The D&D Great Wheel of the Planes and Moral Ethical Relativism

[elijah snow]

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on an alternative to the Great Wheel.

 

[Arkhandus]

They are called good and evil on the Great Wheel, not as judgements, but as descriptors. There is no cosmic arbiter of morality on the Great Wheel who determines whose perspective is right or wrong therefore there can be NO objective judgment that would call evil "wrong" and good "right." We have no other meaningful terms for these positions thus they are called good and evil.

It is purposely left mysterious. There is no KNOWN cosmic arbiter of morality on the Great Wheel. And we do not know if the Multiverse itself is sentient or not. It could very well be, but we don't know.

Gee, and people in the real world don't know for sure that any particular god exists. Does that mean that, in the real world, there is no way of judging whether or not something is good or evil? Just because we can't point to something blatantly obvious that tells us "this is good! and that is evil!" that is undeniable proof?

Of course not. Just because we don't know definitively-for-sure-without-a-doubt that there is absolutely something besides ourselves, bigger than ourselves, that determines what is good and what is evil, does not mean that our morals are valueless and baseless rubbish. We have to believe in good and evil without the benefit of some booming voice from the sky proclaiming The Truth to one and all without any shadow of a doubt.

 

[comrade raoul]

This is mostly a response to the OP.

I don't think this is a consequence of the cosmology, and I also don't think it's what the designers intended. It's easy to think that because "good" and "evil" are linked to different planar regions, and because they're deeply intertwined with powerful magical forces and the creatures those forces animate, they're just different kinds of planar forces without inherent moral status. They just start to feel like physical forces--a kind of magical equivalent to gravity or magnetism. And in that light they lose the significance you want them to have.

One thing that adds to the problem is that a lot of the fluff tells you that the denizens of the upper planes are Good, but it doesn't show it. On the contrary, I find that often in D&D "Good" comes across as grim, sanctimonious, and authoritarian--they're only Good because they smite undead, instead of rebuke it, and talk grandly about Protecting Innocents, and get mad when you don't restrict your wanton killing to the right species.

There are two responses to this--one response (the one I prefer) is to embrace the relativism wholeheartedly and run from a morally binary fantasy universe entirely in order to go for a rougher, grittier, but ultimately (I find) more humanistic world, in which the characters need to figure out what's right for themselves, rather than have some big planar authority give them the answers. (I also like this because I think pretty much all D&D adventurers act like selfish, bloodthirsty, and often judgmental types, and thinking of them as Good cheapens real goodness for me.) On this approach, things might still be objectively good or evil--but that objectivity is too complicated to be really embodied by warring planar factions.

Another response, though--and one I think might work better for you--is to try to make the moral status of Good and Evil planar beings fundamental and palpable in them. On this approach, the fact that something is affiliated with the upper plans means that it is fundamentally good in a deep, essential, personal way--once you come in contact with an eladrin, say, you simply find, in your heart, that you're dealing with something Good--and if you're not hopelessly tainted with darkness, at least part of you rejoices in that. Your goal as a DM is to communicate that. Describe good planar creatures in a way that really delights your players: make them noble, majestic, and above all joyful and kind. Comparably, don't use fiends as faceless villains but give them a chance to be really horrifying. Thinking of C.S. Lewis, or other writers, might help. ("Is Talisid safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good.")

 

[Arkhandus]

This process is repeated throughout the abyss over and over again as mortal souls become demons who then become demon princes. Orcus is the big kahuna on the plane he rules. He is not being tormented. I would argue that the hate, rage, fury, cruelty, malevolence he feels is his ambrosia.

And meanwhile, every soul that goes to the Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia becomes a Lantern Archon, who serves the greater good for some millenia while learning to perfect itself and develop into more powerful Archons, ascending the layers until they reach the peak of Mount Celestia and enter some unknown fate, but supposedly becoming one with the cosmic force of Lawful Good or realizing some ultimate truth or somesuch. It may take them countless millenia to achieve that level of perfection, but it happens.

The vast majority of demons and devils, except for the extremely rare handful that eventually become Archdukes or Demon Princes, just suffer and pass on their suffering to lesser fiends and mortals, for all eternity.

