I miss CG

[Celebrim]

Then wouldn't this constitute as a PERFECT example of the three chaotic alignments teaming up momentarily? Some where chaotic good - fighting to defend others. Some were chaotic evil - fighting to remove the law.

Slight ammendment, "Some were chaotic neutral - fighting to remove the law. Some were chaotic evil, fighting only because they gained respect in doing so,could line thier pockets or otherwise enjoy rewards, and because they simply enjoyed killing people."

One could imagine Belkar, that shoeless god of war thinking, "I wanna kill people, but the Nazi's are too in to displine and are are going to lose anyway. So this way I get to kill people ruthlessly, and people will reward me with money, sex, respect, and property and treat me as a hero for doing so. Stupid do gooders."

Realistically, even if Robin Hood was a hero, you got to figure at least some of his merry men were just plain old bandits.

 

[RigaMortus2]

To be perfectly frank, if I had to vote for the worst rules system ever published, it would be RIFTS.

I agree with you. Which is why I specified the RIFTS alignment system rather than their entire rules system.

 

[Krensky]

From a historical perspective, the use of Richard I and John I, in discussing Lawful Good is humorous, since objectively the historical John was either Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral and Richard was probably Chaotic Neutral if not outright Chaotic Evil (This is a man who raped, burned and pillages his way across Sicily, Cyprus, and the Middle East and violated a surrender agreement the rest of the Crusaders honored, slaughtered thousands of hostages because it was more convenient then keeping them alive. King Richard was THE bogeyman in the Arab world after the Third Crusade, with mothers telling their children to behave or Richard would get them.) After the wheels fell of the Third Crusade his actions came home to roost when he had to flee Byzantium and got himself imprisoned by Leopold V of Austria. His mother Eleanor and his brother John were then forced to raise something like three times the GDP of the entire Kingdom of Britain at the time to bail him out. That's where the stifling taxes came from, not as is often portrayed, from John's greed.

As for alignment in 4e, if all mechanical uses of it have been removed (ie it's not a targeting qualified anymore) why the hell still include it in the PHB?

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

It's still chaotic. Or are you now going to tell me that running around, mugging people, is somehow inerently lawful?

You are the one who is assuming these acts are inherently chaotic. What Robin Hood did was war on a small scale. Guerrila, basically. Is war an inherently CHAOTIC activity? Because fighting a guerilla war to restore the LAW is kind of paradoxal if only CHAOTIC people can do it. Yourself you tagged the nazis as Lawful. Well, they were waging war. And used sneaky tactics such as blitzkrieg and snipers. Why would Robin Hood be chaotic just because he didn't have the means to fight Prince John on an open field?

And more importantly, you never answered this : Why would Robin Hood STOP his activities and become a loyal subject once the rightful king is restored if he was truly chaotic.

You're confusing chaotic/lawful with good/evil. Robin Hood used a chaotic means to fight - I don't care what the justification was. If he stopped the banditry afterwards, then his alignment changes, although at times I think I'm the only person who realizes this is possible.

Robin Hood used the only means he had available. In most variant, he didn't take to the wood immediately. In most stories he starts by protesting formally. Very Lawful. But it backfires and soon he has to flee for his life. He didn't use a chaotic method to fight back. He used the only method to fight back in the context. Nothing else would have worked in an area where the Sheriff conrols the local armed force, the church hierarchy is corrupt, there is no such things as media and public opinion and simply slaughtering any visible opposition is very much an option for the government.

Are you telling me his alignment changed when he fled into the woods out of necessity and the reverted to LG or NG once Richard returned? Because his ethics remained constant. That's why he had to fight. If his ethics were flexible, he'd have shut up and accepted John's rule.

So wait, good is defending people unless you know their names?

If you defend strangers because it's the right thing to do, you are GOOD. If you defend your family, maybe you are GOOD. Maybe you are unlaigned. Maybe you are even evil. You didn't know that most mafia hitmen were also family men? Better not endanger their family. Wanting to protect your kid sister makes you a normal brother, not a saint.

So yes, defending strangers is more altruistic than defending your kin. I can't understand why you don't grasp that fact.

