New OOTS products from CafePress
New OOTS t-shirts, ornaments, mugs, bags, and more
Page 5 of 12 FirstFirst 123456789101112 LastLast
Results 121 to 150 of 351

Thread: Unanimous Good

  1. - Top - End - #121
    Bugbear in the Playground
    Join Date
    Aug 2022

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    I don't think we are going to agree.
    Yeah. You are correct about that one.

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    The concept of "ownership" doesn't hold a lot of moral water for me, and is, in my opinion, a matter of law / chaos vs. good / evil.
    I get that you believe this, but I just don't think your rationale for this holds a lot of water.

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    Theft, by itself, is totally morally neutral. It is the harm which is done by depriving people of their possessions that is evil.
    These are contradictory statements though. All theft "deprives people of their possessions". Period. Ergo, all theft involves "harm", which you identify as "evil". Yet you start out stating that theft is morally nuetral.

    I view it the opposite. Theft, by itself, is morally evil. It may be neutral under certain circumstances in which the harm you are doing is justified (in the same way other harmful acts like assault, imprisonment, killing, etc, may be). There must always be additional external factors that allow for the commission of an otherwise "evil" act to make it anything other than evil. And yes, this may have a law/chaos aspect with regards to rules/not-rules (or laws, or whatever), but that does not remove the basic moral aspect as well. Taking things from people is harm. Harming people is evil. That's the default you should start from, or your moral system just can't work.

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    But if someone has more than they ever need, there is no harm done there, and if you give it to someone who does have need, that is, in my opinion, a good act. Aladdin and Robin Hood are both good thieves because they take from people who have plenty and are living comfortably and give it to people who are poor and suffering. If they steal from people who have plenty and are comfortable and keep it for themselves, they would be neutral, and stealing from the people who are poor and suffering for their own benefit would be evil.
    Those are the exceptions to the rule though. The starting point has to be "stealing is wrong". Only after you start there can you carve out exceptions. It's funny because you keep making broad statements about theft not being evil, and I keep pointing out basic theft cases where one person takes something from someone else for their own benefit, and you keep only responding with rare Robin Hood scenarios.

    Here's the problem with assuming the Robin Hood scenario: It's too easy to rationalize property others own as "not needed by them" and "needed by me/someone else". The very concept you are using is really an outgrowth of fairly modern sociological philosopy (and a large number of steps down that philosophy as well). I think it can be problematic, especially if playing in a semi-medieval setting, to try to apply really modern concepts of property and rights into a basic moral code (especially something like alignment). But that appears to be what you are doing here.

    It's also very easy to imagine the very wealthy (in any setting) just put their riches in a giant vault and roll around in it like Scrooge McDuck or something. And easy to follow that up with "well, they don't really need that money". But in most settings/times, those riches that appear to be more than anyone needs are going to fund the local military protection, law enforcement, fund local services, water/food distribution systems, and is used as a reserve for lean times. In many older economic systems, the concept of noble obligation was paramount. The common folks work the land, and the noble collects the taxes, but is obligated to provide for their wellbeing. Assuming that the rich noble can be stolen from because "he doesn't need it", may not work well in that sort of environment.

    Obviously, clear cases were there's a bad guy over there, doing bad thing, and therefore rationalizing harm done to that person is an exception. But that's the point. It's not that theft is not morally wrong, any more than assaulting that guys goons is, or destroying his property (in the form of evil altar in his basement or something), or mudering him when you defeat him in some epic final battle. Those thing are "good", only because the person you are harming is so evil they deserve that harm. The actions are not "good", or even "neutral" by themselves though.

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    Again, this isn't really an issue of "the law" as the sheriff of Nottingham is evil even though his taxation of the poor is backed by authority.
    And I'll point out that for decades the whole "Lawful means following the law" has been debunked and dismissed as an incorrect way to intprepret D&D alignment. Yet, here we are. Robin Hood was not a hero because he was opposing the law. He was a hero because he was opposing an evil person who had taken power and was abusing it for his own ends at the expense of the people he was supposed to be protecting and serving. The law/chaos axis is not just about obeying or not obeying the law. And it's absolutely absurd to exclude from the good/evil axis anything that is *also* a violation of the law. Because most "evil" things are also going to be illegal. Your position would assume that the moment we pass a law making murder illegal, murder is no longer an evil act, but a chaotic one. That's not very rational.

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    For example, my first long term character was a NG druid. She thought the idea of land ownership was absurd, as nature has no master, and thought nothing of poaching on a noble's private grounds or even foraging in a farmer's orchard. But she would never actually take food from a hungry person even if she were herself starving.
    That's great. But can we also acknowledge that the vast majority of theft does not restrict itself just to those who don't need it while refraining from stealing from those who need it? The cases where thieves only steal from the uber rich and give to the poor is a vast exception, not a rule.


    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    But this is pretty similar to conversations I have had in the past about poison or necromancy. I don't believe that methods have an alignment, only the results.
    But theft is an outcome. You take X dollars from someone. That X dollars buys exactly the same amount of "stuff" regardless of who holds it. The harm done is identical. Your argument is like saying that it's not assault to attack a 15th level fighter because he had plenty of extra hps, so he could afford to lose some. You are doing the same exact harm to someone with theft, just some people can afford to be harmed more is all.

    It's still harm. And absent significant additional factors, it's still evil.


    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    Edit: I think more succinctly; stealing in a situation where the recipient of the stolen goods has a worse lot in life than the original owner is generally good, and if the recipient has a better lot in life than the originally owner it is generally evil, and if they are roughly the same it is generally neutral.
    This is a convenient rationalization for theft IMO. While it may work on an individual basis for a specific PC in a game, it's not a great basis for an alignment determination. Most thieves are not (relatively) wealthy adventurer player characters governed by WBL rules or something. Most are poor. And they will continue to be poor because theft is not a great way to ever become anything other than that.

    By your rules, a local street thief is at worse neutral alignment if they steal from their (equally poor) neighbors, because they are equally needy? That's... insane. Again. The vast majority of theft occurs between people in the exact same socio-economoc conditions. Thieves rarely prey on the rich because the rich have guards and walls and whatnot. They overhwhelmingly prey on the other poor people shuffling along down the street with a handful of coin they managed to earn that day, so they can feed their family (which the thief takes to feed his family, or more likely feed a gambling/alchohol/drug habit). Thieves guilds most collect protection money from those who don't have sufficient wealth to protect themselves (from the thieves). Theft almost *always* falls most heavily on those who can't afford the "harm" of theft. So I feel far more comfortable making any alignment assumption about thievery "evil", and only allow other determinations when specific cases really justify it.
    Last edited by gbaji; 2023-01-23 at 03:50 PM.

  2. - Top - End - #122
    Bugbear in the Playground
    Join Date
    Aug 2022

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by Pauly View Post
    The single author fiction where incompatible souls are in the same party usually have the party members chained together. Sometimes literally, sometimes with a high tech equivalent such as Amanda Waller’s neck bombs. Other times it’s a lifeboat scenario or an Anabasis scenario. It is commonly used to create in party conflict that has to be overcome as part of the plot.
    I think the biggest problem with single author fiction is that they will put conflicting character types into close proximity in a story in the first place (yes, chaning them together), in order to create "drama" in the story, but since it's single author, they can write resolutions that "work" within the larger story (and often generate faceplams from me).

    Where this is problematic is when players (or worse GMs) attempt to duplicate the same intercharacter "drama" in an RPG. This, obviously, doesn't work because you no longer have a single author to resolve things in a workable story fashion, and thus devolves into chaos and conflict.

    Real people aren't the cardboard cutouts you see in those TV/film dramas though. When was the last time in the real world you ever heard of a group of people being trapped in a mine, or crashed in a remote area, or stranded on a deserted island, and turning on eachother and backstabbing eachother for personal reasons? Never, right? Never actually happens. But that happens 100% of the time in fiction.

