Does D&D provide a decent moral compass?

[Desdichado]

I agree that those are good goals, but I'm not sure that I'd agree that alignment of some stripe is the answer, unless you use so broad a definition of alignment that it doesn't match anything I've seen yet.

I wouldn't call some of the things you call alignment that at all, for instance. Allegiances from d20 Modern -- sure, that's close enough that I can accept it. Sanity from Cthulhu -- maybe, at least it clearly defines "sides." But White Wolf's nature/demeanor system? How is that alignment? One clear purpose of alignment, which you and I agree is not really a good goal in a game necessarily, is to put characters in a "camp" - what do they stand for and what are they opposed to. In that respect it describes personality, but in that respect only. If a system, such as White Wolf's is much more concerned simply with describing the character, it isn't really alignment, because it doesn't put the character on the side of anything. Don't forget: outside the game world, alignment means to be in agreement with, to be aligned with - or an arrangement of groups or forces (as in a new alignment in a political party.) An alignment that doesn't align the PCs (or NPCs) with anything isn't an alignment, it's something else, probably a descriptive tool.

I think that's more useful than alignment, but it doesn't do the same thing, except indirectly. Character descriptors show how a character could be expected to act given a set of circumstances, and alignment does the same thing, but for a completely different reason.

But rather than argue semantics, I think the crux of your argument is probably correct. Without some system that really describes the character, it takes a good roleplayer to actually roleplay that character. There's no in-game reason to do so, so you default to gamist unless the roleplaying is more important to you.

 

[Fred Delles]

"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.

There is no correct answer. So, tell me, if I am wrong in my beliefs, am I "evil"? If there is proof of no elven god and an orcish pantheon and there is only one elven city that would slaughter orcs just to survive, are they "evil"?

What if Hitler won World War II? Whould he retroactively become "good"? What about Communisum? If the U.S. and Western Europe became Communist during the Cold War, would capitalism become evil?

What if God is really a fraud? What if capitalism actually doesn't work and brings moral decadence? What if the terrorists are right? (I am 99.999999% sure that none of this is true, but it is my opinion out of six billion people).

"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.

But if you KNEW (cast something like detect thoughts), THEN what would you say? Don't spin me with "it depends". Once you knew that he/she would do something for himself or his country, the opinions would still be varied. He would still not be universally (this alignment).

Of course, you are only furthering yourself from your opinion of "keeping the alignment system" by mentioning "it depends".

Consider Mr. Gray the fighter, who would slaughter even children of people his race/nation would hate (say, killing even cambions and tieflings because they have demon blood, and are highly prone to be unchangeable "evil"). Is he good or evil?

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.

Note that people's opinions of beliefs change from time to time, through centuries of rising and falling empires.

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

SHALLOW!?!?!?!?

You really must be a cheese to think that. I'll just say you are surely ducking the question, especially an interesting one that is highly likely to show up in the fields of D&D.

I don't see how reducing the effectiveness of divinations is even remotely like aboloshing [sic] 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.

Now I agree even less with you.

I'll just stand by Joshua Dyal's comments on this one. Motivation. And if two motivations go into conflict, raise Hell and damn the consequences.

 

[Terra_Ferax_Mark]

[OT] but in reply

Pielorinho
quote:
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Strip scrabble?! How do you play that?

Strip Risk, sure. But strip Scrabble?
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You total your word score, I total mine. Lowest score value loses.
(repeat). The game goes fast. Q's, X's, and tripple word scores will beat the pants off of you.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Relativism

I always saw relativism as a particular slant on the I like beer and you like champagne slant.

Relativism: I like Beer, and you like champagne, and now there is nothing more to be said.

Social Constructivism(and numerous other systems for ethic construction): I like beer, and you like champagne, our behaviour in this regard can be modified and explored.

This is a very general application of ethical systems, but I think relativism is probably a much more general approach than the question of basis for the same conclusion.

The dichotomy used in my field is foundationalists vs. social constructivists. Foundationalists hold the metaphysical view for why a thing is wrong, often characterized by Plato. Social Constructivists believe that morality is construct and negotiated from a variety of factors including society and reality.

The basic problem is how negotiable things are or how much you can play with them. I tend to think there is actually a synthesis between the views and that metaphysical views are probably valid but negotiable given our compromised epistemology.

I like DnD's alignment system I think the arbitrary nature of it promotes thought and discussion. Sometimes a spectacular failure is more productive than a mediocre success.

As for Will's Problems, sorry I can't resist:

1.) Yes, the right to defend others from aggresion is often defended and if it is simply a contingent other than it is still an attack on her person.

2.) No, I hold with Thomas Aquinas and the constitution that life is right. I hold with TA that the basic supports of that life are therefore some sort of common property. Other avenues should be explored first, taking someone elses means to survival is bad, and stealing jam to go with your bread is suspect to bad.

