OOTS #1274 - The Discussion Thread

[Frozenstep]

The question's bare bones nature assumes that your moral framework can provide an answer.
Mine doesn't. I literally can't answer it in a vacuum.
Hence, it's assuming a moral framework, or moral axioms that can answer it in this vacuum.

It also doesn't do a good enough job to separate those factors you want to separate.

I mean, if the question asked is simply unanswerable by your moral framework, because your question does not have any preference between the presented options, that's fine? It's just one famous hypothetical people use. Just don't think of it as some method to ignore all other factors and nuance, that's not what it's about.

I'm taking issue with the underlying premise of utilitarianism. That is, the idea that you can do moral calculus. The issue being, as I mentioned above, is that the calculation changes drastically with different timescales, from a day, to a couple years, to lifetime, to several lifetimes, to the entire lifetime of our species. No one really acknowledges that. What's moral if you're thinking about just your lifetime is completely different from what's moral if you're thinking ahead a couple of generations. When I talk about the 30 minute nuke test, I'm not just pulling it out of nowhere, it's based on trends of discussions I've had with real people. Frankly, it scares me and it shows a problem with an approach to morality.

I've provided many examples and situations beyond just the original logical extreme stress test. It was, somewhat humorous, somewhat simplistic, somewhat a caricature. Sure, ok, it failed to convey the point I was trying to convey. Mea culpa. Let's discuss more specific situations and examples.

You keep bringing up this time factor thing, when it's already been said that a person can only plan around what they know and can foresee using their brains. The fact that you tried to turn that around and use that time travel example, which of course completely changes what is knowable and foreseeable, shows you don't seem to get it.

We're bound to just head in circles at this rate. I think I'm done responding here, have a good day.

[Dasick]

I mean, if the question asked is simply unanswerable by your moral framework, because your question does not have any preference between the presented options, that's fine? It's just one famous hypothetical people use. Just don't think of it as some method to ignore all other factors and nuance, that's not what it's about.

I don't really see what it's about. I can hazard a guess and I did, and I already said that, I don't think it does a good enough job at isolating those factors because it mixes them.

My moral framework doesn't understand the scenario, in simple terms. It's like if you ask me to imagine a round square. There are many ways to actually conceptualize it. For example, a cylinder can be a round square. A square made of circles, or a circle made of squares (think pixel art). Etc etc. But the "round square" is just a blank. It's not specific enough to be something.

You keep bringing up this time factor thing, when it's already been said that a person can only plan around what they know and can foresee using their brains. The fact that you tried to turn that around and use that time travel example, which of course completely changes what is knowable and foreseeable, shows you don't seem to get it.

We're bound to just head in circles at this rate. I think I'm done responding here, have a good day.

What you don't get here is that people use their brains to foresee different periods of time. Sure we can go in circles if you want to get snagged on a somewhat exaggerated example. Here is the issue in simple terms. Some people live day to day. Some people live a decade or a couple in advance. Some people foresee their lifespan. Some people foresee multiple generations. These are all "reasonably foreseeable". These all result in vastly different results of what constitutes moral, and the framework just arbitrarily picks a point in the future. The more this framework begins to resemble conventional morality, the further out it is into the timeframe which is not easy at all to foresee. This is never, or rarely addressed.

The time travel thing is an entirely different point, because many people will object to killing a baby, any baby, for a crime it has not committed yet, even if you know for a fact that its {Scrubbed} and only good things will come of it. Clearly, there's something weird going on here. This is an extreme case scenario, I've presented more realistic ones, like say, using AI and big data to predict problematic behaviour. A lot of people feel very strongly and very negatively about it, even though rationally speaking in utilitarian terms, there shouldn't be an issue if the technology is good enough. There's an entire genre of thought provoking literature which explores these kinds of ideas, the dystopia. I think Brave New World does a much better job at making my point for me.

[David Gould]

If you do a good enough job at VE, the answer is yes, and it's not a broken edge case. If you're really into stoicism or stoicism compatible religion (all major ones I think?) it uhh doesn't even need much of an explanation.

Actually, the VE asks the counter question of, well why are you wasting so much time commuting in the first place? Maybe you should live simpler. Or maybe you should make more sacrifices for your work if it's that important. I realize half an hour isn't all that much, but people generally commute for much longer.

But the yes solution is... lets say you don't just sit in your car bored out of your mind but having to do it cause you have to pay the bills. With modern technology you could be listening to audiobooks, or talking to people you care about. Or maybe you found a scenic route to work that you love seeing every day. Maybe in that time, you just need to see that route in silence for 30 minutes. Maybe it takes a 30 minute bike ride or a jog to get there (I used to do that at 4 in the morning, it was fun. Kinda miss it). Maybe you got the routine that works for you. You're not just enduring the ride for the sake of enduring it, you're looking for ways to use that time in an important manner.

You have to make trade-offs in life. To do the best for your family, you need money. So you work. You may be fortunate enough to be able to do a job that you enjoy and that has meaning for you and that accomplishes other goals to build a better future for others. The commuting is a sacrifice that you pay for that. And, yes, you can do thing to make the commute more enjoyable and more meaningful. But that does not mean that the commute and what you do on it is the most meaningful thing that you do in your life. In that situation, I would not make the commute; I would spend the last half-hour with my family at home. If virtue ethics forbids that, then virtue ethics breaks at that edge case, at least for me. There is nothing ethical about travelling to a work that you will not reach when you could spend it with your loved ones.

The illustration is the cliche of a character having a close brush with death and making drastic changes to their lives.

A real kind of shock to me when talking about possible post-apocalyptic future and prepper hobbies, someone was like "Well, instead of doing all that, I would just get a gun and a bottle of whiskey, get drunk and off myself".

