A player reads a rulebook and reads a definition of the alignment "lawful good" - let's say, as in Gygax's book, it says "greatest happiness of the greatest number". That player is playing a paladin. The PC find him-/herself in a situation where s/he must choose - shut the gate to the Abyss, or save his/her mother. The player, for whatever reason, decides that the PC chooses to save mum, so the gate remains open, and demons gradually conquere the world. The GM strips the player of paladinhood (temporarily or permanently - at the moment I'm not worrying about the degree of severity of consequence) for violating the tenets of lawful good.
On what basis does the GM strip the Paladin of his Paladinhood for a single act? Are you asserting this was an evil act? If so, please tell us in what way it was evil. It does not even appear to be a non-good act - he has saved a life, which seems quite consistent with both "respect for life" and "defense of the innocent". He has not pursued the greatest good for the greatest number, but that seems to me to be the Lawful aspect of LG, not the Good aspect. A Chaotic Good, or even Neutral Good, viewpoint could well be we save the mother now, then we stop the demons from endangering anyone else.
"Acceptable losses" strikes me as a Lawful compromise of pure Good.
In these circumstances, how would it make any sense for the PC, in the gameworld, to contest the moral judgement of the "cosmological forces of law and good"? How does it even make sense to suppose that the cosmological forces have made a mistake about the moral requirements of which they are the objective exemplars?
Forces of Law and Good. Perhaps the forces of Chaos and Good, or the forces of pure Good, or both, feel differently about the issue. So who is right, the Exemplar of Law and Good, the Exemplar of
Chaos and Good, or the Exemplar of Uncompromising Good? Or could it be
there is no definitive perfect alignment? Your obsession with "there can be only one right choice" is the problem here, not any form of alignment, mechanical or otherwise.
Which game mechanics? I AM NOT USING MECHANICAL ALIGNMENT. Hence, the game mechanics do not establish that anyone is a force for any particular moral goal or value or failing. The heavens are not LG, nor NG, no CG. Those designations are part of the mechanical alignment system that I AM NOT USING.
Your statement that
Pemerton said:
Whether or not they are a force for good is not a question that the game mechanics themselves establish.
suggests that, in a game with mechanical alignment, the Heavens are "a force for pure good" and thus the PC's cannot rationally question their inherent Goodnes. I disagree with your interpretation of those mechanics. I believe that, if we are using mechanical alignment, the Heavens are a force for one viewpoint of Good, typically that of Lawful Good. A NG or CG character might very well disagree with the manner in which the Heavens view Good. In the game you described, it is my view that characters in a mechanical alignment game choosing to defend their friend over the dictates of Heaven chosen their friend over the rules, an act more Chaotic than Lawful, but still quite consistent with the ideals of Good.
I'm not talking about the middle ground. Presumably we are all agreed that if mechanical alignment is being used then some behaviour is not neutral but evil. That's what I want to talk about. (Although presumably a paladin who does enough middle ground stuff rather than good stuff will change alignment from LG to something neutral, and hence lose his/her class.)
It seems like every "not middle ground" example which has been raised is dismissed by you as something "reasonable players would never do", so the issue "would never come up" in your game. Maybe that means well-implemented mechanical alignment would not become a bone of contention in your game.
My contention is this: in a game using mechanical alignment in the way @
Bedrockgames has described upthread, in which there are, therefore, objective cosmological forces of good and evil, a PC who does stuff that the force of good says is not good has no rational basis on which to disupte that judgement. The paladin who can't get beyond loyalty to his/her sibling, for instance, would have to recognise that in behaving that way s/he was falling short of his/her ideals.
Yes, he is. He is falling short of his Lawful ideals. Now, if he facilitates his brother taking evil acts, I would say he is falling short of his Good ideals. And I would go further to say it makes
no difference whatsoever if he, or the player playing him, believes he is not falling short of those ideals. He is giving his brother special treatment, departing from his ideals. Maybe he can rationalize it, but that rationalization still leaves him failing to live up to his ideals when it comes to his brother. And if he commits an evil act* in defense of his brother, then he will lose his Paladinhood.
* not a Chaotic act. Not a Non-Good act. An actual EVIL act.
