I miss CG

[pemerton]

Celebrim, for reasons both of time and board rules I'm not sure this discussion can go much further.

So just a few points to try and sum up my view:

*Despite your suggestion that I am being disingenuous, I cannot see why Rawls is Chaotic and not Lawful - he was a professor of government, and is most famous for his theory of just social institutions. He is extremely hostile to libertarianism and anarchism of all sorts. Likewise, your characterisation of post-Enlightenment law and government as chaotic because self-consciously mutable is mysterious to me - not in the sense that I can't see your reasons, but I can't see why one would not take account of the equally plausible reasons that might be put on the other side.

*More generally, I don't find the Law/Chaos axis very illuminating outside of certain fantastic cosmological conceits (eg Moorcock, Lovecraft) which have little bearing on the mundane problems of human politics and social organisation. Your post associates law with such disparate phenomena as concepts, law, government, and organisation. Others would include in the list tradition, honour, consistent behaviour. There is nothing particularly interesting or unitary about these phenomena taken together (again, unless one buys into a cosmological conceit of the Lovecraftian type - but notice that, in Lovecraft, no human activity except perhaps certain artistry is Chaotic - certainly no widespread form of human life is Chaotic in the relevant sense - whereas D&D requires us to apply the notion to mundane humanity).

*Good and Evil are also tricky, but frequently less so, especially in a fantasy context where certain real-life questions that tend to be the focus of actual contemporary moral debate (poverty, civilian deaths in warfare, undemocratic government) are bracketed off as genre-inapplicable. By the way, I don't know of any virtue theorist who denies that courage is a virtue (ie good in itself). Whether it is lawful or chaotic is not a question, as far as I know, that they address.

*I have nothing against a game that raises moral questions. My objection to alignment in D&D is that it requires those questions to be answered if play is to progess. In practice this all too frequently leads to player-player or player-GM conflict. What is the point of spoiling the game like that?

*The less-than-total ambitions of the new system seem likely to reduce the need for these answers to be produced, because players can just take refuge in the "unaligned" category. Hence, an improvement from the point of view of gameplay.

 

[smetzger]

Celebrim, for reasons both of time and board rules I'm not sure this discussion can go much further.

So just a few points to try and sum up my view:

*Despite your suggestion that I am being disingenuous, I cannot see why Rawls is Chaotic and not Lawful - he was a professor of government, and is most famous for his theory of just social institutions. He is extremely hostile to libertarianism and anarchism of all sorts. Likewise, your characterisation of post-Enlightenment law and government as chaotic because self-consciously mutable is mysterious to me - not in the sense that I can't see your reasons, but I can't see why one would not take account of the equally plausible reasons that might be put on the other side.

*More generally, I don't find the Law/Chaos axis very illuminating outside of certain fantastic cosmological conceits (eg Moorcock, Lovecraft) which have little bearing on the mundane problems of human politics and social organisation. Your post associates law with such disparate phenomena as concepts, law, government, and organisation. Others would include in the list tradition, honour, consistent behaviour. There is nothing particularly interesting or unitary about these phenomena taken together (again, unless one buys into a cosmological conceit of the Lovecraftian type - but notice that, in Lovecraft, no human activity except perhaps certain artistry is Chaotic - certainly no widespread form of human life is Chaotic in the relevant sense - whereas D&D requires us to apply the notion to mundane humanity).

*Good and Evil are also tricky, but frequently less so, especially in a fantasy context where certain real-life questions that tend to be the focus of actual contemporary moral debate (poverty, civilian deaths in warfare, undemocratic government) are bracketed off as genre-inapplicable. By the way, I don't know of any virtue theorist who denies that courage is a virtue (ie good in itself). Whether it is lawful or chaotic is not a question, as far as I know, that they address.

*I have nothing against a game that raises moral questions. My objection to alignment in D&D is that it requires those questions to be answered if play is to progess. In practice this all too frequently leads to player-player or player-GM conflict. What is the point of spoiling the game like that?

*The less-than-total ambitions of the new system seem likely to reduce the need for these answers to be produced, because players can just take refuge in the "unaligned" category. Hence, an improvement from the point of view of gameplay.

I agree completely. I bet 4.5 goes to using G, N, and E. Why did they only 'half' fix alignment? Reminds me of 3.0 where every class lost weapon restrictions except for the Druid.

 

[hong]

I agree completely. I bet 4.5 goes to using G, N, and E. Why did they only 'half' fix alignment? Reminds me of 3.0 where every class lost weapon restrictions except for the Druid.

Change management. Gotta make sure you don't change too much, too quickly.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

Alright, let's say it is guerrilla warfare.

But are you now going to say sniping out government officials is lawful?

