D&D 5E The Multiverse is back....

[Elderbrain]

I don't think that's inaccurate, but I think we differ on whether or not this is actually a problem. "Good" just describes one kind of belief. "Evil" describes another. PS presents a universe where neither can be said to be more true or worthy than the other.

- Sorry, KM, but you lost me here... I don't believe that the writers of PS considered choosing Evil equally worthy for a PC as choosing Good. Just because Evil is on equal terms game-mechanically (i.e. "Detect Good" to balance the existence of "Detect Evil" spells, etc.) and there is presumably no "higher power" to ensure the victory of Good over Evil, does not make them morally equivalent. Or to put it in other words, a final victory by Evil would not prove that Evil was "better" or "more true" than Good, just that Evil happened to be stronger or had a better strategy. The Fiends might think so, but so what? Also, I NEVER interpreted the "belief is power" idea in PS to mean that you could change an Evil action to count as Good, or visa-versa. Yes, you can change SOME things by the power of belief in PS, but I doubt the writers intended absolutely EVERYTHING to be up for grabs, including foundational concepts such as the difference between Good and Evil. There are no examples of such a change in the published material. It is possible to turn an Evil creature like a Devil Good, or a Good creature like an Archon Evil, but the creature's behavior is ALWAYS shown to match its new alignment; never does a creature turn "Good" while still behaving in a manner consistent with Evil. That is, the creatures change, but Good and Evil DO NOT! I don't mean to harp, and you can of course play the game however you like, but every Planescape adventure I've seen has the PCs on the side of Good or at least opposing Evil, not helping it or treating it as equal to Good. Rant ended.

 

[I'm A Banana]

- Sorry, KM, but you lost me here... I don't believe that the writers of PS considered choosing Evil equally worthy for a PC as choosing Good. Just because Evil is on equal terms game-mechanically (i.e. "Detect Good" to balance the existence of "Detect Evil" spells, etc.) and there is presumably no "higher power" to ensure the victory of Good over Evil, does not make them morally equivalent.

The way I look at it: look at the Doomguard, who believe that everything should be destroyed, or the Fated, who believe that might makes right. If you were a goblin or a death priest with these beliefs in a normal D&D world, you would be Evil and that's the end of it. Much like it calls into question the virtues of Good, though, PS calls into question the sins of the Evil. It's not a problem that a PC signs up with the Doomguard and seeks the destruction of all things. The setting encourages PC's to consider not treating everyone who makes zombies, forex, as villains. A Doomguard member may very well be Evil, and almost cerainly shares beliefs with Evil characters, but this doesn't mean they won't be a victorious hero that the playes want to help succeed and whose belief will prove to be true.

It is possible to turn an Evil creature like a Devil Good, or a Good creature like an Archon Evil, but the creature's behavior is ALWAYS shown to match its new alignment; never does a creature turn "Good" while still behaving in a manner consistent with Evil. That is, the creatures change, but Good and Evil DO NOT!

On a high level, this is just a issue with labels. Good and Evil don't change in the setting because, coming from D&D, they're useful shorthand for particular actions. They also don't change because, as simple labels, they have little meaning without the actions they refer to (it doesn't matter what you call th guy who kicks puppies and burns the elderly for fun, he's clearly someone to mostly avoid because of those actions, whether he pops as Good, Evil, or Fhlarginblargin-Neutral).

 

[Elderbrain]

O.K, So there is room for shades of grey, but still... a Chaotic Good member of the Doomguard (or the Fated) is going to go about achieving his goals very differently than a Chaotic Evil member. Both seek to support and spread entropy, but not in exactly the same manner. A Chaotic Evil Doomguard would gladly burn down a house with people still inside, whereas his Chaotic Good counterpart would likely select a building he knows to be unoccupied, or find a way to get the people inside to leave first. And alignment would likely determine the choice of targets: the Evil member might burn down an orphanage, whereas the Good one selects some evil or oppressive institution to vandalize (I.e. a slave trader's house or warehouse, or a brothel employing children). The same applies to the Fated and other Factions.

Now granted, there are going to be times when Evil and Good members of a Faction work towards a common goal, but the Good character is going to have to think carefully about what sorts of missions he can do without changing his alignment. If he repeatedly commits Evil acts in the name of his Faction, his alignment is going to change, no two ways about it. "I did it for the Faction" is not an excuse that will allow him to keep his Good alignment and still perform Evil deeds. Of course, he could just decide that his Faction's goals are more important than Good and Evil, and become Neutral or Evil.

 

[I'm A Banana]

a Chaotic Good member of the Doomguard (or the Fated) is going to go about achieving his goals very differently than a Chaotic Evil member. Both seek to support and spread entropy, but not in exactly the same manner. A Chaotic Evil Doomguard would gladly burn down a house with people still inside, whereas his Chaotic Good counterpart would likely select a building he knows to be unoccupied, or find a way to get the people inside to leave first.

