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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Viktyr Gehrig" data-source="post: 5779433" data-attributes="member: 9249">You're actually still projecting quite a lot of modern moral values on your medieval society-- they're just modern conservative moral values, some of which are only a few decades old in the West. My own system of moral values is more or less rooted in the 10th century, and I may be biased toward my own cultural heritage, but I've done my fair share of research in my time.Nothing in this post is to be taken as an argument for or against anything-- just pointing out a few historical facts. I'm keeping my own views to myself here because I'm really not a very nice person and I don't want to scandalize Granny.Death penalty? Yeah, you're going to see a lot of that. My biggest pet peeve in all of these goddamned alignment threads is people arguing against the Lawfulness of PCs killing criminals and enemy combatants-- rather than taking them back for a trial-- when one, they're just going to be hanged anyway and two, the PCs would have had the lawful authority to dispense field justice in the first place. That means they're legally entitled to be judge, jury, and executioner by the laws of man and god alike.Not only did the government have broad authority to kill people it didn't like, but in most cultures the standards of "justifiable homicide" by private citizens were incredibly broad. Nobles were often allowed to cut down commoners whenever it suited them, killing a man in a fair fight was considered an acceptable way to end a conflict, and some cultures would hold a full scale battle-- with eager volunteers-- just to kill an old warlord so that he didn't have to die of old age in his bed. This was considered a great honor for the old man and for any of the young, healthy soldiers that died in a war most modern people would consider pointless.Maybe it's my own biases speaking here, but this is the issue I wouldn't budge on. Look at all the Good aligned deities that have some variety of sword for their favored weapon; a sword isn't a tool or a hunting implement. Swords are one of the "perfect weapons", and implement whose sole purpose is homicide.Likewise, levels of homophobia are incredibly variable across ancient pagan cultures, ranging from outright condemnation to "it's only bad if you're on bottom" to cultures that had to shave the bride's head and dress her up in a military uniform to get the groom to sleep with her. Given the prominent role of priestesses and female deities in most D&D settings, and the existence of elves, I'd say the level of homophobia shouldn't be much worse than it is in modern Western civilization keeping in mind that large segments of modern Western civilization still have profound moral prejudice against homosexuality. In some standard D&D cultures, it should even be considerably more tolerated than it is today.As far as abortion goes? Plenty of ancient cultures practiced it, even in the second, third, or thirty-sixth trimester. The Catholic Church didn't officially condemn it until the beginning of the 17th century and didn't start actively opposing it-- trying to get laws changed-- until the 19th. Islamic tradition has varied, and argued, the permissibility of abortion for over a thousand years. This issue has been going back and forth in human civilization since the invention of medical techniques dating from prehistory.You could go either way on this one so easily it isn't funny.Class divides also varied considerably, even keeping in mind the broader privileges enjoyed by the nobility. Many cultures have prohibited slavery or imposed strict regulations upon it even in antiquity, while other cultures have enjoyed very flat social hierarchies and less division between kings and mere peasants. The existence of divine-empowered priesthoods is a pretty big equalizer here; your LG deities may have some nice theories about the divine right of kings, but your CGs are going to politely dissent. With fire.As far as the age of consent goes... keeping in mind that puberty occurred on average three or four years later in the Middle Ages than it does now, attitudes on this one typically ranged from "consent? what's that?" to "big enough is old enough". So in societies that don't keep temples to Pedobear, you're probably looking at the same 14-16 range you'll find in most Western societies with a few societies that simply aren't nearly that picky.If there's any historical difference in moral values that I'd want to avoid in my fantasy roleplaying, it's that one.</blockquote>

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