Dragonlance Dragonlance Philosophy thread

[Velderan]

It looks like WotC removed this according to reviews

Yeah, no way they were going to keep slavery in. Same as Gully Dwarves, better to just ignore it.

The time frame of the adventure pre-dates the enslavement of the Kagonesti. They didn't remove it.

Here's the section on the Silvanesti fleeing to Southern Ergoth:

In recent years, war has come to Silvanesti. When the Dragon Armies besieged the realm, the leader Lorac Caladon, Speaker of the Stars, ordered his people to evacuate. Lorac then attempted to defend the kingdom with an orb of dragonkind—but the artifact’s magic unexpectedly warped Silvanesti into a nightmarish land. The surviving elves of Silvanesti now find themselves a people without a homeland. Most journeyed together across the sea to Southern Ergoth, seeking refuge with the Kagonesti, while others refused to give up Silvanesti and sought to reclaim their ancestral home.

Here's the section on the Kagonesti in reference to the Silvanesti:

Although few outsiders intrude on the Kagonesti’s ancient forested lands, thousands of Silvanesti refugees have begun seeking their aid. While the Kagonesti welcome their cousins and seek to support them, they refuse to be overwhelmed by the Silvanesti’s numbers and distinct ways.

Definitely removed.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Here's the section on the Silvanesti fleeing to Southern Ergoth:

Here's the section on the Kagonesti in reference to the Silvanesti:


Definitely removed.

Thank you

 

[gban007]

Objective things are easily observed and defined. "I know it when I see it" is most often used as a catchall for things the speaker doesn't like. "I don't like it, therefore it's X" where X is this "obvious" thing that "everyone" agrees on when in reality, it's not X, it's not obvious, and not everyone agrees. Like morality.

You keep asserting that morality is objective but fail to offer anything to support that. Let me introduce you to another philosophical idea, Hitchen's razor. The short version is: what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

I don't know, discussion I was having with @Levistus's_Leviathan earlier seemed to be heading towards an objective sort of view, albeit hard to prove - science can be used to objectively measure what is good or bad for people's health and wellbeing - whether through foods, medicines, non-medical drugs, drinks, through to physical activities done or inflicted on, through obviously to extremes of mental and physical injury / death.

From there, I think we can then go to intent - someone injures someone else on purpose for enjoyment or because they felt like it - so intending to do objectively bad for someone's health to that someone just for their own selfish desires, could be defined as objectively Evil for humanity. Whereas if injuring accidentally, or injuring to prevent said person from harming other people, or perhaps injuring because that is what the justice system has prescribed due to actions that someone has done already breaching laws etc.

Of course what that means, is because it is often hard to determine what someone's motive may have been (much like in court cases determining what degree of murder a murder charge may be) it can be hard to determine if what they did is objectively Evil or not, but doesn't mean we can't describe what is objectively Evil as such.

The challenge this poses for Dragonlance, is while killing all the people the Cataclysm did is objectively bad for all their health, to say whether it was objectively Evil could depend on the motivation of the Gods in question - was it to prevent even greater suffering, if so then perhaps you would say not objectively Evil, or if it was, whether they were stuck between two objectively Evil choices if we determined that for humans that inaction when you know inaction will cause harm is also objectively Evil. It comes down to how we would determine the motivation feeding into Good / Evil part.

All these considerations, and hard to escape the view that it all still is somewhat subjective, is why I could support the idea that there is objective Good / Evil for humanity - inasmuch that there isn't a cosmically objective Good / Evil - and aliens et al could have a different 'objective Good / objective Evil' as allows for possibility that for humans that eventually we could as a combined 'society' for want of a better word define what is objectively Good and Evil for us, based on what is objectively good and bad for our wellbeing and the motives for actions people take that could support either outcome. Not something I think as a society we have determined as yet, but something we could determine in future. A philosophical point of view, but that is what the thread is about

Note - have attempted to capitalize Good / Evil where talking about the moral sense, whereas not capitalize where talking about good / bad in the more physical / mental sense, to try and separate out where 'good' is essentially using two different definitions.

 

[Faolyn]

The challenge this poses for Dragonlance, is while killing all the people the Cataclysm did is objectively bad for all their health, to say whether it was objectively Evil could depend on the motivation of the Gods in question - was it to prevent even greater suffering,

The Cataclysm was done specifically to punish the kingpriest for his hubris in asking the gods for the power to defeat evil.

See, this is also where comparison to real-world religions fall flat. In the biblical flood, everyone was supposed to be evil. In the story of Moses, the Egyptians were enslaving Jews, and the Jews were spared.