    Don't follow bad fiction when creating characters to play in your game. Base them on how real people might behave in a real (ok, alternative fantasy) world environment. If the players and GM are on the same page with this form of party construction, you will find that you can have a whole lot of different character personalities and types (and yes, alignments even) while not actually having those characters take the same sort of self destructive (and frankly monumentally stupid) actions that characters in fiction do.

    You don't have to be a stereotypical mustache twirling idiot to play "evil" in an RPG. You really really don't.
    Last edited by gbaji; 2023-01-23 at 03:52 PM.

  3. - Top - End - #123
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Batcathat's Avatar

    Join Date
    Nov 2019

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post
    And I'll point out that for decades the whole "Lawful means following the law" has been debunked and dismissed as an incorrect way to intprepret D&D alignment.
    Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post
    You don't have to be a stereotypical mustache twirling idiot to play "evil" in an RPG. You really really don't.
    It does feel like part of the problems (though not all, since I find the concept inherently flawed) with D&D alignment (Admittedly, Talakeal's system isn't D&D, but it seems close enough in this regard) is because of poorly chosen words. People are very likely to equate "lawful" with "follows the law" and slightly less likely to equate "evil" with "cartoon evil" (or really any of the many different interpretations of the word that don't match the D&D version) no matter how many times they are told otherwise.

  4. - Top - End - #124
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    OldWizardGuy

    Join Date
    Aug 2010

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post
    Y
    These are contradictory statements though. All theft "deprives people of their possessions". Period. Ergo, all theft involves "harm", which you identify as "evil". Yet you start out stating that theft is morally nuetral.

    I view it the opposite. Theft, by itself, is morally evil. It may be neutral under certain circumstances in which the harm you are doing is justified (in the same way other harmful acts like assault, imprisonment, killing, etc, may be). There must always be additional external factors that allow for the commission of an otherwise "evil" act to make it anything other than evil. And yes, this may have a law/chaos aspect with regards to rules/not-rules (or laws, or whatever), but that does not remove the basic moral aspect as well. Taking things from people is harm. Harming people is evil. That's the default you should start from, or your moral system just can't work.

    Those are the exceptions to the rule though. The starting point has to be "stealing is wrong". Only after you start there can you carve out exceptions. It's funny because you keep making broad statements about theft not being evil, and I keep pointing out basic theft cases where one person takes something from someone else for their own benefit, and you keep only responding with rare Robin Hood scenarios.

    Here's the problem with assuming the Robin Hood scenario: It's too easy to rationalize property others own as "not needed by them" and "needed by me/someone else". The very concept you are using is really an outgrowth of fairly modern sociological philosopy (and a large number of steps down that philosophy as well). I think it can be problematic, especially if playing in a semi-medieval setting, to try to apply really modern concepts of property and rights into a basic moral code (especially something like alignment). But that appears to be what you are doing here.
    I generally agree with you here.

    What I've found that works is something like this:

    Acts that infringe on others (theft, imprisonment, harm, etc.) are evil. Acts that help others that do not gain you anything are good. Things that do neither are neutral.

    Most people do some mix of all of the above, at various times.

    Good people will do a lot of neutral things, and a lot of good things. They'll do some evil, but usually more "minor" evil, and usually only in great need and as a last resort, and they'll feel bad about it.
    Neutral people mostly are the same as good people, but they do less good things (probably a lot!) and are slightly more likely to do evil. IOW, good and neutral people are mostly the same, except good people do more good. But both still do a ton of neutral.
    Evil people do evil willingly and with little compunction. Maybe not *big* evil, but evil nonetheless. The harm it does to others doesn't really enter into it, but impacts on them do.

    In concrete terms, a good person may steal bread to feed themselves or others in need. They'll do so if they have no money, and they'd likely try to get or work out a deal with the shopkeeper first. But if all else fails? Sure, they'll steal it. But they'll feel really bad about it, and probably try to make amends when they get the opportunity.

    An evil person? They'll steal that bread just because they're a little hungry, it's there and they can get away with it.

    A good person can still do evil, and an evil person can do good. And there's grey areas between them, and fuzzy bits.

    I find this to be a good framework for gaming. It doesn't require you to think about what justification is required (as "it's good if you can justify it" just really asks you to be clever in your justification). It sets understandable lines. It's predictable - someone knows, in general, what is evil and what is good and what is neutral. Most of the things that would be evil/good line up really well, and the weird bits are usually in weird areas. It allows for interesting villains - characters that do evil things, but for good reasons, are still seen as evil, overall.

    About the only weird one is Robin Hood, but it's worth noting that in a lot of the original legends, the money Robin stole was, effectively stolen in the first place. So there's that.
    "Gosh 2D8HP, you are so very correct (and also good looking)"

  5. - Top - End - #125
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Planetar

    Join Date
    May 2018

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by Batcathat View Post
    It does feel like part of the problems (though not all, since I find the concept inherently flawed) with D&D alignment (Admittedly, Talakeal's system isn't D&D, but it seems close enough in this regard) is because of poorly chosen words. People are very likely to equate "lawful" with "follows the law" and slightly less likely to equate "evil" with "cartoon evil" (or really any of the many different interpretations of the word that don't match the D&D version) no matter how many times they are told otherwise.
    Interestingly, in my language (French), "lawful" was translated by "loyal", which avoid the confusion with the "law", but comes with its own pack of worms in terms of ambiguity (does that mean that if you're not "loyal" then you're necessarily prone to backstabbing your teammates?).

    Similarly, "evil" was not translated using the word that would be associated with "cartoon evil" (which is "maléfique"), but instead simply "bad" (so "mauvais").

  6. - Top - End - #126
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    Dec 2010

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post
    These are contradictory statements though. All theft "deprives people of their possessions". Period. Ergo, all theft involves "harm", which you identify as "evil". Yet you start out stating that theft is morally nuetral.
    If you believe that possessing things is not a right - everyone is always just borrowing things from a shared social or environmental pool - then its not contradictory. In that case, you'd have two senses of 'theft'. Theft in the sense of 'removing something permanently from the social pool of resources' would be immoral. Theft in the sense of 'not respecting someone's claim that this thing belongs only to them' but which returns that object into circulation in the social pool or exercises the implied rights of use that any member of the society has towards that object would not innately be, especially if the thing in question was not being actively used or depended on. So in that moral system, stealing a painting from someone's vault would likely not be immoral, and not because of some counter-weighting good. Just because that moral system does not recognize property rights as being a thing in the first place.

    Not saying this particular moral system is anything close to fantasy RPG alignment systems, but its something in the possibility space, and understanding that might make the rest of the conversation easier.

  7. - Top - End - #127
    Bugbear in the Playground
    Join Date
    Oct 2016

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    I don't know how you can possibly have a group where that isn't the case as players tend to find their fun in such drastically different ways.

    If one guy gets their fun from playing a heroic LG paladin who defends the innocent and another gets their fun from playing a villainous CE assassin who defiles the innocent, there really can't be a situation where both have fun working together; a compromise is going to have to be found both in and out of character.
    Honestly those players shouldn’t RP together. If their idea of fun in an RPG is so diametrically opposed then there is no IC solution. You only have an OOC marriage if convenience that sooner or later is going to cause IC problems and OOC conflict.

    It’s OK to say your idea of fun is X, my idea of fun is Y and they’re incompatible so let’s not mix them. I don’t invite my football loving friends to the opera, nor do I invite my opera loving friends to the football. I go to the opera with my friends who like opera and go to the football with my friends who like football.

  8. - Top - End - #128
    Bugbear in the Playground
    Join Date
    Aug 2022

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by NichG View Post
    If you believe that possessing things is not a right - everyone is always just borrowing things from a shared social or environmental pool - then its not contradictory.
    Sure. Which leads to either a very modern sociological philosophy which I'm not going to dscuss at length *or* a very small scale socio-economic condition pretty much only existing in small extended (and relatively primitive) family tribes/clans.

    Neither are conditions most RPG settings are, er... set in.

