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

[Sundragon2012]

I believe that the Great Wheel supports a moral relativism and moral equivalency that undermines the fundamental premise of high/heroic fantasy.

The moral relativism of the Great Wheel makes all moral/ethical positions cosmically equal. Regardless of what the heroes do, the multiverse simply sees them as equals on a spectrum of moral equaivalents. 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.

Who is there to really say that a villian as wicked as Stalin or Pol Pot is any worse than a hero with the heart of Mother Theresa or Martin Luther King when in the end the very wicked and the very good are just points on a philosophical compass? Who can say who is really correct, the Solar or the Pit Fiend? Can anyone be more morally right than another when the multiverse seems to support all points of view with equal ease?

A balor general who wants to commit genocide of all mortals on a given prime material world is only somone of a different point of view from the saint who died saving the kingdom from a demon horde according to the Great Wheel. I say this because according to it's structure there is no alignment more fundamentally valid than another.

Personally I have never used this atrocious idea and even though I once used the Great Wheel I made sure my players knew that conscious sentient creatures of "elemental" evil were wrong. I'm not speaking of what people call "natural" evils such as flood, earthquake, fires, etc. I am speaking of moral evil. High Fantasy is best supported when the heroes actually have right on their side as opposed to merely believing they have right on their side.

Gandalf and Sauron are not morally equivalent agents of cosmic powers who merely have different points of view, the universe (the Valar, Eru) frown on Melkor and Sauron and work against them. The evil ones are unnatural and deserve destruction. I am using Tolkien as an example but I have yet to see the idea of philosophical equivalency used in regards to good and evil in ANY fantasy genre EXCEPT badly conceived D&D tropes like the Great (alignment) Wheel of the planes.

I know that those who love playing murdering, robbing, miscreants may cry foul but that doesn't change the fact that high/heroic fantasy presupposes that good is better and fundamentally more valid than evil. In the real world there is greater moral ambiguity than in even the most morally ambivalent game setting, but that's because we don't know the truth of things for sure. In D&D, and high fantasy in general, it is often possible to be certain that you are right (good) and the enemy is wrong (evil) above and beyond your personal opinion.

If the TRUTH is that good and evil are equal yet different positions then the whole thing, all the heroics, all the battling against darkness, all the heroic sacrifices against insurmountable odds, all of it is nothing more than a petty battle of opinions.

Please feel free to agree or disagree..this isn't merely a polemic, but my point of view offered up as fodder for discussion.

Sundragon

 

[Shemeska]

I'd have to disagree. The Great Wheel cosmology doesn't support moral/ethical relativism unless you want it to support it. There's no objective force in that system looking down at the alignments and declaring them all equal and equivalent, just different points on a map. That's silly to me.

The point I think you're missing, or overlooking, is that the alignments -although at present their relative strength within the planes is somewhat equal- are in a constant state of conflict both among themselves, and in terms of influencing the rest of the cosmos. They've been in conflict since the first primordial forms of the planes precipitated out of nothingness, and each of them views it as a winner takes all game. Good seeks to enlighten everything, law seeks to organize and codify, chaos seeks freedom and flux, and evil seeks a universe devoid of mercy. It's not about them being equal and static, it's about them seeking supremacy for their respective alignments precisely because there is no objective force making them equal and equivalent from on high.

There's a very real threat that Evil could win and it puts everyone seeking to promote Good into having to actually truly struggle without the knowledge that they'll succeed ultimately. Good in such a universe faces actual struggle, rather than a sure knowledge that Good is destined to win because it's right and correct and will always win over Evil. Good in the Great Wheel, both celestials and good mortals, struggle and truly work for each triumph they gain, like a saint struggling and persevering even through and despite the profound, harrowing silence of God. Their success is earned, and it's more poignant because of that. Each success is more tangible, more meaningful, and dare I say more heroic.

 

[Brazeku]

What you're saying about high fantasy and epic struggles is true for the most part, it has been a halmark of the genre to establish a good versus evil dichotomy with the heroes 'in the right' as it were. But honestly, I like moral ambiguity in a game. Personally I avoid creating a concrete system that inherently places all viewpoints at equal values OR places any one above another with any certainty; I prefer that as an unknown quantity. I like the internal conflicts that arise due to uncertainty. Each to their own, of course.

I had always considered that the great wheel's purpose was not really known, but I didn't consider it to be the ultimate reality just because it was the afterlife relative to the prime material. ('Prime material' was a real misnomer in my game, 'little leagues' would be more accurate). There was always something else to it.