95% of snipers are soldiers and police officers. Granted, police officer snipers don't shoot government officials, but military ones do it in times of war. Pretty much like Robin Hood did. These guys aren't chaotic or the military system would have spat them out.

You have this mania of tagging alignmkent on actions with no concern for the context. Which result in you tagging 'Chaotic' characters who are clearly fighting for order.

And in other versions, he's just a bandit who also attacks the prince, who makes no differentials between stealing from the rich or the poor. So for your version where he is a knight errant in the woods, there's a version where he is just a bandit.

List those versions, please.

Why, because it changes? Don't be rediculous.

Robion Hood did what he did because his moral compass about what is right or wrong wouldn't change.

If his alignment changes before, during and after his rebellion, it cheapens his actions. Robin Hood's tale is never one of redemption.

He fought John's order not because order is wrong but because John was Evil. That's why he stopped fighting when richard took back the throne. Which wouldn't make sense if he was CHAOTIC fighting LAWFUL but makes perfect sense if he is GOOD fighting EVIL.

If Robin was truly chaotic, he would have stayed in the wood after Richard returned.

People do actions contrary to their "moral compass" all the time, MOST often without realizing it.

In D&D terms, these people are unaligned/neutral. They are not doing actions contrary to their moral compass because truth is their internalized moral values are much weaker than what they express.

Most people only truly feel moral wrongness at the thought of the more extreme for depravities such as incest, murder or rape. It's easy to say you think tax evasion is harmful to the society, but noth that many people genuinely care. Even D&D recognize that most people are neutral/unaligned and therefore hardly ever violate their alignment since there is so little of it to violate.

So what tracks alignment if it's not actions? Your entire argument seems set up around "Evil people can NEVER DO GOOD THINGS, NEVER, NEIN, CANNOT HAPPEN."

Never said that. Said that one particular actions isn't indicative of a good alignment D&D terms. Never said once that no action is.

Take the mafia hitmen who protects his family. If his employers turn on him and he tries to save his family, does it make him good? No, it's just a biologic imperative.

If he reaches out to the family of a man he killed, tries to earn their forgiveness and to protect them from his employer who wants to youngest child to die because he is a witness in the upcoming tria,.is he good? Well, getting there. Because this attempt at redemption indicate an alignment shifting. Saving your family doesn't. It's expected.



Concerning the Sons of Liberty thing... I have no clue who they are and no interest in finding out which is why I didn't comment.

 

[VannATLC]

Storm-bringer showed why I dislike alignment so intensely under the old system.

The old system would be.. ok.. at least, if it didn't rely on absolutism.

But it does.

The new system, at least, resolves some of that, by leaving 'good' and 'evil' as absolutes, apparently.

Pemerton and Celebrim.

Too much of your arguments (Between each other, not the arguments themselves.) are demonstrating that prior to any other differences, your concepts of Law and Chaos differ too significantly, and you have no baseline to make your arguments against each other.

 

[Celebrim]

Celebrim, for reasons both of time and board rules I'm not sure this discussion can go much further.

Ok, I'll back down.

So just a few points to try and sum up my view:

*Despite your suggestion that I am being disingenuous...

Did I use that word? If I did, I apologize. I certainly don't think you are being disingenuous. If anyone is being disingenuous here, it's me - because ultimately I don't believe 'law' and 'chaos' have real concrete and definitive meanings. I think that while you could line up most concepts on the axis as either 'lawful', 'chaotic', and 'nuetral' that most real world people, systems, or societies are so complex and filled with so many contridictions that even that wouldn't tell you much. It's just much more interesting to hold that lawful evil and chaotic good (or for that matter lawful good and chaotic evil) have a definite distinguishable character.

However, that admission is not nearly the same as saying that I think the new system more interesting (or less problimatic) than the old division into nine groups. I do think that 'law' and 'chaos' have enough of a definate character to make them useful story prompts or at least backdrops for those stories.

*More generally, I don't find the Law/Chaos axis very illuminating outside of certain fantastic cosmological conceits (eg Moorcock, Lovecraft) which have little bearing on the mundane problems of human politics and social organisation.

Well, it is precisely within those great fantastic cosmological conciets that we are operating. Moreover, if we use - as I have - the terms 'law' and 'chaos' as stand in for issues like collectivism vs. the rights of the individual, or natural law vs. positivism, or any other number of opposing belief systems which each seem to describe something real and relevant and which do seem to illumine human politics and social organization at least in part, then I do think we can use the Law/Chaos axis profitably to bring interesting questions into our game without upsetting the fantastic tropes and being unduly anachronistic.

