NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 7670873" data-attributes="member: 6696971">I can't quite grok how this is coming together for you, specifically from a simulationist's perspective.  Alignment in AD&D and 3.x are empirically testable, physical laws of the cosmos no different than gravitational attraction and the immediately observable effects of combustion (the production of heat and light).I mean I suppose you could certainly rationalize ignorance from the layfolk's perspective (to some degree) as they (a) are generally distant from the cosmological certainty of alignment due to their fundamentally mundane existence (till fields, raise children, barter, etc) and (b) don't interface regularly (if at all) with the magical means of discernment nor the implications of said discernment.  However, I don't see how you could do the same for adventurers or any collection of immortals (demons, devils, gods, etc) of which (a) and (b) above are 100 % inverted.  Could you have a stray demon who is all "yea I don't buy that rot"...sure, I suppose.  However, I can't imagine that his skepticism (whether he actually prosletyzed or just passively objected) would move the requsite number of units to be anything but the most extreme outlier without a shred of evidence to support his personal ethos.Could these immortals/adventurers possibly have discussions about the utility (solely within the scope of their own personal needs) of each alignment?  Sure, I could see that I suppose.  But that isn't the same thing as denying the utterly inescapable cosmological fact that some entity (or entities) organized the universe such that behavioral profile x unerringly yields alignment y upon detection.  And further, that said entity which organized universal laws has already rendered their, obviously authoritative as the creator-entity, judgement upon the cosmological nature and utility of each alignment.</blockquote>

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