Yes, there are people like that. There are even worse people - people who say, at least, that they would rape someone. Those are not driven by utilitarian ethics, as far as I can tell.

Tactical situations with looking 10 moves ahead are a tool of the strategic heuristic approach. You're not using both methods, you use one when the other dictates it is appropriate to do so.


Again the issue isnt that different people come to different conclusions. It's how wildly different someone's answers can be given a difference in some factor or timescale, which is problematic because how erroneous factors can be and how greater timescale approaches what people would accept as a solid moral framework (and how erroneous factors compound over time)

The difference in answers has absolutely nothing to do with the timescales. It is purely an information thing. I do not understand what you are not getting here.

The AI situation is only paradoxical due to the wording. If AI can predict that if not arrested a person will 100% commit a crime, then it's a logical premise. This is something that is discussed a lot both in sci fi and dystopian writing, and modern discussion on privacy and advances in AI. See Chinese Social Credit score. Or another example, women start seeing ads for baby stuff before they even suspect they're pregnant these days. It's only really a matter of time before big data can do the same for criminal behaviour. Or maybe it already can, but the people in charge don't want to use it for various reasons.

People generally object to this kind of thing on the ground of human rights (ie, an offshoot of VE), but in a UTIL framework, if you have a good enough ability to predict crime (blah blah, unless action is taken), what's the issue again?

I have no issue with it. As a teacher, I use this method on occassion. And I do not even need certainty. If I have good reason to believe - for example - that a child in my care is at risk of self-harm or of committing harm to others, I take steps to reduce the likelihood of that occurring. And this sometimes means containing them if it is safe for me to do so or accompanying them - some kind of intervention. And sometimes these interventions could be said to cause some harm to the young person - for example, grabbing their arm, restricting their passage through a door and so on.

Regarding the AI example, you do not necessarily need to restrain or arrest someone to prevent them from murdering another. A phone call. A social worker knocking on their door. If an AI is that good at prediction, there will be multiple pathways to prevent, or at least reduce the likelihood, of the offence. Like we do with students.

But what if you can go back in time and kill {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}as a baby? And the time machine nerds have confirmed that this will only have net good effects on your timeline up until the moment you go back in time?

Imo the best you can do under VE is "go back to when {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}is of age and challenge him to a duel, or maybe set him up with some art connections so he can be a painter", even if the baby killing plan is 100% to succeed and my plan is significantly less likely to succeed.

Why couldn't you go back in time and become a positive influence in {Scrubbed} life? It is almost inevitable that you would change the outcome in a big way acting from birth onwards. You could even kidnap him and raise him in the 21st century.

[David Gould]

And would a virtue ethics person lie to save {Scrubbed}? Lying is a no-no, as honesty is a virtue, right (at least, it is for some versions of the Virtue Ethic)? This seems an ethical no-brainer - of course you would lie, right? If your ethics say otherwise, that is against our moral intuitions also ...

This is why appealing to what people feel is right is not a very good option. Intuition can be a guide in some circumstances. But reason seems a better method if our moral system has some goal.

(I should also just state here that I do not believe in 'a correct morality' in the sense that there is some standard 'out there' somewhere. All there can be are actions that get us closer to an agreed upon goal or actions that get us further away from that goal. Chess has an agreed upon set of rules and an agreed upon goal. Thus, there are moves that get you closer to that goal or futher away from that goal.)

[WanderingMist]

And would a virtue ethics person lie to save{Scrub the post, scrub the quote} ? Lying is a no-no, as honesty is a virtue, right (at least, it is for some versions of the Virtue Ethic)? This seems an ethical no-brainer - of course you would lie, right? If your ethics say otherwise, that is against our moral intuitions also ...

This is why appealing to what people feel is right is not a very good option. Intuition can be a guide in some circumstances. But reason seems a better method if our moral system has some goal.

(I should also just state here that I do not believe in 'a correct morality' in the sense that there is some standard 'out there' somewhere. All there can be are actions that get us closer to an agreed upon goal or actions that get us further away from that goal. Chess has an agreed upon set of rules and an agreed upon goal. Thus, there are moves that get you closer to that goal or futher away from that goal.)

That's a false dilemma if I ever saw one. Consider how Blind Pete protected Haley from Crystal.
"Have you seen Starshine?"
"No."
Completely honest answer, yet accomplished the task the same way a lie would by getting rid of the assailant temporarily

If there's no objective morality, then all morality is nothing more than mob rule. This is the trap into which all attempts at making morality relative fall.

[dancrilis]

If there's no objective morality, then all morality is nothing more than mob rule.

Not really - if everyone else thinks action A is morally correct and you think action A is morally wrong then you are likely to think that everyone other then you is wrong, and assuming that you have a good handle on the topic (as does everyone else) then no amount of discussion is going to convince you that what you hold to be morally wrong is in fact morally correct.

Morality is personal and thereby subjective - not objective or collective.

There does however seem to be a lot of overlap between the morality of different people particularly when they have other points of shared connection (history, culture, family etc).

[KorvinStarmast]

And note that when Rich is in "make jokes about D&D rules" territory rather than "write a serious story" territory, Haley can easily convince Roy of nearly anything; Bluff is a class skill for her which she has maxed or close to, Sense Motive is a cross-class skill for Roy which he has never been indicated to have any points in. So, as implausible as her "he can surely find traps as well as me" line was, Roy believed it until its falsity was demonstrated to him.

Thank you for the recalibration point. It is also mentioned here. (Last panel).

If you say yes, I am forced to conclude that virtue ethics fails at edge cases in exactly the same way that other moral systems do.

