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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nivenus" data-source="post: 6408691" data-attributes="member: 71756">Whether or not Gygax believed this is so, he's not the sole authority on the nine-alignment system.Yeah, kind of. But lawful neutral, chaotic neutral, and neutral characters can take part in a good-aligned adventure (which is the default sort) with relatively little trouble and all three were fairly popular throughout 3rd edition (by WotC's own admission). Evil alignments are more difficult though, because they're innately opposed to good. But chaos-aligned and law-aligned character's aren't, so relatively few adjustments need to be made for them to participate.Yes, if you accept pure good/kindness/empathy as the best form of good. Which isn't a LG or CG person's perspective.Sure they do. They're likely to disagree over all sorts of things. Is is better to work within a corrupt system to change it for the better or to rebel against it? Is a thief's crime justified by their need or should the law be executed impartially, without regard to circumstance? Is "compelled" charity (like taxes to support the poor) a legitimate expression of good or is it a violation of individual liberty? People have gotten into fistfights over less.Not really. What does the Elemental Chaos represent if not chaos? And while I'll grant you the Astral Sea isn't pure law and order, it certainly leans that direction more than its predecessor Astral Plane does; most of the creatures inhabiting it (non-lawful gods aside) are either lawful good or have personalities and goals that read very similar to those written for lawful neutral creatures in prior editions (while having unaligned as their official alignment).Again, the mechanical impact is lesser, but there's definitely a defined dualism at work.I wouldn't say I embrace it per se; it's not my preferred way of thinking about alignment (and I did say one could see it as a debasement of all four axes). But if you're going to talk about things like "100% good" or "100 lawful" (as Aldarc did in his question) I think it's a sensible way of addressing the idea.Except there's some evidence people do have a limit to how much empathy they can show: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number" target="_blank">it's known as Dunbar's number</a>. The basic idea is that humans can only maintain so many meaningful, stable relationships before they ultimately have to choose between one or the other (not necessarily consciously). However the number's so large (usually considered to be somewhere between 100 and 200), that very few people (as in, all but a handful of polygamous men in recorded history) have enough children that whether they could extend their love to another is at all a practical issue.Someone with more children doesn't necessarily love their children any less than someone with fewer children, but if the concept of Dunbar's number is correct, it does mean their children occupy a bigger portion of their total potential relationships.Actually it is true, at least according to some sources. Good ends do not justify evil means.There may be other sourcebooks that dispute this interpretation, but it's certainly not alien to D&D's alignment system.True and some individuals are skilled enough to get a doctorate in both mathematics and history. But could they also get a doctorate in medicine and astronomy? What about law? At some point you start running into a limit as to how much any one individual human can learn about and claim to be an expert in. Additionally, someone who is an expert in both mathematics and history may be more educated in either field than a layman but less so than a specialized expert, who devotes their time entirely to the study of the mathematics or history.Again, I don't think you have to treat morality as a zero sum game if you don't want to; Kamikaze Midget's way of looking at alignment also works. But that's the way Aldarc asked the question and if you're going to operate with the assumption that you can be 100% good, I think it's fair to say that you can't be 100% good and 100% lawful or 100% chaotic.</blockquote>

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