D&D 5E The Multiverse is back....

[Imaro]

Moorcock was part of my early experience of fantasy reading as a kid. I scoured my father's old collections of fantasy novels that he still had stored at his parents' house. Elric and Moorcock's Eternal Champion universe was a big part of that. But for me, that's where some of my dislike for the Great Wheel comes from. D&D tends to focus more on the moral Good vs. Evil axis as opposed to the mythical Law vs. Chaos axis of Moorcock, which itself feels like the cosmological framing of real world mythologies.

I'm uncertain as to why you say this, if anything I would say that D&D, The Great Wheel and Planescape for the most part have been pretty neutral as far as whether it focused on the conflict of good vs. evil or law vs. chaos...

I'm not even a fan of having Good vs. Evil, though Law and Chaos often, respectively, carry these moral qualities. Civilization, which is looked upon favorably, is only possible because of Order that is formed out of Chaos, usually by the deities representing order defeating representation of primordial chaos.

See and here you touch on one of my major issues with the 4e cosmology... IMO it doesn't focus more on chaos vs. law... It, for the most part, through trying to "simplify" alignment seems to conflate law with good and chaos with evil... which Moorcock doesn't do. What is good or redeeming about chaos in 4e? It is presented, again for the most part, as a destructive force... while the PoL civilizations are for the most part "good". I like the 9 point alignment as opposed to 4e's because it makes it clear that chaos in and of itself can be good, evil or neither... just as law or order can be good, evil or neither... 4e blurs these lines and paints law in terms of good (lawful good) and chaos as evil (chaotic evil) there is no law that can be evil for some reason and there is no chaos that can be good... at least not by the alignments. IMO, this isn't focusing on chaos vs. law it's playing evil vs. good in costumes...

Even biblical priestly cosmology of Gen 1 is a presented as a stripped down version in which Yahweh creates order out of the primordial chaos, and this chaos - both a moral and metaphysical reality - constantly threatens to undo creation (cf. Gen 6). That's a big part of why I liked the 4E cosmology. The Order vs. Chaos motif was at the forefront, and the Prime became the chief battleground where this metaplot unfolds.

I don't want to get into a discussion of real world religion since it is against board policy, but again I disagree with your characterization of 4e. The primordials and demons are the biggest representatives of chaos in 4e... yet they are painted as more evil than chaotic (with it's inherent good and evil qualities). Look at Arioch in the Elric stories he is a Lord of Chaos but he has both good and evil traits, the Lords of Law are the same. Imo 4e and it's axis rarely if ever captures this aspect of law and chaos but The Great Wheel and Planescape do.

The Lady of Pain is a more Arioch-esque figure than any of the primordials of 4e... The Factions, I'm struggling to think of one that could be categorized as good or evil, though many have the conflict of chaos (Xaositects, Free League, MercyKillers, etc.) and law (Harmonium, Fraternity of Order, etc.) ingrained in them... for the most part they aren't concerned with good or evil but instead various aspects of law and chaos... Anytime a fiend and an angel can sit in the same tavern together evil vs. good has certainly taken a backseat to other concerns... Sigil a city of infinite portals, and because of The Lady of Pain a place where major conflicts around ideologies are (at least openly) is prohibited has echoes of Tanelorn at least IMO... In fact the planes themselves are more reminiscent to the numerous planes hinted at and shown throughout Moorcock's various stories of his Eternal Champion... He shows us planes that have more in common with weird fantasy (Both pulp and current) than greek myths and honestly that resonates more with me... I'm more a fan of Elric, Arioch, Gray Mouser, Sheelba, The Beast Lords, Corum, Hawkmoon, Fafhrd, Kane and their weird worlds and cosmologies than I am of Perseus, Beowulf, King Arthur, Achilles, Cuchulain, Hercules and Sigurd and their mythic cosmologies.

 

[Nivenus]

I'm not @Parmandur, but I think that nine-point alignment is untenable.

There was a long alignment thread earlier this year that went over this in a lot of detail. MY TL;DR version is:

Once you contrast good and evil, it makes no sense to have commitments to law and chaos as independent elments. For instance, a LG person is meant to judge that a CG is both fully good (contrast a CN person, who is sometimes or partly good) yet morally flawed. That makes no sense.

I don't agree. I think it's entirely possible to see someone as mostly good but not necessarily wholly good. But then again, I don't believe in moral absolutism (to a certain extent; I do think certain things are clearly good and evil) and perceive law and chaos as alignments to be as much about how you view yourself in relation to society as they are about what you believe to be morally right or wrong.

 

[Imaro]

Why would I complain about it though? It's been completely stripped from 5e and I've never seen anyone bitching about how 5e's monsters aren't following 4e lore. I've never seen anyone complaining time and again that elves aren't eladrin anymore. Do Formorians even appear in the 5e Monster Manual? Is anyone complaining that the giants have ignored 4e?

If people were constantly complaining about changes to 4e lore, I'd be right there arguing agains that too. But they don't. So, i don't have anyone to argue with.