Most things have trouble with the edge cases, which is what makes engineering such an interesting challenge. Finding what makes things work and knowing where the edges are (and eventually making sure that the instruction manual clearly identifies them).

Both of those are not sensible. The AI situation in particular is illogical. If the AI is 100% correct that person A will kill person B in seven days, then attempting to arrest them now will not prevent the crime; if it could, then the AI is not 100% correct - there are actions that will prevent the crime from occurring and thus thwarting the prediction. So from a utilitarian point of view it would be completely useless to arrest the person given the fact that the AI was 100% correct.

I'm keeping this one for future reference.

(I should also just state here that I do not believe in 'a correct morality' in the sense that there is some standard 'out there' somewhere. All there can be are actions that get us closer to an agreed upon goal or actions that get us further away from that goal.

Thanks for that. FWIW, I've never seen chess used as a model for discussing moral behavior.

If there's no objective morality, then all morality is nothing more than mob rule. This is the trap into which all attempts at making morality relative fall.

While that's partly true, a problem lies in the attempts to arrive at a universal morality. I think that and objective morality are related but not the same thing. And I'll not further discuss moral systems as I feel this discussion has wandered a bit too far off topic.

As I mentioned before: Roy has practical experience, in bucket loads, as the leader of a small tactical team. He has learned from his mistakes and from the purveyors of objective morality (I mean, he got to meet that little archon and other celestials) in the context of OotSverse. He has gotten feedback from an authoritative source (during his interview with the celestial gate keeper) so that he can calibrate where he stands on the moral scale in the context of OotSverse. He has well earned confidence regarding which way his moral compass points.
Julia has none of that to draw on.
Roy has credibility, Julia has none. (But she's got ample opportunity to grow once she finishes school and has to deal with the real world).

[pendell]

Back the truck up. Belkar explicitly hid that he was doing that from Roy. (No indication that Elan or Haley knew about it, either. Durkon, now, Durkon was the kind of passive there that would have me bumping his alignment down to Lawful Neutral, but that's me.)

Not touching the rest, but.

Agreed. However, I must disagree that this was still the jokey comic phase of the story. The kobold scene comes after the familicide in book 4 and just before the big reveal in book 5 which showed how that had decimated the defenses of Gerard's gate. We're well outside jokey-comic territory at this point; I think that ended in book 2, about the time a certain blue-cloaked stranger confronted the order in the rain.

I am not going to defend utilitarianism here, but in my opinion, this isn't an effective strategy to attack it. Instructors need to present a problem in such a way that the precept becomes clear to students; metaphors must be simplified. When it comes to ethics and moral behavior, you have to highlight the nature of the problem by refusing to allow any loopholes to squeeze through (especially if the loopholes allow the student to evade thinking about the problem at hand).

If this were purely about a classroom exercise, I'd agree with you. My argument about the false dilemma is to point out that a real-life situation is typically a lot grayer and ambiguous than a classroom -- but people still use the trolley argument to justify, not a variable in their personal morality, but real-world harm to real-world people.

I mentioned upthread a Vietnam vet's story about his encounter with the trolley problem in training. It's an anecdote, but I think it's a true one because I heard the same anecdote from my grandfather years earlier, who drove trucks for the Red Ball Express . He never read the book, but he told the same story: The instructors tell you you're in a convoy on a tight mountain road and a child steps in front of you. The correct answer he -- and thirty years later, Bob Mason -- had drummed into them was that they were supposed to hit the kid rather than drive off the road and get the people they were carrying killed in the kid's place.

The army doesn't waste instruction time so people can amuse themselves. They're making sure this was understood, even by a truck driver, because the needs of the job can require you to do stuff that will make you want to crawl into a bottle and never crawl out.

Which brings me back to my critique of the trolley problem -- I can point to any number of atrocities in the past hundred years committed by organized governments. Every one of their defenders -- and I can show you, but not on this forum -- use some variation of the trolley problem to justify themselves. "Sure, we turned this city into a sea of fire and left of some people nothing but shadows on the ground that haven't faded in decades, but we saved many more lives because we did!"

The real world is not an academic exercise. In the real world, there are often many alternatives to the stark two presented in academic theory. And I contend that , for people who have leisure to think about it and act in cold blood, the trolley problem often presents an easy justification for things unthinkable. Because they've fallen into the trap of false dilemma; of thinking that the real world is only offering them two alternatives. And sometimes people do this because they're too lazy to think outside the box, or they accept it as an easy alternative to really thinking about what they're doing to their fellow human beings.

Xykon, in Start of Darkness, berates one of the lesser antagonists for weakness because he does the most terrible things while claiming it is all for the Greater Good, that he Had No Choice. But in fact he did have a choice, it's just that this lesser antagonist was too chicken to make it. That's the same critique I'm making here: The either-or choice to do a lesser evil or a greater one , outside of a classroom context, is all too frequently a false dilemma which shows a lack of creativity and imagination on the part of the person defending the lesser evil.

Roleplaying games are unique in that we deliberately encourage out of the box thinking and third solutions to two-choice problems, as Haley does here . A roleplaying game is a virtual world where we can test out, rehearse our moral decisions without real-world consequence.

Roleplaying allows a degree of freedom and fosters creativity to moral solutions rather than accepting easy answers. Unlike the real world, we often have the time to think through our actions ("speaking is a free action") to act deliberately rather than on reflex, which is what real-world soldiers often have to do. In fact I would say it's necessary in a good game if you're playing a paladin, because both the in-world BBEG , the DM, and sometimes your fellow PCs will all be scheming to get you to commit an evil act and fall, lose your powers. Belkar did this to Miko for many strips . It's a thing the truly evil do, to provoke self-proclaimed good people to break their own moral codes not only because they find it funny (as Belkar does), but because, deep in their hearts, it quiets their own conscience with the answer: "The good people are really no different from me; they're just hypocrites pretending to a virtue they don't have. No one's really good , so I'm not really all that bad. Right? Right?"

