I miss CG

[Mal Malenkirk]

It's still banditry. He didn't do guerilla warfare. He didn't do strategic attacks on the Prince's army. He hid in the woods and mugged people.

In many of the harsher tales he outright assassinates key officials, including the Jolly 'Adventures of Robin Hood' with Erol Flynn (the gloss over that part but there is a montage that implies Robin Hood outright sniped a dozen officials). In most tales he attacks the sheriff officials and steals the taxes which the prince kind of need to maintain his army. These two type of actions are typical guerrilla.

In most tales he performs what amount to propaganda against John's regime. In all tales except those that didn't feature John at all (The eraliest ones), he hinders John's plan at every opportunity and helps Richard allies.

There is few version of the tale where he is simply a happy go lucky bandit that steals from the rich to give to the poor. In some of the earliest tale, there's no stealing from the poor, it's all about his war against the sheriff.

His alignment changed.

That would make alignment meaningless.

You suggest he starts LG as a faithful servant of the king, he turns CG to oppose prince John and revert ot LG when the rightful king is restored?

Robin very much has the same internal compass before, during and after his outlaws days. It's not his morals that changed at these three junction in his life, it's the environment.

You haven't answered my point. Defending people is an activity that scores you "good" points. I'm not saying "everyone who defends their family is good." I'm saying the action itself is a good one. You're saying "No, defending people is unaligned unless they're a stranger. There's nothing good about risking your life for someone else." Which is bizarre. I don't care which is more altruistic, I'm saying they're both altruistic to begin with.

''Good points''? This isn't a CRPG like NWN. And I don't care to comment about actions. I always commented about people. So I say a man won't help his sister because he is a GOOD man, he'll do so because he loves her. It's that simple. Does it make him good? No. Is he good? Perhaps, but this behaviour is irrelevant to determining whether he's good or not and no amount of insisting that the act itself is good will matter one bit in determining his alignment if it turns out the guy is also a mafia hitman.

I have no clue what you're trying to say here, or what it has to do with a comic book.

The idea that Chaotic Evil would rise to fight against the Lawful Evil Nazis as a matter of principle is what I meant. Comic book morality. Blood war silliness. Not happening.

Millions of people fought in WW2 and yet I'd bet not a single person answering the 3e definition of CE enlisted to fight the nazis on the basis that his conscience told him he needed to strike down the fascist order.

Beside war profiteer, you want to know where you can find the most real life personalities that can be matched to the CE description? Not against the nazis, WITH the nazis. Some ot these SS were nothing short of madmen performing acts of wanton destruction that borders on caricature.

Out of curiosity, for those who say Chaotic Good doesn't exist, where does the American Revolution or the various acts done by the Sons of Liberty fit in?

The result of the american revolution was the most thorough state of right (In other words, Lawful society) that the world had seen until that point in history.

Where do you think they fit in the Chaos / Lawful spectrum?

Forgetting about good and evil, I'd say most were neutral except the framers who were the definition of Lawful. There would have been a handful of chaotic but these would turn out to be sorely disappointed with the result seeing as the United states became more orderly after than before the revolution. They then proceeded to migrate west.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

All right. These philosophies have a definition of evil action that is Completely Irrelevant because it means that you cannot know when you are and are not doing good and evil actions. And if that is true, then no one would know how to act.

Immanuel Kant would be highly disappointed in your shortsightedness. Considering it's a major school of philosophy dedicated to the idea that Good and Evil are objective and intention independent yet can be ascertained through rational thought I would say your philosophical horizon is rather narrow. Even philosophers who disagree with Kant do not contend objective ethics structures create inability to define moral action.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

In many of the harsher tales he outright assassinates key officials, including the Jolly 'Adventures of Robin Hood' with Erol Flynn (the gloss over that part but there is a montage that implies Robin Hood outright sniped a dozen officials). In most tales he attacks the sheriff officials and steals the taxes which the prince kind of need to maintain his army. These two type of actions are typical guerrilla.

Alright, let's say it is guerrilla warfare.

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

There is few version of the tale where he is simply a happy go lucky bandit that steals from the rich to give to the poor. In some of the earliest tale, there's no stealing from the poor, it's all about his war against the sheriff.

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.

That would make alignment meaningless.

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

You suggest he starts LG as a faithful servant of the king, he turns CG to oppose prince John and revert ot LG when the rightful king is restored?

