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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 1121222" data-attributes="member: 7240">I really should have waded into this thread earlier but I was busy having a real life. I should really cut down on that.Anyway, the question seems to be, to what degree is WOTC alignment the equivalent of modern morality. First of all, I had better grant that often, WOTC and other publishers have the nasty habit of making "good" equivalent to liberal modernity. That's a shame because I don't think D&D is all that fun if we are compelled to play modern characters in a pre-modern world. It is therefore fortunate that some material, specifically the description of alignment in the PHB gives room for us to view alignment in a way that can be more culturally relativistic. After all, it would be a terrible shame if we couldn't identify with Tolkien's heroes just because they seemed to support some kind of racist autocracy.So, I choose to view the Lawful Good alignment much as other posters have: one which demands its adherents be altruistic while simultaneously adhering to the social and legal conventions of their society. Based on this idea, it seems pretty clear that: (a) Lawful Good characters can support and engage in concubinage and sex outside of marriage; otherwise, there is no such thing as a Lawful Good Chinese emperor; and (b) Lawful Good characters can support and engage in loveless marriage; otherwise, most major historical European nobles and kings would be disqualified from being Lawful Good.Some people might argue that our fallen world contains so few objectively good people that there really were almost no Lawful Good historical personages. I suppose such a viewpoint is defensible; but that would mean that people in the D&D world would, on average, act much more nobly than people in this world. But I would rather run a D&D which, at least on an ethical level, resembles our fallen world a little more closely.</blockquote>

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