they meant just about the same thing in my mind — notice I do not say they were synonymous in my thinking at that time. The wording in the GREYHAWK supplement added a bit more confusion, for by the time that booklet was written some substantial differences had been determined. In fact, had I the opportunity to do D&D over I would have made the whole business very much clearer by differentiating the four categories, and many chaotic creatures would be good, while many lawful creatures would be evil.

Bolding in the original, italic emphasis mine. While he may have written things in a certain way regarding Law and goodness, that was an issue of authorial voice, not design intent.

Thirdly and most importantly, that article is the very first introduction of two-axis alignment to the OD&D game, coming between OD&D/BECMI where LG doesn't even exist and AD&D where humanity leans TN and not LG, and it completely omits NG/NE/LN/CN as options. To take a note about humanity's alignment predispositions in that article and assume it reflects Gygax's opinion on alignment in general in any edition at all doesn't make sense.

---


They are also all of them deceived, which is one of the best parts of their fluff. They aren't the apex predators who look down the long line of the food chain, they are farm animals for Elder Brains who have been taught they are the apex predators. The meme of Starlord not realizing Thor is in charge and Thor condescendingly agreeing is in full force.

Eh, this is a pretty big exaggeration, unless there's some 4e or 5e lore that retcons the illithid/elder brain relationship. Elder brains don't farm illithids for food (while they do subsist on illithid tadpoles' psychic emanations, that doesn't harm the tadpoles at all), rather they're an integral part of the community, somewhere between high priest and incarnate deity:


When a mind flayer dies, its brain is removed ceremonially and cast into the pool, whereupon it sinks to the bottom to be absorbed into the greater mass. This melding of an individual’s brain into the communal elder brain is a fate to which mind flayers aspire; they do not fear or regret their passing. If anything, they fear a death that prevents them from becoming a part of the elder brain.
[...]
Elder brains rule their communities completely. Their dictates and pronouncements are beyond question. Some are cruelly dictatorial, while others allow varying amounts of freedom. The most passive serve only as advisors and sources of historical information. The norm is a degree of control somewhere between absolute authoritarianism and enlightened despotism.
[...]
Plotting against the community or the elder brain is impossible. Even deviating from the social norm is likely to bring about swift corrective action ranging from a single stern warning to coercion or psychic annihilation, depending on how harsh that particular elder brain cares to be at the moment.
[...]
Mind flayers are subject to one huge misconception concerning elder brains. They believe that their individual consciousness survives after joining the elder brain. This notion is completely wrong. The elder brain extracts knowledge and strength from the brain matter and adds its mass to its own, but the illithid is dead. Only the elder brain lives forever. Elder brains guard this secret, as one might expect.

So yes, at the very end of an illithid's life it gets screwed over, but that's hardly different from a demon prince screwing over a cultist after death and not like "farming" them at all, and up until that point illithids and elder brains have something pretty close to genuine (albeit weird) symbiosis.

Tvtyrant
2020-11-06, 01:06 PM
Eh, this is a pretty big exaggeration, unless there's some 4e or 5e lore that retcons the illithid/elder brain relationship. Elder brains don't farm illithids for food (while they do subsist on illithid tadpoles' psychic emanations, that doesn't harm the tadpoles at all), rather they're an integral part of the community, somewhere between high priest and incarnate deity:



So yes, at the very end of an illithid's life it gets screwed over, but that's hardly different from a demon prince screwing over a cultist after death and not like "farming" them at all, and up until that point illithids and elder brains have something pretty close to genuine (albeit weird) symbiosis.

No, Lords of Madness is pretty clear on that one. First the Elder Brain eats most of the tadpoles as sustenance, and then eats the actual adult mindflayers when they die. They convince them all the while that they are a gestalt of the Ithiliads but are an independent organism that uses them for power and food. It's almost literally our relationship with cows in old fashioned societies; drink the milk, eat the young, work the adults, eat the old.

PairO'Dice Lost
2020-11-07, 12:08 AM
No, Lords of Madness is pretty clear on that one. First the Elder Brain eats most of the tadpoles as sustenance, and then eats the actual adult mindflayers when they die. They convince them all the while that they are a gestalt of the Ithiliads but are an independent organism that uses them for power and food. It's almost literally our relationship with cows in old fashioned societies; drink the milk, eat the young, work the adults, eat the old.

