This is wrong for two reasons, one meta-ethical and the other to do with RPG design and play.
(1) In the real world of English speaking moral philosophy, the most common meta-ethical view is that there is "cosmological" good and evil.
In the real world, the cosmological forces of Good and Evil are not represented by entities which regularly interfere in our mortal world, granting powers to their followers and seeking to advance their agendas. Hence, again, the real world is a poor example.
I do not consider D&D alignments to be commentary on real world morals and ethics. In the real world, if my Paladin chooses to arm and armor himself and go to war with the Forces of Evil, I doubt he will be perceived as a great hero. “Criminal vigilante“ or “insane and dangerous to himself and others” seem the most likely perceptions. So might we please, I ask again, lave the real world behind for our fantasy games?
If my games tended to devolve into Philosophy 101 whenever alignment issues arose, I suspect I would be arguing against it as well, but my players and GM’s (and. I think, most gamers) are capable of differentiating the real world and the fantasy world, so it has never become an issue. BTW, in stating I am "wrong for two reasons", are you not casting judgment on me? OK in real life, but not in game? [To be clear, I am not offended by your statement in any way - it's part of a good discussion.]
In the fantasy world, for Good and Evil to be objective forces, they must in some way be defined.
(2) Something can be objective within the fiction of an RPG, and yet not be predetermined at the table. This can be easily seen by considering examples from other fictional works: for instance, within the fiction of Star Wars it is objective whether their were an odd or even number of dials on all the control panels of the Millenium Falcon, but as far as I know no one actually knows the answer to that, because there is no definitive presentation of all of the Falcon's control panels within any narrated episode that is part of the fiction.
Neither has it ever been relevant within the fiction. If we have a character who derives his powers from adherence to his moral philosophy, and those powers are granted by an outside force or person in recognition of his adherence, then that philosophy becomes quite relevant and needs definition.
Your choice of Star Wars is an interesting one, as the Dark Side and Light Side of the Force are very much akin to D&D Alignment, and we have a lot more info on them than on the number of dials on the Falcon’s dash.
Yoda said:
But beware of the dark side. Anger, fear, aggression; the dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice.”
Palpatine said:
Strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Now when we are playing an RPG, and some piece of fiction isn't known and needs to be decided, there are various techniques for working that out. One tried and true technique is to employ the action resolution mechanics. Suppose a group of epic PCs, all servants of the Raven Queen, confront their mistress and proceed to debate some point of morality with her. From the fact that, as a matter of play, her views are determined in part by the way the dice fall, it doesn't follow that her views were not predetermined within the fiction. Any more than, from the fact that we learn how many orcs are in the patrol by rolling dice on a wandering monster table, it follows that within the fiction they were "Schroedinger's orcs."
Another tried and true technique is GM design of the setting. Rather than roll randomly for how many Orcs are in the patrol, this is set by the desired level of challenge to the PC’s. In fact, even to make that random roll, it must have parameters – is it 1-4 Orcs, 2-12 orcs or 6-48 Orcs? Who decided that range? Either the game rules (as they also define the major precepts of alignments) or the GM (who interprets those precepts, and assesses how they are interpreted by those NPC’s, from street urchin to deity and all in between, for whom it is relevant).
But, since it is the DM who is in actuality Malledhyr then he is, in fact, moralising at you.
GM’s get to play a lot of vile, evil despots. Perhaps your view that the GM is actually the character he plays explains something of your views on the GM attitude.
I am not my character. Neither is the GM any one of the myriad of characters he may voice. “My character” can readily espouse views that I myself do not hold, or even violently disagree with. If I am role playing multiple characters, a common requirement of a GM, I could be role playing an argument with myself quite readily.
The GM is not Malledhyr. The GM takes on the role of Malledhyr and assesses, within Malledhyr’s views and perceptions, the judgment call Malledhyr would make.
To me, it's far more preferable for there to be numerous interpretations that are consistent with genre. It's more fun for there to be some uncertainty about what consists of good or evil rather than having one person tell me, "no, that action is evil." I'm far more interested in having more voices at the table.