Then wouldn't this constitute as a PERFECT example of the three chaotic alignments teaming up momentarily? Some where chaotic good - fighting to defend others. Some were chaotic evil - fighting to remove the law. One is good, one is evil, but both team up because they both hate the very lawful evil nazis.

Put down that comic book NOW.

The guy who became a war hero during WW2 and then went home to his wife and beat the living crap out of her isn't a chaotic evil psychopath fighting to destroy order. He's just a patriot, a macho and has poor emotional control. My argument wasn't that such a man was CE, just that he wasn't GOOD. It was in relation to the point above.

No, but it's very aggrivating to see "good is helping people. Unless you know them. Then it's not good. And chaos is when you do something bad."

To reiterate, defending your family isn't GOOD, it's expected. You might still be a GOOD person, it's just not on that one action we'll know because notoriously EVIL people have helped and protected their family too. It's pretty much a biological imperative and if you don't even do that, then I guess you really are decadent CE.

And I don't think I wrote 'Chaos is doing something bad' anywhere.

 

[Family]

Realistically, even if Robin Hood was a hero, you got to figure at least some of his merry men were just plain old bandits.

Hell, I'll kill a man in a fair fight... or if I think he's gonna start a fair fight, or if he bothers me, or if there's a woman, or if I'm gettin' paid - mostly only when I'm gettin' paid.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

To reiterate, defending your family isn't GOOD, it's expected. You might still be a GOOD person, it's just not on that one action we'll know because notoriously EVIL people have helped and protected their family too.

To put it a little differently, protecting one's family might be a Good act, but it is not that one act alone that makes them a Good person.

For me, the fuzzier the better. As long as it doesn't break down the mechanical system, I'll be ignoring alignment entirely.

 

[Krensky]

Hell, I'll kill a man in a fair fight... or if I think he's gonna start a fair fight, or if he bothers me, or if there's a woman, or if I'm gettin' paid - mostly only when I'm gettin' paid.

I think Jayne's a great example of CN that isn't bug nuts.

 

[Krensky]

So yes, defending strangers is more altruistic than defending your kin. I can't understand why you don't grasp that fact.

Well, there is a certain potential for that to be culture related. Some belief systems (particularly certain versions of Confucianism) would hold that defending your sister is of higher importance and moral value then defending a stranger.

 

[CrimsonNeko]

So, once again I am a little sorry I don't have time to read the whole 12 pages. I am sad because of one big issue concerning this. This is another clear indicator that they are killing the things I liked about the planescape stuff. One of my favorite things in planescape was the difference between devils and demons...

What was the difference, you might ask if you didn't play 2nd ed planescape? (Sorry if I get this mixed up, it's been a while)Both factions believed in the furthering of evil. What caused the split between them, and consequently the Blood War, was a disagree on how best to do that. Demons believed that the best way to further evil would be to encourage total anarchy, let things fall apart, and watch the planes decend into war and chaos. Devils, on the hand, believed in subverting society, letting people sell their souls for temporary gain, knowing that such a sale would be the first step to damnation.

Ideas like that were a big part of Planescape. Good and evil weren't as important as law and chaos. Than again, that made sense, since planescape was a setting where the personal will of the individual could be a big factor, and belief could shape reality (I miss the factions.....)

 

[Celebrim]

Well, there is a certain potential for that to be culture related. Some belief systems (particularly certain versions of Confucianism) would hold that defending your sister is of higher importance and moral value then defending a stranger.

There are other extant belief systems out there which would hold that defending a stranger is in fact evil and that defending someone is only virtuous if it is your kith or kin. To defend a stranger is to risk the assets of the clan for something that doesn't advance the interests of the clan - and indeed advances the interest of someone who is inherently an enemy of the clan since all strangers are enemies by default. Hense, under these cultures 'helping others' is not good. Only helping those people defined as 'brothers' by your common relationship to them is good.

Of course, I would argue that these cultures are themselves 'not Good' and so of course they define good as non-good and evil as good.

As Good (capital g) is commonly understood in the West, the less benefit you derive from helping someone, the more Good it is. I'm taking that generally to be the philosophical grouping meant by 'Good' in D&D based on how the term was described in prior editions.