Shemeska there above me has a good point, and it ties into what I was trying to say. The conflict between the alignments isn't really understood, the idea was that philosophical positions could have physical impact on the universe. The actual implications and purpose of this is left to the DM (as far as I'm aware, I didn't read the planescape novels or anything).

EDIT: clarification

 

[Tarek]

Ah.... no.

The "upper planes" of the Great Wheel are pleasant, benign places where you'd like to spend your afterlife.

The "lower planes" of the Great Wheel are unpleasant, horrific places where your soul is tormented for eternity.

If anything, the Outer Planes of the Great Wheel are embodiments of an OBJECTIVE, ABSOLUTE moral and ethical system.

You are projecting relativist confusion into something that is meant to represent objective absolute ethics and morals.

The outer planes are the planes of Ideals. They are infinite in size, and represent the idea that when you die, you get what you deserve. If you've lived a good life, your soul goes to the Seven Heavens, or Valhalla, or the Twin Paradises. If you've lived an evil life, your soul gets to exist in pits of lava in the Nine Hells or in the formless and everchanging torments of the Abyss.

Those who didn't believe in anything strongly enough, those who were wishy-washy or just didn't live by a strong code of ethics or morals... they go to hub of the Great Wheel and are reincarnated.


The moral and ethical relativism errors came in with Planescape, which made some extremely odd decisions about what happened to souls in the afterlife and for some unfathomable reason made the Outer Planes a common, everyday sort of adventuring campaign. If you follow Planescape's ideas about the planes, then yes, Liches have it correct; eternal unlife is far better than dying and being slowly dissolved into non-existance in the fabric of the outer planes.

 

[Brazeku]

The moral and ethical relativism errors came in with Planescape, which made some extremely odd decisions about what happened to souls in the afterlife and for some unfathomable reason made the Outer Planes a common, everyday sort of adventuring campaign. If you follow Planescape's ideas about the planes, then yes, Liches have it correct; eternal unlife is far better than dying and being slowly dissolved into non-existance in the fabric of the outer planes.

I don't think those were errors; I really liked what happened to petitioners and thought that generally, Planescape was totally rad. IMO the apex of official settings. So many opportunities for strange bedfellows.

 

[Sundragon2012]

I'd have to disagree. The Great Wheel cosmology doesn't support moral/ethical relativism unless you want it to support it. There's no objective force in that system looking down at the alignments and declaring them all equal and equivalent, just different points on a map. That's silly to me.

It supports moral relativism insofar as there is an intrinsic moral and ethical equivalency in all points of the philosophical compass so to speak. One doesn't need an objective force calling them equal when they are just BECAUSE there is no higher force calling them unequal. On the Great Wheel there is no objective moral power calling demons "wrong" except the forces of good who can equally be called "wrong" by devils and they can all be called wrong by the ambivalent forces of the Outlands.

Having no objective force or standard even if that standard is the "natural order" or "natural law" or something equally nebulous to call evil wrong or bad is tactily calling it the moral equivalent of good.

The point I think you're missing, or overlooking, is that the alignments -although at present their relative strength within the planes is somewhat equal- are in a constant state of conflict both among themselves, and in terms of influencing the rest of the cosmos. They've been in conflict since the first primordial forms of the planes precipitated out of nothingness, and each of them views it as a winner takes all game. Good seeks to enlighten everything, law seeks to organize and codify, chaos seeks freedom and flux, and evil seeks a universe devoid of mercy. It's not about them being equal and static, it's about them seeking supremacy for their respective alignments precisely because there is no objective force making them equal and equivalent from on high.

I agree that this is a valid interpretation, but it actually bolsters my point. You see if good is that which seeks to enlighten and evil which seeks to oppress, dominate, destroy, etc. then instead of moral positions we have positions of the natural order. This is similar to the idea of the patterns of healthy growth that bring life and health and the forces of natural disaster that bring suffering and death. Neither is really good or evil but instead simply part of the greater cycle.

I see the Great Wheel as supporting the idea that evil is part of the natural cycle in that is belongs where it is, as does an earthquake, a typhoon, or a plague in our world. One may rail against the coming of the tornado but its just doing what tornadoes do and is as much a valid part of the natural order as the gentle violet or the warming sun of a sping afternoon. I would argue that the Great Wheel presupposes a natural validity to all points of view.

