LG, sex and Star Trek

[Jürgen Hubert]

I'd say that it would be permissable for an LG character to have sex outside of marriage if the customs and traditions make sex outside of marriage permissable.

There are many cases in history when it was acceptable for the upper classes to have a lover outside one's marriage. After all, marriages between these people were often arranged for political or economic reasons, and love didn't factor into it at all.

So as long as our LG character upheld the parts of the marriage that were expected of him or her (such as "producing an heir and a spare"), he would be free to look for love - and sex - elsewhere, and his peers would understand.
Still, being LG, he would probably go out of his way to avoid any hurt feelings among all concerned parties. He would have to develop an "understanding" with his wife, and he would also have to make it clear to his lover that he would never be able to marry her. Apparances must be kept, after all, or else the marriage would be pointless. So he is permitted to visit his lover secretly, and shower her with gifts and affections - but openly going to a major public event would be a big no-no.

So pay your social dues, and you are home free, even if you are Lawful Good. Of course, if your society and/or religion sees adultery as something really bad, you are out of luck...

 

[LuYangShih]

I think societal values are not that great an influence on Lawful Good characters. They are primarily concerned with upholding Good in a Lawful manner. Whether or not that fits their societies viewpoint is irrelevant. A Lawful Good character will not base his actions upon the values of a NE society.

 

[S'mon]

Shouldn't the Lawful Good character be more concerned with the spiritual aspects of a romantic relationship, rather than just the pleasure of sexual acts? I really think a Lawful Good character would form a deeper relationship with the person they were interested in before indulging themselves. The definition used by the BoEF seems to be nothing more than a justification of why a LG character can be as promiscous as they want.

That is rather my impression. I agree with prior posters that

1. Characters could be 'Lawful' and polygamous or polyandrous (and possibly be LG) - IMO this has nothing to do with promiscuity, except at the extreme where the character is the Sultan and can take 1000 wives on a whim.

2. Characters could be fairly sexually promiscuous and be Good (as Djeta said).

But I have trouble with the apparent BoEF view that you can be as promiscuous as you like and still be LG, even in a fictional context.

Hence - my question is, do you think the Star Trek (Next Generation etc) series show an example of characters presented as both Lawful, and Good, and sexually promiscuous, as BoEF says can be the case? Are there any other fictional (or even real world) examples?

 

[LuYangShih]

The only Lawful Good character I have ever seen in a Star Trek series is Spock, and perhaps Tuvok. The rest all seem either Neutral or Chaotic. So I would not use Star Trek as an example, either. I have not watched a Star Trek series since DS9, though, since I was really dissapointed with Voyager and Enterprise.

 

[Lamoni]

what is good?

I think that the problem is that each person defines good differently. In my opinion, good is very closely tied to religion. It involves things like sin. Therefore, in Christian cultures, promiscuity would be bad. It is a sin because it is against a commandment from God. I won't say anything more because I can't go too deep into religion.

With D&D, there are different gods than the one portrayed in the Bible, but I think that the big question is what you agree as a group is bad. In my group, it correlates very similarly to our religious beliefs that we all share in common. One that does not believe in a diety can still be good because they act on what they personally think is right. However, once they believe in a religion some things that they may have done in the past would become bad/evil. The diety they worship is the deciding factor instead of the person.

D&D and neutral and evil dieties throws a small loop in this way of thinking though. In my mind, the Dieties know they are neutral or evil and declare what they are. They may support evil acts, but they don't call them good. Therefore, they are still the deciding factor.

On the other side of alignment. I think that it is only a factor if there are laws that govern sexuality. Lawful people would abide by the laws in most cases... unless for some reason the laws of the particular town or city had no relavence to them.

In conclusion, a lawful good character could be promiscuos, but it wouldn't happen in our campaign unless they didn't worship a diety. Once they declare devotion to a good diety, our group assumes that it follows with what is good and bad in the Bible. (like Do not commit adultery... including fornication).

One more thing I wanted to add. Mormons do not practice polygamy. If a mormon does try to practice it, they are excommunicated and no longer a mormon. They did practice it for a time though. When they did practice it, it was highly organized. (You couldn't marry whomever you wanted, it had to be done by the prophet). And sex outside of marriage was still bad. -I am just trying to give a more accurate account of history and am not trying to debate or promote any particular religious belief.

Edit: I also wanted to say that No one is perfect. That means that every good person commits some evil acts. The difference is that they try to do good and try to atone for the mistakes they make. Therefore using the good alignment doesn't mean that every evil act is off limits. You can do evil, but you need to pay the consequences... especially if you worship a good diety.

 

[LuYangShih]

Morality does not equate religion, and vice versa. Rules are rules, and that is all I will say on that subject.

 

[tzor]

- This seems to say that you can be both sexually promiscuous and LG (perhaps a Paladin). I was trying to think whether this was justifiable in terms of any real-life societies I could think of.

