D&D General Deleted

[pemerton]

One of my Burning Wheel PCs is Thurgon, Knight of the Iron Tower:

As per his lifepaths, Thurgon was a religious acolyte, a page and a squire, and is a knight of a holy military order. And, as per his traits, he is Faithful. This is about as close to a paladin as can be built in BW.

He started play with all the listed reputations and affiliations, except for his infamous reputation among demons as an intransigent demon foe: he acquired this reputation after confronting a demon on the grassy hill leading up to Evard's tower. Thurgon had no chance of defeating the demon (in BW mechanical terms, it had grey-shade Mortal Wound and so the most Thurgon could inflict on it, with a lucky roll, would be a Superficial or perhaps a Light wound). Nevertheless, he felt bound to oppose it, especially as Aramina had fallen unconscious behind him, due to the overtax from attempting to call down a Rain of Fire on the demon. After holding it off for a couple of exchanges, the demon left (maybe due to the end of a summoning effect, or because it decided it had better things to do than toy with Thurgon).

Thurgon did not extend mercy to the demon, but then (i) it did not seek mercy, and (ii) Thurgon had no power over it so as to make such an offer. Gandalf did not extend mercy to the Balrog, but even if he had the chance to do so, the Balrog did not seek mercy.

I think this is likely to be typical with demons: they will not seek mercy, but will oppose and threaten to the end. If they do sincerely seek mercy then it is a different matter. It's true that both Melkor/Morgoth and Sauron (who both surely count as demons in this context) used mercy as an opportunity to exert trickery, and this is a risk that the merciful are exposed to. Appendix A refers to Ar-Pharazon acting "in the folly of his pride" in taking Sauron prisoner, but I don't take this to be a general counsel against mercy. Ar-Pharazon's pride made him think he could dominate Sauron when, in fact, Sauron was able to dominate him. Had he been more wise perhaps he would have sought some sort of redemption from Sauron - and given Sauron's crimes, perhaps that should have been (in the context of JRRT's mythology) a willing subjection to execution, which presumably would then have resulted in him going to be judged by the Valar or by Eru.

If the world is one in which providence operates (and this is the case, in the context of JRRT's mythology), then the wise and good person will not assume that they can see all ends, or that they are solely responsible for ensuring that justice is done and that good prevails. This must temper the way they engage with even those who are apparently wholly evil.

 

[pemerton]

There are even chapters in the philosophy of D&D books by professional thinkers musing on such things.

Well, I'm a professional thinker (in the sense of an academic philosopher and lawyer, who is published on moral and political philosophy). You can get my musings for free right here on ENworld!

 

[pemerton]

Did 1e suck at it compared to 5e? Probably.

I think AD&D's alignment is quite coherent, but not suited for the apparent purpose many want to use it for. It takes for granted that we can tell what is good and what is evil, and raises questions about law vs chaos as means to the good.

But a lot of people seem to want to use alignment to answer questions about what is good and what is evil. AD&D doesn't do that - as I just said, it assumes we already know. (And includes all major ways of thinking about this - Benthamism, wellbeing, human rights, virtues and values - under the label "good".)

 

[Hussar]

But the premise of the thread goes beyond a neutral analysis. Here the mere aesthetic of the Paladin was considered problematic.

Of course.

There is nothing “mere” about aesthetics. Look at the number of posts about a wizard wearing glasses.

But when the aesthetic is strongly grounded in a particular era and evoking a particular theme, of course they can be questioned and criticized.

Remember the troubadour hadozee?

 

[Hussar]

The question, though, is through how many generations in the chain do we hold a work responsible for the problems of the predecessors? For how long do the sins of the fathers fall upon the children?



But, the case in question is rather the opposite. Some of the original referent is, by modern standards, highly problematic, but the modern thing inspired by that referent has rejected much of the problem. Do we critique it for even having indirect reference to an issue that has largely been removed?

Oh no. I totally agree. I think that the current iteration of the paladin has largely left most of the problems behind and give it a few more iterations and they’ll be gone completely.

 

[teitan]

And rangers were straight up Aragorn. It's not 1977 anymore.

Did I not say that already? I could swear I said that in my original post. Oh yes, I actually did. yep there it is, I said that. So my point the Paladin wasn’t based on historical precedent stands and has a strong bearing on the development of the class through 3.x. The developers at TSR for 2e just attempted to make a very specific game into a generic fantasy game toolkit.

 

[Hussar]

But rangers are the aragorn class. Full stop. They don't have any historical connotations.

Paladins most certainly DO.

 

[TiQuinn]

What does that even mean? Evil is not a substance. Evil is a subjective concept; it's a term that only has meaning when given context. You can't be made of evil. That's like being made of red, or made of comfort, etc..

You can say the words "a plane of pure evil," for example, but those words will mean something different to every single person. Some might picture something like their interpretation of a stereotypical Christian conception of Hell. Others might imagine a void. According to Sartre, Hell is other people.

That's why Gary Gygax can describe Lawful Good by using examples that sound plenty evil from my perspective.

The game as written by Gygax carried with it a specific worldview. Evil was a real thing - knowable, palpable in that an object could be “made of evil”, and generally irredeemable, which had the knock-on effect of players being allowed to destroy it without moral quandaries.

The problem is that as soon as you start to suppose a more complex worldview for your campaign, you’re suddenly not playing Gygax’s D&D, and you’ve started down a path that leads to jettisoning alignment altogether.

 

[GrimCo]

D&D alignment is cartoonish oversimplification. It's rigid and deals in absolutes without taking nuances of human condition. It is there so you can play tropes of good guy heroes and bad guy villain. It's not that deep.

If you scratch even little under surface and try to apply real world morality and ethics to d&d, alignment system goes into the garbage fast. There are no absolutes. Same human can one day do some truly good deeds and another day truly horrific ones. If you want to take it to the extreme, you can go with saying: One man's hero is other man's villain. It's just matter of perspective.

 

[Cadence]

D&D alignment is cartoonish oversimplification. It's rigid and deals in absolutes without taking nuances of human condition. It is there so you can play tropes of good guy heroes and bad guy villain. It's not that deep.

If you scratch even little under surface and try to apply real world morality and ethics to d&d, alignment system goes into the garbage fast. There are no absolutes. Same human can one day do some truly good deeds and another day truly horrific ones. If you want to take it to the extreme, you can go with saying: One man's hero is other man's villain. It's just matter of perspective.

Doesn't one of the editions say that if you find your player's character's alignments changing a lot then the actual one might be chaotic neutral? And if you watch the news, the IRL world is kind of a mess...