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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nivenus" data-source="post: 6404007" data-attributes="member: 71756">Well I was disagreeing with pemerton primarily, not you.I will say, however, that it's workable as metaphysics too, particularly if you have a non-dualistic outlook in things. Good, evil, law, and chaos all represent fairly different things in D&D's cosmology, which means there's no real conflict in having all four. Good and evil are the conflict between benevolence and charity over malice and selfishness. Law and chaos are (when taken beyond human-scale characters) representative of the conflict between stability and stasis vs. change and destruction.It's true that few (if any) real-world cosmologies present D&D's particular schema of good vs. evil and law vs. chaos. There are, however, quite a few that do not associate good with law (order) or evil with chaos. Hinduism, for example, puts the forces of destruction on more less equal moral ground with the forces of stability: Shiva and Kali, both destructive by nature, are some of the most popular deities in the pantheon and neither is considered evil. Likewise Susanoo in Japanese mythology who may be a disruptive and unruly deity, but who is nonetheless worthy of veneration.That being said, I do agree that the alignment system is probably better suited for roleplaying than it is for metaphysics. But it's a bit odd to say it's "untenable" when metaphysics as a field is entirely based on largely untestable principles (which is why it is philosophy and not science).Butis it largely useless to you? It seems to me that a lot of the same material you would find in a generic planar supplement would be the same as what you'd find in the Manual of the Planes. Demons, devils, other various planar creatures, examples of what planar environments might look like, how to get players to the planes, what kind of campaigns you can run there, plus a whole chapter on how to modify the book's material as you like.I mean, the appendix there isn't to tell you to dismiss the rest of the book you just read. It's there to tell you how to modify what's in the book to your needs. Like having demons and devils but wish they coexisted on the same plane? No reason you can't take what you like from the Abyss and the Hells and toss them together. Like Bytopia but don't care for Celestia or Arcadia? No reason you can't just make Bytopia (or some modified version of it) your preferred version of a lawful good heaven (or an afterlife for a specific pantheon... or just a generically good heaven).I mean, it just strikes me a generic planar supplement and a Manual of the Planes with instructions on how to toss out the material you don't like or need would be extremely redundant. What would the former have that the latter wouldn't have?</blockquote>

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