3.) A little trickier. I would argue that not 'lying' in this case makes you an indiscrete, rude, and hurtful person. However, honesty with discretion is almost certainly necessary when you are living with anyone, and if your wife is not aware of her mother's faults than she is either self-delusional or you are wrong.

4.) On the surface adultery is a violation of contract recognized not simply between husband and wife but by the society at large. At heart it's probably unfaithful and dishonest. In the head, it's not good socially as it creates weird human relationships and complicated family structures. But a marriage can be wrong for a variety of reasons as well. And wrong doesn't necessarily equal criminal.

5.) Again I turn to TA who makes a distinction between desiring a good thing, which would be Carter's gaffe about adultery in the heart, and letting that desire become inappropriate, which would be planning on doing something evil to obtain the good thing or distracting yourself from good activity to entertain the desire. Again not necessarily criminal.

 

[Celebrim]

Fred: I really don't see the point in debating this with you. Your mind is made up. You have a seriously vested emotional interest in believing that all morality is relative. If you really want to believe that, I can't stop you. I pity you, but I can't stop you.

Of course there is a correct answer.

"So, tell me, if I am wrong in my beliefs, am I "evil"?"

You know part of the reason I have to be vague is because you aren't committing to anything. I don't know what in the world the hypothetical 'I' is wrong about, and I certainly don't know if their wrongness merits the label 'evil'. If your beliefs are evil, they are evil. I don't want to get to much into judging people, because that's really not my place and less useful anyway, but if you believe and do evil things, those things you believe and do are evil.

"If there is proof of no elven god and an orcish pantheon and there is only one elven city that would slaughter orcs just to survive, are they "evil"?"

I'm not even sure I understand the question, and it is so hypothetical as to be pointless anyway.

"What if Hitler won World War II? Whould he retroactively become "good"?"

Of course not. Do you think so? Clearly you don't, and therefore you must be willing to admit that some things are good and evil. Since you are willing to admit that some things are good and evil, why aren't you willing to admit that we could reach widespread (though not necessarily perfect) agreement on what they were? Not that are belief in what evil or good is would change what they were, but merely I don't think that they are so hard to identify as you hint that you claim.

"What about Communisum? If the U.S. and Western Europe became Communist during the Cold War, would capitalism become evil?"

People are afraid of lots of things. And when people are afraid of things they label them evil. People like to label what is different as evil. Ambitious men like to label what is different evil for thier own purposes. Does this make it so? Communism and Capitalism are just beliefs based on valid ideas about destributing property. Neither of them is enherently immoral, but neither is either enherently moral. However, one of them works and one of them doesn't. Specifically, Communism fails because it fails to recognize the cause of the evil that men do. As such, when implemented it brings about ultimately great evil and suffering, not because it is evil, but because men do evil things. The same is true of Capitalism, for any system that neglects that greed is an evil thing is bound to have failings, but at least it works on the assumption that men are greedy.

"What if God is really a fraud? What if capitalism actually doesn't work and brings moral decadence? What if the terrorists are right?"

What does this have to do with anything? Men do not need 'capitalism' to be morally decadendent. They've done a fine job of it for centuries without it.

And as for the terrorists being right, what is more clearly evil than claiming that you 'love death' and 'hate life' and that you are on the 'side of death'. What is more clearly evil than killing strangers in cold blood, caring not one wit whether you kill children or women or men or yourself or your own people or your allies or anything else, and killing them specifically because you say it is right for you to kill the weak? No. Just because a man says that he is good for loving death and murder does not make it so. I find a hard time believing that you are willing to accept every opinion as valid. Would _you_ change and become a terrorist if that became the prevailing opinion and if not, then why?

And don't tell me 'because it's wrong', because you are denying such a concept exists.

"But if you KNEW (cast something like detect thoughts), THEN what would you say?"

I thought I answered this question? It depends. BUT, once I do know, then I can make a judgement. I'm not going to blindly make a judgement about what I don't know. However, I did give an example of thoughts I thought I could judge. Give me an example and see if we cannot agree upon it.

AND NO, I'm not furthering myself from the alignment system by saying that, in essence, a person's beliefs depend upon his beliefs. I don't know how you get that.

"Consider Mr. Gray the fighter, who would slaughter even children of people his race/nation would hate (say, killing even cambions and tieflings because they have demon blood, and are highly prone to be unchangeable "evil"). Is he good or evil?"

Let's remove the hypothetical from this. I can't make any judgements on cambions and tieflings and fantasy creatures. I have no experience with them, and as a made up thing, their nature is whatever the author believes it to be. BUT, if Mr. Gray slaughters children, then the act is evil. If Mr. Gray goes out of his way to kill children, if he doesn't try to avoid killing children, if he enjoys killing children, if he doesn't mourn that which he has killed, if he intentionally killed children simply because they are members of some particular race, then yes I think we can be fairly certain in how we characterize the actions. Do you disagree?

"Note that people's opinions of beliefs change from time to time, through centuries of rising and falling empires."

Of course they do. So what? Sometimes the human race grows in wisdom, and sometimes it doesn't. Generally, for every ground it gains, it loses its principals somewhere else. Often one society holds more dearly some truth than another.

