D&D General Muscular Neutrality (thought experiment)

[I'm A Banana]

But Nirvana is not about to destroy the World. Is about leaving it behind, and you don't need to destroy it to leave to a better place.

Again, that's just twisting how things actually are into things that they aren't, just to make the gym bro neutrals a valid point.

What difference do you see between everyone leaving the world behind permanently and the end of all life? Because I'm not sure I see much of a true difference.

If the premise is that gym bro neutrals are valid, that it is true and right and honest and an understanding of how this fantasy universe actually works, then it just naturally follows.

You can, of course, not play a game in which muscular neutrality is valid and true. We can choose whatever set up we want for our fiction. But we're doing thought experiments and philosophy here, because D&D has often flirted with these ideas.

 

[Zeromaru X]

How things actually are" is doing a lot of work here, since we're in a thought experiment with hardly any established priors

Another of the established priors is that good needs to be actually good.

 

[Zeromaru X]

What difference do you see between everyone leaving the world behind permanently and the end of all life? Because I'm not sure I see much of a true difference.

That they aren't purposefully ending all life. They aren't going to destroy all animals (life) or plants (also life), when they go. Nor they are about forcing those that don't want to go to go with them.

If life ends, that's the natural cycle of things, not because the forces of good actively sought life's ending. And for me, that's a big difference.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

A double post brought to you by the Gym Bro Neutrals Gym.

Zeno: Bruh, do you even lift? DO YOU EVEN LIFT, BRUH?

Achilles: No bruh. I joined the Gym Bro Neutrals Gym but I don't go. Bruh, they won't cancel my membership, bruh! Say I have to fight both good and evil first, bruh. Not sick, bruh. Not sick.

 

[Voadam]

Sounds like someone is denying that Pholtus is the one true way.

Don't worry, non-believer. You will see the LIGHT. Whether you want to or not.

The blinding light is not the one true only way.

There is other LG, there is NG, and there is CG.

 

[TwoSix]

That they aren't purposefully ending all life. They aren't going to destroy all animals (life) or plants (also life), when they go. Nor they are about forcing those that don't want to go to go with them.

If life ends, that's the natural cycle of things, not because the forces of good actively sought life's ending. And for me, that's a big difference.

When you're talking about things like "cosmological good" and "cosmological evil", how the "natural cycle" ended up being the natural cycle seems pretty important!

 

[TwoSix]

Another of the established priors is that good needs to be actually good.

Well, no, the established prior is

"Good" is "altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings"

"Good needs to be good" is a tautology.

"What IS the truest good?" is something to figure out in play for each character, assuming you want this concept to be of importance in play. It's less important if your main goal is just to make the Circle of Eight more rational.

 

[Voadam]

The blinding light is not the one true only way.

There is other LG, there is NG, and there is CG.

View attachment 388840

Or just go with it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

That they aren't purposefully ending all life. They aren't going to destroy all animals (life) or plants (also life), when they go. Nor they are about forcing those that don't want to go to go with them.

1 - Animals and plants are part of samsara, too. They're as capable of nirvana as anything else. A transient existence isn't just transient for humans.

2 - Good in our scenario doesn't force, either. Can't force bliss, after all. It influences, it advises, it helps this process along. It says, "just seek peace, seek tranquility, seek nothingness." Though I'd imagine the "overzealous good" trope would be one the DM would want to bust out at least once in this setting, since an angel who fails in appreciating the value in the lives of others is a very cromulent bit of storytelling here, able to very much show the difference between Good and Neutral and to show that Good, when it falls from its own standards, can be quite a dangerous antagonist. Almost as dangerous as Evil, when it lives up to its own standards!

If life ends, that's the natural cycle of things, not because the forces of good actively sought life's ending. And for me, that's a big difference.

If life and suffering are inextricable from each other, and Good seeks an end to suffering, then life is not inherently Good. There can be bad lives. Lives that produce or endure more suffering. There can be merciful or necessary killings. Life is not the goal, and it doesn't have to be.

 

[Clint_L]

I think the best illustration of lawful good is Rene-Jean Page's paladin, Xenk, in Honour Among Thieves. Specifically, when he walks over the boulder rather than deviate from his straight line by even one inch.