Incorrect, the alignment of a mortal permanently alters the nature of his or her soul aligning it to one of the planes of the Great Wheel. There is no punishment suggested in any source despite the fact that souls are tortured on arrival. If good folks are rewarded and evil are punished then what of the ambivalent neutrals who end up on Mechanus or the Outlands?

The neutrals just continue toiling away on whatever neutral plane they wind up on. Or they get devoured by raw chaos (I assume), if they wind up on Limbo, anyhoo. They don't suffer. They aren't rewarded. They don't experience any happiness, generally. They just exist. Until their Outer Plane absorbs them or someone converts them into some kind of special outsider.

Even in real-world mythologies and religions there tends to be someplace where the not-virtuous-enough and not-vile-enough dead souls go. Purgatory, Hades, Helgard, etc.

Also, evil people are sometimes evil specifically because they enjoy doing the things that other, more ethical people, say is evil. Fiends in D&D may go around commiting evil acts, but don't forget that they're mostly active in their own planes (the Abyss, the Nine Hells, the Gray Waste, etc.). That means that most of the time, the only other things for them to inflict evil on are each other.

So they generally abuse the fellow fiends that are beneath them in the hierarchy (which was worked out by their peers viciously battling one another and backstabbing one another until someone came out on top and declared themselves a Demon Prince or Archduke or whatever). All but the most powerful of fiends (like Orcus) have to endure torture for eons at the hands of their fellow rat-bastards. And even those powerful ones have most likely suffered hundreds, thousands, or millions of years being tortured by other fiends before they struggled their way to the top.

At which point their suffering is mostly ended, but then they're just much more prominant targets for other fiends who want to try and usurp their position (by destroying them). And of course, targets for mortals and celestials and such who go into the Lower Planes specifically trying to eliminate a major fiendish threat. So they may still eventually get what's coming to them, after their temporary reprieve as a Demon Prince/Archduke/Oinoloth/whatever.



NOW, granted, there is no grand-high-judge-and-punisher of evil souls in D&D, but there's still the fact that evil souls wind up on the Lower Planes despite however much they may have tried to weasel their way into being trusted and liked by decent folk before their demise. We don't know what causes them to go to those planes; we don't know if they formed as a result of evil mortal souls, or vice versa, or something else.

We don't know, but the fact that life is so brutal on the Lower Planes and so very much, amazingly, profoundly nicer on the Upper Planes is probably a sign that something, somewhere, may be orchestrating it, or may have arranged it at the beginning to work that way.

Goodly souls will inevitably be rewarded on the Upper Planes and enjoy the company of other nice folks and benevolent gods on the Upper Planes. They will inevitably become part of the raw essence of Good on one of those planes, or just spend eternity in the presence of their patron deity.

Evil souls.....well, mostly end up as fiends and go through eons of both suffering torture and inflicting torture, and one in a hundred thousand million billion trillion just might, maybe, just possibly, manage to be so devious and vicious and unspeakably evil as to struggle their way to the rank of an archfiend after a few eons, and then get at least a temporary reprieve. But the archfiends tend to be rather brutally effective at beating down or destroying anyone who even seems like they might be beginning to claw their way up to usurping that position.

 

[Tarek]

...and let's not forget the roots of the Great Wheel, in 1st edition, which specifically states that the souls of evil creatures, being formed into Larvae and Manes, are sometimes completely annihilated because a Lich needs a snack or one of the Demons gets hungry.

Yes, completely annihilated. A soul, forever gone. And that's what you're calling "just a difference of opinion depending on where you stand on the Great Wheel."

 

[RedShirtNo5]

There is no cosmic arbiter of morality on the Great Wheel who determines whose perspective is right or wrong therefore there can be NO objective judgment that would call evil "wrong" and good "right."

This argument is very thin.

If a cosmic arbiter of morality existed, then there would still be no objective judgment that would call evil "wrong" and good "right", becuase the "correctness" of any moral position imaginable would be determined not by an absolute objective determination of right/wrong or good/evil but would be relative to the cosmic arbiter.

