Different mannerism and morality in your campaign worlds

[billd91]

I believe that morals definitely do change and are relative, but they tend to color our perceptions so pervasively that we have a hard time not ascribing some kind of absolute, universal, permanence to them. By doing so, however, we're imposing our own moral views on the situation and the actors involved, perhaps even judging them by a moral standard they haven't or possibly even cannot have developed. It's shocking to read about a Roman army slaughtering tens of thousands of Celtic women and children trying to migrate, en masse, into northern Italy. But from the Roman perspective, it was probably not at all an immoral act at all - and may have even been lauded as protection of Roman/allied society from invaders bent on destroying their way of life (or at least eating all of their food and leaving everyone to starve). Thanks to our more modern morality, in which individual rights are supposed to be given much more respect, we believe this sort of thing to be immoral, and obviously so. But not so obvious to most cultures in antiquity, I would wager.

As far as the prisoner scenario goes, I don't see the likelihood of a POW being released for compassion under the condition he returns flying with current expectations. I don't see it working with WWII expectations just a generation later, either. That's not because anybody is less moral. It's because the morality has changed. In WWII, it would have been more in line with a soldier's duty and honor to do anything reasonably in his power to escape the enemy in order to return to the fight and that would preclude honoring an agreement to go back into captivity. Such a promise probably would have been seen as a promise made under duress and thus null and void. I don't consider any of that to be in any way less moral or less honorable - rather, the definitions of those have shifted.

 

[Derren]

In WWII, it would have been more in line with a soldier's duty and honor to do anything reasonably in his power to escape the enemy in order to return to the fight and that would preclude honoring an agreement to go back into captivity

That was the case with that soldier too, and he did try to escape after he returned.
In another example, I think it was Charles de Gaulle, he was offered to be allowed to walk outside the walls of the fortress if he swore that the would not try to escape. Instead of using this chance to aid his escape (he tried to escape 5 times during his imprisonment) he refused saying that he has the duty to escape imprisonment and thus can't swear that oath.

 

[haakon1]

But, given that we've had millennia of trying and never managed it, it's unlikely an RPG group is going to come up with definitive and comprehensive answers. So there will always be some sort of grey areas.

LOL. I dunno, man. I think I've got it all figured out.

 

[delericho]

Actually it does not.
Something does not need the "evil" tag to be considered evil by society, even a fictional one. And of course there will be some acts which some people (players) will consider evil and some not.

Yeah, but as long as the rules/DM aren't going to hit the PC over the head for breaking his alignment, then that's not a problem. As noted up-thread, a society can believe whatever it wants, and a character can interact with those decisions in many ways (agree, disagree but grudgingly accept, oppose peacefully, oppose violently...) That's all fodder for roleplaying, and a good thing.

But if your character is going to lose his key powers for violating a set of rules (whether from the PHB or from the DM), then that's something else. Sure, the player can still have his character break those rules, but the consequence is that much stronger.

It's the difference between "you should not..." and "you will not".

LOL. I dunno, man. I think I've got it all figured out.

Heh.

 

[haakon1]

a society can believe whatever it wants, and a character can interact with those decisions in many ways (agree, disagree but grudgingly accept, oppose peacefully, oppose violently...) That's all fodder for roleplaying, and a good thing.

I agree that's fun and interesting. Conflict is good.

But if your character is going to lose his key powers for violating a set of rules (whether from the PHB or from the DM), then that's something else.

The only alignment that seems to face that issue is the paladin, and it hasn't been a problem in games where I've played or been the DM. Generally, people only play the paladin (which is actually my favorite class) because they WANT to play a paladin. If you don't want to be LG, play something else.

When there's doubt about whether an action would violate the code, I'm happy to have a player ask me OOC, and the answer has always been "no, that's fine". The last time that I can remember, it was about whether it was OK to chase down an enemy who was escaping. I think the issue was the player thinking "doesn't seem chivalrous", whereas from my POV -- as the voice of God in the game -- the enemy was possibly going to get more enemies to fight the righteous party, and was certainly opposing the forces of Law & Order to the best of his ability (the PC's thought they were fighting goblin bandits, but they were actually fighting an advance party of the Red Hand army), so killing him if he wouldn't surrender was fair enough -- no violation of a moral rule that I could see.

As for the famous "be Lawful or be Good" dilemma's, I'd say "greatest good to the greatest number" is the decider, and I'm not going to have the gods revoke a paladinhood because somebody made the best choice possible in a tough situation. Paladins are special, after all. The gods choose them for a reason, and mean them to stay paladins.