D&D General Muscular Neutrality (thought experiment)

And I think people trying to make good into a martyrdom competition would be a justification for the buffboi neutrals.
Remember, the point of the the thread is to create those justifications!

One of the big reasons I hate alignment so is how often someone else's version and expectations of good is so far from mine that the light from one will take ten thousand years to reach the other.

Good being 'not nice'; Good being arrogant; Good paying evil unto evil; Good trying to exterminate other people; Good justifying evil for 'greater' good. All just evil with a rebrand to me.
But that's not a bad thing! Labeling something as "Good" in your setting doesn't mean you actually believe in its moral correctness; it's simply setting up a framework to explore a world where the universe doesn't recognize your own framework as the correct one.

If that's not something you want to explore in your game, just have the "muscular neutrals" be deluded and the forces of "Good" are the champions of the values you personally hold.
 

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No the example is someone who wants to do it and there is no significant opportunity cost.

Doctors can be very well paid for example and enjoy their work and the prestige and feeling good about doing good.
Sure, but "if I feel good about my altruism, was it actually good?" or "If I'm only helping people so I'm rewarded at the end of my life, am I actually a good person?" are certainly concepts that have been explored fictionally before.
 


It’s also classic D&D alignment where the totality says where you are on the alignment axes.

Wow.
Feel free to offer an explanation of what those words actually mean, then.
No, can good Bahamut do anything non-good or is he an elemental of Lawful Good whose every action and choice is lawful good? If the latter he is definitionally good as are his choices.
What does that even mean? That anything he does is lawful good because he is LAWFUL GOOD? That is the definition of a circular argument; hence, meaningless.
Bahamut being real does not change whether some action he calls for is good or evil. Alignment is separate from the gods and does not come from them.

I feel no moral imperative to follow Bahamut even though he is Lawful Good.

The specifics of an afterlife could change some moral calculations but the specifics are debatable.
I feel like you are dodging answering a pretty straightforward scenario, probably because you don't like the inevitable conclusion.
 
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Maybe muscular neutrality is motivated by the idea that we exist in a world where both evil and good exist, in the world, and each of us. If one side were to win, everything we knew about the world would be different. The universe might not need both good and evil, but it is a part of our subjective existence.
A total triump of good or evil would change the universe fundamentally in a way incompatible with our existence.
On a smaller level that means that we can often strive to fight hunger and oppression - but never to the level that hunger and oppression couldn't possibly exist. That sometimes means we help the power-hungry dictators or kill artificiers that that mass-produce spoons of nourishments. But we will still stop most power-hungry dictators and fight famines.
 

Feel free to offer an explanation of what those words actually mean, then.
Nah I think I am done engaging you on that point.
What does that even mean? That anything he does is lawful good because he is LAWFUL GOOD? That is the definition of a circular argument; hence, meaningless.
There are plenty who feel that angels and fiends are elementals of alignment and if they do something out of their alignment they are no longer actual angels and fiends but something different and so they can only take actions consistent with their alignment and stay what they are.

Some conflate the gods with the cosmic forces of alignment and treat them the same way.

That seemed to be what you were doing with Bahamut, that he is a LG god and commands x so it is a moral imperative to do x.

Otherwise what moral imperative comes from him being an actual demonstrable god? He is generally good enough to warrant a LG alignment but that does not speak directly to the specific command.
I feel like you are dodging answering a pretty straightforward scenario, probably because you don;t like the inevitable conclusion.
I don't feel Bahamut saying do it justifies education camps for goblins. Even with the end goal of taking goblins out of Maglubiyet's Valhala of fighting evil Gruumsh's orcs and joining Bahamut's eternal crusade against Tiamat and other evils.

It would be a slightly different calculus if the evil goblins are taken from eternal hell damnation and torture to a paradise afterlife, but I'd still have a hard time buying that justifies genociding adult goblins and education camping the kids.

I have a high moral premium on stuff like not torturing and not doing other extreme evils even for good ends.
 
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Remember, the point of the the thread is to create those justifications!


But that's not a bad thing! Labeling something as "Good" in your setting doesn't mean you actually believe in its moral correctness; it's simply setting up a framework to explore a world where the universe doesn't recognize your own framework as the correct one.

If that's not something you want to explore in your game, just have the "muscular neutrals" be deluded and the forces of "Good" are the champions of the values you personally hold.
But the OP keeps begging us to come up with something that's not 'good is evil, actually'.
 

But the OP keeps begging us to come up with something that's not 'good is evil, actually'.
Good can be "Not Evil" and still not "Pure Good". "Good" doesn't have to mean "right".

If you insist it is, then obviously the exercise is pointless.
 

Going by the OP's definition...