    Quote Originally Posted by NichG View Post
    In that case, you'd have two senses of 'theft'. Theft in the sense of 'removing something permanently from the social pool of resources' would be immoral. Theft in the sense of 'not respecting someone's claim that this thing belongs only to them' but which returns that object into circulation in the social pool or exercises the implied rights of use that any member of the society has towards that object would not innately be, especially if the thing in question was not being actively used or depended on.
    Yes. We can certainly conceive of a society in which shared property is the norm, so anyone taking something for their own use out of that shared pool would be "evil". Er, but that's the "theft" in the first place, right? The person returning those goods to the common pool would not usually be referrred to as a thief, nor what they are doing as theft. Again, if we were to speculate this sociial form in the first place. That still leaves us with "theft is evil" as a default condition. We're just extending the harm being done from an indiviual being stolen from to the whole of the group.

    Quote Originally Posted by NichG View Post
    So in that moral system, stealing a painting from someone's vault would likely not be immoral, and not because of some counter-weighting good. Just because that moral system does not recognize property rights as being a thing in the first place.
    I would also argue that if we were to speculate about such a society, said society would likely never generate things like priceless paintings for anyone to steal and hold in a vault in the first place. And if they did? The "theft" would be the guy taking it from wherever it was being held for common enjoyment/appreciation and hiding it away in the vault in the first place.

    But yeah, most societies that are truely about shared property tend not to waste resources on more than the most basic of art (and certainly not have a "market" for thieves to steal it and do... what?). They tend towards utilitarian purposes. Um... Which still can involve theft, right? Someone takes the communal plow from the shed and locks it in their own shed so only they can use it. Someone else breaks the lock on that shed and returns it to the community. Which one is the thief? And where did the second shed come from in the first place? Or the lock for that matter?

    Heck. Even just looking at it from a communal point of view, the guy running around taking the fruits of other people's labors instead of spending that same time contributing to the "pool" is also committing theft. He's not just stealing the possession itself but also his share of "communal work" from the group. Again, if we're actually really examining how such a shared communal system would have to work.

    I think my problem with this line of reasoning is that in every other aspect we're assuming that the setting's characters do live in a society with private property rights, and where there are significant numbers of "wealthy people", who have significant amounts of wealth, so as to justify stealing from them because "they don't really need that". And in that sort of setting, the act of taking from that person does not cease to be an evil act just because "they don't really need it". We already have a system in which it's assumed that people accumulate "wealth" over time, and some may be rich and some may be poor. And yeah, many of those who are "rich" didn't automatically achieve that wealth because they just stole stuff from other people, but maybe actually earned it over time, legally and fairy. And in that case (which is most of the time), the person stealing from them is the thief and commiting harm, and not the other way around.

    Again. Obvious exceptions when the person who has something did actually obtain it via some evil actions of their own. I just find it problematic to create an alignment system where that's assumed to be the norm rather than a conditional placed on the norm. Doubly so if we're assuming some sort of PC profession/class of "thief/rogue", right? It's pretty unlikely that said character developed their second story B&E and lockpicking skills only by stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Actually, scratch that. It's absurd to think that.

    Quote Originally Posted by NichG View Post
    Not saying this particular moral system is anything close to fantasy RPG alignment systems, but its something in the possibility space, and understanding that might make the rest of the conversation easier.
    Yeah. I get that. I just doubt very many settings people are discussing are really like that in the first place. And again, if they were, a lot of the concepts assumed to exist simply wouldn't (or at least not in a way that justifies the "thievery is neutral by default" position.

    Dunno. Maybe we're getting caught up on what "theft" is?

  9. - Top - End - #129
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    Dec 2010

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post
    Sure. Which leads to either a very modern sociological philosophy which I'm not going to dscuss at length *or* a very small scale socio-economic condition pretty much only existing in small extended (and relatively primitive) family tribes/clans.

    Neither are conditions most RPG settings are, er... set in.

    Yes. We can certainly conceive of a society in which shared property is the norm, so anyone taking something for their own use out of that shared pool would be "evil". Er, but that's the "theft" in the first place, right? The person returning those goods to the common pool would not usually be referrred to as a thief, nor what they are doing as theft. Again, if we were to speculate this sociial form in the first place. That still leaves us with "theft is evil" as a default condition. We're just extending the harm being done from an indiviual being stolen from to the whole of the group.

    I would also argue that if we were to speculate about such a society, said society would likely never generate things like priceless paintings for anyone to steal and hold in a vault in the first place. And if they did? The "theft" would be the guy taking it from wherever it was being held for common enjoyment/appreciation and hiding it away in the vault in the first place.
    Kender society in Dragonlance for example is more or less explicitly like this. "I'm not stealing it, I'm borrowing it!" is a fairly common refrain. Conflict arises when people from that sort of background enter other societies that aren't organized that way, but apply their moral framework from their own society to those others. That's an argument for falling on the law/chaos divide - ignoring or not respecting the local context in which actions are interpreted is a chaotic stance.

    The argument would be, not all conflict is inherently evil. Disagreements can have winners and losers and there can be stakes, and as a result of those stakes fortunes can rise and fall, but not all interactions in which someone ends up worse off would necessarily involve evil. In a moral system in which there are permitted ranges of behaviors and specific things but not others are rights, actions which deny people value which they do not have a moral right to would not be evil, even if they were harmful.

  10. - Top - End - #130
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Talakeal's Avatar

    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Denver.
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Wow, busy thread today.

    Before we get into this, I want to say that I am talking about general RPG philosophy.

    My own system doesn't really care much for ethical matters, and my playgroup has problems between people who want to be Heroes vs. those who want to be Villains, we aren't really concerned about theft one way or the other, but about things like murder, torture, and war-crimes. Slavery and rape to I guess, although those are typically explored under the guise of mind-controlling magics that leave them divorced from the real world.

    As for D&D alignment, it is incoherent IMO. The game simultaneously is built around three traditions:
    1: A bronze age sword and sorcery setting with amoral heroes and where cosmic powers are chaos and law rather than good and evil.
    2: A medieval high fantasy tradition where montheism and monarchy are the norm and all morality and authority ultimately comes from the same divine source.
    3: A western ideal about a frontier that is the bulwark protecting civilization against barbaric savages.

    Trying to do all three at one, along with needing to balance gamist concerns with the fiction and numerous authors over 40 years, and we get a mess.

    Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post
    These are contradictory statements though. All theft "deprives people of their possessions". Period. Ergo, all theft involves "harm", which you identify as "evil". Yet you start out stating that theft is morally nuetral.
    That's not what I said though.

    I didn't say depriving people WAS harm, I said it could cause harm.

    There are plenty of rich people who have more money than they could ever spend and to whom any given unit of money is just a number in a ledger. Likewise, many businesses simply destroy or throw away unsold merchandise rather than giving it to the needy. I personally own tons of movies I will never watch, books I will never read, and minis I will never paint or play with.

    Stealing excess goods from those who have plenty to spare does not by itself cause harm.

    Smaug doesn't need a literal mountain of gold to survive, or even maintain his lifestyle, but he still goes into a murderous rampage when Bilbo steals a single cup because he is greedy and covetous, not because the loss actually arms him in any real way.



    Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post
    Taking things from people is harm. Harming people is evil. That's the default you should start from, or your moral system just can't work.
    Disagree on all points.


    Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post
    And I'll point out that for decades the whole "Lawful means following the law" has been debunked and dismissed as an incorrect way to intprepret D&D alignment. Yet, here we are. Robin Hood was not a hero because he was opposing the law. He was a hero because he was opposing an evil person who had taken power and was abusing it for his own ends at the expense of the people he was supposed to be protecting and serving. The law/chaos axis is not just about obeying or not obeying the law. And it's absolutely absurd to exclude from the good/evil axis anything that is *also* a violation of the law. Because most "evil" things are also going to be illegal. Your position would assume that the moment we pass a law making murder illegal, murder is no longer an evil act, but a chaotic one. That's not very rational.
    I agree, that is not very rationale. Good thing I never said that.

    Law is, to me, about imposing rules on reality and then asking people to obey those rules. This could mean a code of laws, but it could also be the instructions for a game, it could mean a code of chivalry, it could mean the tenants of a religion or philosophy, or many other things.

