Does D&D provide a decent moral compass?

[Celebrim]

jgbrowning: Complete agreement.

I'm inclined to make detect spells never detect alignment except when the aura is powerful. Thus, it might detect an evil altar, but never that Bob the Simple Blacksmith is chaotic evil.

I'm also inclined to give all spells that reveal alignment Will saving throws (and have them effected by spell resistance).

I'm also inclined to allow people to substitute either Bluff or Use Magic Device for thier Will save if they are aware that they are being scryed.

I for one am tired of having to hide my villain among the neutrals, or resort to widgets of alignment obscuring as plot devices.

 

[Wil]

Celebrim, don't get me wrong...I agree with you on most counts. It was just a half-assed, bored-out-of-my-over-SQL'ed-mind at relativism. Think I'll go back to cleaning out my hard drive

 

[Pielorinho]

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.

Skirting dangerously close to the no-politics rule there, y'all. . . .

IMC, as in many other folks', alignment is only a universal force for the extremes: Gods and Demons have intrinsic alignments, as do their divine agents (e.g., clerics and paladins), but normal folk don't have alignments that show up under spell-scrutiny.

As for law and chaos, I ignore that axis entirely IMC, since it doesn't really make sense to me. I did make an intriguing post a few days ago about the fox/hedgehog continuum as an alternative to the chaos/law axis. Check it out!

Daniel

 

[Kevin O'Reilly]

In response to the post.

Depending on the age group, D+D can help identify abstract boundaries for acceptable morale behaviour and help establish an ethical framework.

I play a rogue and steal. Can I still be good? Can I still do good?

I play a Wizard and fireballed a group of goblins in a cave that included goblin children and a stolen elf child? Is there any ethical difference? Is it even a morale crime to commit such act in ignorance? Is it an immorale act if I do it again having not thought of the consequences of my actions given an historical outcome of my behaviour?

The abstract situations that role-playing creates is an absolute boon to ones ability to objectively address abtract issues of ethical and morale good.

In truth, the ability of most on these boards to participate in such a discussion is testiment to that very behaviour the game can instill.

Most of the time

Game on Kant....

 

[Fred Delles]

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'.

Lost my first post, so I'll make this one short.

Other people's alignments totally depend on what you believe. Example: You believe in one thing. You think it is well and good, I think it makes you evil and a heretic. I believe in something else. You think I am a heretic and evil, I believe that it is well and good. Who is the good and evil (or lawful and chaotic) one here?

Look at GWB. Ask a hundred people what GWB's alignment is. I guarantee you'll get completely different answers.

And even if you knew what GWB's exact thoughts and beliefs were, would you still think of them as lawful or chaotic, good or evil?

"He's lawful because his cowboy-like stunts help defeat evil without mercy."

"He's chaotic because his American cowboy-ism is risky and rebellious."

Again, if you ask a hundred people who know GWB's exact thoughts his alignment , you'll get completely different answers.

And think of this: If D&D was created by some other culture, what would they think of as aligned as good/evil?

Back to fantasy.

Take Viconia from Baldur's Gate (1, 2). She is classified as evil, yet does not act on her evil. Should she be (true) neutral?

Why is Viconia evil? Just because she is a drow? Just because she worships an "evil" goddess, albeit passively? She is loyal to you, even if you are lawful good, and begs for you to save her life twice, especially after she did not provoke her captors in spite of her race. Knowing that she was evil, should I just kill her? That is ridiculous prejudice.


And for the folks who want to knock out divinations like "detect evil", giving too much info, you seem to be getting closer to abolishing the alignment system (which I do support).

 

[Celebrim]

"Other people's alignments totally depend on what you believe."

No. They don't.

"You think it is well and good, I think it makes you evil and a heretic. I believe in something else. You think I am a heretic and evil, I believe that it is well and good. Who is the good and evil (or lawful and chaotic) one here?"

The one that is good is the one that holds the correct opinion. The correctness or incorrectness of this opinion is observed by observing the lives of the people that hold such opinions and the nature of the communities and nations that they build.

"Look at GWB. Ask a hundred people what GWB's alignment is. I guarantee you'll get completely different answers."

Isn't that what I said?

"And even if you knew what GWB's exact thoughts and beliefs were, would you still think of them as lawful or chaotic, good or evil?"

That would depend on what his exact thoughts were.

If they were, for instance, "I know something that I cannot freely divulge to the American people. The American people have charged me with protecting them and the Constitution. To do so, I must make war, even though it will be very unpopular and perhaps cost me my Presidency. Nonetheless, I have a sacred duty to them, that no great evil should befall them because of negligance on my part or out of my personal ambition.", then I would characterize them one way.

And, if they were quite different than above, I would characterize them another way.

That a few people would call black, white, or white, black, or that occassionally I myself am quite myopic doesn't change that black is black and white is white.

As for your fantasy example, it is so shallow and trivial that it doesn't deserve an answer.

I don't see how reducing the effectiveness of divinations is even remotely like aboloshing the alignment system. I've been playing RPG's for 20 years now, and I've come to the conclusion that all RPG's need an alignment system of some sort.

 

[Terra_Ferax_Mark]

mmadsen wrote, "Do you think D&D provides a decent moral compass?"

No game system in and of it self provides a moral compass, but the actions of others gamers and the adventures you pursue can (although they certainly don't always).

Role-playing is good for sharpening your imagination and some social skills as well as critical thinking. Should it have to be moral? I don't believe so, although I see no harm in a moral lesson incorporated into an adventure.