See for me you're issues seem to keep shifting... so your issue isn't the locking down of lore in D&D (any edition) it's whether people complain if the lore they like gets changed... I honestly didn't think that's what you're point has been throughout this thread.

 

[Hussar]

Bit of column A and a bit of column B. The lore gets presented, the fans start carving it in stone, more lore gets added on and it pretty much becomes a perpetuating cycle.

Note, I have no problem with setting canon. That's fine. My complaint is more about trying to force a single setting on the game.

The Planes tend to be the biggest but hardly only offender here.

After all, I can get several horror supplements for dnd that do not reference Ravenloft. But it's very hard to get a planar reference that isn't steeped in The Planes. Even the mentioned MotP is still about 75% The Planes.

Why would I buy a book when I know three quarters of it are largely useless to me?

 

[Parmandur]

Nivenus, that's kind of the point: makes for an interesting personality comparison, but is presented as metaphysics....

 

[Nivenus]

Nivenus, that's kind of the point: makes for an interesting personality comparison, but is presented as metaphysics....

Well I was disagreeing with pemerton primarily, not you.

I will say, however, that it's workable as metaphysics too, particularly if you have a non-dualistic outlook in things. Good, evil, law, and chaos all represent fairly different things in D&D's cosmology, which means there's no real conflict in having all four. Good and evil are the conflict between benevolence and charity over malice and selfishness. Law and chaos are (when taken beyond human-scale characters) representative of the conflict between stability and stasis vs. change and destruction.

It's true that few (if any) real-world cosmologies present D&D's particular schema of good vs. evil and law vs. chaos. There are, however, quite a few that do not associate good with law (order) or evil with chaos. Hinduism, for example, puts the forces of destruction on more less equal moral ground with the forces of stability: Shiva and Kali, both destructive by nature, are some of the most popular deities in the pantheon and neither is considered evil. Likewise Susanoo in Japanese mythology who may be a disruptive and unruly deity, but who is nonetheless worthy of veneration.

That being said, I do agree that the alignment system is probably better suited for roleplaying than it is for metaphysics. But it's a bit odd to say it's "untenable" when metaphysics as a field is entirely based on largely untestable principles (which is why it is philosophy and not science).

After all, I can get several horror supplements for dnd that do not reference Ravenloft. But it's very hard to get a planar reference that isn't steeped in The Planes. Even the mentioned MotP is still about 75% The Planes.

Why would I buy a book when I know three quarters of it are largely useless to me?

Butis it largely useless to you? It seems to me that a lot of the same material you would find in a generic planar supplement would be the same as what you'd find in the Manual of the Planes. Demons, devils, other various planar creatures, examples of what planar environments might look like, how to get players to the planes, what kind of campaigns you can run there, plus a whole chapter on how to modify the book's material as you like.

I mean, the appendix there isn't to tell you to dismiss the rest of the book you just read. It's there to tell you how to modify what's in the book to your needs. Like having demons and devils but wish they coexisted on the same plane? No reason you can't take what you like from the Abyss and the Hells and toss them together. Like Bytopia but don't care for Celestia or Arcadia? No reason you can't just make Bytopia (or some modified version of it) your preferred version of a lawful good heaven (or an afterlife for a specific pantheon... or just a generically good heaven).

I mean, it just strikes me a generic planar supplement and a Manual of the Planes with instructions on how to toss out the material you don't like or need would be extremely redundant. What would the former have that the latter wouldn't ​have?

 

[Aldarc]

I'm uncertain as to why you say this, if anything I would say that D&D, The Great Wheel and Planescape for the most part have been pretty neutral as far as whether it focused on the conflict of good vs. evil or law vs. chaos...

It doesn't seem that way to me. I think that D&D tends to focus primarily on the Good vs. Evil axis. It's why there's a bigger issue for DMs with an evil party or an evil player than having a chaotic party (or chaotic player, unless CN). The assumptions of gameplay usually lean towards good vs. evil. The same is true with Planescape, the Great Wheel, and the Blood War. When I explain to other people about the Blood War, sure it's Law vs. Chaos, but for many people I talk about this with, it's clumped together as "it's all evil to me."

See and here you touch on one of my major issues with the 4e cosmology... IMO it doesn't focus more on chaos vs. law... It, for the most part, through trying to "simplify" alignment seems to conflate law with good and chaos with evil... which Moorcock doesn't do.

Real world mythologies do conflate order with good and chaos with evil. Sure Moorcock does not, but that's because Balance is usually preferred, which would be the preferred neutrality of the Prime in 4E.

What is good or redeeming about chaos in 4e? It is presented, again for the most part, as a destructive force... while the PoL civilizations are for the most part "good". I like the 9 point alignment as opposed to 4e's because it makes it clear that chaos in and of itself can be good, evil or neither... just as law or order can be good, evil or neither... 4e blurs these lines and paints law in terms of good (lawful good) and chaos as evil (chaotic evil) there is no law that can be evil for some reason and there is no chaos that can be good... at least not by the alignments. IMO, this isn't focusing on chaos vs. law it's playing evil vs. good in costumes...