Who says he starts LG or ends LG? It's very possible he starts and ends NG, not LG.

Robin very much has the same internal compass before, during and after his outlaws days. It's not his morals that changed at these three junction in his life, it's the environment.

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

''Good points''? This isn't a CRPG like NWN. And I don't care to comment about actions. I always commented about people. So I say a man won't help his sister because he is a GOOD man, he'll do so because he loves her. It's that simple. Does it make him good? No. Is he good? Perhaps, but this behaviour is irrelevant to determining whether he's good or not and no amount of insisting that the act itself is good will matter one bit in determining his alignment if it turns out the guy is also a mafia hitman.

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."

The idea that Chaotic Evil would rise to fight against the Lawful Evil Nazis as a matter of principle is what I meant. Comic book morality. Blood war silliness. Not happening.

Why is it silliness? It happened in the real world.

Millions of people fought in WW2 and yet I'd bet not a single person answering the 3e definition of CE enlisted to fight the nazis on the basis that his conscience told him he needed to strike down the fascist order.

So you don't think anyone in the French Resistance fought against Nazis simply for the sake of wanting to fight against someone? Gee, that sounds completely contradictory to what you said earlier.

Beside war profiteer, you want to know where you can find the most real life personalities that can be matched to the CE description? Not against the nazis, WITH the nazis. Some ot these SS were nothing short of madmen performing acts of wanton destruction that borders on caricature.

...Ok? And?

The result of the american revolution was the most thorough state of right (In other words, Lawful society) that the world had seen until that point in history.

It didn't become that until MANY years later. At the time, it was a bunch of uppity hicks from a backwater country rebelling against the most generous and kind government in Europe.

Where do you think they fit in the Chaos / Lawful spectrum?

I always think of myself as more neutral ;p

Forgetting about good and evil, I'd say most were neutral except the framers who were the definition of Lawful. There would have been a handful of chaotic but these would turn out to be sorely disappointed with the result seeing as the United states became more orderly after than before the revolution. They then proceeded to migrate west.

But I very specifically pointed out the Sons of Liberty who, yes, were terrorists. You didn't answer that point.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Immanuel Kant would be highly disappointed in your shortsightedness. Considering it's a major school of philosophy dedicated to the idea that Good and Evil are objective and intention independent yet can be ascertained through rational thought I would say your philosophical horizon is rather narrow. Even philosophers who disagree with Kant do not contend objective ethics structures create inability to define moral action.

Psh, stop being such a simulationister, or whatever that silly label is, you stingy old grognard. Stuff in the real world is totally passe.

I say 4e should have two alignments, Should Be Killed, and PC. That's TOTALLY going to simplify it, and all your alignments can still fit in!

 

[Celebrim]

Of course it's semantic. But obviously it's necessary to absorb.
You believe that being Chaotic is to be devoted to the idea of Chaos. I believe that the way WotC is defining it is as Actually Chaotic.

You keep trying to draw these fine distinctions that don't really matter to much. I feel quite comfortable in saying that both "devoted to the idea of Chaos" and "Actually Chaotic" can be described as "chaotic" in any edition of the game. These and many other variations on a chaotic disposition or belief system can all be classified as chaotic. You certainly wouldn't describe "devoted to the idea of Chaos" as lawful. Apparently in the new edition the best we are expected to be able to do is 'unaligned'?

No reason to drop an assumption that makes every bit of sense.

Really. Ok, didn't we earlier have this exchange:

Well, as Cicero says, rarely does anyone do evil to achieve evil ends. Rather they do evil because they think that there will be some good profit to it.

Granted.

If intentionality is the be all end all of evil actions, then by your own admission hardly anyone ever does anything that is evil. This seems to me to cause everything to fall apart, because here you are claiming that an act is only evil based on its intentions but that most peoples intentions are good. And yet you also seem willing to claim that you can identify the evil consequences of an action. If evil was really defined by its intentionality, how would you ever identify those evil consequences? Surely you could only recognize evil from its motives if evil really was solely defined by its intention. So you must in fact believe that there is some intrinsic quality to things other than how people intended them. And if so, then it seems to me that we can use those instrinsic qualities to define evil. If we don't, then things really do fall apart, because we would be forced to say things like, "Murdering children is not an evil action, it just might have evil consequences."

And in any event, quite a few people smarter than I have created rigorously argued philosophies of objectivism. It seems to me that in a fantasy world were good and evil objectively exist that objectivism is likely to be the rule of the day.

