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<blockquote data-quote="Bacon Bits" data-source="post: 8483339" data-attributes="member: 6777737"><p>I think this is fair. Alignment as a system has always been incredibly fragile, inconsistent, and easy to manipulate. Real world morality is wholly subjective. D&D morality is "wholly objective" (which is a total lie, it's whatever the DM says it is). Of course it falls apart.</p><p></p><p>I think alignment's primary purpose was to make the teams clear on who you fight and who you don't. That's why it was Lawful vs Chaotic in the original game. Adding the second axis made it just realistic enough to feel like it should be analogous, but, no, it's still terrible. You always end up with deontology vs consequences vs pragmatics vs virtue vs whatever other philosophical school supports the outcomes you want.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I've never put ad hoc prisoner killing or transporting in my games. The problem isn't that it's not realistic or that the morality doesn't work. The problem is that the players are there to play Dungeons & Dragons, not Escorts & Escapees. Prisoners feels like a great way for the DM to be incredibly obnoxious and force the game to be as aggravating as possible. The players will be motivated to kill the prisoners because (a) they want to get back to the part of the game the enjoy, not waste all session escorting prisoners, and (b) the players know imaginary prisoners aren't real.</p><p></p><p>I have encountered it in other people's games. Often it's handwaved away when the <em>DM</em> gets frustrated with it.</p><p></p><p>I don't see a problem with different tables using different moralities as long as the table understands the purpose of alignment as it's being used at the table. We often don't talk about the morality of a war game or a video game, so why does every table need to address the nature of morality in D&D? But for the published, general game it's going to be best if it picks something that doesn't result in colonialism or genocide being labelled explicitly "good".</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Bacon Bits, post: 8483339, member: 6777737"] I think this is fair. Alignment as a system has always been incredibly fragile, inconsistent, and easy to manipulate. Real world morality is wholly subjective. D&D morality is "wholly objective" (which is a total lie, it's whatever the DM says it is). Of course it falls apart. I think alignment's primary purpose was to make the teams clear on who you fight and who you don't. That's why it was Lawful vs Chaotic in the original game. Adding the second axis made it just realistic enough to feel like it should be analogous, but, no, it's still terrible. You always end up with deontology vs consequences vs pragmatics vs virtue vs whatever other philosophical school supports the outcomes you want. I've never put ad hoc prisoner killing or transporting in my games. The problem isn't that it's not realistic or that the morality doesn't work. The problem is that the players are there to play Dungeons & Dragons, not Escorts & Escapees. Prisoners feels like a great way for the DM to be incredibly obnoxious and force the game to be as aggravating as possible. The players will be motivated to kill the prisoners because (a) they want to get back to the part of the game the enjoy, not waste all session escorting prisoners, and (b) the players know imaginary prisoners aren't real. I have encountered it in other people's games. Often it's handwaved away when the [I]DM[/I] gets frustrated with it. I don't see a problem with different tables using different moralities as long as the table understands the purpose of alignment as it's being used at the table. We often don't talk about the morality of a war game or a video game, so why does every table need to address the nature of morality in D&D? But for the published, general game it's going to be best if it picks something that doesn't result in colonialism or genocide being labelled explicitly "good". [/QUOTE]
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