Well yes, sort of. It's sometimes hard to find a real life lawful society. But even European societies had various rules and regulations on the duties and rights of illetgimate children and their mothers. It varied according to the culture and the time, of course.

Sirnames in Ireland, were based on letigimacy, the letigimate son was mac (as in MacDonald) while the illetigimage son was kir (as in Kirpatrick). Note that this is a form of recognition, and in this respect is a model for the assigning of rights and responsibilities.

So it is not difficult to envision a model whereby a person can have various degrees of permissions under a normally strict lawful code depending on the circumstances. A society might consider sexual relations between unmarried people ok, but insist that if children are conceived that a proper ceremony of marriage be performed. A society might consider it understandable if a married man might have relations with an unmarried woman, but he is honor bound to support her should she conceive, and her son or daughter has some proper relationship in the heirarchy of the letigimate sons and daughters.

Going Sci Fi, think Dune. Jessica was never the Duke's wife, but "lawful concubine." The Duke never married. Paul was the heir, even though he was tecnically illetigimate. I remember a funny sci fi short story that basically exploited the differences between one society that believed in extra marital affairs but not divorce, and another that believed that extra marital affairs was wrong, but allowed easy divorce.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I think societal values are not that great an influence on Lawful Good characters. They are primarily concerned with upholding Good in a Lawful manner. Whether or not that fits their societies viewpoint is irrelevant. A Lawful Good character will not base his actions upon the values of a NE society.

But what if the society in question isn't evil? What if, as long as the conventions surrounding marriage and taking lovers outside of it are upheld, no one is harmed?

From the definitions:

'?Law? implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability. On the downside, lawfulness can include close-mindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, judgmentalness, and a lack of adaptability. Those who consciously promote lawfulness say that only lawful behavior creates a society in which people can depend on each other and make the right decisions in full confidence that others will act as they should.'

So upholding customs, as long as they aren't evil, would certainly be appropriate for lawful good characters. And as long as these customs allow taking lovers outside of marriage, and the character doesn't hurt anyone's feelings, I don't see any problems with this.

 

[Lamoni]

Morality does not equate religion, and vice versa. Rules are rules, and that is all I will say on that subject.

Of course they do not equate. That is why they are different words. They aren't even synonyms. However, Morality usually has a base in religion. The definition of Morality from Dictionary.com is:
1. The quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct.
2. A system of ideas of right and wrong conduct: religious morality; Christian morality.
3. Virtuous conduct.
4. A rule or lesson in moral conduct

Religion tells us what is right and good conduct. It provides a system of ideas of right and wrong conduct. It tells us what virtuous conduct is. Basically, it gives us morals.

Religion isn't the only thing that gives us those things. Many philosophers have come up with their own definitions of right and good conduct. And since we are playing a game with no religious requirement (It would be awful if there was), WoTC has loosely defined what it means to be good, neutral and evil. However, no strict code of conduct or commandments have been written for each diety, and therefore it is up to the players to decide how they want to view it in their campaign.

Saying that religion does not influence morality is just wrong. (I realize you didn't say this). For a character that didn't worship a diety I would say that it is fine to define on your own what is good. They just try to do good and would help others. However, once you say that the character worships a diety, the definition of good and right conduct is expanded and more strict. I do realize that this is just a game though and you can play it how you please... that is just how we play it in our campaign. Therefore a Paladin or a good cleric could never have sexual relations outside of marriage without consequences. Only someone that did not worship a good diety could get away with it.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Saying that religion does not influence morality is just wrong. (I realize you didn't say this). For a character that didn't worship a diety I would say that it is fine to define on your own what is good. They just try to do good and would help others. However, once you say that the character worships a diety, the definition of good and right conduct is expanded and more strict. I do realize that this is just a game though and you can play it how you please... that is just how we play it in our campaign. Therefore a Paladin or a good cleric could never have sexual relations outside of marriage without consequences. Only someone that did not worship a good diety could get away with it.

Which means, of course, that no deity in your campaign world condones sexual relations out of marriage. But this can vary from campaign world to campaign world.

And it depends on what marriage means in your societies. If marriage is supposed to be a holy union sancified by the gods that cannot be broken in any way other than death, then yes, sexual relations outside of marriage are going to be tricky.

On the other hand, if marriage is nothing more than a social contract that is supposed to solve things like inheritance issues and cement political alliances, then sexual relations (and love) outside of it won't even enter the picture.

Marriage has meant all sorts of things - and "marriage out of love" is, for the most part, a fairly modern phenomenon. In historical times it mostly was the exception rather than the rule.

And even today, marriage increasingly becomes first and foremost a legal contract (though one of willing partners this time) than some sort of "divine union". Witness the "gay marriages" that have recently become legal in many European nations, as well as Canada. These are extremely controversial with many religions, but the law recognizes them even without the approval of any religious organisation.