A CE Doomguard would only burn down a house with people still inside if they were being reckless and shortsighted (that's a quick way to bring down the hammer on yourself!). A thoughtful CE Doomguard member would preserve the people inside, knowing that they will bring more destruction in their homeless poverty than their smoldering corpses would -- the family is now going to be a drain on the entire structure of the society around them! And the CG Doomguard isn't preserving their lives because she values their existence, she still believes that their lives are part of an ever-spiraling void of entropy that she is helping along. And in doing so, she's possibly abandoning her belief, rather than living up to it.

Which is just to say that ultimately, the difference between Good and Evil here is kind of hair-splitting. There's a bigger difference between the stupid (recklessly destructive) and the smart (thoughtfully goal-oriented). This difference is true in many factions -- you have stupid Sensates (recklessly hedonistic) and smart Sensates (thoughtfully experience-seeking), stupid Fated (beat up people on the street in some power bid) and smart Fated (greasing the wheels behind the scene as part of the machine you're seeking to possess). These are much more a distinction between the fools and the wise than it is a distinction between the Good and the Evil.

And alignment would likely determine the choice of targets: the Evil member might burn down an orphanage, whereas the Good one selects some evil or oppressive institution to vandalize (I.e. a slave trader's house or warehouse, or a brothel employing children).

Perhaps, perhaps not. An Evil member might burn down some oppressive institution because it not only aids their primary goal, it also provides a lot of good press (people don't tend to like slave-traders or exploitative sexual operations), manipulating the public into joining their cause. A Good member might burn down an orphanage as a mercy -- better those children die as in the course of life they must than that they live a pointless life any longer than necessary. An Evil member might preserve an orphanage for the opposite reason (these brats are bringing the world closer to its ruin running lawless through the Hive than they would be dead in the ground). A Good character might preserve an institution of corruption and wickedness as an alliance of convenience because it ruins people's trust in the authority that they wield.

Again, the idea is that the difference between Good and Evil isn't necessarily obvious. PC's get to answer these questions in play for their characters in good PS adventures. The setting and the rules don't provide a clear answer.

Now granted, there are going to be times when Evil and Good members of a Faction work towards a common goal, but the Good character is going to have to think carefully about what sorts of missions he can do without changing his alignment. If he repeatedly commits Evil acts in the name of his Faction, his alignment is going to change, no two ways about it. "I did it for the Faction" is not an excuse that will allow him to keep his Good alignment and still perform Evil deeds. Of course, he could just decide that his Faction's goals are more important than Good and Evil, and become Neutral or Evil.

I think of the example of the Harmonium. It's clear in the setting that their campaign of brainwashing was Not Good, alignment-wise. It demonstrated a lack of appreciation for the sanctity of others' thoughts. It's less clear that this brainwashing was wrong, or what, specifically, was wrong about it. If the goal is to get everyone to believe the same thing so that everyone can live in peace and harmony, that's accomplishing this goal, and perhaps ultimate peace and tranquility for all people is not "Good," but it is still worthy and important and ultimately leading to less violent and destructive lives. It also might be that they just applied it too liberally -- what if they only applied it to the Chaotic Evil critters? Or what if they allowed creatures the freedom to choose after magically changing their alignment?

At any rate, just because the activity was judged by most of the multiverse to be Not Good doesn't mean that it's not something you should support in some way as a Good PC, if you want. Live your belief. Let *it* determine your telos, regardless of what anyone else says.

 

[Neonchameleon]

This is part of how PS resembles the real world in its conflicts. No one can tell you what you "ought" to do with any true authority. It is up to the player to determine what they feel is right and wrong, based on the goals that they set for the multiverse via their character.

The problem with this claim is that it is objectively false and contrary to the rules of Planescape.

Planescape is a setting in which the Great Wheel cosmology is objectively mechanically privileged, as I have shown earlier and you have accepted. Other maps of the universe may have usefulness in the same way that socio-political maps are useful, but the Great Wheel is a geographic as well as a political map.

Now Kamikaze Midget's Planescape might not have the Great Wheel as central to and objectively mechanically privileged. But most of the time we aren't talking about Kamikaze Midget's Planescape. We are talking about the one written by Zeb Cook and contained in various sourcebooks. The Great Wheel, Good vs Evil, and Law vs Chaos are woven into Planescape cosmology in the same way they are in most other 2E settings.

Indeed, as written, I would go so far as to say that the 3E Forgotten Realms has a cosmology that's less bound up in externally defined Good and Evil than Planescape does. If you want a D&D setting without cosmological good and evil then Eberron leaves Planescape in the dust.

What Planescape does as written (rather than as played by Kamikaze Midget) is different, and subtle and interesting in its own right. Sigil is Rick's Casino. It's the football match in the middle of WWI. It's Switzerland in the middle of WWII. And is backed up by someone who is powerful enough to upset any form of balance that currently exists. So even in the middle of a great cosmological war people can find their own factions. But what it does not do is negate that cosmological war.

Further for high level Planeswalkers it asks a different and no less interesting question. "You can't stop the conflict but you can realign it. How would you do so?" This in no sense negates the prior cosmic struggle.