 

[Phlebas]

Real interesting discussion here - lots of stuff i hadn't even considered.

to me the RAW are loose enough that you can interpret the great wheel in many different ways - and the key point to me is wether its static, or changeable. If its changeable then good may triumph over evil (or vice versa). If its static then the best you can hope for is a draw.

 

[Yair]

Real interesting discussion here - lots of stuff i hadn't even considered.

to me the RAW are loose enough that you can interpret the great wheel in many different ways - and the key point to me is wether its static, or changeable. If its changeable then good may triumph over evil (or vice versa). If its static then the best you can hope for is a draw.

I can only concur.

The great wheel definitely seems to me to personify objective morality, the question remaining is whether the cosmos it subsumes is ultimately just, unjust, or neither. I'm much more inclined to agree with Arkhandus and Tarek that it is just - peope get what they deserve, at the end. Even if Sundragon is correct, however, and the official texts do not claim evil souls generally suffer in their respective hell dimensions, this will not really change the way I play my games. Evil would still be evil and good would still be good, even if the universe as a whole does not support good over evil. As Geron said,

The only real arbiters of what is the "correct" choice, morally, are the DM and the players

[Great post, BTW, Geron]

 

[bodhi]

In the layout of the Great Wheel there is nothing better about moral good over evil. Odin is no more correct than Asmodeus, Tyr is no more correct than Orcus, it all depends on where you stand on the wheel.

Define "better" and "more correct".

If you mean there's no mechanical advantage to being good, I'd agree. However, I'd say that the vast majority of game worlds provide ample in-game (fluff) reasons to be good (or at least non-evil).

If you mean there's no "higher" power saying that Good is how things Should Be, and Evil is a Perversion of the Natural Order, then I would also agree that the Great Wheel doesn't address that. But if you need one in your campaign, then as DM, create one. The Great Wheel is descriptive. It doesn't say "this is things as they should be", but "this is things are they are". You, as DM, are free to say "This is how things are, and they are messed up. You're the heroes. Go fix it.".

Can anyone be more morally right than another when the multiverse seems to support all points of view with equal ease?

You're equating description with "support". Granted, the Great Wheel cosmology doesn't state that being LG is "better" than being CE, but the consequences of being LG certainly seem a lot more appealing than those of being CE. If you are truly Good, you get rewarded in the afterlife. If you are truly Evil, you get punished. It's not like a mortal punishment where "you did the crime, so you do the time". You simply reap the consequences of your Evil behavior.

If I eat too much junk food and don't get enough exercise, there's no higher power that makes me fat. Getting fat is simply a consequence of my actions (and lack thereof). The choice is mine. It's the same with Good and Evil in the Great Wheel. There's no überpower doling out rewards and punishments. They're simply a consequence of your actions. So, in that sense, Good is no more "correct" than Evil. But the consequences of being Good are, imho, vastly more appealing than those of being Evil, at least in the afterlife.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

I'm sorry but that is not expressed in canon to my knowledge. I like the idea, but because I am referring to the official Great Wheel and its assumptions, I beg to differ with you. Your interpretation, though interesting, presumes that a chaotic evil soul is getting what it derserves as opposed to going where it must due to its natural state. Your interpretation borders on claiming that the chaotic evil soul is getting punished and this is certainly not found anywhere in canon regarding the nature of souls. Individual souls may be tormented by demons, but the very fact they a chaotic evil soul is drawn into the abyss cannot be presumed to be a punishment.

