New Rant Posted

[Wayside]

Re: Re

I fail to see how the alignments are anything other than the basic nature of an individual. Chaos and Law, Evil and Good are supposed to natural forces in the world of D&D, and your basic nature puts you in alignemnt with one or more of these forces which various deities and creatures embody in a purer form.

Not in my D&D world. I will however entertain your explanation of how exactly deities and creatures embody good and evil and law and chaos as forces in the Forgotten Realms, if you care to give it.

My problem with alignment is that it is inconsistent, along with the idea of good and evil, and superfluous.

Too many folks are into moral relativism, thinking that moral absolutes do not exist. Personally, I think a great majority of people in most nations are basically good. They want to help their fellow man and want to see good done in the world.

Absolutism and alignment don't actually have to have anything to do with each other. These are separate arguments. There is no moral absolute in my world. I don't use alignment either. I would never consider using alignment, but I might consider tying absolutism into knots by running something in the vein of a Greek Tragedy, where the fates pit multiple absolutes against each other and the furies come to clean it up.

You seem to be making the popular mistake about what relativism means: it does not mean you don't believe in an absolute, it simply acknowledges that others have very different absolutes, and there is nothing to validate either of your beliefs.

Evil is evil because of intent, not because of action. That is where the moral relativists begin painting a false picture. They forget about intent and try to paint a simplistic picture based only on action lacking intent and motivation.

You're saying this like it's a fact. I'm glad you're keen on Hume's big contribution to moral philosophy, but relativism works precisely because it considers the intentions you think it overlooks. A morality is defined by the beliefs and intentions of its practitioners.

Like I said before. If I were going to be a moral philosopher, one of the assumptions I would work from is that good intents cannot lead to wrong. If they do, then the intent was not the best possible intent, and therefore not the absolute good. This is easily the most hazy of sub-disciplines; personally I prefer metaphysics.

Care to elaborate what this alleged 'simplistic picture based only on action lacking intent and motivation' is?

Most people if given the choice will do a good act over an evil one. It is the nature of man and the reason why we admire so many good people or try to paint folk in a good light. Humans prefer goodness over evil because they are good. Atrocities only happen because humans are also fearful and ignorant creatures often manipulated by the whims of madmen.

I'm glad that you hold our race in such high esteem. I don't. What was it Hobbes said about man's life in a state of nature?
Society is a lawful evil mechanism, beginning to end. So begins game theory.

That said, I would never criticize anyone for using alignment, anymore than for playing D&D out of the box. The vanilla elements don't interest me personally though. As far as games go, I think mine is fairly philosophically sophisticated. None of that 'kill the monster, loot his lair' stuff, ya know?

 

[Zaruthustran]

Posted by Drawmack</i>
The problem with alignments is they make it impossible to, in any way, replicate real world social, moral and political dilemmas...

The problem with alignments is they make it impossible to, in any way, replicate real world social, moral and political dilemmas. Some role playing games openly admit this. Take for example Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition Core Rulebook I which states, “Good and Evil are not philosophical concepts in the D&D game. They are the driving forces that define the cosmos.” Does anyone else see the problem with this or am I alone in thinking this is an over simplification that alleviates all hopes at verisimilitude?

So herein lays the problem. Good and Evil are not philosophical principles but driving forces.

Your error is that you're critisizing a fundamental component of the game. You may as well argue that the game should be based on d100 instead of d20. You may as well argue that Dungeons & Dragons be a science fiction game with lasers and Jedi.

This is important: D&D's alignment system does not attempt to model reality. Therefore, it makes no sense to critisize the alignment system for not accurately modeling reality.

Your proposed motivation system could be interesting, but it's not for D&D.

-z

PS in response to your Jihad example: in the D&D game, the terrorists would be Evil. Killing innocent people is an evil act, as defined by the D&D game system.

 

[Wayside]

Your error is that you're critisizing a fundamental component of the game. You may as well argue that the game should be based on d100 instead of d20. You may as well argue that Dungeons & Dragons be a science fiction game with lasers and Jedi.

Fundamental to D&D maybe, not to d20. d100 is as good as d20, I would just change the scale to reflect the larger numbers involved while rolling the d100 in a way that emphasized the midrange, just like I use 5d4 for d20.

This is important: D&D's alignment system does not attempt to model reality. Therefore, it makes no sense to critisize the alignment system for not accurately modeling reality.

Does it make sense to criticize a system for not attempting to model reality? Reality is one thing, consistency is another. Little about D&D is real, but what I kept for use in my game is at least consistent. Alignment... not one of those things.

Your proposed motivation system could be interesting, but it's not for D&D.

There's always room for improvement. If a more realistic game isn't D&D anymore, D&D can bite me. I'm fine with calling it d20.

PS in response to your Jihad example: in the D&D game, the terrorists would be Evil. Killing innocent people is an evil act, as defined by the D&D game system.

How does D&D define innocent? Can I expect a definition modeled on reality?

 

[Drawmack]

I was becoming angry so I took a break from this thread but I'm back now.

This is important: D&D's alignment system does not attempt to model reality. Therefore, it makes no sense to critisize the alignment system for not accurately modeling reality.

We need a cerain level of versimilitude in the game or it becomes comedic. If I want comedic I'll play toon, but I like serious games.

Your proposed motivation system could be interesting, but it's not for D&D.

Two points.
1) To this point alignment has been a sacred cow in DnD. However we have seen other sacred cows go by the wayside, THACO anyone.

2) DnD 3rd edition is a very modular game there is very little within it that cannot be removed or replaced with very little work. Allow me to extrapolate on the goals and motivations that I asserted earlier.

Let's take a plain vanilla druid for example.

His movtivation does not change throughout his lifetime and that motivation is to venerate and protect nature.

This goal would probably lead to a NG alignment under the standard system.

Currently he has the goal of rooting out a band of wizards who are conducting arcane experiments on the woodland creatures

(which I guess makes them evil except that they are conducting the experiments to achieve better healing so where does that put them in the alignment system?)

Therefor any spells or sn abilities that used to work on alignment would now work on these things.

Anyone who wishes to harm or disgrace nature detects as an enemy. Anyone who is an ally of said wizards detects as an enemy.

It is very easily replaced with goals and motivations. The goals and motivations are simply more realistic.