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Worlds of Design: Chaotic Neutral is the Worst
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7817954" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I've snipped not because the details of your post are uninteresting, but because I can make the point I want to simply by reference to your bookends.</p><p></p><p>There are two ways of theorising (if we can call it that) 9-point alignment. One is by taking Law, Chaos, Good and Evil as fundamental principles and then trying to integrate them. The other is by looking at the detailed descriptions of particular alignments (of which I think the clearest versions are in Gygax's AD&D books).</p><p></p><p>The first "top down" approach in my view is incoherent, because those concepts are poorly defined and are not really part of any meaningful developed moral philosophy. The second "bottom up" approach expains what TN means - as Gyagx says it is a "naturalistic" philosophy that believes that human action is a threat to the balance of thiings. This is easily enough identifiable as a broadly Stoic or Taoist or Zen Buddhist outlook.</p><p></p><p>LN is rules/order fetishism. CN is a sort-of nihilist outlook, which (as per my previous post) I think comes out as a trickster-rather-than-cruel "CE lite". NG and NE don't make much sense, because the contrast with CG and CE is not very sharp.</p><p></p><p>And having read on some posts to see the discussion of "evil" races, I'll pick up on this bit that I snipped!</p><p></p><p>D&D alignment has no way to engage with these questions. As I posted upthread, and as I elaborated in the old thread of mine that I linked to, D&D alignment (i) takes it for granted that <em>the good</em> is known, and (ii) presents that good in a way that is indifferent to all the actual debates in contemporary moral philosophy. How much killing in self defence is too much? How much expedience by an individual in the pursuit of desirable social goals is too much? Those are interesting questions, and I've made a career out of addressing some of them (as an academic philosopher and lawyer) but Gygax and D&D have nothing to say about them.</p><p></p><p>In my "narativist 9-point alignment thread" I argued that if you want alignment to do interesting work the questions have to be about means, not ends - is law (ie some form of order/social organisation) or chaos (a focus on individual self-realisation) the true path to wellbeing, truth and beauty? And given that we're taling about D&D, such a campaign would have to tackle those questions through the medium of either S&S or heroic fantasy. It would have nothing to say about the inner moral lives of orcs, Set cultists or 21st century CEOs.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7817954, member: 42582"] I've snipped not because the details of your post are uninteresting, but because I can make the point I want to simply by reference to your bookends. There are two ways of theorising (if we can call it that) 9-point alignment. One is by taking Law, Chaos, Good and Evil as fundamental principles and then trying to integrate them. The other is by looking at the detailed descriptions of particular alignments (of which I think the clearest versions are in Gygax's AD&D books). The first "top down" approach in my view is incoherent, because those concepts are poorly defined and are not really part of any meaningful developed moral philosophy. The second "bottom up" approach expains what TN means - as Gyagx says it is a "naturalistic" philosophy that believes that human action is a threat to the balance of thiings. This is easily enough identifiable as a broadly Stoic or Taoist or Zen Buddhist outlook. LN is rules/order fetishism. CN is a sort-of nihilist outlook, which (as per my previous post) I think comes out as a trickster-rather-than-cruel "CE lite". NG and NE don't make much sense, because the contrast with CG and CE is not very sharp. And having read on some posts to see the discussion of "evil" races, I'll pick up on this bit that I snipped! D&D alignment has no way to engage with these questions. As I posted upthread, and as I elaborated in the old thread of mine that I linked to, D&D alignment (i) takes it for granted that [I]the good[/I] is known, and (ii) presents that good in a way that is indifferent to all the actual debates in contemporary moral philosophy. How much killing in self defence is too much? How much expedience by an individual in the pursuit of desirable social goals is too much? Those are interesting questions, and I've made a career out of addressing some of them (as an academic philosopher and lawyer) but Gygax and D&D have nothing to say about them. In my "narativist 9-point alignment thread" I argued that if you want alignment to do interesting work the questions have to be about means, not ends - is law (ie some form of order/social organisation) or chaos (a focus on individual self-realisation) the true path to wellbeing, truth and beauty? And given that we're taling about D&D, such a campaign would have to tackle those questions through the medium of either S&S or heroic fantasy. It would have nothing to say about the inner moral lives of orcs, Set cultists or 21st century CEOs. [/QUOTE]
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