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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6757979" data-attributes="member: 42582">This is a clear statement of the "TN as incoherent" interpretation that I am trying to contest in the OP.As I said in the OP, I don't think that "balance", in this context, means introducing good into the world to counterbalance evil, or vice versa. It means reducing or eliminating the disturbances introduced into nature by intentional, aspirational action. It means contesting the actions of the LG, which - in the opinion of the TN person - aren't actually capable of realising good outcomes.I don't think apathy is the right description. Quietism would be better - it is not that the TN person doesn't care, but rather that s/he is sceptical about the capacity of intentional action to produce anything but unhappy results.I think this raises bigger questions about whether "the world of D&D" is meant to be generic, or particular. I see it as quite particular, and I see this particularity as also expressed via the alignment system.Clerics, for instance, aren't just priests. They are militant religious types whose outlook and capabilities broadly reflects a quasi-mediaeval stereotype of the warrior-saint: undead and demons flee in their presence, they can call down blessings and curses, and they have power over serpents. Anti-clerics, on the other hand, do less healing but more cursing, and command the undead and demons. This set-up in turn presupposes a particular sort of cosmological set-up: gods of light, civilisation etc vs "gods" of death, destruction, corruption etc. Druids, by way of contrast, are quietistic, naturalist types who believe that human intervention (and the intervention of the divinities that humans serve) introduces destructive imbalance into the world.If one moves away from this underlying setting assumption, to include gods with the druidic outlook, and to make clerics and druids just special instances of the generic category "priests" - and by 2nd ed AD&D the move in this direction is basically complete - then personally I don't see the point of retaining the cleric spell lists, the alignment system, the rules for turning undead, etc, in their classic form. (Eg once things head in this direction, it makes sense to ask why animating the dead is evil at all, why good clerics need to be cautious about casting cause wounds spells, etc; because all those classic features of the rules system for clerics rest on setting assumptions that have been departed from.)This was touched on upthread by [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION].I think that, in the framing of TN that I am trying to articulate, it makes sense for animals and other natural creatures (which in D&D might include griffons, hippocampi etc) to be neutral: they are incapable of the sort of nature-defying intentional action that the TN regards as a source of disruption.I think labelling automata and unintelligent undead (golems, skeletons, zombies etc) as TN makes less sense in this framework, as they are per se contrary to the natural order. I think it would makes more sense for them to have no alignment, just as most inanimate objects lack alignment altogether.On suffering: suffering is natural, but that doesn't mean its desirable. Stoics and the like don't seek out suffering - they recognise that it can't be avoided, but that doesn't mean they actively embrace it.What is key to TN, as I am presenting it, is that they think the goal of the good-aligned to eliminate (or at least reduce) suffering by way of intentional action is doomed to failure.I think you are right that there is a threat of overlap between TN and CG. Because one natural interpretation of the individual self-realisation at which CG aims is a type of natural law interpretation that would bear some sort of resemblance to stoicism (or perhaps epicureanism), and hence to TN as I am presenting it. I think that to maintain the distinction one has to focus on certain possible points of difference and emphasise them. For instance, CG can be seen as emphasising the importance of the individual will (and hence freedom of choice), whereas TN emphasises the inefficacy of the will (and hence the importance of subordinating choice to nature). CG also has an important other-regarding dimension - helping others achieve their own self-realisation - whereas TN would see such intervention on behalf of others as ultimately pointless, and would rely on others bringing their own behaviour into conformity with nature. In this way, CG might come to look more epicurean, while TN looks more stoic. Similar sorts of divisions exist in other, more contemporary, schools of thought where these sorts of tensions (both intellectual and practical) around nature, will, the place of human will in nature, and the limits of intentional action arise.Yes - the rot sets in early!I can see the logic of this. From my point of view, this Planescape-style approach emphasises what I see as the cynical or even nihilistic tone of Planescape: starting from the premise that alignment convictions are mistaken.In this sort of game, I don't see the point of eg making players choose an alignment for their PCs, which equates to choosing a delusion.This seems consistent with what I have just stated - rather than fighting over tired delusions (alignment), the real action is in respect of some different set of ethical questions.I also think this is consistent with the idea that alignment makes sense only against, or as part of, a broader set of setting assumptions. No one would look at the Planescape factions and think that they make sense as a way of framing ethical conflict as such, for all and any RPG and for all and any human action. I think it's equally silly to treat the alignment system in that sort of universal fashion.</blockquote>

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