    I said several pages ago that good and evil come down to causing and alleviating suffering. Doing so against the rules is chaotic. Breaking the rules to help someone is CG, breaking the rules to hurt someone is CE. Helping someone within the rules is LG, hurting someone within the rules is LE.

    The whole concept of ownership and economics is innately lawful, it is an attempt to impose rules on reality. It is pointing at things that exist and labeling them as belonging to one person or other.

    And in a world with finite resources, that can either cause or prevent great harm.

    When we throw in public vs. private lands, slavery, inheritance, patents, loans, contracts, stocks, taxes, corporate assets, royalty feeds, intellectual trademarks and patents, usury, fiat currency, fractional reserve banking, certain classes of people being exempted from the system, environmental degradation and pollution, rentals, etc. it gets a heck of a lot more complicated than simply saying "this is mine, you no take or you bad man".
    And of course, then we get to the whole idea of colonialism where people plant a flag and then claim that they own entire portions of the natural world, with or without violently displacing the people who may or may not have already been there.

    As an aside, its kind of interesting to think that this forms kind of an ethical horseshoe, on one end you can take it so far that you can say people can own one another to justify rape, torture, and slavery, and then on the other hand you could take it so far in the opposite direction to say that people don't even own their own body to justify rape, torture, and slavery. Not really here or there, just thinking about the logical extremes of this philosophy.


    Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post
    That's great. But can we also acknowledge that the vast majority of theft does not restrict itself just to those who don't need it while refraining from stealing from those who need it? The cases where thieves only steal from the uber rich and give to the poor is a vast exception, not a rule.

    This is a convenient rationalization for theft IMO. While it may work on an individual basis for a specific PC in a game, it's not a great basis for an alignment determination. Most thieves are not (relatively) wealthy adventurer player characters governed by WBL rules or something. Most are poor. And they will continue to be poor because theft is not a great way to ever become anything other than that.

    By your rules, a local street thief is at worse neutral alignment if they steal from their (equally poor) neighbors, because they are equally needy? That's... insane. Again. The vast majority of theft occurs between people in the exact same socio-economoc conditions. Thieves rarely prey on the rich because the rich have guards and walls and whatnot. They overhwhelmingly prey on the other poor people shuffling along down the street with a handful of coin they managed to earn that day, so they can feed their family (which the thief takes to feed his family, or more likely feed a gambling/alchohol/drug habit). Thieves guilds most collect protection money from those who don't have sufficient wealth to protect themselves (from the thieves). Theft almost *always* falls most heavily on those who can't afford the "harm" of theft. So I feel far more comfortable making any alignment assumption about thievery "evil", and only allow other determinations when specific cases really justify it.
    Most people who do a thing do it for evil, therefore the thing is innately evil is not a logically sound argument.


    Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post
    But theft is an outcome. You take X dollars from someone. That X dollars buys exactly the same amount of "stuff" regardless of who holds it. The harm done is identical. Your argument is like saying that it's not assault to attack a 15th level fighter because he had plenty of extra hps, so he could afford to lose some. You are doing the same exact harm to someone with theft, just some people can afford to be harmed more is all.
    That's absurd.

    Of course the outcome matters!

    Of course stealing money from someone who is scraping by is worse than stealing from someone who is living in luxury!

    Of course attacking someone who is healthy enough to survive it is better than someone who isn't! That's why we have "battery vs. attempted murder" laws.

    If some healthy young jocks are horsing around and one of them picks up another and body slams him into the ground, that's just ordinary rough housing. If the same man did it to his 90 year old grand mother, that's attempted murder.
    Slipping spicy hot pepper into your healthy friend's food is a prank; slipping it into your friend who is deathly allergic to pepper's food is attempted murder!



    Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post
    It's still harm. And absent significant additional factors, it's still evil.
    And this is why so many alignment discussions go in circles.

    IMO it is not the methods that matter, it is the outcome. Actions which result in suffering are evil, actions which negate suffering are good.*

    Labeling objects or actions innately good or evil is, imo, a symptom of rigid lawful thinking.

    But ultimately, it doesn't really matter. Saying, "stealing is innately neutral but the consequences often make it evil" and saying "Stealing is innately evil but the consequences sometimes make it good" are essentially only semantically different.

    *Of course, there are a whole lot of complexities; where one draws the line between pleasure and pain, how much intent matters, how much evil is acceptable vs. good, etc. but that's all ancillary to the discussion.


    Quote Originally Posted by NichG View Post
    If you believe that possessing things is not a right - everyone is always just borrowing things from a shared social or environmental pool - then its not contradictory. In that case, you'd have two senses of 'theft'. Theft in the sense of 'removing something permanently from the social pool of resources' would be immoral. Theft in the sense of 'not respecting someone's claim that this thing belongs only to them' but which returns that object into circulation in the social pool or exercises the implied rights of use that any member of the society has towards that object would not innately be, especially if the thing in question was not being actively used or depended on. So in that moral system, stealing a painting from someone's vault would likely not be immoral, and not because of some counter-weighting good. Just because that moral system does not recognize property rights as being a thing in the first place.

    Not saying this particular moral system is anything close to fantasy RPG alignment systems, but its something in the possibility space, and understanding that might make the rest of the conversation easier.
    This is very close to what I am saying, yes.


    Quote Originally Posted by NichG View Post
    Kender society in Dragonlance for example is more or less explicitly like this. "I'm not stealing it, I'm borrowing it!" is a fairly common refrain. Conflict arises when people from that sort of background enter other societies that aren't organized that way, but apply their moral framework from their own society to those others. That's an argument for falling on the law/chaos divide - ignoring or not respecting the local context in which actions are interpreted is a chaotic stance.

    The argument would be, not all conflict is inherently evil. Disagreements can have winners and losers and there can be stakes, and as a result of those stakes fortunes can rise and fall, but not all interactions in which someone ends up worse off would necessarily involve evil. In a moral system in which there are permitted ranges of behaviors and specific things but not others are rights, actions which deny people value which they do not have a moral right to would not be evil, even if they were harmful.
    I was actually going to use that very example.

    Kender are presented as extremely chaotic good, and that manifests of not having a concept of personal property. They frequently steal things from other races, but the setting labels them as objectively Chaotic Good.

    IIRC it was the general consensus that theft in D&D was not innately an evil act back in the old days when we used to have weekly alignment wars on these boards.

    But at the same time, it labels poison use innately evil.

    Which seems really odd to me, as that also seems to be something that is more about "honorable combat" than good and evil. Its absurd that, say, a race of intelligent rattle-snakes would be expected not to use poison and to label them as objectively evil as a result despite having an otherwise altruistic outlook. And it also says that euthanizing someone painlessly with an injection is worse than burning them alive.

    Again, D&D alignment is really incoherent.
    Looking for feedback on Heart of Darkness, a character driven RPG of Gothic fantasy.

  11. - Top - End - #131
    Troll in the Playground
     
    WolfInSheepsClothing

    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    Italy
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by NichG View Post
    If you believe that possessing things is not a right - everyone is always just borrowing things from a shared social or environmental pool - then its not contradictory. In that case, you'd have two senses of 'theft'. Theft in the sense of 'removing something permanently from the social pool of resources' would be immoral. Theft in the sense of 'not respecting someone's claim that this thing belongs only to them' but which returns that object into circulation in the social pool or exercises the implied rights of use that any member of the society has towards that object would not innately be, especially if the thing in question was not being actively used or depended on. So in that moral system, stealing a painting from someone's vault would likely not be immoral, and not because of some counter-weighting good. Just because that moral system does not recognize property rights as being a thing in the first place.

