D&D 4E No evil gods in 4e?

[jsaving]

You guys are missing the broader point, I think, on the alignment issue. CG and LE haven't disappeared because the designers made an arbitrary decision to excise from the game. Rather, this is all a logical consequence of the 4e design directive that the game promote good-versus-evil encounters.

Once that decision was made, then any secondary alignment dimension(s) had to be eliminated too or else they could conceivably provide a pretext for good-evil teamups, which as previously stated are deemed undesirable in the new regime. And once that decision was made, then the designers needed to get rid of order/freedom and creative/reliable and all the other parts of Law and Chaos that don't correspond to real-world notions of virtue and vice, leaving only honorable-behavior elements like lying and poisoning that just about every value system would regard as sinful.

What does that have to do with the designers' decision to scrap CG? Simple, really. In a world where Chaos is defined as lying/poisoning/backstabbing to get ahead, which is what I think it's going to mean in 4e, Chaos becomes little more than a wholly owned subsidiary of Evil. Which doesn't mean the Chaotic Good heroes most of us think about from 3e "have no place" -- but it does mean they jettison the "chaotic" part of their alignment and become generically Good in 4e.

It's a disappointingly trite and shallow alignment framework, to be sure. As others have pointed out, an order/freedom system would have been much more interesting, especially given the many real-world debates in recent years over how much liberty we're willing to sacrifice in the name of security. But it was not to be...

 

[Khanedur]

The debate is the gift of alignment

Saying that you cant define chaotic good is a cop-out, no one ever has the last word on morality. Merely suggesting that be out there is what was important.

I'm so glad that the alignment system existed so we can have this debate. I value the ways in which it can give us an easy framework within the game to sum up philosophies so that we can play a concept without having a degree in philosophy.

No I cant say where good ends and lawful good begins. But that debate between myself and my friends has definitely make me ponder morality more than any philosophy class I ever took.

I think that removing alignment from the game mechanics is probably the right call. But removing various alignments from the books entirely robs the generation that starts with 4th edition from ever having this argument.

If it were my game system, I think there should have been more alignment axes with less rules significance, increase the introspection away from the table at the same time you take away problems from the table.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Okay. There is no way for me to continue this discussion. The concerns that have been voiced simply aren't founded--the game really does allow for all these different iterations of morality within the five-alignment system, and the game does not somehow suggest that some types of good are "better" than others, or some types of evil "worse"--but there is no way for me to discuss how without going into specifics of what each alignment means. At least no more so than I already have.

It'll be out next month. Take a look then.

 

[Valdrax]

EVIL

"Lawful Evil" is also flawed. People keep mentioned the Big Bad Evil Tyrant as the epitome of lawful evil. Two problems: 1) did the tyrant really become a tyrant without ever breaking the law? and 2) what about all the subordinate non-tyrants- why is there no definition of "lawful evil" that encompasses them?

Let's talk about these two points.

The first point is only relevant if you believe that you have to be 100% true to a component of your alignment to hold to it. This is the kind of thing that gives us Lawful Stupid Paladins who act like morality robots instead of realistic characters.

Let me ask a counter question: If a Paladin meets a run-away slave, should he obey the Law and return him to the master who will likely beat, maim, and/or kill him, or should be obey Good and try to avoid seeing harm come to the slave?

Either answer you give will cause the Paladin to violate one component of his alignment. Does that mean that he no longer qualfites to be Lawful Good because this situation was presented to him, or does the general thrust of one's morality extend beyond minor transgressions in the greater name of it?

In other words, if conquering or war or summary executions of political rivals are non-Lawful, then does that negate the entire thrust of LE just because Evil was served over Law temporarily?

As for the second question, I would argue in fact that the willing cogs in the evil bureaucracy are the most LE elements of it. These are the people who commit atrocities because they are "just following orders" or otherwise "team players." These are your concentration camp guards, your vice presidents and middle managers who cover up the toxic products, your Inquisition torturers, your adjusters who look for any excuse to prevent a sick and dying person from claiming any insurance money so they can claim a bonus at the end of the month, etc. These are people who either knowingly or callously inflict suffering on others because the system demands it or even just allows for it.

You may be running "honorable" as a synonym for "lawful", but that doesn't really fit the definition either. A code of honor is a set of rules that govern the character's behavior. Well, even "dishonorable" characters have codes of conduct- those codes are simply less detailed or strict.

The Black Knight or Honorable Overlord are merely two of many LE archetypes. Two factors that are important in considering L&C Ethics (as opposed from purely "How Evil are you?" questions like whether you'd molest a child) are whether the rules are completely ironclad and whether the villain would give up significant advantage to follow them.