Look at something that's not an RPG: Scrabble. Scrabble could improve your vocabulary and sharpen your word skills. Should it provide a moral compass? I have heard of Scrabble being played for money like poker (IIRC it was a penny a point). I have heard of people playing scrabble and if you misspelled a word you had to take a shot of alcohol (as I recall this version allowed curse words as well). I have even heard of Strip Scrabble. None of these three were "Official" versions of Scrabble and yet the participants [I suspect] had a good time. My point is, you'll make anything to be what you want, even if it wasn't designed to be that in the first place. If you want a role-playing game to provide good morals it most certainly can; but I think an rpg that is played for enjoyment's sake is no less a role-playing game and not more so than one that does. As the French say, vive la difference.

mmadsen also wrote, "In DnD Junior, s/LaSH said, "If I ever have kids, I'll probably teach them to role-play". I ran across this URL and thought it might be of interest:

Family Dungeons and Dragons — Are you a parent that used to play Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (1st or 2nd Edition)? Have a teenager now that is getting into the new Dungeons and Dragons, 3rd Edition? This group is designed for forming Parent-Teen gaming groups.

Happy Gaming.

 

[Desdichado]

I don't see how reducing the effectiveness of divinations is even remotely like aboloshing the alignment system. I've been playing RPG's for 20 years now, and I've come to the conclusion that all RPG's need an alignment system of some sort.

I've also been playing for 20 odd years now, and I'd disagree with this 100%. Plenty of games that are pretty good games, and I've run and played in good games in these systems, have no mechanical alignment system whatsoever.

Alignment in a game serves two purposes, really, one well and one rather poorly. I see how alignment serves as a descriptor of your character and his motivation, although this is the purpose that it serves very poorly, for many of the reasons you describe above. It's simply too simplistic to do this well, so characters are often put into just a handful of convenient "bins" rather than fully fleshed out as far as motivations. Alignment also serves to peg individuals as "us" and "them." It does this very well, but whether or not this functionality is desirable or not depends on the game and the group. As far as I'm concerned, it's not -- I'd rather scrap alignment altogether and let motivations be more complex than alignment.

All in all, I haven't heard of any compelling reason why alignment is necessary in all RPGs, especially from one who realizes the problems with it.

 

[Pielorinho]

I have even heard of Strip Scrabble.

Strip scrabble?! How do you play that?

Strip Risk, sure. But strip Scrabble?

Daniel

 

[Celebrim]

JD: If you mean a full descriptor of a person's traits, then no alignment never will serve that purpose usefully. Many alignment systems don't even attempt this at all. For instance, WEG Star Wars had an alignment system that was non-descriptive, and only served to lump actions into two major categories.

As for lumping things into 'us' and 'them', I don't think this is necessarily even a good goal, and I think it is unfortunate that too often people use this as the sole purpose of alignment. I think it ludicrous how some players who detect evil suddenly whip out thier swords and murder someone based on the fact that that person is evil. So? What crime did he commit? Was it deserving of death? Is society at large going to trust your word that you detected evil? One of my main reasons for wanting to water down the divination system is to avoid this sort of jumping to conclusions. If the players know that thier divinations occassionally produce the wrong answer, they will be more likely to think about thier actions.

I've played only a few games that wouldn't really benifit from an alignment system, and they only because thier focus is so narrow and the alignment system is implicit in the game. Call of Cthullu and Chill don't need alignment systems. In games like this, you don't have to ask who the heroes and who the monsters are and whether or not opposing the destruction of humanity is a good thing. Alignment questions rarely come up, and if moral ambiguities are forced on the heroes, a simple insanity check solves the problem satisfactorily. I suppose though that in this sence, the insanity score is the alignment system, so maybe I'm wrong about Call of Cthullu not having one. Presumably most game masters would understand that if you had to burn down the orphanage to stop Great Cthullu from arising that you'd have to lose some sanity points. The game is so black and white that alignment is a non-issue.

But, for the most part, alignment is serving a purpose that you don't mention. Alignment provides structure to the role play experience. If you don't provide some mechanic that relates choices to consequences, or limits character freedom, then with all but the best RPers you end up with people not role playing but game playing. Alignment provides guidance to players old and new by forcing them to stop and consider whether the action that they are contemplating is the sort of action that the character they are playing would do. This is a good thing. Some alignment systems, like WoD's demeanor/nature system, go one step further by providing mechanics that reward players for acting in a manner in which the character was concieved.

Many games provide thier alignment system obliquely to varying degrees to provide this goal of structure (and structure of goals!). D20 moderns alliegance system is no more than a broader version of the 'secret society' system used in games like Gamma World or Paranoia.

Remember, one of the things that is very hard to achieve in RPG's is forcing the player to accept personality limitations and if you like 'failings' which plague all real people. This is most notable in things like torture. Unless you provide a mechanic to force a PC to confess, no PC ever confesses no matter how they are tortured. The player is DISTANT from the character. It is easy to kill. It is hard to get players to empathize with the emotional consequences of actions. Unless you provide a mechanic of fatigue, players only get tired when it suits them. Unless you provide a mechanic of emotional trauma (or growth), no experience ever has lasting significance to a character.

Alignment is one of the ways you draw them closer. It is a simplistic mechanic for talking about restricting actions according to personality, just as fatigue, pain, and emotional trauma restrict actions in other realistic ways. Real people act according to belief systems, cultural tradiations, personalities and so forth. Alignment is a first step toward forcing a player onto the right road. It is only a first step, but if you don't provide it, in my experience the RP doesn't get better. Instead, personality becomes an entirely shiftable thing that players modify to meet the circumstances.