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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8048818" data-attributes="member: 6801228">Some good points, but I want to dig into a few of them. 1) "Not explainable to mortal minds" is generally a cop-out. Especially since it means that mortals cannot possibly understand objective law and objective good, meaning they are essentially living in a subjective reality. The give a poor analogy, this is like asking a blind person if they are in a blue room. Whether or not the room is actually blue doesn't matter, they can't see it, so how are they supposed to act with the knowledge of whether the room is blue or not? 2) The limited in scope only sort of works. The concept would then be if you had a deity like Chauntea (no idea her actual alignment) who is good and in charge of nature, she would only be able to talk about what is good from the perception of nature. But, immediately, I've run into a problem. "The perception of nature" makes this a subjective view. To keep it objective, it would have to be that she knows what is objectively good as pertains to nature and land management, but does not know what is objectively good in terms of medicine. The problem with that (not only in creating objective good things that no-one can know because no deity covers that but that some deities should logically know far more) is that Chauntea knows that Pelor as a god of Medicine is the absolute authority on what is good about Medicine. To argue with Pelor about that would be (to steal your analogy) a desk maker telling the tax lawyer about tax codes. 3) Which brings me to kind of the last problem, which is that if alignment can be objectively known, we are back in the same place. Even if the Gods and deities are only experts in their fields, there are enough of them covering different fields to make make a clear picture on known behavior. It is simply a logic puzzle, but it is one that would be solved relatively quickly if objective alignment is knowable, and once it is solved, you can't have disagreements about the truth. It is the truth, just like you said that you are typing at your desk. I can't tell you that you aren't. It is a fact.This issue is stemming from the position of [USER=55149]@R_Chance[/USER] who began talking about objective "good" and objective "law" coming from Divine Law. This concept supposes that the idea of "good" and "law" comes from the Divine sources, and therefore it is the gods that define alignment. If we accept that the gods define alignment, and that definition is objective and not just the gods opinion, then it follows that they must act in those manners as a general principle. Now, Apollo is a greek God, and to be fair, no one in their right mind would define any of the Greek Gods as "good" except maybe Hestia and possibly Hades (I've got a soft spot for the guy). But more importantly, even the Greeks never tried to present the actions of the gods as being Objective. They acted just like humans, and human behavior is subjective and influenced by manner factors. And in a subjective world, that is fine. But in an objective world where Apollo Objectively defines what it means to be good... then his every action is objectively good if he defines it that way. And if you feel like "no, Apollo would be wrong that X is objectively good" then you are either in a subjective world, or you are trying to say that Objective "Good" and "Law" were defined by something else, and that is either knowable, or not.Which is meaningless in the context of alignment as a guideline for PC behavior. For a random example (or a pre-ordained one) let us say that you have a character who rolls a die whenever he enters a shop. If he rolls a 1, he kills attempts to kill everyone inside and burn the place to the ground. He does so with the belief that it is fate that is guiding this. That the people he kills are meant to die, and that those who are spared are meant to be spared. By your definition, he is lawful. He might also act to kill any man who gives him an order, believing that if he can kill them that was meant to be, but if he fails, then he was meant to follow that order. However, watching this person rolll a dice to decide if people live or die, no one would say they are lawful. Belief in fate and destiny does not make you lawful. It means you believe in fate or destiny.If you have no say in your own aligmenmt, how is it supposed to guide your roleplaying and actions? Also, I have to agree with Crimson. If I need to see "LG" on my sheet to care about the lives of innocents, or not murder shopekeepers, then I... frankly the concept is so bizarre I have no clue how I'd react. That is fairly worrying if only a self-imposed limit of two letters prevents you from slaughtering the innocent and drinking their blood from their skulls.If you don't care what the rules say... then why do you care if the rules exist? You literally just said that no matter what WoTC does, it won't change anything. And you are arguing that DMs can just assign alignments to players, this is sounding less and less like a useful abstraction to guide role-playing and more like a game of Taboo.</blockquote>

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