YAAT Good is just passe?

[kengar]

quote:
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Originally posted by Canis


Actually, I think you may be giving people too much credit. It's not that they don't want to think about good and evil. They want to think that they ARE good, and that others who think differently from them are evil. "The actions that I take are always good, because I am a good person."
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EXACTLY. They don't want their characters put into "Good and Evil" boxes because then what if ..... GASP...... there might be good and evil actions? What if being selfish is not inherently good? PLEASE don't make me think! ARGH!!!!!!

I see what you are saying, JLXC, and you're right about people not wanting to put themselves into the 'Evil Box,' etc. But my point (and I warned it might be slightly OT) is that justifying WHY a person might act in a way that would be described in alignment terms as "Chaotic Evil" (or whatever) is more helpful to some folks for roleplaying than worrying about an action's inherent "Goodness" or "Evilness." This is exactly why it's human (dwarven/elven/gnomish/orcish/etc.) behaviour to see themselves as not "evil" (in character) but "right."

Part of the problem might be that too many players and DM's use "Good" and "Right" almost interchangeably. For purposes of alignment, the terms need to be differentiated. I might suggest:

Good= of Good Alignment (game rules/mechanics).
Right=behaving correctly (in-game/character).

There are plenty of people who see themselves as "right" who aren't -by alignment- "good." "Might makes Right" is a valid (if callous) maxim, but it isn't a statement Good-aligned PC's should hold to.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Curious--one of the reasons (other than that I enjoy it) I play and DM is that, as a Christian, I wish people would think more about such things and D&D at least offers a framework where people are sometimes willing to take the ideas of good and evil seriously. That's actually one of the things I try to get people to do in my games. Of course I don't know how well it works. . . .

I was being somewhat facetious, but most Christians I know have one of two reactions to D&D. There's the usual "heathen game" reaction or the "that's just silly" reaction. Which is also the reaction of most non-Christian adults who don't game. Spending that much time on a game is usually labeled as frivolous and a waste of time. Other people rarely consider that any kind of thought goes into a game, much less philosophy or deep consideration of morality. It's partially because of the connotations of the word "game" and partially because most people can't imagine spending leisure time on something that requires that much thought.