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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Morrow" data-source="post: 2118788" data-attributes="member: 27012">I think that the D&D alignment system is only absurd if you try to apply it to subjective morality.  The 3E treatment is fairly consistent about what Good and Evil are.Just because the evidence strongly suggests that nature, at best, only influences human behavior in our world does not mean that we can't imagine fantasy races of intelligent creatures for whom elements of their behavior is built in and instinctual.  Yes, we've been taught to be disgusted by the idea that people inherit their behavior, in part because many of those theories have been discredited but also because they've been badly misused by racists and other bad people.  But we aren't talking about human beings.  We are talking about goblins. If humans can be behaviorally programmed to feel hungry and eat or to have a libido and can become chemically dependent on various substances, I don't find it difficult to imagine an intelligent creature who is born cruel and sadistic.  Yes, it would be really disturbing if someone claimed that about a group of humans and yes I'd be mighty skeptical about those claims, but we aren't talking about humans.I'm still not sure why you don't find simply saying "nature" a viable alternative, particularly since many of the archetypes from which these monsters are drawn come from an age in human history when people believed that human behavior was also governed by nature in a broad sense, even if explained in terms of the other categories that you presented.  Like I said, I realize why that's a mighty offensive stand to take with real human beings but these are monsters in a fantasy game.  If we can imagine worlds that are flat, etheral planes, astral projection and a host of other fantasy ideas that real people used to believe in but have since been discredited, why can't we believe in a species of monsters that is just born evil?  Is it because such theories were often used for racist purposes and have forever been tainted (like the swastika has forever been tainted by the Nazis, even though it had a much longer history as a Buddhist symbol of good luck)?  Well, isn't the whole idea of races in D&D, including races of monsters and racial ability modifiers, pretty racist, too, if applied to humans?  Face it, the whole idea of a race of monsterous bad guys that you can kill with impunity draws from the same spring that the idea of races having natures draws from.  And I personally think that the half-effort to straddle the line -- having monsterous evil races yet refuse to say that they are evil by nature -- raises far more troubling and offensive problems.  If the goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, and orcs aren't evil by nature. then just why are they evil?  And why doesn't someone do something about it?  Why can't they?Now, you can cover the theme of a "nature" behind ideas like "environment", "nobility", or "divine inheritance" but the real question is whether monster races are free moral agents who choose to be evil or can't help but to be evil.  Can they be helped or changed or not?  If they choose to be Evil, that raises a set of questions that can be just as troubling, because of how they are presented and used in a typical D&D game, as the idea that they are born evil.  If they are "usually Neutral Evil", does that mean that they are also sometimes "Lawful Evil" and "Chaotic Evil" or does it mean that they can also be True Neutral, Lawful Neutral, and Chaotic Neutral or even Lawful Good, Neutral Good, and Chaotic Good?  Just beause they are not always Neutral Evil, does that mean that the full range of alignments is open to them? In the real world, a lot of people know what they are, too.  As I've mentioned, many sociopath types understand that they are bad people.  Why don't they change?  Because they like the way they are.  I'm not sure what this really changes.  I think the belief that everyone always must think of themselves as "good" and that good and evil are totally relative is a side effect of cultural relativism run amok.I think this is one of those cases where they left things open for interpretation on purpose.  I also think that the "usually" in the alignment is due to the long history of complaints by people who strongly dislike the idea of monolithic intelligent races.  "Usually" is a convenient way to let the people who want their killable bad guys to read it as "every one you'll ever meet" while allowing those who want their Lawful Good goblin Paladin to have their way, too.  Basically, it's tossing a bone to both sides in the hope that neither side will bite them.</blockquote>

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