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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6756432" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think that one thing Appendix IV of the AD&D PHB got right, which has since gone in the wrong direction, is the absence of a true neutral outer plane (and the corresponding prohibition on clerics being true neutral).To explain this thought, I am going to elaborate a bit on some of my comments about why I think the outer planes, especially in the Planescape-y form, cause problems for the alignment framework.As typically presented (beginning especially with MotP, and with Planescape being the high water mark for this approach), the outer planes are the epitmoe of each alignment. But, as I've already posted this produces incoherence. If the Seven Heavens is really a place where social order ensures that everyone's wellbeing is achieved, then CG people - who likewise aspire to universal wellbeing - have no reason for preferring CG to LG. Unless, of course, the "wellbeing" that CG aspire to is different from that which the LG aspire to - but then "good" has a different meaning in the context of different alignments, which also undermines the coherence of the system.But a way of trying to make sense of the outer planes is to focus on their description (PHB p 120) as being "the source of alignment (religious/philosophical/ethical ideals)". This suggests that what characterises the Seven Heavens is not that it is a place where perfect social order generates universal wellbeing, but rather that it is the home of those "powerful beings" whose LG convictions are as strong as such convictions can get.Thinking of the outer planes as defined by the convictions of their inhabitants, rather than as exemplars of the social realities over which adherents of different alignments are disputing, means that we aren't obliged to think of every alignment conviction being correct. Which avoids the incoherence mentioned above, where CG are meant to think that LG people's conviction that order will cause wellbeing is wrong, yet also have the counterexample of the Seven Heavens staring them in the face.But if the outer planes are about convictions, then it makes sense that there is no outer plane of true neutrality, because true neutrality - as least as characterised in the passages I quoted above - is defined by the belief that conviction, and the intentional action to which it gives rise, can only be a source of disharmony and disruption to a natural reality that is already as good as it can be.</blockquote>

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