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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6622741" data-attributes="member: 4937">I think that overall, the bias toward selecting good in the 9 point alignment system is pretty weak.  In fact, I've been with several groups that thought it was obvious that you should choose evil under the system, and one that openly mocked anyone that would play good as being foolish.  This would seem strange if good was obviously the correct choice.I think that the most obvious way to see why EGG doesn't bias the choice is to imagine the geometry that EGG employs to describe the cosmos of the multiverse, and that is a great ring.   Each of the alignments is a like a peer sitting at round table, none larger, more important or more dominating than any other.   This presentation contrasts sharply with traditional Western presentations of the divisions of the dominions of good and evil, in which the dominions of evil are invariably depicted as inferior, circumscribed, beneath, and subjugated.   For example, consider the more traditional good positive cosmology in the third party D&D book, 'The Book of the Righteous'.   Now, 'The Book of the Righteous' is perhaps my favorite RPG book ever, because of its well realized mythology so well suited to providing a backstory and setting for the average game of D&D.  But what it loses compared to The Great Wheel is any sense that evil makes a case for itself worth considering seriously, or that the setting is really meant to or can support evil PCs.  I likewise find it refreshing to see things clearly labeled good and evil, but I don't at all think that that is the end of the matter.  Yes, you can quibble over which bucket things are dropped in, but for me that's not the most interesting discussion.   Far and away for me the most interesting discussion is after all the buckets are clearly labeled and cataloged, what do you choose?  What would you advocate for and how?  Because I don't think it all obvious that people do prefer the contents of one bucket over another, or even that the brand label Good strikes everyone as the better marketed label.  EGG himself with his biases presents for example Lawful Good in a seemingly contradictory manner, both as 'the best good', but also as one of the most despicable, narrow minded, objectionable, and violent philosophies.  And in their own presentations, D&D players often present things similarly - very rarely is a Paladin presented in a truly positive way.  Over 30 years of campaigning with multiple groups, I don't think I could say that I've seen a marked preference among players for Good aligned characters, nor have I seen a marked preference among players for advocating for the bucket 'Good' either in character or out of character.  This would be really strange if it were the case that Good was obviously right and correct.  What I have seen is a marked preference for Chaotic alignments over Lawful alignments, to the extent that I would be really surprised if a table could maintain an interesting discussion of the merits of Law and Chaos.  My suspicion, completely unprovable, is that the strong preference for Chaotic alignments over Lawful ones is a bias resulting from American culture with its preference for radical Individualism.</blockquote>

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