N'raac - you have posited that your interpretation is the only valid one. That you have the right of how alignment is interpreted. Now, if you are playing in a game where the DM interprets things differently, would you be perfectly willing to abide by that other DM's interpretations? If your DM tells you that no, you are wrong, would you simply shrug and accept it? I mean, you're pretty vociferous in trying to prove an interpretation when no one is actually disagreeing with you.
Like most things, it depends largely on the issue, and the context. The alignment rules are there to be read and interpreted, like any other rule. The extent of debate seems like it would depend on the underlying disagreement itself. Some rules calls could go either way, and others are much clearer.
I suspect that, if the GM is providing alignment rulings that I can’t abide by, then alignment won’t be the only aspect of the game where we have significant differences.
The only thing we've said is that alternative interpretations exist. No one's actually claimed to buy into those other interpretations, but, let's be honest here, those alternative interpretations most certainly exist.
If no one buys into them, then we seem to concur those alternative interpretations are not valid. If there is one you buy into, based on the actual rules and not solely on a real world sense of right and wrong, then let’s hear it. If not, well, no one yet has asserted that leaving R’as to die was an evil act, despite your presentation of the scene as one where there would undoubtedly be heated disagreement.
After all, you argued that murdering a high priest wasn't an evil act since it would send the high priest to his just reward in the afterlife
Actually, I argued that it was not a sufficiently evil act to meet the Glabrezus wish-grating requirement of “unless the
wish is used to create pain and suffering in the world, the glabrezu demands either terrible evil acts or great sacrifice as compensation.” when you asserted that Planar Binding was sufficient to generate an unlimited supply of free wishes.
There is no reason, either in the wording of the definition of good in any version of D&D, nor in the overall presentation of the game, to suppose that defensive violence - even lethal violence used in self-defence or defence of others - is not morally justified.
“Morally justified” is not “good”. It is a departure from the tenets of good justified by other realities. It is not Good to inflict violence on the Orc. It is also not Good to stand by while the Orc inflicts violence on an innocent person. There is no available choice which can be 100% consistent with the ideals of Good.
Saying that moral theorising has no relevance to making sense of these concepts is like saying that ordinary concepts of gold have no relevance to thinking about gold pieces, or that ordinary concepts of sharp edges have no relevance to thinking about a fighter's sword.
One need not have a Ph.D. in mineralogy to muddle through the concept of gold pieces. We don’t agonize over how much different those coins must be in size to have identical weights, or vice versa. We accept the simplifying assumptions provided by the game. Except you seem incapable of accepting simplifying assumptions for ethical philosophy.
But, if I'm playing a LG character, paladin or not, why would I choose an action that is not Lawful or Good? Wouldn't that be out of character? If I know that action X is judged as not LG, then how can it be the right thing to do for a LG character? Wouldn't the most palatable action for my character be the one that is most in line with my alignment?
My preference is to define the character’s beliefs and use these to assess the alignment for which he is the best fit. If those beliefs do not fit solidly in the LG frame, then he’s not a good choice to be a Paladin. If my character is driven by a need for vengeance on the guilty which will consistently override his desire to protect the innocent, he may be LG, but he’s close enough to the edge that maintaining Paladinhood is unlikely. With that in mind, I won’t select the Paladin class, unless I want this character to face the added challenge of likely falling.
In my mind, you are arguing that the character is incoherent. The player thinks that a given action is the right one to do. The player believes that it is in keeping with his conception of his character which he has created based on the beliefs that his character is LG.
But, in following his beliefs for his character, which he believes to be LG, he is actually violating his own code of ethics since alignment is supposed to be an outline for a characters code of ethics and morality isn't it?
No, it isn’t. It’s a classification of where his views and beliefs, on the whole, place him. He may well be LG while having some non-Lawful tendencies (places a greater value on family than on the community as a whole, for example) and/or some non-good tendencies (“The only good Orc is a dead Orc!”) That LG alignment is a big, wide space. Every LG character is not clustered at the top left corner of the diagram.
IOW, if I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt (because the DM has told me before I do it) that my action is out of line with my chosen alignment, why would I continue to pursue that action, knowing that I'm violating the consistency of my own character?
What is consistency of the character, playing consistently with his value of family over society, or his thirst for justice? It is when his beliefs come into conflict – that is, when he can take no action which is consistent with all of his beliefs, that the role playing becomes challenging. I rather suspect [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] would agree with me on that, regardless of whether alignment is, or is not, in play?
Upthread you asserted that capital punishment was evil (or at least non-good) because it involved killing. Now you seem to be asserting the opposite. Which is it? (You seem to be proving @
Hussar 's point for him!)
It is, in isolation, non-good. That is not the same as evil. It may be justified out of Evil by other circumstances, in particular the ideal of protecting the innocent. It may also be moved back from Evil based on circumstances (as a just punishment for Evil done by the condemned), and should be carried out with the least practical violation of Good ideals.
Of course people can choose actions that they know are not good. But they cannot rationally choose such actions. They are obliged to acknowledge that their choice is flawed. Hence, for instances, people offer excuses for their choices.
Would the Paladin prefer that the criminal reformed, or even that he had not committed the crime? I expect he would. But he lives in an imperfect world, so a perfect choice does not always present itself.
I expect that a person who is capable of becoming a Paladin in the first place would not lightly commit an Evil act. I doubt he received his Paladinhood by a morning seminar and 25 box tops. It should therefore not be a “core case for the typical D&D paladin” that he chooses an evil act. Now, a sneak thief caught in the act, lacking the Paladin’s moral fiber, may well choose the evil act of killing the person who came upon him.
My game is full of such players. If the player of PC A wants A to do such-and-such, and the player of PC B wants A to do some different such-and-such, then the desires of A win out everyone time. Is A some terrible person? Or is it just that, in the rules of most RPGs, the player of a particular PC gets to choose how that PC acts, even if other participants in the game would prefer that the PC at some other way.
Putting the player in charge of adjudicating the extent to which his/her paladin or cleric lives up to that character's ideals doesn't raise any distinctive issue of selfishness beyond this ordinary principle, that it is up to each player to play his/her PC, and to develop, articulate and implement a conception of that PC.
Not good enough – Player A also considers Player B’s choices inappropriate – his character should just get over his morbid fear of water and get on the boat so we can get on with the adventure. And he does not want to play through Player C’s role playing of his seasickness -the game mechanics don’t require any such seasickness. Move along so we can get to the good part (ie the part that focuses on Player A, and his desires from the game). That’s the special snowflake.
When each player recognizes the rights of all the other players are equal to his own, no one is receiving “special treatment”. You may recognize each of your children differently, but I doubt you focus primarily on one, and the other gets attention if and when the first one is fully satisfied.