Sometimes it helps them sleep at night. Sometimes.

ETA: Come to think of it Miko did fall in exactly this way . Belkar's failure gave Miko a grace period of some 120 strips, but I suppose, her character being what it is, this outcome was inevitable at some point. Miko was always true neutral; it simply took the Stickverse, bound as it is by the rules of gaming , several years to make the fact manifest due to her actions.

Also .. here's some epileptic tree spoilers for you. Two strips later, Belkar says ... "funny, I always thought I would be killed by a paladin."

...

And we have two paladins in our group at this time.

I wonder if this is foreshadowing? If part of the reason O-chul and his partner are here is because they have the story purpose of killing Belkar?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Miko was always true neutral

Wait... what? I've always seen her as the poster child for Lawful Neutral (heck, "There is only one path" motto for LN fits her to a T, whereas NN's "Hey let's not get carried away" couldn't be any further from her personality). What's your pitch for her being NN?

Grey Wolf

[Ginasius]

I am curious to know if the evil that an innocent person will commit in the future can be measured in 'kilonazis'.

[KorvinStarmast]

Also .. here's some epileptic tree spoilers for you. Two strips later, Belkar says ... "funny, I always thought I would be killed by a paladin."
...
And we have two paladins in our group at this time.

I wonder if this is foreshadowing? If part of the reason O-chul and his partner are here is because they have the story purpose of killing Belkar?

In Strip 666, O-Chul mentions that if {something} he would gut Belkar with his own hands.
But I have an idea.
Belkar has had demonstrated on screen a variety of weaknesses to mind control spells. (Take me to Saint Louis ... being but one example).
He will once again get dominated, or something like that, and turn on the party which leads to O-Chul, Hinjo (not likely) or Lien killing him to save the party.
IIRC, Smite Evil would work on him just fine even though it did not work on Roy when Miko tried it.

[pendell]

Wait... what? I've always seen her as the poster child for Lawful Neutral (heck, "There is only one path" motto for LN fits her like a T, whereas NN's "Hey let's not get carried away" couldn't be any further from her personality). What's your pitch for her being NN?

Grey Wolf

My pitch is that Roy was almost kicked to the true neutral file because he almost abandoned Elan back in book 2, and would have been true neutral if he hadn't gone back. I think Miko's offense was of a far greater degree; she did not simply abandon a colleague to potentially suffer at the hands of an enemy, she actively inflicted death upon them. Aggravating offense is that this wasn't an ordinary civilian or even a comrade-in-arms , but her liege lord. if Azure City is anything like the medieval Japanese society it is loosely based on, killing one's own liege lord is the ultimate crime. It is the abject negation of everything deemed "lawful" in that society.

Killing an innocent in cold blood is evil act, therefore evil. Killing one's own liege lord is not just a chaotic act, it is the chaotic act in this society, the utter renunciation of all tradition and law upon which this society is based.

So here killing of Lord Shojo is a chaotic evil act. It's only one act versus a lifetime in service, but if one act is enough to move Roy from Lawful Good to True Neutral in the eyes of a Deva, it's more than enough to move Miko to the same bin.

ETA: I think Miko was TN rather than further down the alignment graph because she had an opportunity to turn blackguard a few strips later and refused. If she were some variant of Evil, I think she'd have found a way to take Sabine up on it.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[dancrilis]

My pitch is that Roy was almost kicked to the true neutral file because he almost abandoned Elan back in book 2, and would have been true neutral if he hadn't gone back.

Just because the rilmani might have had next look at his case file doesn't mean they would have accepted it.

if Azure City is anything like the medieval Japanese society it is loosely based on, killing one's own liege lord is the ultimate crime. It is the abject negation of everything deemed "lawful" in that society.

Panel 2.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

My pitch is that Roy was almost kicked to the true neutral file because he almost abandoned Elan back in book 2, and would have been true neutral if he hadn't gone back. I think Miko's offense was of a far greater degree; she did not simply abandon a colleague to potentially suffer at the hands of an enemy, she actively inflicted death upon them. Aggravating offense is that this wasn't an ordinary civilian or even a comrade-in-arms , but her liege lord. if Azure City is anything like the medieval Japanese society it is loosely based on, killing one's own liege lord is the ultimate crime. It is the abject negation of everything deemed "lawful" in that society.

Killing an innocent in cold blood is evil act, therefore evil. Killing one's own liege lord is not just a chaotic act, it is the chaotic act in this society, the utter renunciation of all tradition and law upon which this society is based.

So here killing of Lord Shojo is a chaotic evil act. It's only one act versus a lifetime in service, but if one act is enough to move Roy from Lawful Good to True Neutral in the eyes of a Deva, it's more than enough to move Miko to the same bin.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

The first problem I have with this is that a Deva cannot judge who gets into the True Neutral afterlife. She can send Roy to whichever bin she wants, but then we have no way of knowing what the TN gatekeeper (Rilmani? I'm not even sure what one of those are) might have taken "one look" at Roy and decided he belonged elsewhere too. This is in addition of the very likely possibility she was being over the top for effect and to put the fear of The Book into Roy, given she already knew full well he was LG and was just delivering a lesson.

