Does D&D provide a decent moral compass?

[Grundle]

I think that a kid learns more bad morality by seeing his father get caught (legitimately) for speeding and then complaining about getting the ticket (instead of accepting responsibility for his behavior) than he could learn from D&D or other forms of entertainment.

Remembering rant to wife in front of the kids, "Damn good for nothing, glorified toll-collecting, waste of my hard earned tax dollars! Can't understand why they just don't stick to catching bad guys or eating donuts instead of stealing money from honest citizens like me!"

Oh, God, what have I done to my children!

 

[smetzger]

Well I disagree with some of the posters in this thread.

I believe that there is a right and a wrong. Murder is wrong, stealing is wrong, lieing is wrong, adultery is wrong, coveting is wrong ...

 

[Wil]

Well I disagree with some of the posters in this thread.

I believe that there is a right and a wrong. Murder is wrong, stealing is wrong, lieing is wrong, adultery is wrong, coveting is wrong ...

I normally don't get into discussions like this, but...

1) If a man is attacking a woman in a such a way that her unborn child is at risk of being killed, but the woman herself is at no risk, is she wrong in killing the man?

2) If you are forced to steal food (or money to buy food) because the political or economic policies of your country have caused you to not be able to obtain it legally (frex, because of an extremely poor economic policy your country is in dire straights and there are no jobs), is this wrong?

3) If telling the truth to your wife would irrepairably damage your marriage or your relationship, but you are not witholding the truth because of something that you did wrong previously (frex, if telling your wife that you think her mom is a lying, two-faced biznatch when you're asked what you think of her...but not if she asks you if you've been sleeping with someone else) is this wrong?

4) Define adultery. If a married couple have an explicit, agreed upon arrangement that they can sleep with other people, is this wrong?

5) I have absolutely no concept of "coveting" I see something, I like it, I wish I had it. If coveting is wrong, so is roleplaying...all it is is wishing you have something you don't already. Now obssession is an entirely different ball of wax...but that isn't "wrong", it's an emotional or mental problem.

 

[Fred Delles]

D&D provides a terrible moral compass.

To think that the mechanics of D&D, most notably the alignment system, provide any real lesson to anyone is ridiculous. (Note, however, that roleplaying itself is very good for improving social skills, cirtical thinking, etc.) It's jsut general entertainment value, and with it, fun. You kill monsters, you get treasure, you achieve greatness with a character with a straightjacketed ideology. Some lessons you get from the PHB and the DMG.

I'll just say that Gez hit it right on the head with this one. The fact that there is an alignment system makes many people think in a more biased black-and-white (game-wise) and make many NPCs far less fleshed out than they should, at least, in my opinion.

Deep-immersion storytelling with rights and wrongs in "the big gray" is really good for gaming, but in that case, you don't have to use D&D for this one.

IMHO, for D&D to become "deeper" story-wise, you have to abolish the alignment system. It feels like a straightjacket for how the characters should act. For example, how is slavery (in an ancient historical-fantasy world) defined? Should a country be lawful evil just because they condone slavery? From that, the cliched newbie would slaughter every guard just becaue they follow slavery and are thus "evil". There are many, many arguments in what is right and what is wrong, and the alignment system makes it feel like a one-way street. The yin believes in angels, so the yang must believe in devils and be demon worshippers. (Or axiomatic and anarchic, or however law and chaos are defined.) Life is too complex to really use nine levels of character, with a few small side traits.

It is utterly impossible to use alignment in modern games (D20 Modern?). Is George W. Bush lawful good? Some Americans say yes. Is GWB lawful neutral/evil? Some Europeans say yes. Is GWB chaotic evil? Some Middle Eastern Islamists say yes. Here, alignment just has to go out the door. Traits, beliefs, and nationalities are what is gold here.

Now, if you want great good attacking the infernals this side of Sauron or Takhisis (sp?), go on ahead. But it could get pretty boring beyond an arcade-like video game, and we need depth.

 

[bondetamp]

Well I disagree with some of the posters in this thread.

I believe that there is a right and a wrong. Murder is wrong, stealing is wrong, lieing is wrong, adultery is wrong, coveting is wrong ...

Erm ... who are you disagreeing with?

Are you trying to say that moral relativism is wrong? In that case you should have stated

Edited post
Well, I disagree with some of the posters in this thread.

There is a right and a wrong. Murder is wrong, stealing is wrong, lieing is wrong, adultery is wrong, coveting is wrong ...

The discussion between moral relativists and absolutists isn't whether or not murder is wrong, it is whether this is for social or metaphysical reasons.

 

[bondetamp]

I think that roleplaying can be a swell way to teach and learn basic ethics. Through the game one can place the players, by proxy, in different situation that can provide ethical dillemmas. It is up to the GM to do so, though, the rpg can only be a start.

I'm not entirely sure if D&D's way of using alignments would be very helpful, though, especially if one runs the game in a way that makes it ok to thump the evil. Nothing ruins an interesting dillemma quite the same way that "detect Evil" does.

Of course, one could use alignment to reinforce a point. By pitting two nations, both lead by Paladins, into a war against eachothers, one can make a point that even though you're Lawful Good, you can still be wrong. This is not a situation you encounter very often in official adventures, though, as they are often made for players that doesn't really feel like discussing ethics in the middle of their fun-time.

 

[mirzabah]

The discussion between moral relativists and absolutists isn't whether or not murder is wrong, it is whether this is for social or metaphysical reasons.

Good call

 

[Celebrim]

bondetamp: If you don't mind, you get to supplant Thomas Jefferson as my next signature. Well said.

Wil:
1) No. Unquestionably no. I would launch into a rant on this one, but its already off topic and touchy enough.

2) Yes.

