Law and Chaos gone? Good Riddance!

[senna]

Are you seriously telling me that too much love, trust, cooperation, joy, health, happiness, prosperity, generosity and enlightenment is something a sane person would fight against? Are you telling me that someone other than a complete lunatic would work to bring hate, cruelty, ignorance, depravity, suffering, sorrow, pain, greed, etc. to this situation?Wyrmshadows

Yes, Nietzsche, for instance, thinks that defending the weak interferes with the natural selection and makes the overal human race least apt to survive, so the morality of good will is damaging to the human race as a whole in the long run.

Mordenkainen think the same thing in a cosmic scale, if i let too much good to grow, people will become soft, and less capable to survive a long strugle with an new evil, witch would cause massive damage to the world and lots of casualities. By trying to equalize both sides i prevent that evil grows too much, self explanatory bad, and that good is aways prepared to fight evil.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I don't think many will notice, in the near future. That they're gone, I mean. Or that they were ever in the game.

 

[CleverNickName]

I wasn't aware of Law and Chaos going anywhere; all I've heard so far was that they were renaming "neutral" to "unaligned." (shrug) Poe-tay-toe, puh-tah-toe.

It really doesn't matter to me what they do in 4e; I plan to keep using the same alignment scheme that I have used in my games for the last couple of decades. I happen to like the dual axis.

 

[JDJblatherings]

The Law and Chaos axis of D&D is nothing more than Gygax's misinterpretation of Michael Moorcock's "alignment" system.

Really? Are you aware the alignment system in D&D started out Lawful-neutral-chaotic and the good/evil axis was added later?

 

[Plane Sailing]

Really? Are you aware the alignment system in D&D started out Lawful-neutral-chaotic and the good/evil axis was added later?

That doesn't alter the fact that it was EGG's "version" of Moorcock's Law/Chaos though, as per the posters original point...

 

[Wyrmshadows]

First of, "mis-interpretation" implies that Gygax wasn't trying to put his own spin on things. Did he ever say he was trying to copy that alignment exactly.

Second, before you post with that type of authoritative tone, keep in mind that Gary has written both an Elric story and a Gord story in Moorcock's Multiverse, all approved by Moorcock, so I would think he has a better handle on those stories than you would think.

He can handle anything he wants any way he wants. Read my posts again where I state more tha once that it isn't that law and chaos doesn't work, it is when they are combined with a good and evil axis it becomes unworkable. In Moorcock's universe there is no good and evil axis, there is only law and chaos, law as the principle of order and chaos as the principle of entropy. The ONLY good in Moorcock's universe is balance between order and entropy.

These are not good and evil, they are amoral natural forces personalified by the lords of law and chaos. The fact is that Moorcock was wise enough to not attempt the mix both the good and evil AND the law and chaos axis as cosmic forces because they do not mix logically. D&D inspired alignment arguments like this one would not exist in a millieu with either a law vs. chaos axis or a good vs. evil axis. We get preposterous alignment arguments amongst players and DMs because it doesn't make sense.

After all the years I have been DMing, I know its not that everyone is dense and cannot make sense of alignment, its that alignment as conceived of in D&D is IMO fatally flawed.



Wyrmshadows

 

[Stoat]

I think Dausuul makes a good point. WotC (and TSR before it) tend to use the law/chaos axis to describe several different philosphoical/personal points of view. To add an example to Dausuul's list, IIRC, the 2E PHB essentially defined "lawful" as "anal retentive" and "chaotic" as "insane."

Given that (a) out culture doesn't focus on law v. chaos as closely as it does on good v. evil and (b) anyone who's been playing for a while has been exposed to several different takes on what the terms "law" and "chaos" mean, the number of alignment wars the axis produces isn't surprising.

 

[bonethug0108]

that's a game information that a character wouldn't have access to.
and even if he would, all the better: it reinforces the dilemma, rather than solving it.

Aye, good point. Some people would have meet non-evil orcs, but I guess not everyone would have. If you grew up around a tribe of evil orcs and never meet any good orcs, though, I guess your logical conclusion would be that all orcs are evil and should be destroyed.

So now do you follow this knowledge and be wrong about it, killing an innocent. You don't know you're wrong, but the dm would because if he put baby orcs in the game, he would know the alignment.

So what's a dm to do in this case. The player did act pretty hastily. Did he really have to kill the babies? They didn't commit any evil. Just because you suspect someone will commit evil does not give you the right to kill them. It would be like me killing a murderer's baby just because I think they will grow up to be a mass murderer. After all, it's in the gene's, right?

So I would rule it as the character was being very evil and as such would lose any powers if he were playing a good alignment restricted class. The player would then be upset because he saw it as trying to fight evil with no mercy.

So many ways to interpret things. That is why alignment is bad in 3e.

 

[JDJblatherings]

That doesn't alter the fact that it was EGG's "version" of Moorcock's Law/Chaos though, as per the posters original point...

"However D&D takes two incompatible systems, the traditional fantasy trope of good vs. evil and adds Moorcock's order vs. entropy axis on top of it."

actually D&D took the law and chaos axis and added good and evil on top of it.

 

[Wyrmshadows]

Yes, Nietzsche, for instance, thinks that defending the weak interferes with the natural selection and makes the overal human race least apt to survive, so the morality of good will is damaging to the human race as a whole in the long run.

Mordenkainen think the same thing in a cosmic scale, if i let too much good to grow, people will become soft, and less capable to survive a long strugle with an new evil, witch would cause massive damage to the world and lots of casualities. By trying to equalize both sides i prevent that evil grows too much, self explanatory bad, and that good is aways prepared to fight evil.

You should realize that Nietzsche would in a high fantasy game like D&D, be LE. He is a proponant of the superman who determines his own morality and is a proponant of a moral darwinism that stands in direct opposition to anything that D&D or any fantasy fiction for that matter would consider good.

I believe that some portion of Neitzsche's philosophy has merit as it can greatly empower the individual but when taken to extremes it creates a compassionless society and at its most extreme end would argue for things like eugenics. There is nothing ultimately GOOD to be found in using Neitzche as an example of morality.

In order to "balance the scales" in a situation of good being truly ascendant, someone like Mordenkainen would have to either commit grievous acts of evil or aid and abet acts of great evil this would by any rational assessment make him evil.

Can anyone really imagine that anyone who rescues 300 orphans from burning buildings, can seek to balance out their behavior by brutally murdering 20 prostitutes? I'm sure this person would be considered an evil bastard, a tragically evil bastard perhaps for all the god he's done, but someone deserving punishment for capital murder.

Unfortunately, only in D&D are there even arguments about moral issues that do not and cannot ever take place either in real life or in ANY fantasy fiction. Someone fighting to balance out good and evil can only only happen in D&D and only in D&D can anyone attempt to justify the unjustifiable.



Wyrmshadows