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Thread: Alignment: Fall 2022
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2022-11-09, 05:33 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2013
Re: Alignment: Fall 2022
Since you did quote their post, I assume you are asking why you can't quote the quote they included (edited in above). Giantitp excludes nesting quotes by default when you reply to a post by quoting them. You have to manually create them by writing the "[/quote]" tags and copy pasting the quote inside.
Last edited by OldTrees1; 2022-11-09 at 05:34 PM.
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2022-11-09, 05:48 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2015
Re: Alignment: Fall 2022
See, I feel quite strongly that it hardly describes the behavior of anyone. Almost all humans have extremely deep-seated ideology that includes many moral questions. They may not raise those opinions in mixed company, because of an aversion to moral debate, but they still possess them.
Almost all human beings want to live in a society with rules rather than one controlled by the capricious whims of those with a monopoly on the use of force. This makes them lawful. Now, they are generally weakly lawful, which it important.
The alignment chart is a pie with a ring in the middle. Most humans are clustered in the lawful neutral and lawful good zones at least 2/3rds of the way into the ring, with the same thing true of most NG and CG characters as well in their respective sections. Very few people are moral paragons of anything, and in D&D even those that are aren't all the way to the edge, that's reserved for frightfully inhuman alignment exemplar outsiders. The most paladin-y paladin who ever went a paladin-ing is still significantly further inward than a garden variety Hound Archon.
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2022-11-09, 06:04 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
Re: Alignment: Fall 2022
Neutral isn't just "perfectly in the centre" though - there's a broad zone around the centre for "Neutral with LG tendencies", "Neutral with LN tendencies" and so forth - both of which still count as TN for rules mechanics purposes - "you have lawful tendencies" doesn't mean you are Lawful.
"Most humans have lawful tendencies" and "Most humans have good tendencies" can be true, without invoking "Most humans are LG".
"Being LG" is not that easy, nor is "Being LN" - it requires a bit more commitment than just "tendencies".
As The Giant points out:
If you're "Lawful through following society's laws" you need to be the kind of person who will turn themselves in for breaking them. If you're lawful through following a personal code - you need to be the kind of person who punishes themselves when they break it.Last edited by hamishspence; 2022-11-09 at 06:10 PM.
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2022-11-09, 06:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2016
- Gender
Re: Alignment: Fall 2022
If this was true, we wouldn't see such absolute trash numbers for percentage of voters voting. At the same time we would see more governments being overthrown, more resistance/devotion to various religions or organized churches, and so on.
I can't count how many times I've read a well cited historical source or book about a period of history, where they make it abundantly clear that the largest position of people, is to care as little as possible about everything that happens outside their neighborhood or the space around their local village.
There are massive, highly oppressive nations, with paper thin systems keeping them in power. There is almost no dispute that's a pure lack of caring from the population and a general "well the economy is good, so I'm completely fine with having zero rights and incredibly high corruption" mindset.
There is so many statistics that show that most people, not the largest group, most people... Do not understand the ideologies of themselves, let alone others. If people actually cared, they would try to understand whatever position they are taking.
By this logic, the concept of a "Lawful" society didn't start till..... I want to say after 1650-1800s. Civilization has been around about 12,000 years, and the vast majority of nations do not have "Rule of Law".
In fact the legal systems of most civilizations, throughout history, period, was de facto "Whatever the guy with the biggest army feels like this month, or week, or morning".
The Greeks started writing down the laws around 650 BC, but most of those were just cementing the power of the people with all the spears and chariots.
If this was remotely truly, we wouldn't be in a situation where leadership almost universally consists of murderers, thieves, war-criminals, and slavers; if we consider all of human civilization and the whole planet.
Also, according to a lot of psychological studies and experiments, (that statistically, the bulk of people) if people spend just a few minutes thinking about a time they had the slightest amount of power (Like leading a board game or leader of a school project in 7th grade), they almost immediately don't think the rules apply to them.
It's like a switch is flipped. People from go "The boss shouldn't freak out if I'm two minutes late, traffic happens", to "I'm the boss, I can be a whole hour late, but GOD HELP YOU if you're 5 seconds late!".
There is a lot of evidence that humans, generally, are extremely flimsy about moral decisions. They'll be sticklers for the rules if it's to punish someone they don't like, but the instant the rules apply to them, they get mad. There are whole nations where this is the default position and it's blatantly the public, default position.
The Bystander Effect however, is nonsense and journalists traced that back to an event that didn't happen the way people think. Tons of people called the cops, the cops were just really late and they lied to the press that no one called them.
TLDR: Blah blah blah, at least 20-60% of people do not take a strong position or flip between strong positions easily. The bulk of the world right now is literally run by Warlords and their personal armies, this is how the Middle Ages was, this is how the Classical World was, and the last time this wasn't how the world worked was..... Like when people were nomadic...
Seriously, nomadic cultures are generally, hyper egalitarian.
This honestly explains why anyone would be Chaotic, Anti-Civilization, Libertarian or Anarchist. Women and men were more equal back then, there wasn't a lot of wealth disparity, and we were not ruled by Warlords. The Female sphere of power was very anti-war for many many cultures and tribes.If I ever think that I've gone too far in my Homebrew, I can just think about how Kane0 isn't considered crazy, so why would I be considered so?
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D20 Modern's handling of shotguns is the perfect case of not balancing for fun OR realism OR efficiency.
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Where would I go to get people to test mechanics? Reddit?