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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4232990" data-attributes="member: 4937">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'?  Really.  Ok, didn't we earlier have this exchange: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.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.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.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."Which would be alright if they didn't also throw in buckets like 'lawful good' and 'chaotic evil'.  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. 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.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.</blockquote>

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