I agree that not every action can be simply classified as “good” or “evil”. Perhaps more accurately, the precepts of Good or Evil may sometimes require compromise, as they come into conflict with one another, even before we consider possible conflict between aspects of alignment (eg. Law vs Good).
As an example, is Protection of the Innocent more or less important than Respect for Life? This will determine certain choices, and how much more or less important will further influence them. Abandoning one or the other is abandoning a core precept of Good, but a situation where the PC may either kill a foe or allow that foe to kill others forces a choice.
If that PC is a Paladin, following a martial deity, I expect his choice to be obvious. If he is instead a non-martial character who follows a pacifist deity, his choice is also obvious. This also seems a pretty easy choice from where I sit, at least in an adventure game. What if I change the facts ever so slightly – the threat to those innocents is not a foe, but an innocent pawn, mentally dominated by the true foe. Now the choice is more difficult.
The character has no easy, obvious choice. Whatever choice he makes compromises a precept of Good. To me, this means either choice must be accepted as consistent with the ideals of Good. If, however, the character has an easy means of ensuring that the innocents are not harmed without using lethal force on the mentally dominated attacker, the choice becomes much easier for the character, and he can Respect Life and Protect the Innocent. If, instead, the foe is a slavering, evil demon-beast, one could much easier argue that sparing it to possibly kill another day is a non-good act.
I take it from this that you don't have baby-throat ripping players. I know I don't. So why do you keep bringing up players who are not part of either of our play experiences? What does thinking about them add to my understanding of how my game does, and might, work?
Why do you keep bringing up GM’s who will dogmatically use alignment as restricting each character to a single choice at every turn, bludgeoning them if they fail to run their characters precisely as he dictates? Do you play with a lot of such GM’s? I am sure terrible GM’s and awful players are both out there. Neither is the norm. Both are extreme examples of alignment-related issues.
Nor am I. I am arguing that the game does not require any such judgement to be imposed in order to progress, and in fact can better progress if no such judgement is imposed as part of the action resolution mechanics.
I do not consider the determination of an NPC’s views on moral issues should always turn on a die roll. Should a player be able to decide that the Raven Queen [note: I am not a 4e player, so I am, not familiar with the entity – substitute a Good deity of peaceful repose if that better suits the scenario] will be OK with him animating a horde of undead to turn back the Orcish hordes? Should he be able to decide that, since the Raven Queen is a goddess of death, killing all within his path is devoted service? Should the PC’s skill at religion allow him to roll the dice with a solid chance that his interpretation becomes canon within the game?
Huh? I have no such concern.
Apologies – I cut your quote off too early so your words were passed off as mine. I’ve fixed the quotes now.
Second, if a player wanted to play a PC who was a wanton murderer, what makes you think that player would choose to worship the Raven Queen…
The Raven Queen is a god of death, of fate, of winter.
A Neutral death goddess? Why not? Perhaps my character believes, with all his heart, that sending his victims to the Goddess of Death is their rightful fate in her eyes. With more background on the Winter aspect, I can probably tie that in with their sacrifices either staving off or accelerating and lengthening the winter in accordance with My Lady, the Raven Queen’s wishes.
Since the morality of my PC is not yours to command, and as my choice of the Raven Queen as patron makes her my resource or a shared resource.
You have still not directly answered the question of how much control devolves to the player versus the GM, by the way. Instead, you continue to evade the question asking instead why a player might make this choice. It seems you hold a preconceived notion that no reasonable player could ever make such a choice, contrary to your stated assertion that we should have no preconceived notions, but let matters develop in the fiction through play.
rather than (say) Gruumsh or Orcus or Demogorgon? The Raven Queen is a god of death, of fate, of winter. Not a god of murder. There are other beings in the 4e cosmology who fill that role.
So, is this the response I, as a player, would receive from you, the GM, when I presented my character with the brief morality/code sketch outlined above, or would I be allowed to play MY character as I envision him, and let the truth of his views within the fiction evolve through play? I will, of course, max out whatever skill I use in action resolution to support his views.