Also, I'm unsure how you square "her last, and most damming act was chaotic evil" (I'd dispute that, but not important) with "she was always True Neutral". "Her worst act was so CE that it moved the needle all the way to TN" suggests that until then she must have been LG until then, if nothing else. Although if it really is that heinous of an act, wouldn't it have moved her to CE? Especially if she had been TN until then, as you claim? Roy's action would have been TN since he would've demonstrated neither good towards someone he had no real affection for, nor Lawful adherence to the responsibilities of command. But if that would truly make him TN from that point on, then Miko should be, by that logic, CE from that point on, but given that she had only minutes left, that still doesn't substantiate the assertion that she was always TN.

But more crucially, all that is a final act after a long, long descent into self-delusion. Most of her life Miko was a loyal soldier who gave no hoots about anyone but her own destiny. "She was always TN" suggests that she had no character development at all, which I don't think is justified.

Grey Wolf

[pendell]

But more crucially, all that is a final act after a long, long descent into self-delusion. Most of her life Miko was a loyal soldier who gave no hoots about anyone but her own destiny. "She was always TN" suggests that she had no character development at all, which I don't think is justified.

The point of a tragedy is that a person's flaws, under stress, "show their quality", as Sam said of Faramir, show what they really are underneath their surface beliefs. Consider Macbeth from the Scottish play: Loyal soldier and servant of the king, circumstances pierce this veneer and reveal him for what he truly is: A cold-blooded murderer and a traitor.

I'm going to acknowledge the justice that Miko has had character development over the course of her long life. We see it in How the Paladin Got His Scar. However, I don't see any character development in her at all in-comic from the time she encounters the Order until she leaves it. Throughout that time she is self-righteous, convinced of her own ability to judge others, constantly passing judgement on the members of the Order to the point even Roy finally has enough of her. At no point in any of this does she stop and think about what she is doing, or reflect. Her path is set; the rest is just events conspiring to reveal her character and bring her arc to its logical conclusion.

Indeed, it is precisely because she's stopped developing character that she isn't given Paladinhood back at the end of her life. Her boss lays it out . "True Redemption demands that you seek forgiveness for your past misdeeds. That you atone for the actions that caused the Twelve Gods to turn away from you. That you even acknowledge the fact that you could, in fact, be wrong. You have done none of these things. "

Miko has had character development, but she hasn't grown as a person at least since her introduction in the main story. That is a large part of the reason why she has the fate she does.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Peelee]

Consider Macbeth from the Scottish play

The superstition loses a lot of its punch when you say "Macbeth" like two words before the euphemism for "Macbeth".

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I'm going to acknowledge the justice that Miko has had character development over the course of her long life. We see it in How the Paladin Got His Scar. However, I don't see any character development in her at all in-comic from the time she encounters the Order until she leaves it. Throughout that time she is self-righteous, convinced of her own ability to judge others, constantly passing judgement on the members of the Order to the point even Roy finally has enough of her. At no point in any of this does she stop and think about what she is doing, or reflect. Her path is set; the rest is just events conspiring to reveal her character and bring her arc to its logical conclusion.

See, that's the problem: what you've just described is a LN character. Not a TN. You can make the argument she was always a CE under the veneer, or you can describe her as a LN, and we can go back and forth over character development, but I have yet to hear any actual description of how Miko can possibly be considered TN.

For the record, I absolutely agree with that description above, and it forms the core of my assumption that she was always LN under the (very thin) veneer of LG. What I cannot square with either characterisation, what she was on the worst day of her life, or what she was on every other day, is TN.

Grey Wolf

[Wintermoot]

The superstition loses a lot of its punch when you say "Macbeth" like two words before the euphemism for "Macbeth".

Its only bad luck to say the name of the play though, not the name of the character.

[pendell]

See, that's the problem: what you've just described is a LN character. Not a TN. You can make the argument she was always a CE under the veneer, or you can describe her as a LN, and we can go back and forth over character development, but I have yet to hear any actual description of how Miko can possibly be considered TN.

For the record, I absolutely agree with that description above, and it forms the core of my assumption that she was always LN under the (very thin) veneer of LG. What I cannot square with either characterisation, what she was on the worst day of her life, or what she was on every other day, is TN.

Grey Wolf

Okay. We don't have to pursue this if you don't want to, because I think we're very close to agreement and are disputing over a relatively small detail. The exact shade of the character's alignment isn't a hill I'm prepared to die on.

Nonetheless, if you can indulge me for just a few more sentences, I have two questions: What is the difference, to you, between lawful neutral and true neutral? And why do you think Miko is in the first bin?

To me, true neutral means either someone who's law-vs-chaos and good-vs-evil roughly balance out, or else they're a creature with an INT score of less than 3, and don't have an alignment .Farm animals are TN because they don't have the intelligence to know good from evil and choose. Druids like what's-his-name in the Linear Guild can be True Neutral, and I'm pretty sure Vaarsuvius' red robes indicate V intends to be TN.

I can't remember, off-hand, any lawful neutral characters in comic. The Chief of Cliffport's police maybe? For all ten panels we see him? But I still see Miko as being closer to Vaarsuvius than to the chief. The chief wouldn't commit a crime in the service of his duty; Miko would. That argues for "neutral" on the law-v-chaos axis, I claim.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Tzardok]

TN gatekeeper (Rilmani? I'm not even sure what one of those are)

Yes, Rilmani. It's no wonder that you aren't familiar with them; they didn't get much love outside of 2nd edition.

Rilmani appear as humanoids with metallic skin. Rilmani are advocating an active balance of the alignments, lending support to good, evil, law or chaos depending on which side is currently losing. Similiar to how slaadi follow a color theme and modrons are based on numbers and geometric forms, types of rilmani are based on the classic metals of alchemy, with traits that resemble the respective metals. There are the base plumach, who's version of neutrality is "I leave you alone, you leave me alone"; the harsh ferrumach, the soldiers of balance; the hotblooded coppery cuprilach, who assassinate beings that disturb the balance too much; the quicksilvery abiorach, who are concerned with ensuring that the elements and elementals stay neutral; the silvery argenach, who infiltrate mortal societies and help losing causes and alignments; and the great golden aurumach, who contemplate philosophy and neutrality and take command of the rest of the rilmani if necessary.