That would be the case if all elder brains were uniformly iron-tentacled dictators over their illithid thralls or at least treated them as pets or cattle, but as the bits I quoted make clear, there are plenty of elder brains who merely act as advisors rather than rulers and respond to eccentric illithids with a parental- or peer pressure-style correction instead of compulsion or torture. The relationship between illithids and elder brains is much closer to that between ants or bees and a hive queen than between cattle and a farmer.

Another good comparison is the pharaohs of ancient Egypt during the First Dynasty. Pharaohs were worshiped as incarnate gods, absolute rulers in both political and religious senses; they directed Egyptian society to spend lots of time and resources on fancy monuments to them, culminating in commissioning an even more fancy pyramid as their tomb; and when they died they would sacrifice their most valued servants to be buried with them, which the servants went to entirely willingly and even eagerly because they were convinced it meant they were guaranteed a place in the afterlife at the pharaoh's side. Does that mean that the pharaohs were "farming" the Egyptian peasantry and viewed them as sub-human cattle? Or did they view the Egyptian people as people (and presumably they all cared about their subjects' welfare to a greater or lesser degree, like any other ruler) but simply took advantage of the trust and zeal of their subjects for their own benefit?

zarionofarabel
2020-11-07, 01:25 AM
WOW!

This turned into a bloody philosophy dissertation, kudos!

As for how the Alignment works in game at MY table.

As the GM, I am the Gods, so I decide if it's Good or Evil, or Law or Chaos, or boring old Neutrality.

I AM THE DECIDER!

You don't like that? Feel free to leave!

RedMage125
2020-11-07, 02:22 AM
So...I was reading through some older threads, looking for something I had written earlier, and I cam across a few gems from others that I would like to share:



If the sole reason you argue against Alignment is because game definitions of good and evil don't match your real life beliefs, you may have made a valid statement of your preferences, but as criticism of game rules your opinion is close to useless. There are other, better reasons for realism in games than that.

Nevermind that this attitude again creates the perceived problem. When people insist importing their real beliefs into game morality, they create the impression that in-game morality must reflect real beliefs of the players, creating ground for bad faith accusations and the sort of moral alarmism I describe.



Which is one reason why these people get so upset when their personal morality clashes with someone else's at the table, and their being told that morality is in-universe objective. They're being told their moral judgement is wrong, and they can't handle that, even for fictional pretend wrong.

(Please note that in-universe objective doesn't mean it can't be table-agreed-upon subjective. The problem stems from the table not agreeing on something. If they all agree on how it works in-game, there is no problem.)




"D&D morality" does not and can not exist in a vacuum. It cannot be conveniently restricted to self-referential isolation. If that kind of question with the noncombatant orcs is not part of the game, then moral questions, and morality itself, are not part of the game. And if morality is not part of the game, then using the labels "Good" and "Evil" for the "teams" is pointless.

D&D as a construct of fantasy. Therefore, it absolutely can be "restricted to self-referential isolation". If the RAW says "x is Good and y is Evil" then-for the purposes of the RAW and the default setting of D&D, it is a true statement that x is Good and y is Evil. That's how rules discussions of a game work.

What is said here also applies to value judgments ABOUT alignment that are not backed up with actual FACTS. Everyone's opinion is as valid as any other. But when discussing the rules of the game, FACTS are things that can be verified in the text of the RAW.




Oh, and the Elder Brain discussion was fascinating. I had actually completely forgotten that Elder Brains were deceiving their constituents and that they just devoured the brains of dead illithids. I only remembered the belief that they joined the EB in death.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-11-07, 11:35 AM
Disclaimer: I don't like alignment-as-cosmic-force. I don't use it that way, and I was happy to see alignment reduced to what it is in 5e and wish they'd have gone further. My setting doesn't use it at all except for a DM-side quick note about how I want to play certain NPCs, if nothing else in their personality is relevant. Yes, that includes outsiders. Devils and angels are good or evil depending on the issue. Order vs chaos is more of a theme, but it's mixed and not mechanical.

That said, standard Great Wheel D&D cosmology requires that alignment be a baked-in part of the universe and fully objective (that is, it does not depend in any way on the beliefs of the individuals within that universe, not even the gods). You can quibble about whether something is RL!Good vs D&D!Good, but in D&D-land there is a D&D!Good and a D&D!Evil. And they're defined by the books, which define everything in that universe[1].