Yes, the example was shallow.

You offer me an example of what is in all likelihood a shallowly written character, of a fantasy race, of a fantasy setting arbitrarily or not labeled evil, who may or may not be well conceived and executed, and whose alignment was assigned for reasons I don't understand by people I don't know, and you expect from that to offer some sort of proof or disproof that morality is relative? We're not exactly talking about a citation by a major poet or philosopher, or even an author I can easily investigate in the library. We're not exactly talking about academic material.

All I have to say on the matter is as long as she has done no evil, then she has done no evil, and I can think of no reason to assume that she is evil. Now, if I knew a list of her crimes (or even just her actions or even just her thoughts), then maybe I could draw some conclusions. And to make matters worse, you are throwing in the hypothetical 'well what if a race is enherently evil' to which I have no answer having never encountered such a race.

 

[Celebrim]

/me points to Dr. Strangemonkey, "See. Thomas Aquinas. Now that's not shallow."

 

[Celtavian]

Re

The primary determinants of morality are role models and culture. They play the greatest part in shaping the morality of the young.

Though, I find that for roleplaying games, the morality I choose to play is defined by the literature I read. For example, I am a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings and The Arthurian Legends. Because of this, I tend to play knights and goodly characters. I don't like playing characters flawed in real world ways like drug users, thieves, or even primitives. I much prefer a high-minded character with good ideals and a strong sense of fair play and honor.

In real life, I don't see D and D having much of an effect on my morality. It is often more often the reverse. My ideas of morality have a strong effect on the way I play D and D.

I have been playing D and D since I was 7 years old. Even then, the game was more affected by my morality than I by its morality. Probably the reason why I liked to play characters that were like super heroes when I first started to play.

About the only thing D and D has done is to enhance my reading and math skills as well as my imagination. I definitely think role-playing games improve imagination and problem solving skills.

There is some benefit to role-playing games. I just don't think it does much to shape one's morality because you bring your sense of right or wrong with you into the game. Even when it comes to killing, the only thing holding people back from ruthlessly killing another man who has done something greviously wrong is the law and lack of training.

You train a man to kill in the same manner adventurers are, and you can be sure that they will do it when angry. It certainly isn't a highly developed sense of morality holding back people from killing each other in anger.

I only need direct you to medieval and old west history to see what happens in the absence of law with a population well-trained to use arms.

 

[mmadsen]

If I may rephrase the question that started this thread: What moral lessons will a typical group of young kids learn from playing D&D -- as its typically played, following the examples set by the rulebooks and adventure modules?

We know that D&D can be played any number of ways, and we know that a DM can actively teach certain lessons by setting up his world that way, but what lessons does a normal D&D game reinforce?

 

[Fred Delles]

Celebrim: I think good and evil are a matter of opinion (thankfully, I'm with the status quo on what is good and what is evil), which is why I don't think the D&D alignment system is useful at all except in some sort of LotR or Dragonlance-style world. Wil's moral dilemmas and a game called "Scruples" are interesting in what everyone thinks as good and what everyone thinks as bad. No straight alignment system would help there.

BTW, you haven't played the Forgotten Realms, haven't you? There are those "inherently evil" races and those that are quite mixed. You can be a "hard" NE (typical drow) or a "soft" NE (Viconia). Heck, you could stretch the alignment system so much that some acts could be argued as one way or the other. Few FR writers even deal with the alignment system, and far more power to them.

When I created a FR campaign, I practically abolished the alignment system because it tended to get in the way of my characters. I had, for example, a feral elf race that killed and ate humans. Yet, they are kind to children, and never attack unless provoked. In fact, I had something similar to Wil's question #4 (the stuff on adultery) that had married elves able to have sex with other elves, as long as they keep faithful with their spouse (obviously, there is more to marriage than just sex). It was interesting to see how their characters acted when they heard (they critically thought, yeah, it is good in one way, bad in another, etc.), and not having an alignment system only made the argument more interesting.

I tend not to agree with you because you say, "you can't stamp such-and-such as good and such-and-such as always evil", yet, you say, "We should keep the alignment system, and put some sort of alignment system in everything". I felt that those two statements are contradictory, that's all. We agree that D&D and some of its gamers do lousy with the alignment system (be it plot, etc.). We disagree whether or not we should keep/abolish the alignment system. I'll just keep it at that. Agree to disagree and all.

mmadsen: Sorry for hijacking the thread, though if we twist or abolish the alignment system, D&D would provide some sort of decent moral compass, though not really one that you could learn compared to real life and the like.

 

[mmadsen]

Sorry for hijacking the thread, though if we twist or abolish the alignment system, D&D would provide some sort of decent moral compass, though not really one that you could learn compared to real life and the like.

Without twisting or abolishing the alignment system then, what moral lessons will a typical group of young kids learn from playing D&D -- as its typically played, following the examples set by the rulebooks and adventure modules?