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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5827648" data-attributes="member: 42582">Unless I've misunderstood, the GM is spcifying what is good and what is not.See, for me, this verges on the incoherent. What does it mean to say of something &quot;Sure, it's not morally permissible but it is Good&quot;, or &quot;Sure, it's not Evil but it is a wicked thing to do&quot;?I know there are some corner cases here that cause some trouble for analysing the semantics of moral utterance (like Satan's notorious utterance of &quot;Evil, be thou my good&quot;) but the player who has his/her PC say &quot;That's wicked even though it doesn't ping as Evil&quot; isn't trying to produce some sort of clever paradox along Milton's lines.I can't but see that the player is being asked to suspend his/her moral judgement. And as far as I can see this is completely unnecessary - it's trivial to have an epic and morally serious fantasy RPG without alignment.And I think this is verging on incoherent. &quot;Good&quot; and &quot;evil&quot; aren't relative terms in the requisite sense.I think there's arguably a big difference between gratuitous raiding cloaked in a fig leaf of defence of others (&quot;We're protecting the villagers from the rampaging orcs&quot;) and killing a helpless prisoner.The looting thing is trickier, I agree. I try to downplay it in my own game, or give it a Robin Hood-ish flavour.This is a more eloquent expression of what I was tyring to convey when I asked rhetorically, upthread, &quot;Why wouldn't I blame the GM?&quot; if I'm playing John Brown and my PC get killed by proto-Klansmen.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 5827648, member: 42582"] Unless I've misunderstood, the GM is spcifying what is good and what is not. See, for me, this verges on the incoherent. What does it mean to say of something "Sure, it's not morally permissible but it is Good", or "Sure, it's not Evil but it is a wicked thing to do"? I know there are some corner cases here that cause some trouble for analysing the semantics of moral utterance (like Satan's notorious utterance of "Evil, be thou my good") but the player who has his/her PC say "That's wicked even though it doesn't ping as Evil" isn't trying to produce some sort of clever paradox along Milton's lines. I can't but see that the player is being asked to suspend his/her moral judgement. And as far as I can see this is completely unnecessary - it's trivial to have an epic and morally serious fantasy RPG without alignment. And I think this is verging on incoherent. "Good" and "evil" aren't relative terms in the requisite sense. I think there's arguably a big difference between gratuitous raiding cloaked in a fig leaf of defence of others ("We're protecting the villagers from the rampaging orcs") and killing a helpless prisoner. The looting thing is trickier, I agree. I try to downplay it in my own game, or give it a Robin Hood-ish flavour. This is a more eloquent expression of what I was tyring to convey when I asked rhetorically, upthread, "Why wouldn't I blame the GM?" if I'm playing John Brown and my PC get killed by proto-Klansmen. [/QUOTE]

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