Where is the semantic obtuseness?
As a simple matter of dictionary meaning, "better" in English means "more good".
Hence, to say that (say) Olympus is a morally better place than Elysium - which, in canonical D&D, is the opinion of the Greek hero or the dissolute bard - means that Olympus is being desribed as more morally good than Elysium.
Yet we also have these descriptions of Elysium as being more morally good - "unsullied" - than Olympus.
How is that coherent?
It's coherent because "good" in D&D terms means something very specific, as has been pointed out. And that specific value set may or may not be all that matters to a character. A chaotic good character believes charity, compassion, and hope are all excellent virtues, but they believe they are either A) must be shared alongside the values of self-reliance, free thought, and freedom from compulsion or B) that they are at their best when coupled with the latter. Likewise for a lawful good character and the values of law relative to the values of "good." On the other hand, a lawful neutral or chaotic neutral character does not believe the values of D&D "good" have any intrinsic value (or that if they do they are nowhere near the values of law and chaos). Neutral evil characters value very little beyond their own self-interest and gratification, while lawful evil and chaotic evil characters' selfishness is somewhat tempered by their adherence to law and chaos.
From the perspective of each of these other alignments, neutral good characters place an overly high value on certain virtues that are either incomplete (lawful good and chaotic good), insignificant (lawful neutral and chaotic neutral), or callow (evil). From each particular alignment's perspective, Elysium is imperfect and therefore not the "best" plane, even if it exemplifies the purest form of "good." Because good on its own isn't what they value (if they value it at all).
You can render it coherent by supposing that the bard isn't making a moral judgement - in saying that Olympus is a better place than Elysium s/he is saying that s/he personally prefers it despite its moral flaws. But if that is so, then we are conceding that law/chaos is not a morally deep distinction, but more a matter of outlook and inclination.
Which is sensible enough, but not really consistent with the default D&D 9-point, 2-axis approach to alignment.
It's totally consistent with the 2-axis approach! The entire point of having a perpendicular axis to good and evil is that law and chaos have equal value in the eyes of many inhabitants of the multiverse! If law and chaos were considered wholly inferior to good, than you'd have a point, but the fact of the matter is that this isn't how the multiverse's inhabitants perceive it.
The Aztecs considered themselves to be good, too. Nearly every organised human social system regards itself as good. In D&D, orcs and goblins regard their brutal social structures as good.
But D&D, in its default form, takes the view that thinking you are doing the right thing doesn't make it so.
You are right insofar as good has a clear definition in the rules. But that definition leaves out several principles that many characters consider valuable. And they don't care one whit if neutral good characters find those values arbitrary, because
they believe in them. In the end, good is just a label for the particular value system that "pure" neutral good exemplifies best, but it doesn't necessarily match the value system of other characters of cultures. A lawful good character thinks the values of law are also important (but not as important as lawful neutrals would have it); a chaotic good character likewise believes the values of chaos are important (but not as much as a chaotic neutral character does).
Then I don't have to puzzle over what "Detect Good" is actually detecting: not actual goodness (because on this approach people who are not good can still end up in charge of Celestia or Olympus), nor any distinctive value commitment (because the LG and CG people are committed to different value schemes). I can replace it with something like "Detect Religion" or "Detect Enemy", or just ignore it altogether.
Detect good, at its most basic, is essentially detecting whether a creature is how closely aligned to the forces of supernatural "good" (that is to say "good" deities, angels, etc.). That's why supernatural creatures and clerics come up more strongly than regular mortals, no matter how good they might be. The same goes for
detect evil: it's detecting whether the creature is aligned with supernatural "evil," not their sum total karma (which doesn't really exist as such in D&D).
This is an argument, though, that refraining from telling the harsh truth isn't actually good at all.
That's the perspective a lawful good or chaotic good character is likely to take. It's harder (though not impossible) for a neutral good character though, who just wants everyone to be happy.
In D&D, why can't I just use a simple divination spell to find out which behaviour is better: telling the harsh truth, or telling the white lie?
There's a few problems with this approach:
- What's the divination spell supposed to show you... the consequences? If so it's actually kind of irrelevant; D&D alignment is primarily defined by means, rather than ends.