So, for me, when someone gets to the point of telling me to go read academic journals to continue a casual message-board debate, I take it as a simple admission that the counterpoint cannot possibly be understood simply by a person with no prior specialization, and so the "functional" part comes into play. A moral code only accessible to obscure specialists and deadened with jargon isn't of much functional use (at the very least, you get the tl;dr reactions folks in the thread are articulating).

The problem here is that you are extending from one person to all. I have no formal training in analytic philosophy or ethics but have no problem understanding any of [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s posts. So You are simply wrong that it "cannot possibly be understood simply by a person with no prior specialization". It can because it has been. It just can't by everyone.

So it doesn't actually help people in general to answer moral questions. Which means that people trying to answer moral questions in the Real World still must struggle with functional subjectivity. Which is the kind of mindset that PS is made to evoke. And so that mindset is not unthinkably alien, even to those who believe in some objectively real morality.

And this is again Kamikaze Midget's Planescape not Planescape As Written.

As written there is objective good and objective evil. And The Great Wheel. Planescape isn't the shades-of-grey of Eberron however much you would like it to be so.

But indeed the mindset of Planescape is not unthinkably alien especially to those who believe in some objectively real morality. Planescape is much more interesting than that; shades of grey settings outnumber those with objective morality by at least an order of magnitude. Planescape is, when you get into the thematics, a setting about losing faith. The textbook introduction to Planescape is with a party starting from the Prime Material - and that's where the thematics are strongest, just as Ravenloft is far more intense for PCs that didn't start there. Where the Gods have been a fact of life, and Good and Evil are objectively defined by those very Gods. And suddenly they find themselves in Planescape, somewhere the Gods have no power and the war does not hold. That cosmological and spiritual war that was a fact of life? It's still out there. But there's no reason it needs to be. And if you free yourself sufficiently you might be able to change or end it. There are still powerful entities who can and do say what good and evil are. But you might (and I mean might) be able to take control of that. And there are all sorts of groups who are offering you ideologies to claim as your own now that the Gods aren't in a position to define them.

 

[Elderbrain]

A CE Doomguard would only burn down a house with people still inside if they were being reckless and shortsighted (that's a quick way to bring down the hammer on yourself!). A thoughtful CE Doomguard member would preserve the people inside, knowing that they will bring more destruction in their homeless poverty than their smoldering corpses would -- the family is now going to be a drain on the entire structure of the society around them! And the CG Doomguard isn't preserving their lives because she values their existence, she still believes that their lives are part of an ever-spiraling void of entropy that she is helping along. And in doing so, she's possibly abandoning her belief, rather than living up to it.

Which is just to say that ultimately, the difference between Good and Evil here is kind of hair-splitting. There's a bigger difference between the stupid (recklessly destructive) and the smart (thoughtfully goal-oriented). This difference is true in many factions -- you have stupid Sensates (recklessly hedonistic) and smart Sensates (thoughtfully experience-seeking), stupid Fated (beat up people on the street in some power bid) and smart Fated (greasing the wheels behind the scene as part of the machine you're seeking to possess). These are much more a distinction between the fools and the wise than it is a distinction between the Good and the Evil.



Perhaps, perhaps not. An Evil member might burn down some oppressive institution because it not only aids their primary goal, it also provides a lot of good press (people don't tend to like slave-traders or exploitative sexual operations), manipulating the public into joining their cause. A Good member might burn down an orphanage as a mercy -- better those children die as in the course of life they must than that they live a pointless life any longer than necessary. An Evil member might preserve an orphanage for the opposite reason (these brats are bringing the world closer to its ruin running lawless through the Hive than they would be dead in the ground). A Good character might preserve an institution of corruption and wickedness as an alliance of convenience because it ruins people's trust in the authority that they wield. /QUOTE]

- Well, all I can say in that in MY campaign, with ME as the DM, such actions would result in me telling my players that their characters are at risk of changing alignment, or have in fact changed. (And I'd let them know I'd be holding their characters to such standards up front, before starting the campaign. Otherwise, it wouldn't be fair, since the players might be working on assumptions like yours, KM.)
I

 

[pemerton]

This is part of how PS resembles the real world in its conflicts. No one can tell you what you "ought" to do with any true authority. It is up to the player to determine what they feel is right and wrong, based on the goals that they set for the multiverse via their character.

The problem with this claim is that it is objectively false and contrary to the rules of Planescape.

I think another problem with this claim is that it violates board rules, or comes very close to doing so.

Obviously there are many people in the real world who have been told what they ought to do by authorities that they accept as binding. I don't think board rules permit us to discuss whether they are right or wrong.

What I think I can say, within board rules, is that certain fantasy archetypes - with the paladin and the traditional cleric being the exemplars here - only make sense within a context where those characters can reasonably take it that there are such authorities who have provided them with guidance. (Consider Gandalf in LotR, for instance.) Insofar as Planescape renders such characters knowingly mistaken, it is at odds with the sort of fantasy conceptions that I think underpins a good bit of D&D.