Even 2e was pretty vague on their society, but from what we've seen they are the only group of great outsiders that are democratic.

[Peelee]

Its only bad luck to say the name of the play though, not the name of the character.

I love how that makes no sense. "ok, I need everyone trying out for Macbeth to line up here, all the Macbeths up front. We're doing the Scottish play, so we need a strong Macbeth, again, casting for Macbeth, any Macbeth hopefuls please line up now!"

[hamishspence]

I can't remember, off-hand, any lawful neutral characters in comic. The Chief of Cliffport's police maybe? For all ten panels we see him? But I still see Miko as being closer to Vaarsuvius than to the chief. The chief wouldn't commit a crime in the service of his duty; Miko would. That argues for "neutral" on the law-v-chaos axis, I claim.

Lawful is more about doing things in a very orderly way, than about obeying the law. There's quite a few LE crimelords in D&D splatbooks - whose criminal organizations are very "orderly" in style, and whose members follow the rules of the organization, very strictly.

To me, true neutral means either someone who's law-vs-chaos and good-vs-evil roughly balance out, or else they're a creature with an INT score of less than 3, and don't have an alignment .Farm animals are TN because they don't have the intelligence to know good from evil and choose. Druids like what's-his-name in the Linear Guild can be True Neutral, and I'm pretty sure Vaarsuvius' red robes indicate V intends to be TN.

The Giant on various characters with at least one N alignment component:

Lawful Neutral: Mr. Jones, The CPPD, Kilkil.
Chaotic Neutral: Julio Scoundrél, Jenny, Ian Starshine.
True Neutral: Gannji, Enor, Julia Greenhilt, Vaarsuvius, Mr. Scruffy, Therkla, Right-eye, The Oracle, Hank.
Neutral Evil: Tsukikko, Leeky Windstaff, Pompey, Zz'dtri, Bozzok, Crystal, Grubwiggler, the Snail.
Neutral Good: Lirain, Dorkuan, Kazumi & Daigo.

I'm sure there are others, and some I'm specifically not mentioning.

People with Neutral alignments tend to not go on about it all the time. Lack of talking about it does not equal lack of presence in the comic, but since there's very little to say story-wise that can't ALSO be said with at least one corner alignment, there's not much reason to bring it up.

[Tzardok]

To me, true neutral means either someone who's law-vs-chaos and good-vs-evil roughly balance out, or else they're a creature with an INT score of less than 3, and don't have an alignment .Farm animals are TN because they don't have the intelligence to know good from evil and choose.

A being also can be actively TN, choosing to stay in the middle. I'm not sure where people who are neutral by dint of apathy fit.

Druids like what's-his-name in the Linear Guild can be True Neutral, and I'm pretty sure Vaarsuvius' red robes indicate V intends to be TN.

Leaky was Neutral Evil. IIRC, red robes on a wizard only indicate neutrality in Dragonlance, and even there it's only neutrality on the good-evil axis.

I can't remember, off-hand, any lawful neutral characters in comic. The Chief of Cliffport's police maybe? For all ten panels we see him? But I still see Miko as being closer to Vaarsuvius than to the chief. The chief wouldn't commit a crime in the service of his duty; Miko would. That argues for "neutral" on the law-v-chaos axis, I claim.

Lawful doesn't mean that you follow laws. It's more about personal codizes, and regularity. That one paladin, Thane or whatever, was regularily breaking the laws of Gobotopia by being a rebel. That didn't keep him from being Lawful.

Edit: I know that people are likely to disagree, but I think this quote best encapsulates how law and chaos work as personality traits:

One of the important things to understand about Law and Chaos is that their perspectives are strongly rooted in how they want their world to be, moreso than what they want themselves and others to do. Law likes constraints, rules, predictability and order; Chaos likes the unexpected, the novel, the emergent and the unique. This is important because it means that rather than just your own choice of actions, Law and Chaos are very much about what you expect the world to do in reaction. A lawful evil character, for instance, may cheat at cards, but would be extremely offended to discover that his cheating has failed because someone else was also cheating. Why? Because nobody was supposed to be cheating. Hypocritical? Obviously. But it speaks to the mindset of a lawful character - they expect, and very nearly demand, that the world work in a predictable, rational way. Lawful good believes that doing so is best for everyone, lawful neutral believes that it's the only rational way for the world to be, and lawful evil believes that if everyone plays by the rules then you can make your bones by them, either by enforcement and lawyering or by compliance and strategic undermining. Lawful characters can lie, steal, cheat, deceive, defy... they just have very very clear ideas about what the outcome of those actions will be, as well as to what extent they either need or deserve to "break the rules."

Chaos desires freedom. Chaos thinks the world should mind its own business. If I say a purple duck is going to fall out of the sky and smack you in the head for touching a doorknob, a lawful character might ask for (or wait for) proof. A chaotic character will grab the doorknob and be offended at getting hit by a duck, because come on. Chaotic good thinks people should be free to improve themselves and not constrained by laws that would force them to live a certain way, that the world gets better when people have a choice. Chaotic neutral is totally individualistic, without any inherent need to improve the lot of others. Chaotic evil is nearly solipsistic in its total focus on the self.

Afroakuma's Planar And Other Oddities Questions Thread VI

[Fyraltari]

I love how that makes no sense.

Well, yeah, it's a superstition.

