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New UA Paladin Sacred Oaths are Oath of Conquest and the Oath of Treachery
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7705566" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>For <a href="http://www.dictionary.com/browse/subjugate" target="_blank">subjugate, I get this</a> - from the Random House dictionary:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">1. to bring under complete control or subjection; conquer; master.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">2. to make submissive or subservient; enslave.</p><p></p><p>To subject others to one's will doesn't seem to be respecting their life or dignity or rights (which are standard formulations of "good" since AD&D was first published). At best it is valuing order over those things - which is one traditional understanding of LN. At worst, it is treating the subjugated peoples merely as a means to one's own ends - which is one traditional understanding of "evil" alignment. (See eg Gygax in in his DMG; or the <a href="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm" target="_blank">d20 SRD, which says</a> ""Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient.")</p><p></p><p>This goest to the question of what alignment is for.</p><p></p><p>Some D&D players seem to treat it as a universal scheme for classifying moral outlooks (hence we get "What alignment is Batman?", "What alignment is Darth Vader?", etc). I think this is obviously hopeless - apart from anything else, all the major divisions of philosophical opinion (Kantian and other rights theories vs Aristotelean-type theories vs impersonal consequentialist-type theories) are bundled up by Gygax into the single category of "good".</p><p></p><p>As I see it, the logic of alignment is to impose a certain moral frame onto the gameworld. If, for whatever reason, one isn't interested in that framework, then alignment is redundant.</p><p></p><p>When it comes to making sense of traditional paladins, and the good alignment more generally, I tend to turn to JRRT and similar anti-modernist fantasy themes. A key element of these ideas is that a good person has <em>hope</em>. Whereas the idea that evil has to be expunged seems (by these lights) the counsel of despair, and hence at odds with goodness.</p><p></p><p>In the real world, that sort of providential hope might be pollyanna-ish (see eg Walzer on "dirty hands", or Weber's "Politics as a Vocation"). But if the gameworld is going to ressemble the real world in this way, then alignment doesn't seem to be of much use except as a rough-and-ready behavioural tempalte for monsters.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7705566, member: 42582"] For [url=http://www.dictionary.com/browse/subjugate]subjugate, I get this[/url] - from the Random House dictionary: [indent]1. to bring under complete control or subjection; conquer; master. 2. to make submissive or subservient; enslave.[/indent] To subject others to one's will doesn't seem to be respecting their life or dignity or rights (which are standard formulations of "good" since AD&D was first published). At best it is valuing order over those things - which is one traditional understanding of LN. At worst, it is treating the subjugated peoples merely as a means to one's own ends - which is one traditional understanding of "evil" alignment. (See eg Gygax in in his DMG; or the [url=http://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm]d20 SRD, which says[/url] ""Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient.") This goest to the question of what alignment is for. Some D&D players seem to treat it as a universal scheme for classifying moral outlooks (hence we get "What alignment is Batman?", "What alignment is Darth Vader?", etc). I think this is obviously hopeless - apart from anything else, all the major divisions of philosophical opinion (Kantian and other rights theories vs Aristotelean-type theories vs impersonal consequentialist-type theories) are bundled up by Gygax into the single category of "good". As I see it, the logic of alignment is to impose a certain moral frame onto the gameworld. If, for whatever reason, one isn't interested in that framework, then alignment is redundant. When it comes to making sense of traditional paladins, and the good alignment more generally, I tend to turn to JRRT and similar anti-modernist fantasy themes. A key element of these ideas is that a good person has [I]hope[/I]. Whereas the idea that evil has to be expunged seems (by these lights) the counsel of despair, and hence at odds with goodness. In the real world, that sort of providential hope might be pollyanna-ish (see eg Walzer on "dirty hands", or Weber's "Politics as a Vocation"). But if the gameworld is going to ressemble the real world in this way, then alignment doesn't seem to be of much use except as a rough-and-ready behavioural tempalte for monsters. [/QUOTE]
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