There's a very real threat that Evil could win and it puts everyone seeking to promote Good into having to actually truly struggle without the knowledge that they'll succeed ultimately. Good in such a universe faces actual struggle, rather than a sure knowledge that Good is destined to win because it's right and correct and will always win over Evil. Good in the Great Wheel, both celestials and good mortals, struggle and truly work for each triumph they gain, like a saint struggling and persevering even through and despite the profound, harrowing silence of God. Their success is earned, and it's more poignant because of that. Each success is more tangible, more meaningful, and dare I say more heroic.

Again I agree wholeheartedly with what you are saying. There is herosim in the Great Wheel. Heroes of good are always smiting evil in the hells and the abyss. However, I never said that heroics are not part of adventure on the Great Wheel. I am saying that the Great Wheel dimishes the utimate reality of the sacrifices of heroes when both heroes and villians are morally and ethically equivalent in a system that makes good and evil both cosmologically valid, natural and, if one is using the Great Wheel, I would say necessary.

If evil is necessary then heroes IMO dimished by the fact that according to the Great Wheel there is no particular higher ground, there is only different ground. How exactly does one espouse a position of moral highground when one is standing next to a genocidal maniac who rightly claims that he is morally correct because an entire set of infinite universes and gods/demons within (the abyss) says he is?

Whose perception is more morally valid, that of Asmodeus or that of Pelor? I would argue that according to the Great Wheel they are positions of equal validity though from different perspectives. This may work fine for some, but I see it as the antithesis of High Fantasy.



Sundragon

 

[Sundragon2012]

Ah.... no.

The "upper planes" of the Great Wheel are pleasant, benign places where you'd like to spend your afterlife.

The "lower planes" of the Great Wheel are unpleasant, horrific places where your soul is tormented for eternity.

If anything, the Outer Planes of the Great Wheel are embodiments of an OBJECTIVE, ABSOLUTE moral and ethical system.

You are projecting relativist confusion into something that is meant to represent objective absolute ethics and morals.

The outer planes are the planes of Ideals. They are infinite in size, and represent the idea that when you die, you get what you deserve. If you've lived a good life, your soul goes to the Seven Heavens, or Valhalla, or the Twin Paradises. If you've lived an evil life, your soul gets to exist in pits of lava in the Nine Hells or in the formless and everchanging torments of the Abyss.

Those who didn't believe in anything strongly enough, those who were wishy-washy or just didn't live by a strong code of ethics or morals... they go to hub of the Great Wheel and are reincarnated.

Well, you're correct of course. They outer planes represent ideals in their purest form. The problem is not that they represent the pinnacles of certain ideals. The moral relativism comes into play when you have a dynamic and natural equality between these ethical positions. There is NO objective higher standard. The morality of hell is as morally valid for hell as the morality of heaven in for heaven. Who can argue with this? Who can claim the good guys are right. They can believe that they are correct and from the position of the heavens or elysium they would be right, however from the point of view of hell or the abyss they are deluded fools.

The moral and ethical relativism errors came in with Planescape, which made some extremely odd decisions about what happened to souls in the afterlife and for some unfathomable reason made the Outer Planes a common, everyday sort of adventuring campaign. If you follow Planescape's ideas about the planes, then yes, Liches have it correct; eternal unlife is far better than dying and being slowly dissolved into non-existance in the fabric of the outer planes.

I think that prior to Planescape there was little discussion of the moral philosophical ramifications of the planes and their nature. I think that Planscape, if it contributed anything to an increase in moral relativism, would be to highlight what was already there. D&D never made claim that that good was actually cosmically superior to evil only that the denizens of the upper planes would be more pleasurable company. Even when souls of the wicked are being tormented in hell, it is not real punishment, but instead a darwinian weeding out of the weak with the strong being promoted to demon/devil status.



Sundragon

 

[Sundragon2012]

What you're saying about high fantasy and epic struggles is true for the most part, it has been a halmark of the genre to establish a good versus evil dichotomy with the heroes 'in the right' as it were. But honestly, I like moral ambiguity in a game. Personally I avoid creating a concrete system that inherently places all viewpoints at equal values OR places any one above another with any certainty; I prefer that as an unknown quantity. I like the internal conflicts that arise due to uncertainty. Each to their own, of course.

I too prefer moral ambiguity. However ambiguity is best served IMO by not providing all the answers. D&D has done this by spelling out the afterlife for its diverse settings. Its all written on the planes who is good and who is bad. I think moral ambiguity is best on the mortal level. I prefer some nice clarity as the immortal/divine level.