Yes, that makes those labels arbitrary. But then again, so is everything in D&D. It's all decided by the creators. None of it is natural or based inherently on realism, except filtered through the minds and conscious wills of the developers. As a result, you can't simply import (or even compare to) the real world. This goes for D&D!physics and D&D!morality in equal parts.

Personally, illithid make the grade for evil both in-game (where their standing on the cosmological D&D!morality scale is quite clear) and, if one showed up in the real world, I'd peg that behavior as evil here as well. Absolute disregard for the well-being of other sapient creatures? Check. Total self-centeredness? Check. Willingness (and in fact eagerness) to cause harm to others to get your way? Check. They're effectively tentacled vampires after a `sed s/blood/brains/g` operation. And not the modern "sexy vamps" either. The old-school squicky ones.

Jason
2020-11-07, 01:09 PM
Thirdly and most importantly, that article is the very first introduction of two-axis alignment to the OD&D game, coming between OD&D/BECMI where LG doesn't even exist and AD&D where humanity leans TN and not LG, and it completely omits NG/NE/LN/CN as options. To take a note about humanity's alignment predispositions in that article and assume it reflects Gygax's opinion on alignment in general in any edition at all doesn't make sense.
Yeah, that article is really too early to be much relied on. Gygax hadn't even written the AD&D PHB by that point. Like the 1st edition Monster Manual, the article only has five alignments rather than the nine that appeared in the PHB and all the rest of the AD&D materials.

Edit: Your edition chronology is a little mushy there, PairO'dice. OD&D came out in '74. AD&D started with the Monster Manual in '77 but wasn't really a working rules set until the DMG came out in '79.
The Holmes Basic Set came out in '77, but the Moldvay/Cook B/X version didn't come out until after AD&D, in 1981, and the Mentzer BECMI version - the one I started with - didn't come out until '83, well after AD&D was an established system. In fact the Immortals set (the "I" in BECMI) didn't come out until '86, after Unearthed Arcana.

False God
2020-11-07, 01:55 PM
If alignment is subjective then we can't really say anything is definitively evil or good. Certainly some things probably harm more than they help, but as long as alignment is subjective then there's room for "from a certain point of view" argumentation here.

If alignment isn't subjective, ie: the gods all got together and agreed on what is and isn't good and what is and isn't evil; then Illithids are assuredly evil. Even if they are "weird" the end result is that they tend to inflict pain, suffering and death on others, often "neutral" or "innocent" individuals to achieve their goals. And in a universe where good and evil are defined concepts, it really doesn't matter if you have a strnage culture with strange rules and values, only the end result of your actions falling on the good side of things or the bad side of things.

You might be able to stir up some bureaucratic legal shenanigans though in such a system, but ultimately you're still arguing not that the actions of Illithids don't fall under the current definition of evil, just that the current definition of evil is wrong.

Personally, I don't like Alignment, as I find it leads to "black and white" PC viewpoints from players, even when they don't have any sort of grasp of the Cosmic definitions of good and evil.

So Illithids are "weird" in my take and take actions that most see as cruel, malevolent or gross. Which is usually enough for people to want to stop them on those grounds, rather than a big "CE" on their stat block.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-11-07, 02:13 PM
If alignment isn't subjective, ie: the gods all got together and agreed on what is and isn't good and what is and isn't evil; then Illithids are assuredly evil. Even if they are "weird" the end result is that they tend to inflict pain, suffering and death on others, often "neutral" or "innocent" individuals to achieve their goals. And in a universe where good and evil are defined concepts, it really doesn't matter if you have a strnage culture with strange rules and values, only the end result of your actions falling on the good side of things or the bad side of things.
.

One note: in D&D (the Great Wheel anyway), the gods didn't decide on what is good and evil. That (and law and chaos) predate the gods and go beyond them--the gods are locked into that paradigm just as much as anyone else is.

False God
2020-11-07, 02:52 PM
One note: in D&D (the Great Wheel anyway), the gods didn't decide on what is good and evil. That (and law and chaos) predate the gods and go beyond them--the gods are locked into that paradigm just as much as anyone else is.

Fair, but there remains some definition of what is or isn't good, however that came about, for "cosmic" alignment to function, it must exist.

