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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8771868" data-attributes="member: 6790260">The problem with alignment is that we want a conflict where neither side is clearly in the right (which the Good/Evil dichotomy fails at doing), and yet we want one where it doesn't rely on vagaries and subtleties and the like. The problem is, there is no such thing. A simple conflict will always (ultimately) fall on one side or the other being mostly right and the other being mostly wrong, because there are too few things for them to be right (or wrong) about. That's what simplicity is. But when you make it complex and subtle, you immediately invite the problem of contradiction and conflicts of incommensurable values, of people picking it apart and showing how it's akshully total nonsense.Alignment cannot be what people want it to be. We either must accept that the alignment polarities (however many there are) must be somewhat alien and obscure and possibly not-perfectly-consistent, or accept that the conflict will be reducible to Officially Hero Team and Officially Villain Team (or, IMO worse, Officially Villain Team and Officially Worse Villain Team, but I'm not really the audience for black-and-vantablack morality stories.) There are no other options. It's why Magic: the Gathering works the way it does. It explicitly accepts that each color has two different internal philosophies. Philosophies which could in fact be at war with one another sometimes, or which could choose divergent allies. E.g. Selesnya is Green/White (orderly gardeners and cultivators, harmonizing civilization and nature through their sermons) and Gruul is Green/Red (chaotic hordes originally intended to protect the wild, but with the wild taken away, they became the wild.) That Green can be both unchecked destructive savagery and carefully-cultivated devotion and nurturing is a strength. White can be both the color of horrific, vicious fascism, and also the color of noble do-gooders and heroic sacrifices. Etc.</blockquote>

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