First, it's not the natural state of a soul. Souls in D&D have no natural state. Alignment is a fluctuating thing that can change over time, or quite fast. I could play a paladin who followed his code for 25 years before getting disappointed, falling, following temptation and turning into a blackguard for a year. The alignment of his soul would change from lawful good through various states of neutrality, to lawful evil in the end. Depending on the point on that timeline when he'd be slain, he'd go to the afterlife he "deserves" for the deeds that shaped his alignment.
And honestly, if you can read through the descriptions in the MotP about what happens to souls once they reach each respective plane and still not see that good souls are rewarded and evil souls are punished, then you're either more jaded then I think you are, or we are simply discussing with two completely different sets of definitions where reward and punishment are regarded.
In all the evil planes, most souls try to escape their punishment, either by fleeing the plane (Carceri, the Prison Plane), or by trying to claw their way up the power structure in order to be able to torture BACK. There is no soul who simply sits back there and goes "Ey, this is fun, just like I like it, bring on the acid vats and the burning pincers bub!" And most of them get abused in all kinds. Devils shape souls to their aesthetical pleasures, until they break and meld with the essence of the Nine Hells. Demons put manes on the frontlines, to be butchered by the devilish hordes in the Blood War by the hundreds...they even grind them into an ingredient to build demon ships!
The fact that souls in those planes try to escape their fate at all costs should tell you that they don't get what they LIKE, but that they don't like what they GET, and try to get away from it. That's punishment right there, in the MotP. 3E version even. Compare that to the way souls are treated on the good planes, and then lets talk again about reward and punishment.
And please, don't make me type out all the relevant quotes here, simply read them up yourself please. You'll save me some work.

EDIT: Okay, one quote, because it's nicely short, and maybe gives you what you are actually looking for.

In the D&D cosmology, when characters die, their souls drift towards the Outer Plane that matches their nature most closely. Souls that in life were lawful good tend to drift towards Celestia, while those that relished evil and chaos wind up in the Abyss. Once there, they enjoy the fruits or suffer the punishments of their alignments, eventually forgetting their past lives (this is why spells that restore life may fail if a long time has elapsed).

Emphasis mine. See, it's right there in the "canon" text about what happens to souls in the D&D cosmology. Good souls go to their reward, evil souls go to their punishment. They can't get much clearer than that.

I hope you won't start arguing now that "reward" and "punishment" are just relativistic expressions of "what the soul desires most", because that would go against EVERY definition of those words.

So, I hope you're happier now.
EDIT END

I wold understand this IF it were supported by canon, but it is not. I would like to reference good ol' Orcus as an example. Orcus is one hateful, powerful demonic SOB but he was once as mortal as you and I. He was an evil soul of some wicked bastage who has ascended to nearly divine levels of power. This process is repeated throughout the abyss over and over again as mortal souls become demons who then become demon princes. Orcus is the big kahuna on the plane he rules. He is not being tormented. I would argue that the hate, rage, fury, cruelty, malevolence he feels is his ambrosia.

He's not being tormented anymore. He was tormented all the way up to the top, and he still has to fend off attacks against his power base on a constant schedule. If he gets ousted from his power, you can bet he will be tortured again, and much more cruelly than before he rose to power. Which is why he works with the motto "Do unto them before they can do unto you, and a hundredfold worse". All his hate, rage, etc is not his "ambrosia", it's his motivation for staying on top and torture those who tortured him for millenia.

Incorrect, the alignment of a mortal permanently alters the nature of his or her soul aligning it to one of the planes of the Great Wheel. There is no punishment suggested in any source despite the fact that souls are tortured on arrival. If good folks are rewarded and evil are punished then what of the ambivalent neutrals who end up on Mechanus or the Outlands?



Sundragon

On the neutral planes, souls don't get rewarded or punished, simply because they haven't done anything to get rewarded or punished. On Mechanus, souls slowly lose their individuality and submit to the plane-wide law, in Limbo souls either dissolve into raw chaos or they continue existence as a blob of barely contained chaos (probably if they are stronger than usual). In the Outlands, souls adopt a "live and let live" lifestyle towards everybody, which means "Don't push me and I won't push you". That's what moral neutrality is about, after all, which emphasizes the reward-punishment dichotomy of the good-evil plane alignments.

Relativity is in there only if you interpret it in. For the most part, it all sounds pretty clear cut. Good rewards, Evil punishes (and yes, torture, abuse and destruction counts as punishment to EVERYbody in my book), Neutrality doesn't do either. The reason why the designers don't write in an "Overdeity" that adjudicates it all and doles out punishment is for the simple reason that they don't want to touch that topic with a 10' pole, and I'm glad they don't. Where the D&D universe is concerned, the DM is that Overdeity, for his campaigns and PCs, and that's that. You are the one who writes "THIS is WRONG and THIS is RIGHT" over your campaign with finality, not the D&D designers.