What is redeeming about chaos? For many real world religions and mythologies, there is a much greater emphasis on law than on chaos, with chaos being an undesirable state indicative of the lack of civilization, law, and order. For many religions, the lines have always been blurred when it comes to law and good or evil and chaos. Think about how there are so many threads delving into how the CN character is playing like he's CE though less CN characters playing like CG. Just to be clear, I'm not a fan of 4E's alignment system, though I do prefer it's conflation of NE with LE as E and CG with NG as G, but that's mainly because my own experience typically saw those paired alignments played mostly identical in actual narrative play. My own preference is a lack of alignments entirely.

I don't want to get into a discussion of real world religion since it is against board policy,

What is there to debate? That's what it is in the biblical texts.

but again I disagree with your characterization of 4e. The primordials and demons are the biggest representatives of chaos in 4e... yet they are painted as more evil than chaotic (with it's inherent good and evil qualities). Look at Arioch in the Elric stories he is a Lord of Chaos but he has both good and evil traits, the Lords of Law are the same. Imo 4e and it's axis rarely if ever captures this aspect of law and chaos but The Great Wheel and Planescape do.

Arioch, I would argue was portrayed as mostly kind of evil. Stormbringer itself was a demon of chaos, but unquestionably evil. Law was portrayed as occasionally evil as well, but that's mostly because Moorcock's system was that anything in excess was harmful. Moorcock also doesn't have an evil vs. good axis, so that's where the Great Wheel and Planescape utterly fail as well. The good vs. evil axis in D&D strips away a substantial amount of the moral ambiguity for many players, and most rational people, that could exist if it was simply law vs. chaos.

The Lady of Pain is a more Arioch-esque figure than any of the primordials of 4e...

The Lady of Pain is no Arioch. She's a plot device masquerading as a character, kind of like Ao is for the Realms.

The Factions, I'm struggling to think of one that could be categorized as good or evil, though many have the conflict of chaos (Xaositects, Free League, MercyKillers, etc.) and law (Harmonium, Fraternity of Order, etc.) ingrained in them... for the most part they aren't concerned with good or evil but instead various aspects of law and chaos... Anytime a fiend and an angel can sit in the same tavern together evil vs. good has certainly taken a backseat to other concerns...

Which is why I said that the Factions remind me of privileged undergrads fapping to the sounds of the voices. The plot is too ideological but without the personal stakes of real people of the Prime.

 

[Nivenus]

It doesn't seem that way to me. I think that D&D tends to focus primarily on the Good vs. Evil axis. It's why there's a bigger issue for DMs with an evil party or an evil player versus having a chaotic party (or chaotic player). The assumptions of gameplay usually lean towards good vs. evil. The same is true with Planescape, the Great Wheel, and the Blood War. When I explain to other people about the Blood War, sure it's Law vs. Chaos, but for many people I talk about this with, it's clumped together as "it's all evil to me."

I think that actually has a lot to do with the fact that D&D good, as a rule, encompasses tolerance as one of its values (seriously, I think it's one of the core virtues in the Book of Exalted Deeds). So a lawful good and a chaotic good character are far more likely to get along than a lawful evil and a chaotic evil character.

 

[Aldarc]

I think that actually has a lot to do with the fact that D&D good, as a rule, encompasses tolerance as one of its values (seriously, I think it's one of the core virtues in the Book of Exalted Deeds). So a lawful good and a chaotic good character are far more likely to get along than a lawful evil and a chaotic evil character.

Which is kind of my point. The end result is that good vs. evil gets played out as a bigger concern for most players than law vs. chaos.

 

[Nivenus]

What is redeeming about chaos? For many real world religions and mythologies, there is a much greater emphasis on law than on chaos, with chaos being an undesirable state indicative of the lack of civilization, law, and order. For many religions, the lines have always been blurred when it comes to law and good or evil and chaos. Just to be clear, I'm not a fan of 4E's alignment system, though I do prefer it's conflation of NE with LE and CG with NG, but that's mainly because my own experience typically saw those paired alignments played mostly identical in actual narrative play. My own preference is a lack of alignments entirely.

See my above comments about Hinduism and Shinto. Even in Greek and Norse mythology (often cited as examples for chaos = evil), the titans and the jotnar aren't really depicted as evil per se (and indeed there's a lot of speculation that some of the more demonic characterizations of such are modifications by later writers).

Which is kind of my point. The end result is that good vs. evil gets played out as a bigger concern for most players than law vs. chaos.

But that's like saying the fight between communism vs. fascism was irrelevant to World War II because democratic countries were more likely to tolerate moderate socialists or moderate conservatives. I mean honestly, I don't follow the reasoning there. Good vs. evil and law vs. chaos are different kinds of conflicts, so they affect the characters in different ways.