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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8691363" data-attributes="member: 4937">Yes, it is.&nbsp; And it drives me nuts.&nbsp; So I'm glad to see we are on the same page here.&nbsp; Yeah, I get what you are trying to do, but I'm not just arguing that the alignment system fails to describe personality or culture (which is fine because it was never intended to do so) but any 9 square grid, or 16 square grid, or 64 cube space will fail to do so to an equal degree.&nbsp; The project is going to dead end.My suggestion is if you are serious about this to pick up a pdf of Pendragon and look at Pendragon's approach to describing culture, because while that has its limitations it will get you much closer to where you are wanting to go.&nbsp; Of course, going there without actually taking the mechanical system of Pendragon and its implications seriously might not be useful to the game you want to play, but that's a different discussion.&nbsp;Notably, by the &quot;Lawful&quot; (getting us back to Gygax's unconsidered bias).&nbsp; Loyalty is considered a virtue in tribal and feudal societies, sometimes as the most important virtue.&nbsp; But, there are belief systems that consider loyalty one of the great vices of the world and the source of much that is wrong with it, because they believe what loyalty really is is putting glitter on the ideas of self-denial and irrationality.&nbsp; They would claim that loyalty is what gets us a world filled with violence, genocide, and war.&nbsp; Without loyalty people wouldn't be able to get others to do evil on their behalf, and without loyalty people would question whether or not they should do something on the basis of reason and not feelings or fear.&nbsp;&nbsp; And if you are neutral on this question then you tend to answer as I did that &quot;loyalty&quot; is a neutral virtue and it all depends on what you are loyal to.Yes, exactly.&nbsp; There are belief system that consider &quot;bravery&quot; to be a great evil and would claim that it's putting a gloss of goodness on something that was wrong, and the world would be better if all soldiers were cowards and refused to fight and that &quot;bravery&quot; simply meant obeying orders without question.&nbsp; And to the extent that there was a good virtue to being brave, it would look nothing like what most people mean by bravery.&nbsp; It's quite possible to question whether being accepting of risk is really good in the long run.&nbsp; And it's pretty easy to imagine a fantasy species that makes a virtue out of being cowardly.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 8691363, member: 4937"] Yes, it is. And it drives me nuts. So I'm glad to see we are on the same page here. Yeah, I get what you are trying to do, but I'm not just arguing that the alignment system fails to describe personality or culture (which is fine because it was never intended to do so) but any 9 square grid, or 16 square grid, or 64 cube space will fail to do so to an equal degree. The project is going to dead end. My suggestion is if you are serious about this to pick up a pdf of Pendragon and look at Pendragon's approach to describing culture, because while that has its limitations it will get you much closer to where you are wanting to go. Of course, going there without actually taking the mechanical system of Pendragon and its implications seriously might not be useful to the game you want to play, but that's a different discussion. Notably, by the "Lawful" (getting us back to Gygax's unconsidered bias). Loyalty is considered a virtue in tribal and feudal societies, sometimes as the most important virtue. But, there are belief systems that consider loyalty one of the great vices of the world and the source of much that is wrong with it, because they believe what loyalty really is is putting glitter on the ideas of self-denial and irrationality. They would claim that loyalty is what gets us a world filled with violence, genocide, and war. Without loyalty people wouldn't be able to get others to do evil on their behalf, and without loyalty people would question whether or not they should do something on the basis of reason and not feelings or fear. And if you are neutral on this question then you tend to answer as I did that "loyalty" is a neutral virtue and it all depends on what you are loyal to. Yes, exactly. There are belief system that consider "bravery" to be a great evil and would claim that it's putting a gloss of goodness on something that was wrong, and the world would be better if all soldiers were cowards and refused to fight and that "bravery" simply meant obeying orders without question. And to the extent that there was a good virtue to being brave, it would look nothing like what most people mean by bravery. It's quite possible to question whether being accepting of risk is really good in the long run. And it's pretty easy to imagine a fantasy species that makes a virtue out of being cowardly. [/QUOTE]

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