3) If telling the truth to your wife would irrepairably damage your marriage, then the marriage is already irrepairably damaged. The only way to heal it is to tell the truth. If you cannot tell the truth to the wife, then you cannot tell the truth to anyone. IF you cannot be trusted to entrust the truth to your wife, you cannot be entrusted to tell the truth to anyone. So tell your wife that she's gaining weight. Tell your wife you don't like her mother. That doesn't mean you have to be tactless, but you better find a way to communicate or the marriage is doomed anyway. Tell the truth as soon as possible. Tell the truth often. Tell the truth always, and in this manner your marriage will never be shaken by anything.

4) Adultery: Entertaining thoughts of or engaging in sexual activity with a person other than your spouse after you have enter the covenant of marriage with someone else. Yes, of course it is wrong, although some would probably argue that an open marriage isn't a marriage at all but some other unique institution. Nonetheless, it remains true that promiscious behavior of any sort is generally a bad thing. You don't have to be close friends with all that many promiscious people to realize this, although it is unfortunately true that most people who have several promiscious friends are generally trying to get in someone's pants - which is part of my point of course.
Besides, I would think divorse has been common enough of an experiment, that the majority of my generation ought to conclude that whatever else might be true, a stable marriage is a good thing.

5) Coveting: An inordinate craving for material goods, usually the possessions of someone else. (Also see 'greed'.) This is one of those times 'inordinate' is very important. Being hungery and going 'I could sure use a Hamburger' is not being covetous. Being intellectually starved and going 'I could sure use a good book right now' is not being covetous. Paying the bills and saying 'Man, I wish I was rich' is not being covetous. See Enron, Global Crossing, Lucent Technologies, and so forth. See the results of covetousness - thousands of lives destroyed, the work of ten's of thousands of lifetimes as good as burned - for the sake of a few dozen people.

 

[Celebrim]

"It is utterly impossible to use alignment in modern games (D20 Modern?). Is George W. Bush lawful good? Some Americans say yes. Is GWB lawful neutral/evil? Some Europeans say yes. Is GWB chaotic evil? Some Middle Eastern Islamists say yes. Here, alignment just has to go out the door. Traits, beliefs, and nationalities are what is gold here."

Here I think we are getting to the heart of the problem. The problem isn't whether 'George W. Bush' is lawful good or chaotic evil. The problem is whether or not you can tell whether he is. Somewhere around here is a post where I said that just because someone has an alignment doesn't mean it should be clear what it is. The problem isn't with the 'alignment system' (although sure it has problems), the problem is with shallow fantasy games where the DM labels everything so you will know what it is, sort of like a shallow flight simulator where everything 'friendly' is clearly labeled so and is immune to your 'friendly fire'. People are complex things, and even the most sincere in thier beliefs will have a hard time convincing people (much less everyone) that they are who they claim to be. This isn't a problem with the alignment system.

I suspect that even if I can't say what it is, George Bush really does have a set of beliefs and principals which he is doing his level best to uphold. I'm willing to bet that if I _knew_ what they where I could catogorize them as good or evil or somewhere in between, or law or chaotic or somewhere in between. Even Clinton had some beliefs and principals (and here I'm on firmer ground because my family knows his family), albiet not necessarily 'good' ones, but certainly ones which can be described. Nonetheless, to this day some people aren't clear on what Clinton stood for, and why should they be given the conflicting witnesses. Why should fantasy worlds be any different? Why should you know from afar what the morals of anyone are? Why should everyones reputation match thier true beliefs?

Traits? Sure, these are handy for describing someone. I don't care what alignment system you use, a well constructed character is going to have alot of definable traits - even though what these might be might not be entirely clear to an observer at the beginning. I can be greedy. I can be ambitious. I can be chaste. Is this enough in itself to predict my behavior? Maybe on some issues, but any two people sharing these traits can have these traits for different reasons and break from them into other behaviors unexpectedly based on what those deeper reasons are. At some level, whatever you call it, that is 'alignment'.

Nationalities? At some level, ones culture shapes who we are, but to be frank, using this to define someone is bordering on racism and is shallower even than alignment.

Beliefs? And what is 'alignment' if not core beliefs?

Look, it doesn't matter how you define the true beliefs of a character. However you define them, they may not be, should not be in some cases, staplable on thier forehead. Let's suppose we try to define GWB in terms of D20 modern. Ok, where do his real loyalties really lie? To himself? To his family? To his political party? To his State? To his nation? To a set of idealistic principals? To his God? To a bunch of oil companies? To Satan? Ask a hundred people and you'll get at least a dozen answers. This has nothing to do with an alignment system. It has to do with shallow thinking. Maybe you could argue that the alignment system encourages shallow thinking, but I would counterargue that people are enclined to think shallowly with or without an alignment system and that at the least some alignment system, any alignment system, makes a gamer stop and think from time to time.

 

[jgbrowning]

Celebrim

Have to agree with you. The only problems i tend to run into is that sooner of later a PC will cast detect spells.

suddenly the issues you discuss, shallowness, perception etc.. (all vaild points in RL) leave the picture. and i'm left having to play a particular person without the advantages of shading/shallowness/perception/shifting loyalties depending upon situation etc.. bring to the role-playing process. It feels like someone just invited the half-ogre barbarian to the Royal Maquerade

personally i don't like the detect spells as i think they cause more damage to role-playing than their worth to the game.

what do you do in those situations where you'd like to create some "unknown" information? I dont like to use the typical mask/misdirect detection magic as the PC's can simply mix and match to eventually get the information they need anyway. I'm thinking about just taking them out of the game and allowing anyone to kinda detect alignment from "tingly emotion". but only the super-uber good and super-uber evil.

joe b.