And I also do not go so far as you in rejecting the modern relevance of the old cosmlogical conciets of mother cosmos and father chaos, and that great mythic consummation when infinite cold (stasis) met infinite heat (change) and birthed the universe in cataclysm.

By the way, I don't know of any virtue theorist who denies that courage is a virtue (ie good in itself).

Interesting, because I would claim that courage has no virtue of itself. The only thing that makes courage a virtue is to be courageous in a good cause. To be courageous in a bad cause only compounds the error. Far better to shirk cowardly away from doing evil than to do it boldly and think that by your boldness you are somehow being good.

*I have nothing against a game that raises moral questions. My objection to alignment in D&D is that it requires those questions to be answered if play is to progess.

Bad DMing is just bad DMing. In practice most players should play a neutral character. Playing an aligned character is difficult, and deserves some leeway. After all, mortals aren't perfect. The biggest source of friction - the fact that changing alignments would cost you a level - is done away with, so what's the problem?

The less-than-total ambitions of the new system seem likely to reduce the need for these answers to be produced, because players can just take refuge in the "unaligned" category. Hence, an improvement from the point of view of gameplay.

From a certain point of view, yes. If questions and difficulties are to be avoided, then yes not having questions or answers is certainly an improvement. Over the years I've taken a great deal of pleasure in thinking very deeply about what my characters believe to be true and then playing as if I had conviction - even if I myself didn't believe any of it. This is a fantasy, so picking something up out of a box labeled 'Chaotic Neutral' or 'Lawful Good' is alot more interesting than picking something up labeled 'phenomenalism' (well, may not to a professor of philosophy I grant you). The new system just seems really dumbed down.

And the refuge of playing a character that isn't aligned has always been there if you wanted it. Likewise, its easy to slap the label 'nuetral good' on your character and do little about it save jump through hero hoops.

 

[VannATLC]

Interesting, because I would claim that courage has no virtue of itself. The only thing that makes courage a virtue is to be courageous in a good cause. To be courageous in a bad cause only compounds the error. Far better to shirk cowardly away from doing evil than to do it boldly and think that by your boldness you are somehow being good.

How well-versed are you in Virtue ethics, Celebrim?

Courage is a virtue; Specifically, we generally define courage as doing something that we believe is correct regardless of the potential personal cost.

I honestly cannot think of a case where that is not a good thing, independant of the action itself, but I have a very virtue-based view of the world.

 

[keterys]

I've somehow ended two other threads with this post, may as well go for a third:

I suspect they only kept the difference so you could distinguish:
'Evil for no redeeming reason' and 'Good confined by rules' from the rest.

and

'On a plus note, since alignment doesn't actually affect anything, how the alignment works is sorta like the color of garnish on your plate. Maybe it makes it look better or not, but it doesn't actually change how you enjoy the meal.'

I otherwise reiterate Hong's second law. Carry on

 

[warlockwannabe]

I've always thought of Lawful Good as the jerkface samurai/knight who'll beat you for disrespecting them. I can't help but view the alignment as just as bad as Lawful Evil. XD

That would be Lawful Neutral, Blind following of the laws of bushido, with no possible exception.

 

[Celebrim]

How well-versed are you in Virtue ethics, Celebrim?

Compared to Pemerton? Probably not very well.

Courage is a virtue; Specifically, we generally define courage as doing something that we believe is correct regardless of the potential personal cost.

I know how it is commonly defined. Doing something courageously is of no credit to you if the thing you believe to be correct is not in fact correct. There is no reason to celebrate boldly doing evil. Self-sacrifice is not inherently virtuous either. People have great value. If you sacrifice yourself for a wicked cause, not only have you perpetrated a great wickedness, but you've deprived the world of yourself. Only sacrificing for a good cause is virtuous.

I honestly cannot think of a case where that is not a good thing, independant of the action itself, but I have a very virtue-based view of the world.

A great deal of evil has been done with great courage. I have a hard time imagining you can't think of cases were it would have been better were a people less brave and less willing to put themselves at great personal risk. That evil was done with great courage did not make it less evil.

Courage to do good is a good thing. Courage to do evil is not. To admire courage as a thing in and of itself would render some of the most despicable of people admirable. Courage makes the list of attributes of the worst sorts of sociopathy.

I'm reminded of the often misattributed and sometimes bantered slogan, "Dissent is the highest form of Patriotism." That phrase contains the same sort of mistake. Just because it sometimes takes courage to dissent doesn't render dissent a virtue. Whether dissent is a virtue or a vice depends on whether you are advocating right or dissenting from right.

I think before you can claim something as a virtue it must by its nature distinguish the virtuous from the depraved. There is nothing wrong with having a virtue based view of the world, but I do think the trick is discerning what is truly virtuous from the merely celebrated.