Max_Killjoy
2020-11-07, 03:01 PM
IMO, alignment doesn't matter, the existence or nature of gods doesn't matter... if you kill and eat other people, you're evil. And no, I don't care about Illithid survival.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-11-07, 03:02 PM
Fair, but there remains some definition of what is or isn't good, however that came about, for "cosmic" alignment to function, it must exist.

True. Just correcting the notion of who decided it. In the Great Wheel, Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos weren't decided or defined by anyone--they exist as eternal, immutable facts of reality itself. They're laws of nature, in fact the fundamental ones. More fundamental than, say, Conservation of Energy or Conservation of Momentum or even Gravity. They exist and undergird everything in that universe.

Now that's one reason (among many) why I strongly dislike the Great Wheel, but I can't deny that, in that universe, it's a fact. And it's independent of what the "real world" considers good and evil. I'm sure that a Great Wheel denizen who read about earth morality would be like "What in the world were they thinking? How can they call that good/evil? Those definitions make no sense!"


IMO, alignment doesn't matter, the existence or nature of gods doesn't matter... if you kill and eat other people, you're evil. And no, I don't care about Illithid survival.

In the real world, I agree with this. In the D&D world, alignment does matter. And thankfully it says basically the same thing.

False God
2020-11-07, 04:19 PM
True. Just correcting the notion of who decided it. In the Great Wheel, Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos weren't decided or defined by anyone--they exist as eternal, immutable facts of reality itself. They're laws of nature, in fact the fundamental ones. More fundamental than, say, Conservation of Energy or Conservation of Momentum or even Gravity. They exist and undergird everything in that universe.

Now that's one reason (among many) why I strongly dislike the Great Wheel, but I can't deny that, in that universe, it's a fact. And it's independent of what the "real world" considers good and evil. I'm sure that a Great Wheel denizen who read about earth morality would be like "What in the world were they thinking? How can they call that good/evil? Those definitions make no sense!"


If we think the Laws of Physics are complicated, imagine the Laws of Morality.

Mechalich
2020-11-07, 05:45 PM
True. Just correcting the notion of who decided it. In the Great Wheel, Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos weren't decided or defined by anyone--they exist as eternal, immutable facts of reality itself. They're laws of nature, in fact the fundamental ones. More fundamental than, say, Conservation of Energy or Conservation of Momentum or even Gravity. They exist and undergird everything in that universe.

Technically equally fundamental, but in a very much separated equality. In the Great Wheel the Outer Planar structure governs the moral facts of reality, while the Inner Planar structure governs the physical facts of reality. Those physical laws, just like the moral ones, are very specific to D&D - for instance the Second Law of Thermodynamics does not hold in the D&D universe, you can just create energy straight up and with the right spells you absolutely can build a perpetual motion machine.

Also, those laws are explicitly not immutable. That's the whole defining point of Planescape; that you could actually go and change the functional nature of the universe by altering the planar structure through changes to belief, and various authors included references to how both the inner and outer planes used to be organized differently.

PairO'Dice Lost
2020-11-07, 07:13 PM
Your edition chronology is a little mushy there, PairO'dice. OD&D came out in '74. AD&D started with the Monster Manual in '77 but wasn't really a working rules set until the DMG came out in '79.
The Holmes Basic Set came out in '77, but the Moldvay/Cook B/X version didn't come out until after AD&D, in 1981, and the Mentzer BECMI version - the one I started with - didn't come out until '83, well after AD&D was an established system. In fact the Immortals set (the "I" in BECMI) didn't come out until '86, after Unearthed Arcana.

When I said "came between OD&D and AD&D" I was specifically thinking of the first release dates of each edition, so '74 for OD&D then '76 for the article then '79 for the complete AD&D. The later Mentzer/Moldvay/BECMI releases did have expanded writings on alignment, but they all used the same OD&D one-axis alignment and all fundamentally agreed on the flavor so it wasn't like they were influenced by that article at all.


Personally, I don't like Alignment, as I find it leads to "black and white" PC viewpoints from players, even when they don't have any sort of grasp of the Cosmic definitions of good and evil.

I've never understood arguments that using D&D alignment leads to black-and-white morality.