- Is the divination spell 100% reliable? Because a lot can depend on who you're asking, how you're asking it, and why you're asking it. Divination is a notoriously fickle field of magic (after all, it'd be no fun if you could just summon up answers to whatever questions you had whenever you wanted to).
- And again, a lawful good character is (often) just as concerned as to whether an act is lawful as whether it is good. And a chaotic good character wants to make sure their act isn't unnecessarily lawful as well. So determining which is more "good" isn't the end of the discussion.
But all this tells us is that the alignment scheme has broken down. In Nirvana, human dignity and welfare are acknowledged, and there is no needless or pointless suffering. It's hard to explain, then, when we have regard to the relevant definitions, why Nirvana is not a good place.
Because conformity, obedience, and discipline come before the values of good in every equation. There's no suffering but there's none of the things a neutral good character would value and a paucity of those a lawful good character would value.
But not in a coherent fashion. If we're going for "liberalism for the liberals, cannibalism for the cannibals" then why isn't Limbo a good plane - after all, it fully realises the wellbeing of its inhabitants?
Same answer; a neutral good character wouldn't enjoy Limbo as an afterlife and a lawful good character would rather intensely loathe it (although not as much as the Abyss).
But then that objective meaure of goodness is then what makes the LG/CG dispute inocherent - either they are objectively equivalent (value pluralism), in which case there is no bais for deep dispute, or one is objectively inferior to the other and hence not fully good.
Only if you consider good to be inherently better than law and chaos, which isn't the way the nine-alignment system is designed; lawful neutral, chaotic neutral, true neutral characters are just as valid for play as lawful good, chaotic good, and neutral good characters are.
"Altruism" - regard for others - is not a synonym for charity.
It's not an exact synonym, I'll grant you that. But it
is related. Most precisely altruism means
unselfish regard for others and one of the most
selfless ways you can show your regard for others is by giving of yourself to them; it needn't be a monetary gift (not all charity is monetary), but the point is you're giving up something of yourself for others.
Nor is respect for life synonymous with mercy.
It's awfully close. It means you respect the sanctity of life, which means that you generally believe killing is wrong, even when it's for a righteous cause. Mercy naturally follows from that.
This is not a correct description of those vaue systems. Systems that value freedom - ie liberal and other enlightenment systems - value freedom because it is part of human dignity, and proper altruism (ie proper regard for others) demands respect for their dignity. Kant and Rawls, for instance, don't regard respect for freedom as orthogonal to morality - respect for free equaity is, for both, the core moral principle.
But there
are some value systems where freedom has a higher premium than human life or the happiness of others. Individual liberty, these people argue (and I'm trying to avoid stepping on the toes of discussing real-life politics here, even though I'm speaking largely of historical cases) can never come at too high a price. Likewise, there are value systems that consider obedience to authority, honor, and discipline to be more important than whether or not a person is happy. These value systems aren't "good" in the D&D sense, but that doesn't necessarily mean they have no sense of human well-being: they just believe happiness and the right to life are shallow interpretations of such a concept.
My point is that, in a definition of goodness that is meant to make it permissible to be both LG and CG, it is somewhat contradictory to build in the value of freedom. Which I see as running my way - even Gygax, who was purporting to present the G/E axis and L/C axis as orthogonal, wasn't able to maintain the distinction. In setting out a conception of human wellbeing, he couldn't help but incorporate elements that, notionally, are meant to be part of L/C and hence orthogonal to the concept of wellbeing defined on the G/E axis.
Two points here:
- I don't agree. I think it's entirely possible for a "broad definition" of good to include concepts that both chaotic good and lawful good characters value. Indeed such a broad definition seems otherwise useless.
- Gygax isn't the be-all, end-all to the nine-alignment system. His involvement ended with D&D ended at 1st edition and many, many designers and writers have contributed to the discussion of what the nine alignments mean (among many other concepts) since then. Their accumulated additions are just as valuable as what Gygax originally intended, whatever that is (though it still seems to me defining the American Constitution as CG was what he was going for).