You are talking about something other than what I am talking about. You are talking about a Lawful *and* Evil person. Not a Lawfully Evil person.

No, I'm talking about either one. It seems to me that either the lawful/evil person or the lawfully evil person or the evilly lawful person are all best put in the ethical bucket 'lawful evil'. It's a big bucket, with plenty of room for all sorts of different beliefs and degrees of extremism or sincerety. But I really don't see how a bucket labelled anything else is more descriptive of a person who is lawful and evil.

I agree that Lawful/Evil can exist (Lawful Evil in the old system). Yes. Great. That's true. But the new system doesn't define it the same way.

What the new system does is take away some buckets on justifications "you can't really draw a fine disctinction between nuetral good and chaotic good". But I find that buckets like 'Chaotic Good', 'Chaotic Neutral', 'Lawful Neutral', and 'Lawful Evil' in fact do describe distinctions in belief that make them distinguishable.

All right. These philosophies have a definition of evil action that is Completely Irrelevant because it means that you cannot know when you are and are not doing good and evil actions. And if that is true, then no one would know how to act.

I quite willing to agree that you cannot know with a high degree of accuracy when you are or are not doing good or evil actions, and I'm quite willing to agree that no one knows how to act. Neither attack much undermines my position, much less that of a person who is lawfully inclined. Afterall, the fundamental implied tenent behind most lawful philosophies begins something like, "Humans, being of such limited wisdom and perception, are unable to act righteously even if they intend to do so. Therefore a wise teacher has been provided who will provide rules of conduct such that those that obey them will do good and refrain from evil. Trust therefore in these laws even when you do not see a clear path."

I am differentiating between the two editions. This second one focuses on Good and Evil, and scraps the Lawful and Chaotic "axis." I think it works better.

Which would be alright if they didn't also throw in buckets like 'lawful good' and 'chaotic evil'.

You should probably be arguing that the new system sucks, rather than that the new system should be the old system without qualification.

What I'm arguing is that the new system is both suckier (less logical, less thought provoking, less useful) than the old system, and that it is suckier even than having a single axis system with three buckets (good, unaligned, and evil perhaps). In fact, it may even be suckier than having no system at all.

Um. Right. Unaligned people including everyone who isn't at heart devoted to Good or Evil. I'm sure they have no compunctions about their actions.

Well, if they did, then they'd be aligned with something right? If you don't have a philosophy how can you feel bad about not doing what you think you ought to do? And if you think you ought to do something, surely that means that you are aligned with something even if weakly.

That's fine...it's a hard concept to grasp.

No it isn't. Hyperdimensionality is a hard concept to grasp. The tri-unity of the Christian God is a hard concept to grasp. Quantum mechanics is a hard concept to grasp. This stuff is still child's play.

 

[Krensky]

Alright, let's say it is guerrilla warfare.
It didn't become that until MANY years later. At the time, it was a bunch of uppity hicks from a backwater country rebelling against the most generous and kind government in Europe.

Have you even read the relevant documents? The US Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, the US Bill of Rights and the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers are nothing but legalism. Granted it took ten years to go from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution, but even the articles themselves were a legalist document.

Not to mention that Jefferson and Franklin were famous in Europe. Heck, one of the issues that lead to everything blowing up is that people (both in the American Colonies and the Continent) were pissed off that Parliament treated Franklin like he was some idiot country bumpkin. The root source of the American War of Independence was that the people living in the colonies were sick of colonialism and actually wanted their rights and prerogatives under British law.

 

[Family]

The root source of the War of Independence was that the people living in the colonies were sick of colonialism and actually wanted their rights.

Mal: "Well, look at this! Appears we got here just in the nick of time. Whaddya suppose that makes us?"
Zoe: "Big damn heroes, sir."
Mal: "Ain't we just!"

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Wrong American War.

The 'verse is much more post-civil-war. Firefly essentially atheistic confederate propaganda.

Take that last line with a grain of salt. Firefly didn't make it's local rights claims over a human-property issue so the morality meter is all off the chart.

 

[Family]

Wrong American War.

The 'verse is much more post-civil-war. It's essentially atheistic confederate propaganda.

Admitingly owned.

 

[Mort_Q]

Off Topic

... essentially atheistic confederate propaganda.

You make that sound like a bad thing.