For example, a bloodthirsty serial duelist/murderer who just wants a good fight might still be utterly honor-bound when it comes to the rules of the duel and yet still Evil enough to constantly sacrifice the lives of the less skilled in search of a thrilling fight. Whether such a character would be NE or LE would largely depend on other aspects of the personality beyond that, but a character that absolutely refused to, say, murder someone outside of a duel or kill an unarmed opponent would almost certainly not qualify as CE.

Perhaps the society does have evil loopholes- but if so, isn't the "lawful evil" character being lawful only because he coincidentally happens to be in a society that lets him be evil? Would that character really follow all of the laws of a different non-evil society, even when no one was looking? Probably not.

Depends on the person. Think of the Ford executives who decided not to recall the Pinto because they figured that it would be cheaper to settle with the victims or just pay the compensatory damages if they went all the way to court (forgetting completely about the punitive damages). I can't say I know them personally, but they were certainly following all the laws of a non-Evil society and yet still being pretty LE in action.

Chaotic evil is another story. . . .Without concern for the general "good" or the laws that require behavior that supports the general "good", these characters can be truely reckless, ruthless, and unpredictable. These are the characters that will do literally anything to get what they want- even cross lines that other evil characters won't typically cross. That is an easily determined distinction between them and other evil folks. I am ok with them gettting their own label.

Meh. That has nothing to do with Chaos and everything to do with Evil. Name one line that a CE character will cross that a NE character won't.

 

[VannATLC]

I can't say I know them personally, but they were certainly following all the laws of a non-Evil society and yet still being pretty LE in action.

Makes me laff.

Laff, then cry.

 

[Valdrax]

This is a good thing and a vindication of your point of view. It's only a problem if LG = double-plus-good. Everyone who's seen the books has seemed to contraindicate this.

Okay. There is no way for me to continue this discussion. The concerns that have been voiced simply aren't founded . . . the game does not somehow suggest that some types of good are "better" than others, or some types of evil "worse"--but there is no way for me to discuss how without going into specifics of what each alignment means.

Alright. Fair enough. I'll reserve further judgment until then.

(I still reserve the right to be pretentiously indignant to people who suggest that CG & LE have no place in the system while LG & CE do though. ...Not that that necessarily applies to either of you.)

 

[Valdrax]

Makes me laff.

Laff, then cry.

Tort law is kind of messed up that way, but justice did win out in the end.
A lot of good safety laws came out of it when people got outraged by the events there too.

 

[Lackhand]

Valdrax: Everything you've just described as "LE" was also just-plain-evil; while, sure, descriptively it was indeed within the laws of the society in which it occurred, it may also have occurred on a Tuesday.
It's legal status is incidental and in no way interesting to (me, at least). What might be interesting is that it is self-serving, short-sighted, and destructive -- but there is ultimately a horrifying, twisted chain of logic from cause to effect there.

Edit: Ack! Accidental Dogpile! I'm still interested in the second part of this, though

Can you provide similarly visceral examples of NE? I contend that, while I'm certain that you can, the differences between them and LE behavior are objectively not interesting -- while there are some really fun examples of CE which are clearly a different beast.

 

[jsaving]

If Lawful Goodness really is something other than the traditional paladin-esque ends-never-justify-the-means type of Goodness, and if it isn't the only type of Goodness to be singled out in its own alignment category, great -- there will be many happy faces when the 4e rulebooks are released and those concerns prove unfounded. And for all we know, those concerns really are unfounded as we've not yet had a chance to peruse the books. All we can do is keep our fingers crossed, I suppose...

 

[Valdrax]

Can you provide similarly visceral examples of NE? I contend that, while I'm certain that you can, the differences between them and LE behavior are objectively not interesting -- while there are some really fun examples of CE which are clearly a different beast.

Sadly, I can't. Because while CE & LE are both visceral and interesting, there's nothing that either side can or will do that NE can't or won't do as well. The opposite is also true. There's nothing that a NE character will do that one of the other two won't.

Really, CE vs. NE has it worse in my mind. While LE characters will frequently restrain their own Evil in the name of Law, there's nothing that I can think of that CE characters would do that would be Chaotic that a NE character wouldn't do.

(Unless you're of the popular philosophy that Chaotic == Stupid/Insane.)

This is one of the reasons that the choice kind of bugs me. Whereas Chris Sims has a very hard time figuring out where NG/CG & NE/LE split, I have a very hard time seeing where LG/NG and NE/CE split. (With the exception of "LG" acts that are more LN or LE in nature, as exemplified by OOTS Miko-archetype Paladins.)

As I mentioned before, this is probably the result of inherent political / philosophical biases.