Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="The Shadow" data-source="post: 6407855" data-attributes="member: 16760">...And here is the great divide.&nbsp; Here is the lack of contact between my (and I think Pemerton's) point of view and those of others on this thread.My instinctive response is, &quot;Of COURSE good is something objectively desirable!&nbsp; Otherwise it wouldn't BE good!&nbsp; It would just be a matter of taste.&quot;As Pemerton said, however, the fact that it is innately desirable does not mean that it is, in fact, desired.&nbsp; That's what evil is all about:&nbsp; Pursuit of objectively wrong ends that are only superficially attractive.As I said quite a lot of pages ago, one of my major beefs with D&amp;D alignment is that it treats good and evil as in some sense equal;&nbsp; they aren't.&nbsp; The relationship is asymmetrical:&nbsp; Evil needs good things to desire in the wrong way or to the wrong extent, but good has no need whatever of evil.&nbsp; And worse yet, it treats the incoherent and made-up Law/Chaos axis as somehow equivalent to the crucial distinction between good and evil.(A brief aside:&nbsp; Law vs. Chaos made some sense in Moorcock's universe, where they were the only games in town.&nbsp; There, the only sane option was to try to play the two off against each other, because they were both desperately evil.&nbsp; But once Gygax introduced Good vs. Evil in addition, Law vs. Chaos treated as forms of 'Neutrality' stopped making any sense whatever.&nbsp; How anyone can think that the Lords of Law and Chaos in Moorcock are anything but utterly evil bastards is beyond me.&nbsp; Good grief, any scene Arioch is in, he comes off as completely demonic - or diabolical, if you prefer!)(Incidentally, it's the utterly bleak metaphysics of Moorcock's worlds that makes me rather loathe them in the end, despite his skill as a storyteller.)But my main beef with D&amp;D alignment is, as I have intimated, that it contributes pretty much exactly nothing.&nbsp; I've played plenty of other RPG's that had no alignment system at all, and they did not suffer for it in the least.&nbsp; The heroes were just as heroic, the villains just as villainous, the morally grey areas just as morally grey.&nbsp; Where is the value added of D&amp;D's alignment system?&nbsp; Why bother with it?I've been saying for decades now that if one must have a Detect Evil spell, why can't it just detect supernatural evil - undead and fiends?&nbsp; And I am glad to see that 5e at last agrees with me.&nbsp; Or, as Pemerton said, a Detect Enemy spell, that works fine too.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="The Shadow, post: 6407855, member: 16760"] ...And here is the great divide. Here is the lack of contact between my (and I think Pemerton's) point of view and those of others on this thread. My instinctive response is, "Of COURSE good is something objectively desirable! Otherwise it wouldn't BE good! It would just be a matter of taste." As Pemerton said, however, the fact that it is innately desirable does not mean that it is, in fact, desired. That's what evil is all about: Pursuit of objectively wrong ends that are only superficially attractive. As I said quite a lot of pages ago, one of my major beefs with D&D alignment is that it treats good and evil as in some sense equal; they aren't. The relationship is asymmetrical: Evil needs good things to desire in the wrong way or to the wrong extent, but good has no need whatever of evil. And worse yet, it treats the incoherent and made-up Law/Chaos axis as somehow equivalent to the crucial distinction between good and evil. (A brief aside: Law vs. Chaos made some sense in Moorcock's universe, where they were the only games in town. There, the only sane option was to try to play the two off against each other, because they were both desperately evil. But once Gygax introduced Good vs. Evil in addition, Law vs. Chaos treated as forms of 'Neutrality' stopped making any sense whatever. How anyone can think that the Lords of Law and Chaos in Moorcock are anything but utterly evil bastards is beyond me. Good grief, any scene Arioch is in, he comes off as completely demonic - or diabolical, if you prefer!) (Incidentally, it's the utterly bleak metaphysics of Moorcock's worlds that makes me rather loathe them in the end, despite his skill as a storyteller.) But my main beef with D&D alignment is, as I have intimated, that it contributes pretty much exactly nothing. I've played plenty of other RPG's that had no alignment system at all, and they did not suffer for it in the least. The heroes were just as heroic, the villains just as villainous, the morally grey areas just as morally grey. Where is the value added of D&D's alignment system? Why bother with it? I've been saying for decades now that if one must have a Detect Evil spell, why can't it just detect supernatural evil - undead and fiends? And I am glad to see that 5e at last agrees with me. Or, as Pemerton said, a Detect Enemy spell, that works fine too. [/QUOTE]

Verification