If he hides his brother from the City Guard, unwilling to believe his guilt and/or hoping to reform him, that is not a Good act, and it is a Chaotic act, but it is not an Evil act. If, having been discovered, he creates a distraction for his brother to escape, or stands in the path of the Guard to delay him so his brother can escape, again, he has not committed an Evil act. But if the Paladin decides that he will kill the guard rather than let his brother be taken to face justice for his crimes, then I would certainly consider that an evil act. Is he sure he wishes to kill a man innocently endeavouring to carry out his non-Evil job? Then he has not honoured Respect for Life. He has not compromised that respect to adhere to someone other principal of Good, or even of Law. He has deliberately committed an evil act. Now, perhaps that would never happen in your game, because any reasonable player would recognize that killing a man for going about his non-Evil duties is an Evil act that no one sworn to good and sincerely honouring those principals would ever commit.
The priest who harbours vengeful hatred for goblins would have to recognise that that was a moral failing on his/her part. (This is hardly an unusual thing, either - most people recognise that they have emotions or inclinations that don't live up to their own ideals.) If, in the end/ that character was punished by the forces of cosmological good for those inclinations, the character could not rationally contest that punishment, as it is objectively correct and the character knows that to be so.
Or it may be objectively correct, but the character cannot see beyond his own prejudices to acknowledge that it is so. Bigotry is not a rational trait.
Related to my contention is a question - echoing @
Hussar: what would count as an example of permissible GM enforcement of alignment change in a game using mechanical alignment? For instance, how many times is the paladin allowed to sacrifice the requirements of justice in favour of his/her brother before being punished?
"How many times" seems very much an example of mechanistic, rather than mechanical, alignment. Is his protection of his brother the sole failing in his otherwise unflagging devotion to Law and Good? Then I would consider him LG. Is that Cleric's sole deviation from his NG alignment an inability to overcome his distaste for Goblins? Then he is NG with a failing. He's not at the very top of the page on the alignment graph. If he is plotting or implementing genocide of the Goblin race, he's probably slipped below the top third of the page into Neutral, if not evil. But if he's an otherwise good man who just can't get along with goblins, I'd classify him as a good man with a single failing.
So the paladin can help his/her brother at the expense of justice as much as s/he likes without falling? And will only fall when s/he rips out a baby's throat?
That seems quite consistent with your "the player may define any action he wishes to be in keeping with his code" lack of any mechanical alignment game - and even there it seems inconsistent not to accept the player's rationalization that he is STILL working actively to the greatest good for the greatest number, with the infant in question being a regrettable, but unavoidable, and thus acceptable, loss in that pursuit.
And yes, he has a single blind spot for his brother (or his family?), which does not make him "non-lawful". It does mean he is not at the absolute left of the alignment chart, flat against the leftmost line on the page, the absolute pinnacle of Lawfulness. Perfection is not required. If it were, Neutral would fill virtually all of the page, with tiny little spots representing the other eight alignments. It is unclear to me why you have such difficulty grasping this concept.
I answered this question already - beings of true enlightenment. One of them lives in a western paradise. Others are truly beyond time and space (and they are noted on the relationship chart on the far right, towards the top).
And the PCs were not the only ones revering these beings (and I don't understand what makes you think otherwise).
In what way?
Whatever they decide is deemed to be perfectly in keeping with these beings of True Enlightenment, as we can never judge them to fall short of their ideals in any way. As such, they too must be fully enlightened, as they unfailingly select the choices in keeping with perfect enlightenment. Clearly, their conception is that they are perfectly enlightened, and thus it must be so, for no one may judge their enlightenment.
This is a major topic of discussion in the real world among those interested in the religion that my campaign was drawing upon. The enlightened being who lives in the western paradise, at least, experiences compassion for all living things, and hence has not left behind unenlightened beings.
"What a shame that people go hungry", he said, between mouthfuls. "If only some less enlightened beings, not removed from the world, would take some action in that regard. Why, I would go myself, but then the next course would get cold." It must be right to feel compassion and do nothing, for he has been defined as fully enlightened and of the highest moral standard, because the character who venerates him believes it to be so, and his judgment may never be questioned.
Perhaps Beings of True Enlightenment follow the principal of the Ascended in Stargate, refusing to involve themselves in mortal affairs. And perhaps, despite believing, fervently and sincerely, that they are Good, they are Lawful Neutral, as they lack altruism and refuse to use a tiny fraction of their power to aid those less fortunate than themselves. That they perceive themselves to be good (small g, not Alignment Mechanic Good) does not make it so.
