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How do Governments Align?
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<blockquote data-quote="GreenTengu" data-source="post: 6787988" data-attributes="member: 6777454"><p>Honestly, the approach to governments in D&D's various editions when laying out their worlds hinges on lunacy.</p><p></p><p>First of all, no functional society is going to have anyone at the top who is actually chaotic. Maybe they are dishonest in their dealing with other, sure, and maybe they don't really feel like the rules apply to them-- but their position of power and authority, and their ability to retain that power and authority hinges on everyone having respect for the laws, the traditions and the general structure of society and obeying it. Thus, they are going to espouse and push for an at least generally lawful agenda.</p><p></p><p>Even if the king is crazy and took his power by force or was just never properly raised, if the society doesn't fall apart within a week or two, you can be sure everyone around the king is aligned Lawful.</p><p></p><p>This is of course true of functional, flourishing cities, but the truth is that it really has to be true of even those wild barbarian tribes. Even the brutish Orc warlord needs things kept in order by the lawful Orcs or the band would just dissolve with everyone going their own way. There is no reason any member of that tribe would stick with any other member of that tribe unless they received more benefit from the relationship than what they gave up in exchange, particularly since they are evil, so... the idea of there being any sort of nebulously chaotic society is nonsense. It just doesn't work out.</p><p></p><p>In terms of good and evil... Again, there is an issue. If your society is all evil, then just like being chaotic it really does not take long for everyone to just split up and go their own ways because no one wants to contribute more than they receive and soon enough in the general course of things, one is going to be find themselves in that position and unless somehow kept there via force or threat of force, they are naturally going to leave for a situation that better benefits them.</p><p></p><p>On the reverse, if the entire society is nebulously good then the truth is that the society will likely collapse in on itself as no one is going to be making the hard and generally evil decisions that are required, nor being motivated by selfishness enough to accomplish great feats. Capitalism is an entire system that is entirely predicated upon a vice that all people know to be evil, and yet it does in fact function better than any other system people have tried-- certainly better than the "let's all share everything with everyone and everyone owns everything equally" system which would no doubt be classified as "good" at its core and perhaps fails because people just aren't that altruistic-- at least not all the time.</p><p></p><p>Just like it is really dumb to classify your characters as being somewhere on the Law/Chaos, Good/Evil scale as any reasonable character is very likely to be one of those in situations involving one group or people and another in their deals with a different group, and for exactly what they would be classified as changing in any given situation as their underlining values, motivations, goals, ideals, ambitions and bonds mean that their moral code is going to shift a bit in order to balance out all of what they want and want to do. Even one putting forward the idea that one of those 9 is going to govern the mass majority of your character's actions is the ramblings of someone who never really examined how real human beings work.</p><p></p><p>It is so very much more ludicrous when you want to try to apply those labels to a whole society or a whole people. There is just way, WAY too much going on to classify it so simply.</p><p></p><p>Seriously-- try to classify any real world society and, aside from those that have been historically demonized, and you couldn't really apply any such label to any society that would govern how all people in all layers of that society acted in all facets of their daily lives.</p><p></p><p>What is the "alignment" of Mexico compared to the "alignment" of Norway? Do London and Honolulu have the same alignment or different alignments?</p><p></p><p>It is just utter nonsense and fails fundamentally as any sort of tool to indicate to you what is and is not important in the society. You would get a lot more out of saying that the laws and norms of behavior of Society 1 have very strict laws about A, B and C which might seem very "Lawful" compared to Society 2, but they also tend to be a lot more permissive with D, and E compared to Society 2 and while Society 1 particularly espouses values X, Y and Z which are all good and all, their application of those values isn't as universal as it could be and their military forces engage in various activities that seem to undermine those values suggesting that they have evil vices V and W.</p><p></p><p>A well-written setting is just going to be enough of a complicated mess that this whole alignment system restricts one in a way that is almost certainly not helpful.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="GreenTengu, post: 6787988, member: 6777454"] Honestly, the approach to governments in D&D's various editions when laying out their worlds hinges on lunacy. First of all, no functional society is going to have anyone at the top who is actually chaotic. Maybe they are dishonest in their dealing with other, sure, and maybe they don't really feel like the rules apply to them-- but their position of power and authority, and their ability to retain that power and authority hinges on everyone having respect for the laws, the traditions and the general structure of society and obeying it. Thus, they are going to espouse and push for an at least generally lawful agenda. Even if the king is crazy and took his power by force or was just never properly raised, if the society doesn't fall apart within a week or two, you can be sure everyone around the king is aligned Lawful. This is of course true of functional, flourishing cities, but the truth is that it really has to be true of even those wild barbarian tribes. Even the brutish Orc warlord needs things kept in order by the lawful Orcs or the band would just dissolve with everyone going their own way. There is no reason any member of that tribe would stick with any other member of that tribe unless they received more benefit from the relationship than what they gave up in exchange, particularly since they are evil, so... the idea of there being any sort of nebulously chaotic society is nonsense. It just doesn't work out. In terms of good and evil... Again, there is an issue. If your society is all evil, then just like being chaotic it really does not take long for everyone to just split up and go their own ways because no one wants to contribute more than they receive and soon enough in the general course of things, one is going to be find themselves in that position and unless somehow kept there via force or threat of force, they are naturally going to leave for a situation that better benefits them. On the reverse, if the entire society is nebulously good then the truth is that the society will likely collapse in on itself as no one is going to be making the hard and generally evil decisions that are required, nor being motivated by selfishness enough to accomplish great feats. Capitalism is an entire system that is entirely predicated upon a vice that all people know to be evil, and yet it does in fact function better than any other system people have tried-- certainly better than the "let's all share everything with everyone and everyone owns everything equally" system which would no doubt be classified as "good" at its core and perhaps fails because people just aren't that altruistic-- at least not all the time. Just like it is really dumb to classify your characters as being somewhere on the Law/Chaos, Good/Evil scale as any reasonable character is very likely to be one of those in situations involving one group or people and another in their deals with a different group, and for exactly what they would be classified as changing in any given situation as their underlining values, motivations, goals, ideals, ambitions and bonds mean that their moral code is going to shift a bit in order to balance out all of what they want and want to do. Even one putting forward the idea that one of those 9 is going to govern the mass majority of your character's actions is the ramblings of someone who never really examined how real human beings work. It is so very much more ludicrous when you want to try to apply those labels to a whole society or a whole people. There is just way, WAY too much going on to classify it so simply. Seriously-- try to classify any real world society and, aside from those that have been historically demonized, and you couldn't really apply any such label to any society that would govern how all people in all layers of that society acted in all facets of their daily lives. What is the "alignment" of Mexico compared to the "alignment" of Norway? Do London and Honolulu have the same alignment or different alignments? It is just utter nonsense and fails fundamentally as any sort of tool to indicate to you what is and is not important in the society. You would get a lot more out of saying that the laws and norms of behavior of Society 1 have very strict laws about A, B and C which might seem very "Lawful" compared to Society 2, but they also tend to be a lot more permissive with D, and E compared to Society 2 and while Society 1 particularly espouses values X, Y and Z which are all good and all, their application of those values isn't as universal as it could be and their military forces engage in various activities that seem to undermine those values suggesting that they have evil vices V and W. A well-written setting is just going to be enough of a complicated mess that this whole alignment system restricts one in a way that is almost certainly not helpful. [/QUOTE]
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