In the Cataclysm, one guy and his minions were doing bad things, and everyone suffered for it.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

All these considerations, and hard to escape the view that it all still is somewhat subjective, is why I could support the idea that there is objective Good / Evil for humanity - inasmuch that there isn't a cosmically objective Good / Evil - and aliens et al could have a different 'objective Good / objective Evil' as allows for possibility that for humans that eventually we could as a combined 'society' for want of a better word define what is objectively Good and Evil for us, based on what is objectively good and bad for our wellbeing and the motives for actions people take that could support either outcome. Not something I think as a society we have determined as yet, but something we could determine in future. A philosophical point of view, but that is what the thread is about

Note - have attempted to capitalize Good / Evil where talking about the moral sense, whereas not capitalize where talking about good / bad in the more physical / mental sense, to try and separate out where 'good' is essentially using two different definitions.

If you want to do a shades of grey not black and white world were good and evil are very blurry lines and everything is an obiwan quote* that works... when you do defualt D&D though as has been pointed out before we do out of game objective... like a person from they and a person from the dale lands can see themselves as good and the other as evil, but out of game the alignments will always line up with the reader/creator/base alingment... most likely making they evil and dale lands good.

This came up years ago when someone argued a LG drow raised to worship would look chaotic evil out of game becuse following the laws and traditions of Menzoberanzin is chaotic, and doing what you were taught was right was evil, so LG =CE... but in D&D that is just CE on the sheet on the page in the book.

so for D&D (unless/until they carve out an exception for Dragonlance, we HAVE defined alignments...)

now you can fix it by removing good and evil. you can fix it by making the good gods fall more in line with D&D good, or you can fix it with a exception wwhere good/evil in Dragonlance isn't the same as base D&D (I am sure others can brain storm other fixes)

Edit* Obiwan saying "It's true from a certain point of view"

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The Cataclysm was done specifically to punish the kingpriest for his hubris in asking the gods for the power to defeat evil.

See, this is also where comparison to real-world religions fall flat. In the biblical flood, everyone was supposed to be evil. In the story of Moses, the Egyptians were enslaving Jews, and the Jews were spared.

In the Cataclysm, one guy and his minions were doing bad things, and everyone suffered for it.

I just thought of a fourth fix... rapture, say that all good aligned and neutral aligned creatures were given the fast pass to paradises...

 

[Faolyn]

I just thought of a fourth fix... rapture, say that all good aligned and neutral aligned creatures were given the fast pass to paradises...

They raptured all the clerics away. Not, as far as I can tell, the good or neutral lay-faithful, just the clerics.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

They raptured all the clerics away. Not, as far as I can tell, the good or neutral lay-faithful, just the clerics.

right but add a few lines about how every good or neutral man woman and child got a ticket to heaven could be a fix.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

You've yet to actually show that in any way. You just keep repeating it without explaining the details. You clearly have an opinion. But can you actually support it with a coherent argument?

You literally do. Without a definition of good or evil you cannot say what is good or evil, therefore you cannot say that an act is good or evil. Which is what you're arguing. This act is evil and wrong. Okay, define evil and show that this act is evil and wrong.

This is not necessary. Child abuse can be accepted to be objectively evil without us needing an entire, irrefutable definition of good and evil. Just like how we know that Quantum Mechanics and Relativity are both insufficient at completely describing the physics of our universe, but we still know that Black Holes and Muons and Higgs Bosons exist.

"Hey, murdering innocent people by the thousands is bad" is an uncontroversial statement that can be accepted into modern morality without needing to completely explain what good and evil are 100% of the time. Just like we can say "Higgs Bosons exist" without knowing if Gravitons do.

I don't see many people defending it, only pushing back on your moral absolutism that you keep repeating but refuse to explain or defend or argue for.

Maybe you have them blocked, but the person that was just banned from the thread was doing that.

You keep asserting that morality is objective but fail to offer anything to support that. Let me introduce you to another philosophical idea, Hitchen's razor. The short version is: what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Ask your 10 closest friends if they're in favor of the murder of innocent people. I'm willing to bet, unless you have "strange" friends, all of them will say that they're against it.

Child abuse is bad and evil. We have proven that. Genocide is evil. That is proven.

 

[Scribe]

Child abuse is bad and evil. We have proven that. Genocide is evil. That is proven.

Harming the innocent/children is evil.
Child abuse is harm.

Child Abuse therefore, is evil.

There is still a definition of 'evil' even if its unspoken. Profoundly immoral and wicked.

You cannot just say 'well its evil because I said its evil and everyone knows this' because that kind of definitive statement laden with assumption is exactly why we have 3+ threads all with various levels of angst. That's the point I would imagine overgeeked is making here.

Is anyone with sense and a soul going to argue child abuse is good? Absolutely not, but that is because we are coming (like it or not) from a shared view at an extremely basic level of what is immoral and wicked but there is a wide wide wide world out there, and I'm not going to imagine there isnt a scenario where I think something is evil, while a different culture on the other side of the planet think its good.

In fact I can think of things immediately which would fall under this scenario, and that is the point. Reasonable, decent, people, can disagree on things.