In the First World War, there were Christian clergy both in France and in Germany telling soldiers of each country that God was on their side. Presumably not all of those clerics were correct, although this is perhaps not self-evidently true (eg maybe military service to one's country is a very important value in the eyes of the divinity). Yet they continued to serve as clergy.
Once again, we are back to real world, rather than fantasy world, examples. In the real world, these WW I clergy have, I expect, passed to their final reward, and will know the truth of their beliefs, if any. I have no wish to discuss whether they are simply dead and gone, with their Lord, banished to the fiery pits of Hell, reincarnated as some other form of life or any of the myriad interpretations possible under various philosophies of what happens after we die.
I can state, however, that they did not, during their lives, manifest gifts from the divine such as causing earthquakes or shielding their followers from harm, which gifts would indicate their Deity supported their views. Deities and moral philosophies are much more active in most fantasy worlds.
And turning this from in-fiction to play-at-the-table, the main aim of play in my game is not for the players to discover what I, as GM, regard as the true moral code of the Raven Queen. It is to play their PCs and find out what happens when the stakes get high. Why would I want to shut down such play by intervening on the basis of some stipulated solution to a moral question?
Yet above you suggested my character’s code better fit some other being than the Raven Queen. Why would you suggest that, rather than look forward to our PC’s and you finding out what happens when the stakes get high?
I actually don't think this issue is all that likely to come up, as it happens, but comparable issues - mostly around divine order vs chaos - are increasingly coming up in my 4e game, and I personally devote my mental energies to thinking about these actual play questions rather than hypothetical ones. A big practical factor in D&D is the centrality of party play, which creates a fairly strong pressure at the table not to do stuff, nor to respond to stuff, in such an outrageous way that party unity is no longer feasible. (You can see this in the very common response to a PC "falling" in D&D - s/he is taken out of the game and becomes an NPC.) This does not come up in one-shots in the same way, nor in systems that can better mechanically handle ongoing conflict between and disunity among the PCs.
I'm actually surprised that no one on this thread has defended alignment in these terms, because that is certainly one way I've seen it used: eliminate intra-party conflict by having the GM tell players the limits of their permissible choices for their PCs. (To do this job, GM-enforced alignment needs to be combined with a "no evil PCs" rule, but that has been very common in 2nd ed games I've seen and played in.)
While common and easily supportable, for the reasons you outline, the same can be achieved without alignments, for example stipulating the characters will be hard-bitten mercenaries, or altruistic boy scouts, or must all be loyal to the State of Risur, as demonstrated under magical examination. In Hero, many Supers campaigns require common codes of conduct, such as Code of the Hero, or Reluctant to Kill, achieving similar effects without the need for alignment. Fate Aspects could be mandated to be similar as well, I expect, and some games just assume commonalities (eg. all characters will be Superheroes, not Villains; the characters will oppose the Great Old Ones, not worship or attempt to use their powers for their own gains).
I agree, however, that alignment can serve the same purpose, and these other approaches can add other benefits to the game, similar or different. As well, many result in similar arguments over whether the character is following his stated codes, or is in violation of them.
Hang on though. You claim you want an objective definition of alignment provided by the DM. But, if every Good god defines Good differently, then how can there be an objective definition of alignment.
To put it more concretely, presuming a standard D&D pantheistic world with numerous like aligned gods, if the DM isn't giving definitive answers, then how can the players act on any information they get? Is a given act good or not? Well, it depends on who you ask, in the game world?
As noted above, within the broad guidelines are more narrow issues which create decision points not cleanly decided by G/N/E or L/N/C. Anyone who interprets alignment as “there are only nine viewpoints and personalities and all decisions can be dictated by which one you choose” has, in my opinion, missed the boat.
Both Thor and Aphrodite have been defined as CG. I would expect their followers to have very different problem solving techniques and perspectives on the world. However, both would value freedom and protection of the innocent, and neither would think it appropriate that their followers rip out the throats of babies to show their devotion to their religion.