    Not saying this particular moral system is anything close to fantasy RPG alignment systems, but its something in the possibility space, and understanding that might make the rest of the conversation easier.
    let us not forget that most of the times, property comes from labor. you worked, you spent some of your time doing something you'd rather not do, you produced something of value. You then traded it for other stuff that you need. society invented currency to keep track of this borrowing - it would be very inconvenient if my reward for teaching kids would be a chicken from a farmer parent, one hour of legal advice from a lawyer parent, one square meter of wall to be built by the mason parent, and so on.
    anyway, 99% of people don't owe stuff because of social contract, they owe stuff because they worked for it. taking their stuff then is clearly hurting them, in that they worked so hard for nothing. and while I can see an exception for "involuntary borrowing", I never heard of a thief returning the loot after using it for a few days - plus there are all kinds of smaller problems involved.
    Sure, you could say that stealing to the remaining 1% of people who own stuff because they cheated is fine. but then you'd have to define who cheated and who didn't. generally, people using this excuse claim that everyone who made money cheated and is authomatically a fair target. generally, people with those ideas rarely have produced something of value themselves.

    that said, I can certainly imagine specific circumstances where it would be not evil to steal - not just justified by a greater need, but not problematic at all. but the fact that such great care would have to be devised to engineer such a scenario just proves that stealing is normally evil; any exception is just that, exceptional.
    That said, I can also envision a guy who steals but is still mostly good. wayne from mistborn era 2 is the best example I know. and nobody thinks his kleptomania is fine except him.

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post

    If one guy gets their fun from playing a heroic LG paladin who defends the innocent and another gets their fun from playing a villainous CE assassin who defiles the innocent, there really can't be a situation where both have fun working together; a compromise is going to have to be found both in and out of character.
    this is a very, very extreme example. I've never seen anything like that happen in practice.
    but if it happens, then yes, this is creative differences. if those two guys can only play in their way, then they cannot play together, and it's silly to try.
    pauly said it right with football and opera.
    In memory of Evisceratus: he dreamed of a better world, but he lacked the class levels to make the dream come true.

    Ridiculous monsters you won't take seriously even as they disembowel you

    my take on the highly skilled professional: the specialized expert

  12. - Top - End - #132
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Talakeal's Avatar

    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Denver.
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Also, I personally don't really care that much about the issue of theft, I have never stolen anything more valuable than a gas station pen irl and have never played a thief in an RPG, nor had much of an opinion one way or the other about fellow PCs who did. And I really don't care too much about what D&D says on the issue

    But this thread is making me doubt my own sanity on the issue, so I am going back and doing some research.

    But I can't find anything in D&D texts conflating stealing with evil, and I recall the forum opinion being not evil but chaotic. BoED doesn't seem to mention it, BoVD says "While every child knows stealing is wrong, an evil person takes it one step further and will take anything they can by force without a compelling reason not to" and Fiendish Codex lists "stealing from the needy" as a 2 out of 7 on the corruption scale.

    Googling "Is stealing evil in dungeons and dragons" brings back the answer "Theft isn't evil; it's Chaotic not Lawful, but it's neither Good nor Evil. It could be more Neutral than Chaotic, if it was for a purpose; but ..." and then links to this reddit thread, where the majority opinion seems to match my own; neutral by default, good if stealing from the rich to give to the poor, evil if stealing from the poor to give to the rich".
    Looking for feedback on Heart of Darkness, a character driven RPG of Gothic fantasy.

  13. - Top - End - #133
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    Dec 2010

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by King of Nowhere View Post
    let us not forget that most of the times, property comes from labor. you worked, you spent some of your time doing something you'd rather not do, you produced something of value. You then traded it for other stuff that you need. society invented currency to keep track of this borrowing - it would be very inconvenient if my reward for teaching kids would be a chicken from a farmer parent, one hour of legal advice from a lawyer parent, one square meter of wall to be built by the mason parent, and so on.
    anyway, 99% of people don't owe stuff because of social contract, they owe stuff because they worked for it. taking their stuff then is clearly hurting them, in that they worked so hard for nothing. and while I can see an exception for "involuntary borrowing", I never heard of a thief returning the loot after using it for a few days - plus there are all kinds of smaller problems involved.
    Sure, you could say that stealing to the remaining 1% of people who own stuff because they cheated is fine. but then you'd have to define who cheated and who didn't. generally, people using this excuse claim that everyone who made money cheated and is authomatically a fair target. generally, people with those ideas rarely have produced something of value themselves.

    that said, I can certainly imagine specific circumstances where it would be not evil to steal - not just justified by a greater need, but not problematic at all. but the fact that such great care would have to be devised to engineer such a scenario just proves that stealing is normally evil; any exception is just that, exceptional.
    That said, I can also envision a guy who steals but is still mostly good. wayne from mistborn era 2 is the best example I know. and nobody thinks his kleptomania is fine except him.
    Again, one can imagine societies in which the norms do not declare that effort or labor must be rewarded in proportion and turn, that personally capturing value is granted in response entirely based on the fact that you did spend time with that goal in mind as opposed to other standards. I'm also not trying to argue that 'theft is evil' or 'theft is not evil'. I am trying to argue that 'a moral system in which theft is not evil can still be coherent and self-consistent' - e.g. that if someone were to make a game and setting in which theft is not evil, that would not be inherently nonsensical by its very nature.

    Personally, in terms of my own real-world morality, I don't even use 'good' and 'evil' as categories, so theft isn't evil because 'evil' isn't itself a single, meaningful thing and judging moral status isn't the function of a moral system to me - instead there are circles of permission, constraint, and a concept of what constitutes a reasonable response to trespasses of those circles. Good and Evil are crude summaries of the complex pattern of variations in how others and society can reasonably respond to one actor versus another without me as a third party feeling any pressure to intervene in those interactions on one or the other side.

  14. - Top - End - #134
    Bugbear in the Playground
    Join Date
    Aug 2022

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by NichG View Post
    Kender society in Dragonlance for example is more or less explicitly like this. "I'm not stealing it, I'm borrowing it!" is a fairly common refrain. Conflict arises when people from that sort of background enter other societies that aren't organized that way, but apply their moral framework from their own society to those others. That's an argument for falling on the law/chaos divide - ignoring or not respecting the local context in which actions are interpreted is a chaotic stance
    Maybe. I'd suggest that, realistically, conflict arises when a player, who themselves lives in a world where property isn't communal, plays a Kender so as to justify stealing stuff as "not really evil at all. I'm just a Kender. La la la!". There's a reason why Kender are broadly considered one of the most annoying PC choices in all D&D existence. To the point that I barely play D&D and yet have heard enough negative statements about Kender (and people who play them) on this very issue.

    In concept? Yeah. I get it. In practice? How many players of Kender have you ever seen hand over all their stuff to the party so that others may use it instead of them? Even in cases where someone else might make better use of that item?


    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    That's not what I said though.

    I didn't say depriving people WAS harm, I said it could cause harm.
    To be fair, you said something like "harm which is done by depriving people of their property is evil". I suppose we could interpret that as excluding cases where being deprived of property doesn't actually cause harm, but that's a heck of a nit to pick IMO. If we assume that some forms of depriving people does qualify as "harm" (so we're not limiting the term to just physical or mental injury or something else equally silly), then we'd have to make some distinction between what sorts of "depriving of property" constitutes "harm", and which do not.

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    There are plenty of rich people who have more money than they could ever spend and to whom any given unit of money is just a number in a ledger. Likewise, many businesses simply destroy or throw away unsold merchandise rather than giving it to the needy. I personally own tons of movies I will never watch, books I will never read, and minis I will never paint or play with.

    Stealing excess goods from those who have plenty to spare does not by itself cause harm.
    There are plenty of people who claim this. That's not the same as it being true. I just find it interesting that when people talk about other people's property, they find themselves falling into this, but never (or rarely) about their own "stuff". I'm reasonably certain that if someone broke into your home and stole your excess books, movies, and minis, you'd still call the cops and report it as a theft, right? It's your "stuff", and that includes the right to decide what to do with the excess stuff you don't care about anymore. Even if all someone did was "steal" your ability to choose whom to give the stuff too, or where to donate it yourself, that's still "harm" caused to you.

    No one has "more money than they can spend". That's a very personal consumption focused view of money. Not everone only uses money to buy things for themselves and their families. I used the example of a noble who is very wealthy (certainly compared to the commoners living on his land), but is obligated to use that wealth to provide safety, protection, laws, trade, representation, etc, for those commoners with that wealth. Simialrly, while it may appear at first glance that the successful wealthy merchant is just sitting on "far more money than he needs", he may be using that money to pursue new trade routes, at great expense, that yeah, may earn him more money in the future, but may also benefit others by making goods from far off places more obtainable to those living in the area. Or perhaps, heaven forbid, making goods that were once rare and prohibitively expensive, relatively common and affordable even to the "common man".