1. Evolution. Good is altruistic. You take care of everyone. With sufficently advanced magic or technology, you bring everyone in a stasis. There is no evolutionary pressure as in a good society, everyone gets CLW and Remove Disease... a world with only Good would become an utopia in stasis, everyone would be fed Goodberries, no need to work, which will ultimately lead to the fall of the whole race if they can't adapt to their changing environment and rely only on magic, and magic itself can fail. So, maintaining societies that are evil, where "survival of the fittest" is a thing, can help have a population where the herd is effectively culled, creating a population from which civilization will rebuild when the magic inevitably fail at some point in the feature. The Neutral will oppose Good when Good is about to win, which means that Good must fight Evil, if not, Good would just indefinetely coexist with Evil, so by the OP's definition Good can't be just passively Good or defensively Good. Muscular Neutral will get involved in order for Good to just stay Good within their societies, and let Evil societies thrive to let the gene pool continue to evolve positively. In this scenario, your Muscular Neutrals could be worshippers of Gods of Nature.

2. Art. Muscular Neutral see that the suffering, accursed artists create the best art. In a Good society, they don't see as much valid art being created, while harsh environment creates the conditions for artists to emerge. Muscular Neutrals are taking the side of Evil because they love art when Good is about to win, helping Evil societies to thrive. But when Evil societies try to invade and destroy Good societies, Muscular Neutral will help them, because Good societies are much stabler and more apt to preseve teh created art. Basically, Muscular Neutral would be metaphisically inclined to put art above everything. In this scenario, your Muscular Neutrals could be worshippers of Gods of Art and Beauty.

3. Balance. Muscular Neutral are as convinced of the validity of their ethical position as are Good and Evil. Good is persuaded that Benevolence makes right, Evil is persuaded that Might make right, Neutral is persuaded that if left unchecked, they will fight. Muscular Neutral are the force that will side with the one who would be losing (including supporting the evil necromancer and his mummy lords army) just for the sake of preventing Good from deciding they can't be Good while standing idly when evil is being done, and they would be supporting the Good armies if the Evil ones are considering just pludering the Good countries. So, instead of a 1-vs-1 fight, it would be a 2-vs-1 fight, possibly with Muscular Neutral changing sides mid-war once an equilibrium is reached. After some time, Good and Evil coexist because of the risk a worldwide war would be for them. So, global war over morality can be avoided, which would be the imperative of Muscular Neutral ("we're the nukes that prevent others to initiate a war). Basically, their existence is the reason good is "altruism, respect for life, and concern for dignity" as per the OP and not "altruism and respect for life, so we must oppose civilizations that do not value altruism and practice slavery and ritual sacrifices" -- when Good try to be invasively Good, it is obliterated by the combined forces of Evil and Muscular Neutrals. In this scenario, your Muscular Neutrals could be worshipper of the God of Peace.

4. Harvest. Actually having an eternal struggle between forces of evil and forces of good is immensely pleasing. It allows people to feel elated, either by the hope of becoming heroes (on the Good side) or conqueror (on the Evil side). Neutral actually metaphisically enjoy the struggle between both sides and will ensure that no side gets to disappear, actually taking steps so they are of roughly equal powers so each side can get a lot of inspiration (if one is too reduced, the hope of becoming a hero is greatly reduced vs the risk of becoming the next in line to be ritually sacrificed by the evil side, and if paladins are all around keeping order, trying to conquer anything with your meek army of 3 zombies will fail long before you reach the "undead army overlord" level. Muscular Neutral side because they like witnessing this struggle, feel it's part of what makes "great souls" to emerge and they want to cultivate those great souls, so they actively ensure an equilibrium between Good and Evil. [EDIT: or if you prefer, fighting against all odds is what makes great souls, so Muscular Neutrals helps criminals in Good societies and prop the rebel underdogs in an Evil societies at the same time]. Neutral Gods gets much more sustenance from eating "great souls" when they die than commoner souls, after all. In this scenario, your Muscular Neutrals could be worshipper of the God of Afterlife Lunch.
 
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Yin and yang. Good contains the seeds of Evil, and Evil contains the seeds of Good.

If Evil wins for a moment, it eventually destroys itself in an orgy of violence, leaving the meek to inherit the world. The meek rebuild the world as a less Evil, but not necessarily Good, place.

If Good wins for a moment, it eventually becomes too naive to guard against future generations of bad actors. Villains exploit the innocent. Good fades and Evil takes root in the garden.

In the end, neither Good nor Evil can achieve lasting victory. The pendulum always returns to equilibrium. The only question is how much suffering arrogant fools are willing to inflict on the world by knocking the pendulum around like a wrecking ball in an effort to defy gravity.

Muscular Neutrals are the practical folk who believe in gravity. They oppose anyone who's trying to build towers, because they don't want to be crushed when the towers inevitably fall.
 

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