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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9314451" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I would definitely dispute large parts of this.Good is perfectly compatible with hierarchy, it simply requires that the hierarchy treat all members thereof with a certain minimum of respect, dignity, etc. A king or empress may be LG, and claim his or her position by right, while still believing that all people merit the same high standards of honor, decency, and compassion. A general may be LG, and still strictly enforce military discipline, because hierarchy is critically necessary for battlefield success. Etc. What LG cannot tolerate is oppressive hierarchy; hierarchy used to exploit others. Hence why, for instance, LG necessarily opposes slavery, or must find some excuse for why it is somehow acceptable (usually, by denying the personhood of the enslaved, so that the enslaver can pretend that they have done nothing wrong.)I also don't think Evil necessarily sees "better and lesser" beings. It can also see all beings as equal! Just equally crap, and thus in no way deserving of any kindness or mercy or even basic decency. "Every man for himself" can be a perfectly valid Evil maxim, despite being fundamentally (if rather shallowly) egalitarian. Evil is much more tolerant of hierarchy in general and specifically oppressive hierarchy, but it does not require it.Further, I generally disagree about how you characterize Lawful Evil. It's pretty clearly, both in fiction and in reality, a thing that someone can put, as it were, principle ahead of short-sighted self-interest, and indeed this is one of the more interesting things you can do with evil characters. Specifically, a Lawful Evil character is much more likely to accept self-limiting or even self-sabotaging consequences, because sticking to their principles serves their grander self-interest better than breaking those principles, even if it causes a setback. I'd call that a critical component of the "Magnificent Bastard" archetype, actually; it needs to be possible for them to have an "I gave my word" moment or a "nobody else would know, but I would know, and that's enough" moment. Essentially, the mirror image of what I said above regarding Good and Law; just as the LG person does not abandon lowercase-l laws and practices willy-nilly for light and transient reasons, the LE person does not either, but the difference lies in how they respond. A Good person tries to correct the mistake by improving the practice or law so that it performs better. An Evil person tries to foresee consequences better so that giving their word does not require as many short-term sacrifices for long-term gain. The former is deontologic (or possibly virtue ethics), the latter is purely consequentialist.(And that, incidentally, is what makes such a nice path for moral reform for such "Noble Demon" characters: if their long-term gain keeps pointing toward doing good rather than evil, they may eventually take the plunge and actually flip to N or even G, and often become as terrifying an ally as they were a terrifying enemy before. Which is great for a well-written Magnificent Bastard, preserving their magnificence but becoming someone we can wholeheartedly root for.)And, finally, if Chaotic is simply "moral relativism + consequentialism," that's...pretty disappointing and basically means that Chaos is a dead-end moral philosophy, which I'm not really willing to accept. Chaos can appeal to external moral standards, to reasoning about morality in ways that generalize, just as easily as Law can. It just does so for different reasons and toward different ends. Libertarianism and principled anarchism, for example, or the work of Robert Nozick.Edit: as a good example of "principle before self interest" that actually helps someone be more evil, I give you my devils from my DW game. They ALWAYS keep their word, and do not resort to crappy, legalese-based traps. Every contract they make with mortals, they want a mortal to complete. Getting a mortal's soul is a lame consolation prize.Because every time they get mortals to WILLINGLY go along with their plans, they have aligned another small part of the universe to them and their way of thinking. And a happy customer is a repeat customer. Hence, devils cultivate a reputation of reliability—and they punish those devils who fail to live up to that reputation. They are quite intelligent and thus clearly know that if they behaved like how regular D&D devils do, no one would ever want to do business with them. Which would be colossally stupid business practice! Hence, if you get a promise from a devil, you can rely on it. But it probably is bad for your immortal soul, and almost certainly bad for the world in general...even if you can't see how and the effects won't come to fruition for a century after you're dead.</blockquote>

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