I think everyone posting in this thread, at this point, is familiar with and capable of running sophisticated games. My question is more narrow - how is a 9-point alignment + cosmology helping with this? How does is the question of "who's right and who's wrong?" opened up by using good and evil as defined scriptors for certain characters and their home bases?
Prima facie, at least, those descriptors answer the question before we even sit down to play.
See, I don't see it that way (although I understand why some people might).
My introduction to tabletop roleplaying was the 3rd edition of D&D, some time around the early-mid aughts (I honestly forget when precisely). And I remember thinking the 9-alignment system was really sophisticated, especially compared to the simplistic dualism you usually get in most fantasy. There was no simple, binary choice between the "light side" and the "dark side;" there was no choice between simply being good and evil. Instead you had 9 alignments, 5 of which (LN/LG/NG/CG/CN) all seemed to have some claim to being righteous, 3 of which (LE/NE/CE) that could represent most villains, and 1 which represented those who felt all of the above were a bunch of sanctimonious jerks.
I'll admit I'm more likely to play lawful good or neutral good than any other alignment, but I
like the fact that the system allows other perspectives. To me, it encourages sophisticated thinking on what's the moral or ethical choice, rather than simply handing you a very cut-and-dry interpretation the way most fantasy settings do.
This is something I felt 4e's alignment system lacked: it's layout of lawful good, good, unaligned, evil, and chaotic evil seemed to imply (whether intentionally or not) that lawful good and chaotic evil were, respectively, the best good and the best evil and everything in-between was somewhat imperfect. It felt too dualistic to me, whereas the nine-alignment system felt like anything but.
The game does assign alingments to NPCs and monsters, but they are simple descriptors of outlook and allegiance. They are not presented as tools of moral categorisation (unlike 9-point alignment).
I'm not sure I'd agree. Lawful good and good deities in 4e are just as (if not more) clearly the forces of righteousness in 4e as good deities were the forces of righteousness in prior editions. The primordials - all of whom are chaotic evil, incidentally (a few specific to FR aside) - were clearly the worst of the worst in 4e's cosmology, beings who were rightfully imprisoned by the gods and who still inspire fear among them. There's a very clear duality at work: the gods are better than the primordials and because the primordials are all chaotic evil it stands to reason the lawful good gods are the best.
The mechanics of alignment are largely removed, that's true, but that doesn't necessarily mean it has no moral or ethical significance within 4e's cosmology.
In a Great Wheel world, a character who turns on the Upper Planes is, by definition, doing something that is not good and probably is evil. In 4e, a character who turns on the gods of the Astral Sea is turning on some beings who have a history, and an outlook, and a likely role in the coming Dusk War; but nothing in the fiction purports to settle the question of whether siding with the gods would be a good or bad thing. This is left free for the players to decide as part of their play.
But not all the gods of the Great Wheel are good and not all of the gods of the Astral Sea are ambiguously good. Bahamut and Pelor in 4e are clearly good and turning on them
would be similarly, by definition, "not good and probably evil." On the other hand, bringing the fight to Kord, god of storms, or Bane, god of war, is not out of the question for a good character. But the same is true for attacking gods of pure law, chaos, or evil in Great Wheel.
Your argument actually reminds me of the end act of
Mask of the Betrayer, the first expansion pack for
Neverwinter Nights 2. Without going into too much detail, one of the critical choices you face at the game's end is whether to lead an army against a lawful neutral god or not. The reasons for doing so are arguably just, but they also pit you against the forces of cosmological order and require you to ally with several evil forces. The situation is ambiguous in very much the same kind of way the above scenario you describe is... but it happens within the context of 3e assumptions about alignment (albeit within the World Tree of 3e FR rather than the Great Wheel).
Those are things that intelligent people can pursue and work for. Evil has much to offer. Yes, the afterlife is harsh and unforgiving, but the Abyss isn't a place of objective punishment for being wrong about your moral choices, exactly, it's just a place where every creature, and the very landscape itself, is pursuing goals identical to your own. It is made up of people who think exactly like you, who believe the same thing you do: that there is no greater action than to delight yourself first and foremost, and no other lives or opinions or perspectives matter aside from your own.