Like, there are RPGs out there (both computer and tabletop) that provide you a single sliding scale of morality (and in the case of cRPGs are generally very simplistic due to the constraints of keying events and conversations to alignment) and I could definitely see those leading to black-and-white player morality. When KotOR presents you with a mandatory choice where one option gives you Light Side points and the other option gives you Dark Side points and there's no nuance or third option, or Mass effect gives you Paragon and Renegade points for various interrupts and tallies them up for a Control/Destroy/Synthesis endgame choice, or In Nomine makes you play an Angel or Demon where Angels and Demons all completely agree on the particulars of Ineffable Good and Evil, or World of Darkness literally rates your Morality on a scale of 1 to 10 and makes you unplayable if you go off the scale, then treating your character's morality in a purely mechanistic way where you go "I'm Good, so I need to figure out which of the options the GM/game is presenting to me is Good and pick that one, because I want the Good ending" is nearly inevitable.

But in D&D you can't be just Good or just Evil! You have to choose which of three flavors of Good or Evil you want to be, or pick one of three flavors of Neutrality between them. The moment you have both a LG PC and a CG PC in the same party then by definition any sort of "Well, doing X is Good because my alignment says...." argument flies out the window because there are two different Goods in play that might reasonable disagree on X.

False God
2020-11-07, 07:29 PM
I've never understood arguments that using D&D alignment leads to black-and-white morality.
What argument? I was speaking from experience.

When I play games with alignment I find players are a lot more rigid in their "morality". When I play games without, I find people are a lot more fluid and accepting of "Well my morality differs from your morality but because there's no Cosmic Law saying which one of us is right, I'm gonna move along."

PairO'Dice Lost
2020-11-07, 08:20 PM
What argument? I was speaking from experience.

When I play games with alignment I find players are a lot more rigid in their "morality". When I play games without, I find people are a lot more fluid and accepting of "Well my morality differs from your morality but because there's no Cosmic Law saying which one of us is right, I'm gonna move along."

Ah, games with alignment vs. games without alignment is a very different context from D&D alignment vs. other alignment systems. In that case, yeah, any character aspect to which you attach mechanics is going to be incentivized to some extent, whether that's morality or background elements or social skills or whatever, so I can see why your parties have reacted that way.

However, to provide some opposing anecdotes, I'd posit that the tendency toward black-and-white morality you've observed isn't necessarily a consequence of alignment systems, but rather settings that have the kind of morality-centrism that leads to an alignment system being useful in the first place. To take Star Wars as an example, every Star Wars RPG out there has some sort of Dark Side-related alignment mechanics. In my experience, though, a campaign that centers around smugglers, bounty hunters, mercenaries, and such and their clandestine adventures in the Outer Rim, completely ignoring the Jedi/Sith conflict and having no Force-using characters in the party, generally involves a lot less moral conflict (either among the party or with their antagonists) because the characters aren't interacting with the Force much and the players have already bought into a morally shady premise...and a campaign that does center around Jedi and Sith and the conflict therebetween is going to have a lot of moral grandstanding and villainous monologues even if there were no Dark Side points or equivalent in the system, because in that case the players have bought into a morally-absolutist premise and are playing the characters appropriately.

Likewise, stapling some sort of alignment system onto, say, a Song of Ice and Fire RPG is probably going to have zero noticeable playstyle impact because everyone playing it is going to be familiar with the fairly grim-and-gritty moral landscape of Westeros, the whole R'hllor-vs.-the-Seven ideological conflict is a relatively small side plot in the series and is much more about political-usefulness-vs.-reality than good-vs.-evil, and labeling e.g. Ned Stark as "good" and the Others as "evil" isn't going to change how players react to them at all.

OldTrees1
2020-11-07, 08:46 PM
What argument? I was speaking from experience.

When I play games with alignment I find players are a lot more rigid in their "morality". When I play games without, I find people are a lot more fluid and accepting of "Well my morality differs from your morality but because there's no Cosmic Law saying which one of us is right, I'm gonna move along."

Experiment: What if the PCs don't know what the objective morality of their reality is? I wonder if the same people you have observed would behave closer to the former or the latter in this experiment.

Follow up experiment: What if the GM is the only one that knows?


Obviously since your experience is based on specific players rather than players in general, I can't generalize from the anecdotes resulting from these experiments. But it might be fun regardless.

