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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ThirdWizard" data-source="post: 6407369" data-attributes="member: 12037">Good is not something objectively desirable. Otherwise, everyone would want to be Good, and that obviously isn't the case in D&D. That's like saying Law is objectively desirable. For a paladin, yes, Good is objectively desirable. But, you might as well say that for Deanna Troi Chocolate is inherently desirable. Saying that doesn't really mean much outside of an individual's desires, which is subjective.And, going beyond that, there isn't a spell that tells you if it is more or less objectively Good to save the school bus of nuns or try to deactivate the bomb knowing you may not succeed. Decisions must be made based on the character, their beliefs, their history, and their goals. The Lawful character may say it is better to go for the sure thing saving the nuns. The Chaotic character may say that no, taking the chance to save the most people and risking your own life to defuse the bomb is the better choice. There's no spell that will say who is right. There's no way to know for sure which will be the right thing. You can't say one is objectively more Good than the other, and any attempt to do so will just lead to argument with those who have the opposite L/C mindset as you.So, it is indeed subjective. The game is built off decision points that cannot predict the future, that cannot tell you if it is better to save Person A or Person B. If it is right to overthrow a tyrant and throw the world into chaos, or try to subvert their monarchy and hope that you can turn everything around without bloodshed. To work with a demon to kill a devil, or to work with a devil to kill a demon. Who can say what the right choices are? Not some spell. Not some angel. Only the player character can decide for themselves which is the correct choice. For them, and no one else.Not so in Planescape, though, where we have the Revolutionary League that has Good characters working alongside Evil characters to overthrow the social order. Why? Well, they have their own reasons. There are Good Harmonium and Evil Harmonium. Who are you going to focus on. Who would you work with? What would you do to achieve your end goals?Indeed, you might be Evil but work toward Good ends. Maybe you want to kill every last Evil Harmonium, but you aren't too concerned with killing some Good Harmonium along the way. You assassinate person after person after person with no heed to anything but the "greater good." In fact, my Evil games generally revolve around this sort of thing, with the protagonists as well as the antagonists being Evil. I can't remember the last time an Evil character in one of my games put themselves at odds with a Good character. It's just a bad idea in general.Perhaps. Of course, a Lawful character might look at Olympus and see suffering where there need not be any. Just because a plane is Good doesn't mean that there is a lack of suffering, after all. It just means that there the land hasn't moved away from its given alignment enough to slip into another plane yet. The Planes aren't this place that perfectly exemplifies the ideals of their alignments so much as a battleground where that alignment is currently the victor. This is a strange line of thought for me, seeing as how I played a Sigil-based Harmonium paladin who was more concerned with Law than Good, in general.I guess you can flip it. What if you see Good as necessary to keep a Lawful society going? That an Evil end is ultimately selfish and undermines the Lawful order for the desires of the leaders, and therefore Good is the only tenable way for Law to successfully operate. Could you see a Lawful Good character with that mentality? If not, then I suspect that we're operating under completely different sets of understanding of the D&D alignment system.For the record, I've never read Moorcock, and my knowledge of his works are probably confined to the generalities I've read in this and other similar threads. All of my above thoughts and opinions are derived from reading Planescape material. For what its worth, the paladin probably see the corruption of Elysium as a good (if not Good) thing, and therefore would work toward moving as much of that plane into Celestia as possible. This is how you might get "wars" between Good characters.That doesn't track with me. I can completely see Good characters coming to blows over all kinds of things. Lets say CG guy's brother is doing something non-harmful, but deemed possibly harmful by the LG establishment. He's arrested and thrown in jail for life. CG guy then attempts to break into prison to get his brother out. Along the way LG guy and he meet. At that point, they aren't going to talk it out. Swords will be drawn. Blood will be spilled. That's how it has to be at that point.At least, that's the kind of game I run. Moral grays. Who is in the right and who is in the wrong isn't necessarily associated with some letters written down on your character sheet. Decisions aren't always clear cut, and you can't always be sure what you're doing is the "right" thing. I know it isn't for everyone, but that's my preferred method of play.This right here!! That's perhaps a better way of saying it than I tried to.</blockquote>

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