[pendell]

Yes, Rilmani. It's no wonder that you aren't familiar with them; they didn't get much love outside of 2nd edition.

Rilmani appear as humanoids with metallic skin. Rilmani are advocating an active balance of the alignments, lending support to good, evil, law or chaos depending on which side is currently losing. Similiar to how slaadi follow a color theme and modrons are based on numbers and geometric forms, types of rilmani are based on the classic metals of alchemy, with traits that resemble the respective metals. There are the base plumach, who's version of neutrality is "I leave you alone, you leave me alone"; the harsh ferrumach, the soldiers of balance; the hotblooded coppery cuprilach, who assassinate beings that disturb the balance too much; the quicksilvery abiorach, who are concerned with ensuring that the elements and elementals stay neutral; the silvery argenach, who infiltrate mortal societies and help losing causes and alignments; and the great golden aurumach, who contemplate philosophy and neutrality and take command of the rest of the rilmani if necessary.

Even 2e was pretty vague on their society, but from what we've seen they are the only group of great outsiders that are democratic.

That doesn't sound democratic, actually. That sounds more like it's consensus-based. The difference is that in a democracy, if you have 100 voters making a decision than you take the action that 51 votes agree for and the other 49 can go cry in their beer. By contrast, consensus means that discussion continues until there's a course of action that all 100 people can vote for, or at least to tolerate. I see this sort of thing in scrum meetings all the time -- as a rule, there's a majority of votes for one position but discussion continues and position changes until the minority no longer has any strong objections.

That doesn't tend to work in large human societies because there's always a hardheaded minority of about 30% who aren't persuadable on any given topic. That's why some of our laws require a two-thirds majority to ratify -- it means you've convinced everyone who's persuadable. So large heterogenous human societies with many viewpoints usually have a cutoff point where the minority viewpoint has to sit down and shut up. But outsiders don't need to do that; they can continue discussion until consensus is reached.

Lawful doesn't mean that you follow laws. It's more about personal codizes, and regularity. That one paladin, Thane or whatever, was regularily breaking the laws of Gobotopia by being a rebel. That didn't keep him from being Lawful.

Thanh was bound by the laws of Azure City and the Sapphire Guard, because those are the organizations he belongs to. He owes nothing to Gobbotopia, he's an enemy combatant. In the same way an American soldier fighting in WWII in Germany is bound by military law (I don't think the UCMJ was a thing back then, but close to it), not by the civil law of the country he happens to be in.

Thanh isn't bound by Gobbotopia's laws. He IS bound by Azure city's laws. So is Miko. Thanh didn't break any of the laws he had willingly bound himself to, but Miko did. That's why -- in my view -- Than is Lawful while Miko is neutral, on the law-chaos axis.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

What is the difference, to you, between lawful neutral and true neutral? And why do you think Miko is in the first bin?

The difference is that LN cares most about upholding (and establishing) Rules and forcing others to follow them. At the extreme, this creates characters that "[are] self-righteous, convinced of her own ability to judge others, constantly passing judgement on [others]". Judge Dredd is an archetypical LN (with shades of Good, because MC, at least in the film. The good one, not the one with Stallone). True Neutral doesn't believe Rules are above everything else. A TN, in fact, doesn't believe any absolute is above any other. Rules can be oppressive, but Chaos is exhausting. Presumably they have also some issue with extreme Good and Evil, although heck if I can remember what for the first. Presumably something along the lines of "self care" and "greed is good, so long as not too much of it", but don't quote me on that.

So yeah, I look at Miko, and see a self-righteous person convinced that the universe is a clockwork machine with a Plan for everyone, including her, and that the Order of the universe must be maintained at all costs, and that screams Lawful Neutral to me. And honestly, it sounds like you and I agree on this, I'm just perplexed by the fact you label it True Neutral when to me it is so obviously Lawful Neutral.

Thanh isn't bound by Gobbotopia's laws. He IS bound by Azure city's laws. So is Miko. Thanh didn't break any of the laws he had willingly bound himself to, but Miko did. That's why -- in my view -- Than is Lawful while Miko is neutral, on the law-chaos axis.

That's not how Paladins work. They are bound to their own internal code, not to any external Law system. Oh great Banana, I invoke thee, can you please give us Rich's explanation on this? I'm fairly sure he wrote about it, and therefore I'm not going to embarrass myself by attempting to ape it.

Grey Wolf

[Tzardok]

That doesn't sound democratic, actually. That sounds more like it's consensus-based. The difference is that in a democracy, if you have 100 voters making a decision than you take the action that 51 votes agree for and the other 49 can go cry in their beer. By contrast, consensus means that discussion continues until there's a course of action that all 100 people can vote for, or at least to tolerate. I see this sort of thing in scrum meetings all the time -- as a rule, there's a majority of votes for one position but discussion continues and position changes until the minority no longer has any strong objections.

That doesn't tend to work in large human societies because there's always a hardheaded minority of about 30% who aren't persuadable on any given topic. That's why some of our laws require a two-thirds majority to ratify -- it means you've convinced everyone who's persuadable. So large heterogenous human societies with many viewpoints usually have a cutoff point where the minority viewpoint has to sit down and shut up. But outsiders don't need to do that; they can continue discussion until consensus is reached.

You may have a point there; I never considered there to be a difference between consensus and democratic process. I always described them as a direct democracy, as their council meetings (IIRC called either the Coniunctio or the Opus) are open to every rilmani who cares to have a voice and a say, but it propably is closer to the consensus system.

Edit: By the way, I published some rilmani homebrew for 3.5 just yesterday in my homebrew thread. If anyone feels like commenting, I'll be happy to hear it.

