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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Imaro" data-source="post: 6404161" data-attributes="member: 48965">So is it that D&D focuses on Good vs. Evil or is it that player's/DM's conception of (heroic) fantasy shape how they view D&D, causing them to put less importance on the Law vs. Chaos axis and to feel more comfortable exploring the conflict between the Good and Evil axis since that may be what they are more familiar with?  I find that D&D presents all the tools one needs to explore either conflict (and even some of it's settings (Planescape and Greyhawk come to mind) have it built in as a major theme so I'm not sure how your assertion that it focuses on good and evil is true... I mean you're basically saying the Blood War is framed as a Chaos vs. Law conflict but with the wrong (in the sense that they are not familiar with the tropes of Law vs. Chaos or uninterested in exploring it) players the Blood War is often classified as just evil.  that doesn't seem like it's the D&D focus that seems as if it's the playgroup focus being firmly on good vs. evil... Yes but we weren't speaking to real world religions we were talking to the Moorcockian struggle of Law vs. Chaos and one of the most important themes in his books is that neither is good or evil... otherwise you're right back at the good vs. evil axis instead of law vs. chaos.  Also, there is no neutral alignment (at least not in the sense that Moorcock presents it as a conscious balancing between the forces of law and chaos)... there is unaligned which is more a disinterest in the cosmological forces than a championing of an equilibrium between law and chaos. Again, why are we talking about real world religions when the discussion was about Moorcockian cosmology?  Your assertion was that 4e and it's axis cosmology put the law vs. chaos conflict in the forefront as opposed to the Great Wheel and Planescape... and my assertion was that it just dressed up the good vs. evil conflict as law vs. chaos... instead of showing why that isn't true and strengthening your assertion... you instead seem to now be saying that's ok.  Which is fine but not similar to the conflict as presented in Moorcockian cosmology which was what we were initially talking about.  I'm finding it hard to understand how your further posts address that...  If the conversation has changed to real world religions as opposed to Moorcockian cosmology let's make that clear...    That the actual word used is not chaos but void... and that can mean the absence of everything even chaos... but again I don't want to get into a debate about real world religion. Yes, and the Lady of Pain has hints of evil, though she is a balancing factor in Sigil... her methods certainly wouldn't be classified as "good".  She is Arioch if he were a lord of Balance as opposed to Chaos...Well now you seem to be claiming that Planescape isn't a carbon copy of the Moorcockian cosmology, which I never claimed it was.  It's the D&D cosmology, which is Moorcockian in nature.  Yes there is good and evil... just as there is good and evil in his worlds, even if it's not an explicit cosmological force... the point is the nine point alignment allows for the combinations of law/evil/chaos/good/neutrality that we see presented in his stories and the moral ambiguity is again built into Planescape when it comes to good and evil... it's the setting where an angel and a devil can sit in a tavern and have a drink together...  Yes, and Arioch is a plot device for Elric... not sure this is really a valid point...  who ever claimed The Lady of Pain was a "character"? You make a statement with no reasoning to back it up...  the specific conflicts ingrained in most of the factions are all about the personal stakes of real people...  And since it's a planar setting... why should it be centered around the prime?  Again taking the Moorcock stories as an example, the Eternal Champion cycle isn't ever really about one world but about the punishment of a character (The Eternal Champion) and the effects it has throughout the Multiverse as a whole...</blockquote>

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