    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    The whole concept of ownership and economics is innately lawful, it is an attempt to impose rules on reality. It is pointing at things that exist and labeling them as belonging to one person or other.
    Sure. But most rules exist to limit or eliminate "harm". So to ignore the good/evil aspect of this seems silly.

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    As an aside, its kind of interesting to think that this forms kind of an ethical horseshoe, on one end you can take it so far that you can say people can own one another to justify rape, torture, and slavery, and then on the other hand you could take it so far in the opposite direction to say that people don't even own their own body to justify rape, torture, and slavery. Not really here or there, just thinking about the logical extremes of this philosophy.
    If we're speaking of philosophy, maybe read up on Locke and/or Rousseau? You can ignore/bypass the bits more specific to the times/places they were writing about, but you might just gain a greater understanding of concepts like why governments/laws exist, and why property is important. Dunno. Seems like you are missing something here. But I suspect it might give some insights into how things might better fit into a law/chaos vs good/evil alignment system. And, for the record, I'm not a fan of that dual axis method anyway, but if you're going to try to use it...

    Not going to touch your list with a 10' pole though. Just advise you to do some research on the subject elsewhere.


    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    Most people who do a thing do it for evil, therefore the thing is innately evil is not a logically sound argument.
    If I'm countering a claim like "stealing is naturally neutral, not evil", then yes, it kinda is. You're arguing the exception as though it is the norm. I'm trying to point out that the opposite is actually true.


    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    Of course stealing money from someone who is scraping by is worse than stealing from someone who is living in luxury!
    From the point of view of the victim? Maybe (debatable though). From the point of view of the person stealing? Not at all. You steal X amount of money. You didn't have it, and now you do. The value to *you* is precisely the same. The alignment is from the pov of the person doing the aciton, not the person affected by it. This is why I spoke earlier about the alignment effect of an action being based on the motivations for the action itself. So yeah, if you steal $100 from a rich person or from a poor person, purely because you want $100 for yourself, that act is equally "evil". Saying "it's ok because that guy is rich" is you rationalizing the action away from the truth: "You want $100 that you don't have and didn't earn".

    I also might suggest that the motivation to steal from rich people is less about reducing the harmful impact of the theft on the victim, as increasing the likely haul for the thief. But hey. That's just crazy speculation on my part. But again, if the motivation is "I want something I don't have" and you fulfill that want by stealing, that is an evil act. It does not become not-evil just because the person you stole from has enough money that the theft will not cause them to go hungry, or be homeless, or whatever.

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    Of course attacking someone who is healthy enough to survive it is better than someone who isn't! That's why we have "battery vs. attempted murder" laws.
    Patently incorrect. It's battery in both cases. It might *also* become attempted murder if the judged intent was to kill, regardless of actual resulting degree of harm. Again, you are restating my argument. I'm simpy saying that it does not cease to be battery just because the person is tough enough to take the damage inflicted without permanent injury.

    This is analgous to your claim that theft ceases to be "harm" if the money lost doesn't result in some inability to feed or house or clothe oneself.

    You're free to disagree, but the law doesn't change the penalty for assault and/or battery based on how physically tough the target is. Yes, it may upgrade that charge to something more serious in some cases, but never downgrade it. Shockingly, it also doesn't change the penalty for theft based on the finances of the victim.


    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    But ultimately, it doesn't really matter. Saying, "stealing is innately neutral but the consequences often make it evil" and saying "Stealing is innately evil but the consequences sometimes make it good" are essentially only semantically different.
    Perhaps. But let's recall that this entire line of discussion arose from you presenting a scenario where someone came across someone else sleeping and you defined as evil "robbing and killing the sleeper", and I, trying to be more specific, stated that robbing that person would also be evil. Random person you run into. You presumably don't know this person, and have no clue about their personal financial situation (so none of the excuses written previously apply). Do you rob them or not?

    My argument as (and still is) that being "evil" doesn't require running around randomly killing people for no reason. There's a much larger range of things that a character can do that are harmful to others, greedy, selfish, etc, that will qualify them as "evil". And I think I made a point about good vs evil primarily being about the degree to which one is motivated by selfish vs selfless acts. So yeah, stealing, if your reason is purely to take something for yourself (ie: no altruistic reasons involved) is evil. If that's a thing you do regularly and is just part of your character's personality, then that character is "evil". No need to kill people to reach that alignment IMO.

    Doesn't mean that an evil character wont kill people, but it's certainly not required. Again, it's about your motivation for doing the harmful act. I think somewhere long the line, we got kinda lost in a discussion of whether loss of property is really "harm" if you have lots of it, but IMO that's really beside the point. The core point was that you seemed to be restricting "evil" characters to just those who randomly kill people, and argued that this would make it impossible for good people to work with them. Which is true, except for that most people don't restrict "evil" that much.


    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    Again, D&D alignment is really incoherent.
    On this, we completely agree.

  15. - Top - End - #135
    Troll in the Playground
     
    Flumph

    Join Date
    Oct 2007

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Re: Theft -

    So I guess I'd call my "working ethics" as roughly "run it through both rule-based and utilitarian evaluation, if they disagree then think on it more carefully", which I think is fairly common. That is, I'd generally evaluate things by their (expected) results, but there are some things where they're basically starting at -100 and need to have an airtight case to even consider. Theft is not one of those things, but it can be (and often is) still non-good in practice because of the results.

    So like:
    "Theft is justified in this case" - perhaps it is, explain to me why
    "Skinning people alive is justified in this case" - you're probably wrong and possibly psycho. I'll evaluate your argument if there's time, but if you're walking around with a knife ready to start skinning, then I'm going to assume you need to be stopped ASAP.


    Edit: Also, with theft specifically, the utility function is not only based on the value of the stolen property. How it was stolen can be equally or more important, because of other forms of harm besides lost money. Trivial example, consider these three cases:
    A) Someone is having a new TV delivered, and you steal it en-route.
    B) You break into someone's house and take their TV.
    C) You break into someone's house and steal nothing, instead leaving a note saying "I know where you live" and a dead pigeon.

    IMO, the harm is obviously greatest with C and least with A, despite that A involves a larger monetary loss.
    Last edited by icefractal; 2023-01-23 at 10:59 PM.

  16. - Top - End - #136
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    Dec 2010

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post
    Maybe. I'd suggest that, realistically, conflict arises when a player, who themselves lives in a world where property isn't communal, plays a Kender so as to justify stealing stuff as "not really evil at all. I'm just a Kender. La la la!". There's a reason why Kender are broadly considered one of the most annoying PC choices in all D&D existence. To the point that I barely play D&D and yet have heard enough negative statements about Kender (and people who play them) on this very issue.

    In concept? Yeah. I get it. In practice? How many players of Kender have you ever seen hand over all their stuff to the party so that others may use it instead of them? Even in cases where someone else might make better use of that item?
    Kind of rambling back and forth over the IC/OOC line there. An IC morality where 'things that annoy players OOC are evil' is an interesting thought but I doubt it's where you're trying to go with this...

    And the second most annoying PC choice over Kender? Paladin.

  17. - Top - End - #137
    Bugbear in the Playground
    Join Date
    Oct 2016

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by NichG View Post
    Kind of rambling back and forth over the IC/OOC line there. An IC morality where 'things that annoy players OOC are evil' is an interesting thought but I doubt it's where you're trying to go with this...

    And the second most annoying PC choice over Kender? Paladin.
    Well Paladins have 2 problems as player characters.
    1) The Paladin means lawful stupid crowd
    2) My Paladin can justify genocidal murder, rape and torture if its for the greater good crowd.

    Most people I’ve played with have fallen in the happy middle ground, it’s that when paladin players go off the rails they tend to crash the entire campaign.

