Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Good, Evil, Nature, and Druids
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7626843" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>D&D has always seemed to lean that way. Although I think officially they were listed as 'Alignment: Any' in 3e, I think they could reasonably be listed as 'Alignment: Often Neutral' in contrast to the 'Often Lawful Good' of dwarves or the 'Often Chaotic Good' of elves. </p><p></p><p>From a demographic perspective I generally assume 60-80% of human NPCs in a community will be neutral, depending on how philosophical the culture is as a whole. The remainder are divided amongst the other 8 alignments, skewed toward the dominate philosophy of the community.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Alignment gets weird when you start talking about a material being (as opposed to a spirit with alignment by definition) with a very different biology than humanity. There are several different ways to look at the problem.</p><p></p><p>a) Alignment is specific to the species: Each species has some sort of rules built into it by its creator that it ought to follow, typically according to the dictates of his creator for the health of the species and the ecosystem as a whole. So for example, Rudyard Kipling presents sentient animals in the jungle books following a code that they are aware of, and departing from that code indicates immorality. One of the laws of their code is, "Seven times, seven: never hunt man.", which could conceivably justified in several ways. Presumably predators in an ecosystem would know that their role is to hunt the weak and the aged for the health of the prey, and prey animals would understand that they are part of some natural cycle and though they have a right to resist the hunter, neither hunter nor prey would judge the other for following their own code.</p><p>b) Alignment transcends species: In this scenario, which isn't necessarily incompatible with the former, there is a sense in which alignment is larger than any particular species. In this perspective, an obligate carnivore or parasitic species might have been created or be inherently evil, and there is some sense in which the species is 'wrong' and the created universe is flawed by the presence of the species. Things are not as they ought to be. As with any universe that isn't in a state of perfection, the big question is what to do about it. One possible explanation is that evil and good are just parts of some cosmic balance, and while you might be tempted to prefer one over the other, this is short sighted. The evil creatures are as necessary as the good ones, provided that things stay in proportion and balance. This perspective returns us close to the status in 'a' alone, save that now a carnivore is _supposed_ to be evil and fulfilling its purpose while evil, has a larger purpose. Another perspective is that the universe requires redemption or transformation, and that could come about by wiping out the evil parts of it, or by some how transforming the rules of the universe so that the evil aspects of it are no longer necessities - the lion could lie down with the lamb. A third perspective is that sense the universe is inherently flawed, the best thing to do is wipe the whole thing out and start over from scratch, or possibly as a fourth perspective wipe everything out and not start over from scratch since nothing good could come of it anyway. Turn the lights out on the universe eternally. And the same sort of perspective could apply to individual species. Some of them might be unredeemable and need to be wiped out (Mind Flayers, for example). Others might be redeemable and are destined for some sort of transformation or transcendence.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7626843, member: 4937"] D&D has always seemed to lean that way. Although I think officially they were listed as 'Alignment: Any' in 3e, I think they could reasonably be listed as 'Alignment: Often Neutral' in contrast to the 'Often Lawful Good' of dwarves or the 'Often Chaotic Good' of elves. From a demographic perspective I generally assume 60-80% of human NPCs in a community will be neutral, depending on how philosophical the culture is as a whole. The remainder are divided amongst the other 8 alignments, skewed toward the dominate philosophy of the community. Alignment gets weird when you start talking about a material being (as opposed to a spirit with alignment by definition) with a very different biology than humanity. There are several different ways to look at the problem. a) Alignment is specific to the species: Each species has some sort of rules built into it by its creator that it ought to follow, typically according to the dictates of his creator for the health of the species and the ecosystem as a whole. So for example, Rudyard Kipling presents sentient animals in the jungle books following a code that they are aware of, and departing from that code indicates immorality. One of the laws of their code is, "Seven times, seven: never hunt man.", which could conceivably justified in several ways. Presumably predators in an ecosystem would know that their role is to hunt the weak and the aged for the health of the prey, and prey animals would understand that they are part of some natural cycle and though they have a right to resist the hunter, neither hunter nor prey would judge the other for following their own code. b) Alignment transcends species: In this scenario, which isn't necessarily incompatible with the former, there is a sense in which alignment is larger than any particular species. In this perspective, an obligate carnivore or parasitic species might have been created or be inherently evil, and there is some sense in which the species is 'wrong' and the created universe is flawed by the presence of the species. Things are not as they ought to be. As with any universe that isn't in a state of perfection, the big question is what to do about it. One possible explanation is that evil and good are just parts of some cosmic balance, and while you might be tempted to prefer one over the other, this is short sighted. The evil creatures are as necessary as the good ones, provided that things stay in proportion and balance. This perspective returns us close to the status in 'a' alone, save that now a carnivore is _supposed_ to be evil and fulfilling its purpose while evil, has a larger purpose. Another perspective is that the universe requires redemption or transformation, and that could come about by wiping out the evil parts of it, or by some how transforming the rules of the universe so that the evil aspects of it are no longer necessities - the lion could lie down with the lamb. A third perspective is that sense the universe is inherently flawed, the best thing to do is wipe the whole thing out and start over from scratch, or possibly as a fourth perspective wipe everything out and not start over from scratch since nothing good could come of it anyway. Turn the lights out on the universe eternally. And the same sort of perspective could apply to individual species. Some of them might be unredeemable and need to be wiped out (Mind Flayers, for example). Others might be redeemable and are destined for some sort of transformation or transcendence. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Good, Evil, Nature, and Druids
Top