[pendell]

The difference is that LN cares most about upholding (and establishing) Rules and forcing others to follow them. At the extreme, this creates characters that "[are] self-righteous, convinced of her own ability to judge others, constantly passing judgement on [others]". Judge Dredd is an archetypical LN (with shades of Good, because MC, at least in the film. The good one, not the one with Stallone). True Neutral doesn't believe Rules are above everything else. A TN, in fact, doesn't believe any absolute is above any other. Rules can be oppressive, but Chaos is exhausting. Presumably they have also some issue with extreme Good and Evil, although heck if I can remember what for the first. Presumably something along the lines of "self care" and "greed is good, so long as not too much of it", but don't quote me on that.

So yeah, I look at Miko, and see a self-righteous person convinced that the universe is a clockwork machine with a Plan for everyone, including her, and that the Order of the universe must be maintained at all costs, and that screams Lawful Neutral to me. And honestly, it sounds like you and I agree on this, I'm just perplexed by the fact you label it True Neutral when to me it is so obviously Lawful Neutral.

Grey Wolf

I think we're in violent agreement so I'm going to stop arguing at the moment. :) One last question, though: There's a good Judge Dredd movie? Linkie, please? I only know about the Stallone one.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I think we're in violent agreement so I'm going to stop arguing at the moment. :) One last question, though: There's a good Judge Dredd movie? Linkie, please? I only know about the Stallone one.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

You haven't seen Dredd? Oh, you are in for a treat.

GW

[hamishspence]

Oh great Banana, I invoke thee, can you please give us Rich's explanation on this? I'm fairly sure he wrote about it, and therefore I'm not going to embarrass myself by attempting to ape it.

I think these are the most relevant quotes (most important parts, underlined):

Remember, folks, being Lawful has NEVER meant you obey every law for every nation whose borders you cross. You can choose to have a character that acts like that, but it is NOT part of the alignment description. After all, such a character would be required to obey the mandates of an orc chieftain the moment she entered his swamp. They would be seen as wishy-washy and easily swayed, kowtowing to whatever person could assert themselves the strongest.

Most lawful characters, though, will pick a certain set of authorities that they respect and ignore all others as "illegitimate";. An LG cleric of Pelor doesn't obey the authority of the High Priest of Vecna, for example. That doesn't make the cleric not Lawful.

To think that Lawful always means "obeying the written law" is a gross misunderstanding of the D&D definition of the term.

For example, think of formal duels—the "pistols at dawn" kind. Such events are undoubtedly Lawful affairs—they have strict codes, elaborate rules, and concern themselves mostly with symbolic honor. All hallmarks of Lawful behavior when contrasted with, say, a drunken brawl. However, at the time Aaron Burr shot Hamilton, they were illegal in the United States. People who participated in such duels were abiding by a formal code of ethics and behavior that was in opposition to democratically passed law. Lawful behavior can be made illegal in a given jurisdiction, but that doesn't spontaneously change the nature of the act in a cosmological sense.

I've used this example before, but if a paladin walks into the orc's swamp to do battle, he is not suddenly bound to obey the Orc King's laws or lose his paladinhood. It is entirely possible to have a code that you believe supersedes the written law wherever you are and still be considered Lawful.

I've often said that a lot of confusion would have been avoided if they had simply called it Ordered instead of Lawful. "Ordered Good" leaves a lot less room for misinterpretation.

In my personal interpretation of Lawfulness in D&D, I believe that yes, it is possible to be Lawful using a personal code rather than the societal definitions of law and order. However, I believe that the burden of upholding that code has to be much stricter than that of the average person in order to actually qualify as Lawful. You must be willing to suffer personal detriment through adhesion to your code, without wavering, if you want to wear the Lawful hat.

Because almost everyone has a personal code of some sort; Robin Hood had a personal code, and he's the poster child for Chaotic Good. The reason his code doesn't rise to the level of Lawful is that he would be willing to bend it in a pinch. And since he's already bucking all the societal traditions of his civilization, there are no additional penalties or punishments for him breaking his own code. He's unlikely to beat himself up if he needs to violate his own principles for the Greater Good; he'll justify it to himself as doing what needed to be done, maybe sigh wistfully once, and then get on with his next adventure.

Conversely, a Lawful character who obeys society's traditions has a ready-made source of punishment should he break those standards. If such a character does stray, she can maintain her Lawfulness by submitting to the proper authorities for judgment. Turning yourself in effectively atones for the breaking of the code, undoing (or at least mitigating) the non-Lawful act.

A Lawful character who operates strictly by a personal code, on the other hand, is responsible for punishing herself in the event of a breach of that code. If she waves it off as doing what needed to be done, then she is not Lawful, she's Neutral at the least. If she does it enough, she may even become Chaotic. A truly Lawful character operating on a personal code will suffer through deeply unpleasant situations in order to uphold it, and will take steps to punish themselves if they don't (possibly going as far as to commit honorable suicide).

People think that using the "personal code" option makes life as a Lawful character easier. It shouldn't. It should be harder to maintain an entirely self-directed personal code than it is to subscribe to the code of an existing country or organization. This is one of the reasons that most Lawful characters follow an external code. It is not required, no, but it is much, much easier. Exceptions should be unusual and noteworthy. It should be an exceptional roleplaying challenge to take on the burden of holding yourself to a strict code even when there are no external penalties for failing.

So as far as vigilantism goes, if a character has a specific pre-established personal code that involves personally punishing those who commit offenses, then yes, they could still be Lawful. Most characters do not have such a code; most characters simply follow general ideas of their alignment on a case-by-case basis. Certainly none of the characters in OOTS have such a code except perhaps for Miko. And we all saw what a slippery slope that turned out to be.