Tanarii
2020-11-08, 12:14 AM
Experiment: What if the PCs don't know what the objective morality of their reality is? I wonder if the same people you have observed would behave closer to the former or the latter in this experiment.
That shouldn't make a difference, because regardless of if it's objective for the PCs in-universe (regardless of if they know), it's always subjective to how any player interprets the given definitions. (Edit: Well okay, it'll have a difference, because the player is aware the Pc isn't supposed to know. But it's not the same as if the player doesn't know.)

Now if the players don't know what the given definitions are, it's a different matter.

And if the players aren't given definitions but are given Alignment names that have real world but subjective meanings (lawful, chaotic, good, evil, principles, scrupulous, unprincipled, aberrant, diabolical, etc) that will have an affect on roleplaying that's different from both defined alignments and no alignments.

Jason
2020-11-08, 12:23 AM
When I said "came between OD&D and AD&D" I was specifically thinking of the first release dates of each edition, so '74 for OD&D then '76 for the article then '79 for the complete AD&D. The later Mentzer/Moldvay/BECMI releases did have expanded writings on alignment, but they all used the same OD&D one-axis alignment and all fundamentally agreed on the flavor so it wasn't like they were influenced by that article at all. Fair enough. You are quite correct that for some time there were really two parallel versions of D&D and one had the nine alignments while the other only had three.

OldTrees1
2020-11-08, 12:25 AM
That shouldn't make a difference

Just like the other variable shouldn't make the observed difference (spontaneous black and white morality?). But False God observed a difference. So I suggested experimenting with related variables in the middle.


There are 4 actors (The game world, the GM, the Players, and the PCs)
1) The game world could know the answer but the GM, Players, and PCs not know.
2) The GM could know the answer but the Players, and PCs not know.
3) The GM and the Players could know the answer but the PCs not know.
4) Or every actor involved could know.
Somewhere between 1 and 4 False God observed a difference that I failed to replicate (although I have different players). However it does make me curious about what False God would observe with those specific players in 2 and 3.

Tanarii
2020-11-08, 12:49 PM
There are 4 actors (The game world, the GM, the Players, and the PCs)
Yes agreed. My objection was that you seemed to be conflating PC and Player knowledge.

There is a difference between your 3 and 4, but many people think they can pretend they don't know what the PC doesn't know, and it is the same thing.

However I was entirely incorrect in what I said, because there is a big difference between your 2 and 3 as well. So it does make a difference.

However, I'm interesting in an example of your number 1. How would that work?

OldTrees1
2020-11-08, 01:15 PM
Yes agreed. My objection was that you seemed to be conflating PC and Player knowledge.

There is a difference between your 3 and 4, but many people think they can pretend they don't know what the PC doesn't know, and it is the same thing.

However I was entirely incorrect in what I said, because there is a big difference between your 2 and 3 as well. So it does make a difference.

However, I'm interesting in an example of your number 1. How would that work?

I was not conflating PC and Player knowledge, so I am glad I clarified. You can see I called them out separately as 2 of the 4 actors. The 4 cases are different, but I don't think that difference between 1 and 4 is enough to explain False God's observation. I don't see why knowledge at any of these 4 levels (1-4 actors knowing it) would result in black and white morality (can? yes. would? no.). False God observed that outcome, and I have observed the outcome not happening. So I am wondering which layer causes False God's players snap from nuanced to black and white.

Case number 1:
Number 1 is when the game reality knows something but the GM doesn't. Initially this seems rather strange since the GM creates the game reality. However the act of creation is not the same as knowing what you created.

Trivial example:
GM creates a campaign with objective morality but does not decide what it is. Now the game reality knows, but nobody else does. This is useful if trying to parallel real life OR when trying to ignore alignment without tabooing moral beliefs.

Tanarii
2020-11-08, 02:07 PM
I was not conflating PC and Player knowledge, so I am glad I clarified.Me too, tyvm.



Case number 1:
Number 1 is when the game reality knows something but the GM doesn't. Initially this seems rather strange since the GM creates the game reality. However the act of creation is not the same as knowing what you created.

Trivial example:
GM creates a campaign with objective morality but does not decide what it is. Now the game reality knows, but nobody else does. This is useful if trying to parallel real life OR when trying to ignore alignment without tabooing moral beliefs.
Oh okay. So if I understand correctly: e.g. everyone chooses an alignment, but doesnt bother to dig into it beyond the basic definitions. But the DM (and possibly players) assume something like the great wheel cosmology where alignment can have an impact on your afterlife, but dont worry about details.

That makes sense.