I had always considered that the great wheel's purpose was not really known, but I didn't consider it to be the ultimate reality just because it was the afterlife relative to the prime material. ('Prime material' was a real misnomer in my game, 'little leagues' would be more accurate). There was always something else to it.

I think your onto something insofar as the Great Wheel not being ultimate reality. I think in the AD&D and 2nd Edition AD&D, prior to Planescape, the outer planes were supposed to be the sum total of ultimate reality. I think that PS changes all this by making the planar more commonplace. If you can adventure there at 5th level, it aint a place of the ultimate mysteries of the universe IMO. Not downing PS because it did what it did to make the planes a setting available for all levels.

You'll notice that D&D 3.5 brought us the (yawwwnnnn...) Lovecraft inspired Far Realms. I believe that this realm was introduced because the bar has been set beyond the planes that are known to provide mind bending horror because they have been made mundane via exposure. After enough exposure to mariliths, balors, pit fiends and bone devils, one gets used to them and their terror factor is diminished dramatically.

Queue in the tentacled, omni-dimensional, claw headed horrors from extra-dimensional space to provide what the lower planes used to provide ie. inhuman evil, madness, and horror.



Sundragon

 

[Shades of Green]

I think that this model actually makes heroes more heroic - Good doesn't triumph automatically or take root automatically in your heart because of some cosmic principle; Good is achieved only in constant battle - both internal and external - against the constant tide of Evil. Evil is not the matter of a few rotten apples - it is a force existing in the heart of every man - heroes have to struggle against their own evil tendencies first and foremost and then against the external forces of evil. No cosmic principle guarantees the fall and failure of evil; only the heroes could push back the darkness for a while.

Evil won't go away permanently, either; in each generation heroes are needed to struggle against the darkness once more.

 

[shadow]

I believe that the Great Wheel supports a moral relativism and moral equivalency that undermines the fundamental premise of high/heroic fantasy.

The moral relativism of the Great Wheel makes all moral/ethical positions cosmically equal. Regardless of what the heroes do, the multiverse simply sees them as equals on a spectrum of moral equaivalents. 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.

Who is there to really say that a villian as wicked as Stalin or Pol Pot is any worse than a hero with the heart of Mother Theresa or Martin Luther King when in the end the very wicked and the very good are just points on a philosophical compass? Who can say who is really correct, the Solar or the Pit Fiend? Can anyone be more morally right than another when the multiverse seems to support all points of view with equal ease?

A balor general who wants to commit genocide of all mortals on a given prime material world is only somone of a different point of view from the saint who died saving the kingdom from a demon horde according to the Great Wheel. I say this because according to it's structure there is no alignment more fundamentally valid than another.

Personally I have never used this atrocious idea and even though I once used the Great Wheel I made sure my players knew that conscious sentient creatures of "elemental" evil were wrong. I'm not speaking of what people call "natural" evils such as flood, earthquake, fires, etc. I am speaking of moral evil. High Fantasy is best supported when the heroes actually have right on their side as opposed to merely believing they have right on their side.

Gandalf and Sauron are not morally equivalent agents of cosmic powers who merely have different points of view, the universe (the Valar, Eru) frown on Melkor and Sauron and work against them. The evil ones are unnatural and deserve destruction. I am using Tolkien as an example but I have yet to see the idea of philosophical equivalency used in regards to good and evil in ANY fantasy genre EXCEPT badly conceived D&D tropes like the Great (alignment) Wheel of the planes.

I know that those who love playing murdering, robbing, miscreants may cry foul but that doesn't change the fact that high/heroic fantasy presupposes that good is better and fundamentally more valid than evil. In the real world there is greater moral ambiguity than in even the most morally ambivalent game setting, but that's because we don't know the truth of things for sure. In D&D, and high fantasy in general, it is often possible to be certain that you are right (good) and the enemy is wrong (evil) above and beyond your personal opinion.

If the TRUTH is that good and evil are equal yet different positions then the whole thing, all the heroics, all the battling against darkness, all the heroic sacrifices against insurmountable odds, all of it is nothing more than a petty battle of opinions.

Please feel free to agree or disagree..this isn't merely a polemic, but my point of view offered up as fodder for discussion.

Sundragon

I really have to agree with Sundragon here. I never liked the great wheel cosmology. It seems to presuppose that good and evil are two equal opposing forces. In my campaigns I prefer a more quasi-Judeo-Christian view that has evil as the result of a corruption of the original good order of things.