    The third problem with paladins are the GMs who try to force paladins to break their vows. Usually by setting up some sort of artificial trolley problem where (using classic old school paladins as an example) they can do the lawful but evil thing or the good but chaotic thing. Although this problem seems to be fading over time.

  18. - Top - End - #138
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    Dec 2010

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by Pauly View Post
    Well Paladins have 2 problems as player characters.
    1) The Paladin means lawful stupid crowd
    2) My Paladin can justify genocidal murder, rape and torture if its for the greater good crowd.

    Most people I’ve played with have fallen in the happy middle ground, it’s that when paladin players go off the rails they tend to crash the entire campaign.

    The third problem with paladins are the GMs who try to force paladins to break their vows. Usually by setting up some sort of artificial trolley problem where (using classic old school paladins as an example) they can do the lawful but evil thing or the good but chaotic thing. Although this problem seems to be fading over time.
    There's also the problem of the paladin setting the standards of behavior for the rest of the party - not because they mechanically have to outside of 'no evil party members', but because for some players the class fantasy is getting to be the local moral authority and imposing that on the other players in a way they often can't object to without crossing OOC norms.

    Can happen with other kinds of authority (police investigator, noble, etc), but paladins are the meme example.

  19. - Top - End - #139
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    Feb 2015

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    That's not what I said though.

    I didn't say depriving people WAS harm, I said it could cause harm.

    There are plenty of rich people who have more money than they could ever spend and to whom any given unit of money is just a number in a ledger. Likewise, many businesses simply destroy or throw away unsold merchandise rather than giving it to the needy. I personally own tons of movies I will never watch, books I will never read, and minis I will never paint or play with.

    Stealing excess goods from those who have plenty to spare does not by itself cause harm.

    Smaug doesn't need a literal mountain of gold to survive, or even maintain his lifestyle, but he still goes into a murderous rampage when Bilbo steals a single cup because he is greedy and covetous, not because the loss actually arms him in any real way.
    1) Thiefs generally don't care what is in excess or not. They do care about what they themself need/want or what they can sell or what they can get.
    2) Even if they did, what makes the thief qualified to judge this ? They generally don't know the circumstances of the victim all that well and there is an obvious conflict of interest
    3) It is questionable that stolen goods find a more needy place most of the time. Status symbols will only ever be displayed by people with status, luxury items will always be luxury and fencing stolen goods is hardly ever about distributing them openly to the needy.
    4) Thievery generally comes along with destruction of property. That starts with the literal cut-purse to the damage from breaking in. There is also regularly damage to the stolen goods as they need to be moved fast and quietly and stored secretly, not safe.
    5) Even if one were of the opinion that excess goods need to be distribute, there are way better and easier ways to do that.

    So overall i agree with "Theft is evil". There might be special circumstances where it is justified but those are the exception from the rule.

    Kender are presented as extremely chaotic good, and that manifests of not having a concept of personal property. They frequently steal things from other races, but the setting labels them as objectively Chaotic Good.

    IIRC it was the general consensus that theft in D&D was not innately an evil act back in the old days when we used to have weekly alignment wars on these boards.
    But you were repeatedly telling us that you were not using D&D morality. So we are not discussing D&D morality. Some people think that Kender are a stupid idea and that D&Ds traditional glorification of the charming scoundrel archetype is embarrassing.

    Some other people think that labeling poison evil was stupid as well.

  20. - Top - End - #140
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    AssassinGuy

    Join Date
    Dec 2015
    Location
    Wyoming

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Not to get too crazy, but since most of us (BIG ASSUMPTION AHEAD) grew up in a Western (mostly) Capitalist Society we have certain bias towards what is "Good" and what is "Lawful" that may not be universally applicable.
    *This Space Available*

  21. - Top - End - #141
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Batcathat's Avatar

    Join Date
    Nov 2019

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by Easy e View Post
    Not to get too crazy, but since most of us (BIG ASSUMPTION AHEAD) grew up in a Western (mostly) Capitalist Society we have certain bias towards what is "Good" and what is "Lawful" that may not be universally applicable.
    Everyone has, one way or the other. Which is one of the reasons I think using a system where some definitions of "Good" and "Lawful" are in fact objectively true might be a bad idea.

  22. - Top - End - #142
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    Feb 2015

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by Easy e View Post
    Not to get too crazy, but since most of us (BIG ASSUMPTION AHEAD) grew up in a Western (mostly) Capitalist Society we have certain bias towards what is "Good" and what is "Lawful" that may not be universally applicable.
    I actually did not.

    But discussing capitalism and its benefits/downsides or its morality is probably beyond the scope of this forum. That is why i avoided that point in my answer.

  23. - Top - End - #143
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Talakeal's Avatar

    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Denver.
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by Satinavian View Post
    1) Thiefs generally don't care what is in excess or not. They do care about what they themself need/want or what they can sell or what they can get.
    2) Even if they did, what makes the thief qualified to judge this ? They generally don't know the circumstances of the victim all that well and there is an obvious conflict of interest
    3) It is questionable that stolen goods find a more needy place most of the time. Status symbols will only ever be displayed by people with status, luxury items will always be luxury and fencing stolen goods is hardly ever about distributing them openly to the needy.
    4) Thievery generally comes along with destruction of property. That starts with the literal cut-purse to the damage from breaking in. There is also regularly damage to the stolen goods as they need to be moved fast and quietly and stored secretly, not safe.
    5) Even if one were of the opinion that excess goods need to be distribute, there are way better and easier ways to do that.

    So overall i agree with "Theft is evil". There might be special circumstances where it is justified but those are the exception from the rule.
    I don't disagree with any of these points. That still doesn't mean that the act of theft itself is evil, or that this is unique amongst moral quandaries. #2 especially is pretty much a universal amongst moral issues.


    Quote Originally Posted by Satinavian View Post
    But you were repeatedly telling us that you were not using D&D morality. So we are not discussing D&D morality. Some people think that Kender are a stupid idea and that D&Ds traditional glorification of the charming scoundrel archetype is embarrassing.
    Right. But this whole thing started when someone said that people who want to play an evil character should just play thieves, which started the tangent about whether or not theft was actually evil.

    My game doesn't have enforced morality at all. Nor does it have anyone in the party who is playing a thief or really cares strongly one way or the other about thief PCs, so that it is pretty much a red herring.

    In my game the DM's issue seems to be with torture (although as I said above, he has no problem using torture himself as both a player and GM) while my issue with the other PCs is murder (killing people who aren't a threat for purely utilitarian purposes) or "war-crimes" where people use combat tactics that kill indiscriminately. And again, this is only a problem if I am playing a heroic character, so I usually just default to villain.

    And the difference between evil and a villain? Well, to paraphrase Megamind... Presentation!

    Quote Originally Posted by Satinavian View Post
    Some other people think that labeling poison evil was stupid as well.
    I think a lot of people do. Personally I think the whole concept of labeling actions rather than consequences is pretty stupid.

    Honestly the big thing about D&D morality is that, since it is an action game, it goes out of its way to justify violence while labeling other morally dubious means objectively evil.
    Last edited by Talakeal; 2023-01-24 at 12:00 PM.
    Looking for feedback on Heart of Darkness, a character driven RPG of Gothic fantasy.

  24. - Top - End - #144
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Flumph

    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Sounds like we need Consequentialist/Deontological as the z-axis of alignment...

  25. - Top - End - #145
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Talakeal's Avatar

    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Denver.
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post
    snip
    At this point we just disagree about fundamental philosophy, I don't think we actually disagree as much as it seems in practice, but I feel like maybe I should stop responding to your every point as we are really going off topic and I don't want the argument to get heated or go into forbidden areas.

    In very brief, I will say though that yeah, stealing most often causes harm, but the overall act might still be neutral or even good if the benefit outweighs the harm; stealing from the rich and giving to the poor is the rare "good" theft, just like killing in the defense of others is the rare "good" murder.

    Also, I generally am ok if needy people steal from me, although I certainly prefer if they ask, and the only time I call the police is if I need to file an insurance report for property damage. I remember one time when I was a kid and was eating at a cafe and walked away from my plate for a moment and a homeless person ran in the door and grabbed my food, and both my dad and the store owner raised the roof, but I was more than happy to let him have it as he was clearly a lot hungrier than I was. But I am no saint, I do still have a temper and can be pretty proud and rigid so I definitely see your point; someone scammed a hundred dollars from a friend and I last year and I was rightly pissed off (I still decided not to call the police though).

    Spoiler: My Scam Story
    Show
    A deer had hit my car and left a huge dent in the side panel. Some guys in the parking lot said they could fix it for a hundred bucks. I was skeptical, but I told them they were free to try, but I had no cash. My friend offered to loan me some and walked over to the atm across the parking lot. As soon as he got the money out, they drove over to him (without doing anything to fix the car) and told him that I said they had done a good job and to give them the money. He did and they drove away.


    Quote Originally Posted by GloatingSwine View Post
    Sounds like we need Consequentialist/Deontological as the z-axis of alignment...
    Well, it would change the nature of forum debates, that's for sure.

    Again though, its weird how D&D is super deontological for most things, but then goes crazy trying to use any means it can to justify violence.
    Looking for feedback on Heart of Darkness, a character driven RPG of Gothic fantasy.

  26. - Top - End - #146
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    Oct 2011

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    The issue is that a lot of players will at times either get bored OOC or decide they are RPing a stupid impulsive troll, and then decide to ignore the plan and cause some havoc.

    But that still doesn't help when you have characters whose goals are fundamentally incompatible like "protect the innocent" and "murder anyone who I can get away with and raise as my undead slave". And that isn't some extreme worst case scenario, those are actual examples I have gamed with more than once.
    And this is why I have weapon mastery: clue-by-four. ;)

    You’ve / they’ve skipped the most important step: everyone in the party takes on all the goals of everyone in the party as their own.

    So the Troll who is stupid and impulsive *can’t* (successfully) take on that goal, and that’s part of the conversation of whether they’re compatible with the party (and what the group wants from the game) or not.

    The Necromancer and the Paladin are (say) beloved siblings, and care about each other above all else. They both agree that the Necromancer *can’t* “get away with” “harming the innocent”, as that violates the goal they hold more dear than their own life. Just as the Paladin helps slaughter every evildoer possible (especially, say, surrendered bandit leaders or post-interrogation helpless prisoners) to add to the Necromancer’s army.

    *That’s* what it means to create truly optimized group dynamics. For all the characters to have fully adopted everyone’s goals as their own.
    Last edited by Quertus; 2023-01-24 at 12:09 PM.

  27. - Top - End - #147
    Troll in the Playground
     
    WolfInSheepsClothing

    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    Italy
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by Easy e View Post
    Not to get too crazy, but since most of us (BIG ASSUMPTION AHEAD) grew up in a Western (mostly) Capitalist Society we have certain bias towards what is "Good" and what is "Lawful" that may not be universally applicable.

    actually, every ancient society had the concept of private property, and stealing has never been considered fine. stealing to outsider, ok, stealing to people with whom we are enemies or at least rivals. but stealing to your own people? it has never been acceptable. in fact, virtually every ancient society was a lot harsher on theft than our modern western capitalist society, with the chopping off of body parts - or being sold into slavery - being a common punishment. I can't be more specific without violating forum rules on historical stuff.
    And the reason fo this is that you can't have a functioning society without private property. people work to produce something of value, and they put in the effort because then they get to own - to have exclusive use - of that something. nguluk the caveman goes hunting and takes a deer, then returns to the cave and trades half the deer to gronk for a dozen arrows. gronk spends the day chipping stones and setting them into sticks because he knows that he will be able to trade them to nguluk for food. if droc comes along and steals the arrows that gronk made and gives nothing in return, then gronk has no reason to chip stones; he either starves, or he can steal some of the food nguluk captured without giving anything back. and why would nguluk trade half his catches to gronk for arrows when he can just steal them?
    the whole tribe collapses.
    and so every single society developed the concept of ownership.
    now, of course there are fine nuances that every society answered differently - how much of the fruit of your labor are you entitled to keep, and how much do you have to pay to the government in exchange for common services? How much is the owner of the land entitled to take from you for working his land? (hint: our evil capitalistic society actually protects the laborer a lot better than any other society I know of. we may have wage slaves, but they had literal slaves, and even free men had very few rights). And many societies developed some concept of common goods, that belong to everyone and to no one, that all can liberally partake. Like, I can go hike in the woods and you can go hike in the woods and nobody can own the woods and claim sole privilege of hiking in them; everyone can take water from the communal well. but that only works because hiking in the woods does not consume them, taking a bucket of water from the well does not dry it.
    regardless of those details, all those societies had property and frowned heavily upon theft.
    In memory of Evisceratus: he dreamed of a better world, but he lacked the class levels to make the dream come true.

    Ridiculous monsters you won't take seriously even as they disembowel you

    my take on the highly skilled professional: the specialized expert

  28. - Top - End - #148
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    OldWizardGuy

    Join Date
    Aug 2010

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by GloatingSwine View Post
    Sounds like we need Consequentialist/Deontological as the z-axis of alignment...
    That's what these discussions almost always boil down to *shrug*
    "Gosh 2D8HP, you are so very correct (and also good looking)"

  29. - Top - End - #149
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Talakeal's Avatar

    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Denver.
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    And this is why I have weapon mastery: clue-by-four. ;)

    You’ve / they’ve skipped the most important step: everyone in the party takes on all the goals of everyone in the party as their own.

    So the Troll who is stupid and impulsive *can’t* (successfully) take on that goal, and that’s part of the conversation of whether they’re compatible with the party (and what the group wants from the game) or not.

    The Necromancer and the Paladin are (say) beloved siblings, and care about each other above all else. They both agree that the Necromancer *can’t* “get away with” “harming the innocent”, as that violates the goal they hold more dear than their own life. Just as the Paladin helps slaughter every evildoer possible (especially, say, surrendered bandit leaders or post-interrogation helpless prisoners) to add to the Necromancer’s army.

    *That’s* what it means to create truly optimized group dynamics. For all the characters to have fully adopted everyone’s goals as their own.
    I don't think anyone actually wants to play that game though.

    Having five random strangers tell me my character's motivation is about the least fun thing I can think of; its basically OOC PvP at that point and turns the game from cooperation into hostility.*


    As for family connections, yeah, that's a good idea in theory. For years I had games crash and burn before they ever got off the ground because the players would make a bunch of random strangers who had no reason to adventure together and, surprise surprise, they didn't. Now I always make sure that unless I as the GM am going to have a strong reason to compel them to stick together, they have to have a pre established relationship, and I try and talk the other players into doing the same when I PC.

    Of course, this is almost universally met with hostility both in person and on the forums as it is seen as being a control freak and overstepping my bounds, so... /shrug


    *: Working together to come up with a few goals that we can all enjoy, or at least not be outright contradictory, on the other hand is a lot more collaborative.
    Last edited by Talakeal; 2023-01-24 at 02:38 PM.
    Looking for feedback on Heart of Darkness, a character driven RPG of Gothic fantasy.

  30. - Top - End - #150
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Batcathat's Avatar

    Join Date
    Nov 2019

    Default Re: Unanimous Good

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    As for family connections, yeah, that's a good idea in theory. For years I had games crash and burn before they ever got off the ground because the players would make a bunch of random strangers who had no reason to adventure together and, surprise surprise, they didn't. Now I always make sure that unless I as the GM am going to have a strong reason to compel them to stick together, they have to have a pre established relationship, and I try and talk the other players into doing the same when I PC.

    Of course, this is almost universally met with hostility both in person and on the forums as it is seen as being a control freak and overstepping my bounds, so... /shrug
    That it's met with hostility in person doesn't surprise me, since if your depiction of the people you play with is even halfway accurate they seem like the sort of people who'd start a blood feud over who took the last cookie, but it does sound odd for it to be controversial online. Not every GM asks for relationships/reasons like that, but in my experience it's fairly common (and pretty useful, even when playing with sane people).

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •