In my Star Wars Kotor fanfic that I wrote, I had two twin sisters known as the Echani Twins. One would start a sentence the other would finish it. They were assassins who enjoyed killing, especially powerful individuals.
I think Obsidian read your stuff and ripped off your characters in KotOR II. You should sue for plagiarism!
@Mortianna - I have never read any Nietzsche (other than in passing during one Philosophy class in college), yet I find what you wrote fascinating. My personal take on the whole thing isn't that good and evil are the shackles religion uses on people, but that the religions themselves are the shackles. I have long believed that religion was propagated mainly as a means of control and was sold as a way to praise ourselves and punish our enemies (believe as I do and you go to Heaven, nirvana, etc... Stand against me and go to Hades or the like), and that these positions are 'Called' good and evil merely to give them name and weight.
Further, so long as people have something to feel good about, and something to fight against their neighbors over, that distracts them from the people on the top of the food chain and what they have going on behind their backs. Maybe that is cynical of me, but there is actual precedent to support this position.
I wish I had more time respond to all the posts here--there have been many excellent points raised about good, evil, religion, and the human condition.
It's very difficult to talk about religion as one unified system, since there are many religions with quite varied beliefs, practices, rituals, and communities. When most people talk about religion in the West, they're usually referring to the Abrahamic religions, to which over half of the world's population belongs. The idea that religion is a means of social control is an idea that came about during the Enlightenment Era, when European scholars started applying rational, scientific thinking toward studying human behavior. This allowed them to examine human societies and behavior outside of taken-for-granted religious suppositions (i.e., "it is because God wills it so"). Karl Marx's critique of religion (aimed at Christianity and Judaism) as a tool for control and oppression created by the power elite is certainly a valid--and lasting--point. But that's only one side of the perspective. Religions also provide(d) comfort, solidarity, meaning, certitude, and a shared sense of community. They can serve to create and/or alleviate anxiety. An example of this would be a funeral. Funerals comfort the living by giving meaning to death, yet it also creates anxiety, because it reminds the living that they, too, will die.
Any argument that seeks to explain away religion as being one thing or another is inherently reductionist. Among the classical social theorists, Marx said religion was a tool of oppression that creates alienation and false consciousness ("the opiate of the masses"), Freud said it was neurosis ("an illusion"), and Durkheim said religion is necessary for social solidarity and is essentially society worshiping itself. While all of these perspectives can be corroborated by historical and social scientific evidence, they are not complete.
My point with all of this is that we should be mindful of the fact that religion can be used to oppress or to liberate, to frighten or to comfort, and has different structures and functions depending on historical and geographical contexts. Since religion is a complex system that attempts to provide answers to the unknown and to the ultimate questions of life, death, and what may lie beyond, it will be around as long as humans continue to seek answers to those questions.
I also think we should accept that religion (yes, even Christianity)--along with every other social institution--is a product of human creation. However, this is not an ontological statement. I'm not calling into question the supernatural/superhuman reality people apprehend when they have religious experiences. What I'm saying is that the meanings people attribute to their experiences are largely contingent upon their social context.
@Mortiana, that is a very insightful and fair-minded analysis of Western religion. It is also extremely well-written. You have done a much better job of summarizing both the history of Western religion from 1750 or so to the present, and of analyzing some of the issues concerning religion in the modern period and beyond, than I could have done.
Since the Abrahamic religions are very concerned with ethics and morality, probably more so than the Eastern religions, these discussions of D&D alignment tend to bring up issues that are of direct concern to religion, as well as ethics, philosophy, and politics.
Sometimes, D&D alignment discussions turn into good-natured, fun-spirited "nerd fights" about exactly what the alignments mean, and what fictional characters fit into what alignments, as well as personal takes on how to roleplay the various alignments in different hypothetical game situations.
Other times, D&D alignment discussions provoke serious discourse about the various fields of the humanities and social sciences. I think it's a credit to the system that it is so thought-provoking.
I wonder how much thought Gygax actually put into it when he made up the alignments? He started out with just the basic chaotic, neutral, and lawful alignments, and then, when he wrote the AD&D materials, he really expanded his ideas. He was doing it to make his game better, but it seems hard to believe that he had never given serious thought to deeper ethical and philosophical questions.
I think that people who play D&D, as a group, tend to be very intelligent and thoughtful people, especially if they grow up with it, and carry the hobby into adulthood. Your three alignment threads have been both fun and intellectually stimulating.
@belgarathmth Thank you for the kind words. I'm a PhD candidate in Sociology (specializing in religion) and I teach undergraduate courses, so religion is a topic I read, write, and talk about quite a lot--that is, when I'm not on this forum or playing BG!
Not to be ageist, but I think the reason we have so many forum members that post sophisticated discussions is due to the fact that many are "first generation" BG-players with some life experience and education under their belts.
I wonder how much thought Gygax actually put into it when he made up the alignments? He started out with just the basic chaotic, neutral, and lawful alignments, and then, when he wrote the AD&D materials, he really expanded his ideas. He was doing it to make his game better, but it seems hard to believe that he had never given serious thought to deeper ethical and philosophical questions.
You know, I never had the occasion to read Gygax's description of alignment in early editions (I started with the AD&D Black Books) until you brought this up. The first thing that strikes me upon reading them is that you have the seeds of the confusion over what "Law" and "Chaos" mean from the very beginning, because Gygax is not entirely consistent over whether Law means "following laws" or "promoting the group over the individual" and likewise varies between "randomness" and "individual freedom" for "Chaos." 2e exacerbated this confusion by failing to pick one or the other and those contradictions got passed down through the editions.
If you're interested in what Gygax himself thought, this Q&A thread provides some interesting insights from the man himself. What's particularly interesting is that while the alignments are treated as metaphysical forces, he still considers them to be informed by the fantasy milieu, as opposed to trying to define them objectively without reference to time or space. Consider these quotes:
"Mercy is to be displayed for the lawbreaker that does so by accident. Benevolence is for the harmless. Pacifism in the fantasy milieu is for those who would be slaves. They have no place in determining general alignment, albeit justice tempered by mercy is a NG manifestation, whilst well-considered benevolence is generally a mark of Good. "
"The non-combatants [i.e. women and children] in a humanoid group might be judged as worthy of death by a LG opponent force and executed or taken as prisoners to be converted to the correct way of thinking and behaving. A NG opponent would likely admonish them to change their ways before freeing them. A CG force might enslave them so as to correct their ways or else do as the NG party did. CN and LN opponents would likely slaughter the lot. Evil opponents would enlist, enslave, or execute them according to the nature of the Evil victors and that of the survivors. Enlistment would be for those of like alignment, slaughter for those opposite the victors' predisposition to order or disorder. Enslavement is an option for any sort of Evil desiring workers."
Granted, these are Gygax's thoughts in 2005, decades after he wrote AD&D; his ideas may have shifted over that span of time.
@Kaigen, the discussion you linked is very interesting. It seems that Gygax, from the tone of his answers in that forum, at least near the end of his life, was not interested in serious philosophical discussion of any kind, and was weary of being asked to weigh in on such debates.
He seems to have had a pretty cut-and-dried application of his alignment system to his own games. The gaming world he created was harsh and violent, with little room for subtlety or navel-gazing. He straight up says that pacifists would be slaves in the D&D world. Now I'm wondering if he might have liked Nietzsche.
So, based on this source, it looks like Gygax really did create the D&D alignment system merely to divide the various populations of humanoids and monsters into factions so that they could fight and kill each other with a clear conscience. He seems to have found fans' attempts to apply it as a serious system of ethics as silly, or "pointless."
@belgarathmth Well, it could also have been that he wanted to avoid an in-depth discussion of ethics or philosophy because it could have easily taken over the entire thread, distracting from other people's questions. There's also the fact that he is clearly attempting to work within a medieval fantasy conception of morality (where violence very frequently is the answer to a variety of problems), which means that unless he can get the other people in the discussion to also adopt that viewpoint there's no chance they'll have a meaningful discussion. And there's the possibility that he's old and tired and had no patience for discussing philosophy with young upstarts on the internet.
Alignment really has three uses within D&D; it is 1) a shorthand notation intended to give a general sense of a character's outlook on life to aid roleplaying, 2) a way to divide intelligent creatures into factions, and 3) representations of metaphysical forces in opposition to each other. 1 and 2 are explicitly stated uses of alignment from as early as 1st edition, but I get the sense that 3 wasn't thought about too deeply until after Gygax. Which makes sense, as it's arguably the least useful aspect of alignment in terms of crafting a good story/campaign, or at least Gygax seemed to consider it so (on the other hand, it's the most interesting aspect of alignment to have intelligent discussion about).
Actually, I've always thought the difference between alignment in D&D proper, where it's a sort of shallow shorthand, and the extended D&D cosmology stuff like Planescape and its predecessors, where alignments kind of become their own metaphysical cosmology represented by entire planes of existence and races created in the image of what "Lawful Neutral" means, was kind of interesting. They're honestly barely even the same thing.
Actually, I've always thought the difference between alignment in D&D proper, where it's a sort of shallow shorthand, and the extended D&D cosmology stuff like Planescape and its predecessors, where alignments kind of become their own metaphysical cosmology represented by entire planes of existence and races created in the image of what "Lawful Neutral" means, was kind of interesting. They're honestly barely even the same thing.
You're kind of supposed to take them together. Alignment is the cosmic "team" you play for, whether you know it or intend to or not. Alignment makes more sense as a form of identity for your character if you actually take it in cosmic terms and not whether you kicked a puppy last week. The consequences of your actions for the universe and the means you use to achieve your goals all play into alignment.
You're kind of supposed to take them together. Alignment is the cosmic "team" you play for, whether you know it or intend to or not. Alignment makes more sense as a form of identity for your character if you actually take it in cosmic terms and not whether you kicked a puppy last week. The consequences of your actions for the universe and the means you use to achieve your goals all play into alignment.
I have always found it interesting how many otherwise "Good" religions have used totally evil and sadistic nut-jobs to do their bidding. Am I alone in this?
Well, when you consider that one of the examples in the rule books of how people of the same alignment can be in conflict includes two Lawful Good kings being at war with each other, meaning they are sending thousands of good soldiers to their death killing other good soldiers, and somehow both kings remain Lawful Good, you have to figure there are some loose definitions at play.
Well, when you consider that one of the examples in the rule books of how people of the same alignment can be in conflict includes two Lawful Good kings being at war with each other, meaning they are sending thousands of good soldiers to their death killing other good soldiers, and somehow both kings remain Lawful Good, you have to figure there are some loose definitions at play.
I think that two people of the same ideology can believe in what is basically the same thing end-wise but completely disagree on the means to reach that end. They might in good faith both believe that the Dragon needs to be slain, but disagree on which side should sacrifice their champion and heir in order to take on that quest. Besides, how many Lawful Good Rulers are there really?
That's interesting about how two "lawful good" kingdoms can be at war. I bet one of them thinks the other isn't really "lawful good", and vice versa.
The real world has lots and lots of versions of "lawful good", or any other alignment. So which "lawful good" is the right one? "Good" and "evil" are labels that people put on each other. Most people consider themselves the "good", and the people they're fighting are the "evil". That could apply to military conflict, but also to political parties, or even daily life in the workplace.
The more I read of what people post about it, the more I am starting to think that the D&D alignments are just for a game, so you have somebody to fight, and that we fans tend to take the alignments a little too seriously sometimes. It could all be as simple as using black and white chess pieces so you can play the game of chess. Except D&D wound up having red pieces, blue pieces, yellow pieces, and green pieces, and more, when three factions stopped being enough - now you have nine factions.
Writing that analogy just made me think of the game of Heroes of Might and Magic, where you have the knights, the barbarians, the wizards, the warlocks, the sorceresses, the necromancers, and several other factions, depending on which game in the series, and they all fight wars among each other, just because, that's the game.
I think that two people of the same ideology can believe in what is basically the same thing end-wise but completely disagree on the means to reach that end. They might in good faith both believe that the Dragon needs to be slain, but disagree on which side should sacrifice their champion and heir in order to take on that quest. Besides, how many Lawful Good Rulers are there really?
I think the key to understanding how these situations can arise without endangering anyone's alignment is that D&D functions within a medieval understanding of "just war." Thus if you have a "good" reason to go to war (just cause) and prosecute the war in order to achieve a "good" aim (right intention), and conduct the war in a proper fashion (just conduct), then going to war is in fact a good act. This remains true even as it causes a multitude of deaths, either directly or through the destruction of resources.
@belgarathmth - I think it is more often that the leaders "Label" the enemy as 'Evil' and their side as "Good" so that they can motivate and justify the fight. There are, I am sure, some notable exceptions, but it might be interesting some time to see what an alternate timeline version of a standard history book would look like had Germany won the war. Who would have been painted as 'Evil' then? Not to say there is any justification for genocide, just that the winners often write the history texts.
Yep, had to find some way to bring Hitler back into the fray.
That might be how it is in the real world, but that's not how it goes in Dungeons and Dragons. Alignment isn't just a label that's throw onto someone. The line between good and evil are clearly drawn, and there are absolutes. A demon from the abyss isn't labeled "Evil" just because they oppose the "good guys". They're friggin evil demons from hell. Likewise, the gods of Mount Celestia aren't labeled "good" because they oppose the "evil" side. Alignment isn't just for show nor is it based on perspective.
@Narcissist - admittedly I was thinking 'Real world'.
However, it's a Game. If your DM wants to create a Chaotic Neutral Demon from the Abyss. guess what? The Demon is Chaotic Neutral. Besides, as much as the rules try and make absolutes, the human element in the game kind of makes that a hard line to tow.
And the game, like literature, is by and large a way to look at reality. Even where it differs from our reality, it is always going to differ in ways that make sense to our reality and mirror it BECAUSE we are playing it.
And if every NPC were as black and white as you describe, there would be no intrigue or betrayal or obscure leanings. In short, it would be boring.
If a DM wants to create a Chaotic Neutral Demon, that's fine. However it goes against the established canon. Which is that all demons are chaotic evil. Demons have never been spawned in Limbo / Pandemonium / Ysgard.
The human element certainty exists. A Lawful Good Paladin is technically in character killing orc babies if their holy scripture tells them that they shouldn't be suffered to live. But you shouldn't overblow this element.
The problem with your argument is that every npc DOES act within the confines of their given alignment, and everything IS black and white in D&D. That's why using real world morals doesn't work with D&D. Szass Tam is Neutral Evil. He constantly works to further his own goals and doesn't care who's toes he steps on in order to do so. Thay is a place of constant intrigue BECAUSE the Zulkir act within their alignment. Samas Kul joined forces with that council thing in order to stand against Szass and his army.
The fact of the matter is that, as I mentioned previously, Alignment isn't something that's determined by looking through history. There are no characters who aren't of a particular alignment, and there are forces that take out the "human" element entirely. Regardless of how your DM chooses to play with the source material, good and evil have a clearly drawn line in D&D. If you go *ping* after the paladin or cleric or whoever casts "Detect Evil", then you're evil. No if, and, or but about it.
@Narcissist - I couldn't disagree with you more. It's a game and it is what is commonly described as a communal narrative driven by the DM and the players. In pursuit of that narrative, whatever furthers the story is what is best for the game. That can include anything up to and beyond a Lawful Good Demon FROM the Abyss or a Chaotic Evil Angel from the higher planes. It might include a kindly old Black dragon. it might include a Drow of good alignment who came to the surface to be a ranger. It might include a powerful 'Good' Wizard who has done some not so 'Good' things in his past. These are all plot devices that make the game fun and interesting. If things are too black and white, they become Super Mario Bros.. And that would not be a game I enjoyed.
Additionally, alignments without historical and/or real world examples has zero meaning and would be completely unplayable. Again, as with all literature, the game is a way to express and investigate ourselves and real world things. It is about the story and it is about our own imagination, which by it's very nature HAS to be a part of who we are and how we see the world.
What I meant, the books aside, was that if your party walked into a palace and the Paladin said "That King is Chaotic Evil. I cast Know Alignment and therefore I KNOW that he will betray us in some self serving way." that would pretty much be the end of the story. NPCs just like characters are supposed to work within the range and array of their alignments. A Neutral Evil NPC is capable of doing good and unselfish things, it just isn't going to be their normal mode of interaction. If you pigeon-hole NPCs into only and strictly adhering to their alignments, where is the fun? Where is the intrigue.
To use a BG example, in Watchers Keep, there is a Chromatic Demon who tries to make a deal with the group. You HAVE to deal with him (or at least talk to him so you can find out how to get past him) or you can't get any further in the dungeon. According to your narrow viewpoint on the matter, a party of Minsc, Jaheira, Imoen, Aerie and Anomen would never believe a single word out of his mouth, nor even let him speak without attacking. That quite simply is unreasonable and stifles creativity in the game.
What your DM chooses to do is irrelevant as demons are listen in the monster manual as ALWAYS CHAOTIC EVIL. Just an angel from Celestia are ALWAYS LAWFUL GOOD. That should be the beginning and the end of that discussion. If you ran into a baby tanar'ri, it would be evil. Drow are mortals and operate differently from demons and angels. A mortal is able to change their alignment. Demons are MADE of evil. The lowest form of demon is made from the soul of a Chaotic Evil person. They CANNOT change alignment, and anyone who makes a pact with a demon likewise cannot change alignment.
I never said anything about removing historical examples from alignments. What I'm saying is that you can't place real world morality on characters that are defined with two words. You're trying to say that history is written by the winners of conflict and that if Hitler won, he'd be the one who was listed as Lawful Good, and not the Lawful Evil that he is today. That's not how it works in dungeons and dragons. Alignment is an objective way to determine the character of a person. It's not the subjective ramblings of somebody talking about heroes that have come and gone.
So you're arguing for realism, and yet you're saying that a magical warrior who's life is devoted to the tenants of a god, shouldn't cast know alignment just because it ruins your story? That's the sign of a poor DM. You want to know how to make a Paladin work for someone who's chaotic evil? Here's how you do it. You just have the chaotic evil person say,
"Oh well that's all well and good. But You're the only ones in the kingdom who can put a stop to it. Nah, I'm sure those peasants will be able to deal with it."
Just like that, you have the Paladin working for the Chaotic Evil King, because his tenants say he has to protect the innocent people. You put the party in a situation where they "can't" refuse without taking an alignment hit. If your DM isn't creative enough to work around the fact that alignment is a thing, then you need to find a new DM, or play a game where alignment is more ambiguous. Might I suggest Midnight, or Mage: The Awakening.
And the only reason why you "have" to deal with the Chronomatic Demon, which SHOULD immediatly turn your character Chaotic Evil, is because Baldur's Gate is a video game. The programmers can't "think of everything" all the time and thus have to do what they can. If that situation was in an actual D&D game then I can tell you what I'd do. I'd pray. I'd ask my god to throw me a bone so I don't have to deal with the horrible abomination that the god says I should kill on sight. You say that it's unreasonable and that it stifles the creativity of the game, I say that it forces the Storyteller to be MORE creative, as he has to account for how the characters would act and plan accordingly.
@Narcissist - My paladin would not work for a chaotic evil king based merely on those words. In the first place, the Paladin would not believe that the king was accurately portraying the situation regardless of what proof was offered in evidence. And he would assume that even if he was telling the truth that the Evil King had some way of benefiting in an evil way that might very well be worse than the consequences of not acting as he was bidden. Pure and simple.
As for the rest, you rely WAY to much on the 'Rules'. They are intended to be guidelines and nothing more. Saying that the Monster Manual lists all Demons as Chaotic Evil and that no situation should ever change that is simply being blind to the possibilities of the game. I feel sorry for your narrow perspective on this.
I also wholly reject your surmise that merely talking to a Chaotic Evil should irrevocably turn your PC Evil. Talking never hurt anything, particularly to a demon that is chained and caged. BELIEVING anything that he says is something else, but still no reason to turn evil. And anyone at all who attacks without even listening to someone who is attempting to parlay, and who is in no way capable of defending themselves, should get a one way trip to Evil-ville.
Finally, read the rest of the thread. Good and Evil, in game or out, are HIGHLY subjective. Ask two people of different religions. Ask two people from different backgrounds and parts of the world. Ask two people from different times in history. these terms, in game or out, are the very definition of subjective.
And the game does not hold any kind of moral absolute authority. It is subject to the rule and whim of the DM and the players.
That's your prerogative. You can choose not to believe that Chaotic Evil king, or you can choose to investigate the claim. Thus, intrigue. I would investigate the claim before deciding what I was going to do, since not investigating it can lead to the helpless masses getting slaughtered.
You say I rely on the rules too much? Ok, let's see what fluff has to say about fiends, demons are a subrace of fiend by the way.
"A fiend is an evil creature from one of the Fiendish Planes. They are not just evil, but born of Evil; primal malevolence is one of the roots of their nature, and the evil essence of the fiendish planes permeates every part of their bodies." McComb , C. (1997). Faces of Evil: The Fiends. : Wizard of the Coast.
There you have it, the fluff agrees with me. These aren't the rules, this is the official fluff on fiends, be they demons, devils, and all of the other varieties that are out there. There are no Lawful Good demons, they aren't just born evil. Their very beings are made of evil.
I didn't say that talking to a demon would make you chaotic evil, I said making a "pact" with a demon will make you chaotic evil. To the point where you can't ever change your alignment. Would YOU bargain with the hell spawned abomination that stands against everything that is good and just in the world? I certainty wouldn't. Especially not when there are other people that I can turn to.
I have read the thread. The problem is the same problem that you don't seem to grasp. Good and Evil are subjective in the real world. In D&D, they aren't. You bring up religion, but whens the last time you saw a catholic priest walk up to a sick guy and cast lay-on hands?
The problem with bringing up religion as your defense is the fact that the gods in D&D are straight up real. There's nobody who can deny that they're real. They speak to the mortals that worship them. They give them powers to reward their faith, and take them away when you displease them. When a Rabbi casts "Draw Upon Holy Might" let me know.
Yes, the game does hold absolute moral authority. Because Wizards of the Coast said so. Now you can ignore what they've written if you like, but that just means that your story literally cannot exist inside the official setting.
@Narcissist - as much as you love to see your own words in writing, No. The game holds no moral absolute authority. Good as perceived and played by the players is the definition of Good that they play for individual NPCs. That is wholly subjective and therefore no objective absolute. Period.
And Yay, you can quote Wizards of the coast. As far as I can tell, THEY say 'Take and use what rules you want and discard the rest', thus trumping anything that you said. It's a game. Play it how you like. I feel sorry that you choose to shroud your mind in such shackles. More's the pity for you. I think you are loosing out on playing a truly awesome game far beyond the wildest imaginings of your philosophy.
If you're going to respond in ad-hominem then you might as well not respond at all. You should set aside the real world fact that good and evil aren't subjective, and realize that in dungeons and dragons. There are beings of absolute good and absolute evil. These aren't my own words, these are the words of the stories that wizards of the coast have written. They're what actually happen in the world of Faerun / Greyhawk / Ravenloft / Eberron / *Insert official Wizards of the Coast world here*.
As I've said from the Beginning. If your DM wants to create a Lawful Good demon, good on him. He's more than entitled to. However, it breaks the lore of the setting and is something that cannot actually exist within the many worlds of D&D.
What you're suggesting is that, instead of following along with the lore to create a deeper, richer experience for the players. You're instead going to have Drizzt Do'Urden rape and murder pregnant women because "It's just a game, alignments don't mean nothing! He THINKS he's doing good by raping and murdering all these women!".
Good and Evil are objective in D&D. You might not agree, but that's how things go. If you want a setting where good and evil are subjective. I highly suggest White Wolf games. Not Exalted, but Vampire: The Masquerade, or Mage: The Awakening. Changeling is really good. Heck, I'd even recommend Promethean: The Created. White Wolf does subjective morality really well, and I cannot recommend them enough.
Aw, c'mon, y'all, it's not worth getting into a fight about. Don't let it ruin your day.
What I see going on here is a disagreement between two distinct playstyles. One is kind of "by-the-book", rules-lawyery, and the other is "Make up your own story based on the rules, but don't be bound by them; that will be more fun and interesting than literal adherence to the rulebooks."
Over my 30 years of playing D&D, I started out at age 17 being a rules-lawyer kind of player. I was capable of getting worked up and angry with people who would bend the rules and sometimes outright ignore the rules, and I used to get into these kinds of arguments a lot. I think I enjoyed it. Sometimes I still do. It can be fun, if nobody's going to stop being friends over it.
Now, I've mellowed into an attitude that is more like Spyder's. I see lots of subtleties in things, and possibilities for more than one way to write a story or play a game.
There's another dichotomy that drives these discussions - wargaming vs. roleplaying. D&D started out as a wargame, and the rules were written at first to create a good system for that. "TSR" stands for "Tactical Studies Rules." All demons are evil, because if there's one on the board, it's there for you to attack it with your party.
It was a game played with miniature figures on a big table with a hex map. The roleplaying grew out of that. And grew, and grew, and grew. As people started to get more into the ever-expanding roleplaying elements of the game, the rules started to be expanded and re-written, again and again, to accommodate more roleplaying and storytelling.
Now we have the constant arguing about what alignment means and how it should be applied to the game. There's room in the gaming world for both kinds of playstyles in these dichotomous points of view, both the "alignment is literal, alignment is flexible" spectrum of styles, and the "powergaming war is what the game is about, good roleplaying and storytelling is what the game is about", spectrum of styles.
If you're going to respond in ad-hominem then you might as well not respond at all. You should set aside the real world fact that good and evil aren't subjective, and realize that in dungeons and dragons. There are beings of absolute good and absolute evil. These aren't my own words, these are the words of the stories that wizards of the coast have written. They're what actually happen in the world of Faerun / Greyhawk / Ravenloft / Eberron / *Insert official Wizards of the Coast world here*.
As I've said from the Beginning. If your DM wants to create a Lawful Good demon, good on him. He's more than entitled to. However, it breaks the lore of the setting and is something that cannot actually exist within the many worlds of D&D.
What you're suggesting is that, instead of following along with the lore to create a deeper, richer experience for the players. You're instead going to have Drizzt Do'Urden rape and murder pregnant women because "It's just a game, alignments don't mean nothing! He THINKS he's doing good by raping and murdering all these women!".
Good and Evil are objective in D&D. You might not agree, but that's how things go. If you want a setting where good and evil are subjective. I highly suggest White Wolf games. Not Exalted, but Vampire: The Masquerade, or Mage: The Awakening. Changeling is really good. Heck, I'd even recommend Promethean: The Created. White Wolf does subjective morality really well, and I cannot recommend them enough.
So if I offended, that was not my intent. however, that doesn't invalidate most of what I was saying.
But allow me to try a different approach. I will admit that the concept "in it's inception" (with all of the abstract high ideals that encompasses) is that good and evil are forces of nature (for lack of a better term) much like Plato's Forms of Good and Evil. These concepts are intended to be absolutes and objective in concept within the confines of the game universe. Where it breaks down is that in more than 2000 years no one has been able to agree on concrete, absolute and objective definitions of these terms. Their interpretation and presentation through human understanding are by their very nature subjective (always assuming that there IS an objective term).
As such, even if you and I could agree on a definition of what Good is or what Evil is, it would still be subjective BECAUSE we as humans are using our flawed and subjective awareness of these concepts as a basis for our argument. And ultimately you would play a Demon or an Angel in a different manner than I would because we would filter in our personal biases. Once that human element enters into the equation, any objectivity in form of Good and Evil go right out the window.
And attempting to remove Religion from the argument when the vast majority of people on this planet interpret the concepts of good and evil through their religious belief system is simply hiding behind or opting out of the argument because you don't want to actually address concepts that absolutely prove the subjective nature of people's concepts of Good and evil.
Finally, I will say it again. it's a GAME. If you are looking for absolute truth or purity of concept in the rules of an entertainment medium, more power to you. Might as well look for truth on the boxtop of a cereal box.
Comments
It's very difficult to talk about religion as one unified system, since there are many religions with quite varied beliefs, practices, rituals, and communities. When most people talk about religion in the West, they're usually referring to the Abrahamic religions, to which over half of the world's population belongs. The idea that religion is a means of social control is an idea that came about during the Enlightenment Era, when European scholars started applying rational, scientific thinking toward studying human behavior. This allowed them to examine human societies and behavior outside of taken-for-granted religious suppositions (i.e., "it is because God wills it so"). Karl Marx's critique of religion (aimed at Christianity and Judaism) as a tool for control and oppression created by the power elite is certainly a valid--and lasting--point. But that's only one side of the perspective. Religions also provide(d) comfort, solidarity, meaning, certitude, and a shared sense of community. They can serve to create and/or alleviate anxiety. An example of this would be a funeral. Funerals comfort the living by giving meaning to death, yet it also creates anxiety, because it reminds the living that they, too, will die.
Any argument that seeks to explain away religion as being one thing or another is inherently reductionist. Among the classical social theorists, Marx said religion was a tool of oppression that creates alienation and false consciousness ("the opiate of the masses"), Freud said it was neurosis ("an illusion"), and Durkheim said religion is necessary for social solidarity and is essentially society worshiping itself. While all of these perspectives can be corroborated by historical and social scientific evidence, they are not complete.
My point with all of this is that we should be mindful of the fact that religion can be used to oppress or to liberate, to frighten or to comfort, and has different structures and functions depending on historical and geographical contexts. Since religion is a complex system that attempts to provide answers to the unknown and to the ultimate questions of life, death, and what may lie beyond, it will be around as long as humans continue to seek answers to those questions.
I also think we should accept that religion (yes, even Christianity)--along with every other social institution--is a product of human creation. However, this is not an ontological statement. I'm not calling into question the supernatural/superhuman reality people apprehend when they have religious experiences. What I'm saying is that the meanings people attribute to their experiences are largely contingent upon their social context.
Since the Abrahamic religions are very concerned with ethics and morality, probably more so than the Eastern religions, these discussions of D&D alignment tend to bring up issues that are of direct concern to religion, as well as ethics, philosophy, and politics.
Sometimes, D&D alignment discussions turn into good-natured, fun-spirited "nerd fights" about exactly what the alignments mean, and what fictional characters fit into what alignments, as well as personal takes on how to roleplay the various alignments in different hypothetical game situations.
Other times, D&D alignment discussions provoke serious discourse about the various fields of the humanities and social sciences. I think it's a credit to the system that it is so thought-provoking.
I wonder how much thought Gygax actually put into it when he made up the alignments? He started out with just the basic chaotic, neutral, and lawful alignments, and then, when he wrote the AD&D materials, he really expanded his ideas. He was doing it to make his game better, but it seems hard to believe that he had never given serious thought to deeper ethical and philosophical questions.
I think that people who play D&D, as a group, tend to be very intelligent and thoughtful people, especially if they grow up with it, and carry the hobby into adulthood. Your three alignment threads have been both fun and intellectually stimulating.
Not to be ageist, but I think the reason we have so many forum members that post sophisticated discussions is due to the fact that many are "first generation" BG-players with some life experience and education under their belts.
If you're interested in what Gygax himself thought, this Q&A thread provides some interesting insights from the man himself. What's particularly interesting is that while the alignments are treated as metaphysical forces, he still considers them to be informed by the fantasy milieu, as opposed to trying to define them objectively without reference to time or space. Consider these quotes:
"Mercy is to be displayed for the lawbreaker that does so by accident. Benevolence is for the harmless. Pacifism in the fantasy milieu is for those who would be slaves. They have no place in determining general alignment, albeit justice tempered by mercy is a NG manifestation, whilst well-considered benevolence is generally a mark of Good. "
"The non-combatants [i.e. women and children] in a humanoid group might be judged as worthy of death by a LG opponent force and executed or taken as prisoners to be converted to the correct way of thinking and behaving. A NG opponent would likely admonish them to change their ways before freeing them. A CG force might enslave them so as to correct their ways or else do as the NG party did. CN and LN opponents would likely slaughter the lot. Evil opponents would enlist, enslave, or execute them according to the nature of the Evil victors and that of the survivors. Enlistment would be for those of like alignment, slaughter for those opposite the victors' predisposition to order or disorder. Enslavement is an option for any sort of Evil desiring workers."
Granted, these are Gygax's thoughts in 2005, decades after he wrote AD&D; his ideas may have shifted over that span of time.
He seems to have had a pretty cut-and-dried application of his alignment system to his own games. The gaming world he created was harsh and violent, with little room for subtlety or navel-gazing. He straight up says that pacifists would be slaves in the D&D world. Now I'm wondering if he might have liked Nietzsche.
So, based on this source, it looks like Gygax really did create the D&D alignment system merely to divide the various populations of humanoids and monsters into factions so that they could fight and kill each other with a clear conscience. He seems to have found fans' attempts to apply it as a serious system of ethics as silly, or "pointless."
Very interesting, indeed.
Alignment really has three uses within D&D; it is 1) a shorthand notation intended to give a general sense of a character's outlook on life to aid roleplaying, 2) a way to divide intelligent creatures into factions, and 3) representations of metaphysical forces in opposition to each other. 1 and 2 are explicitly stated uses of alignment from as early as 1st edition, but I get the sense that 3 wasn't thought about too deeply until after Gygax. Which makes sense, as it's arguably the least useful aspect of alignment in terms of crafting a good story/campaign, or at least Gygax seemed to consider it so (on the other hand, it's the most interesting aspect of alignment to have intelligent discussion about).
And also, I found siding it with the good guys be more profitable so... There's a reason for even the evil CHARNAMES to be with them.
The real world has lots and lots of versions of "lawful good", or any other alignment. So which "lawful good" is the right one? "Good" and "evil" are labels that people put on each other. Most people consider themselves the "good", and the people they're fighting are the "evil". That could apply to military conflict, but also to political parties, or even daily life in the workplace.
The more I read of what people post about it, the more I am starting to think that the D&D alignments are just for a game, so you have somebody to fight, and that we fans tend to take the alignments a little too seriously sometimes. It could all be as simple as using black and white chess pieces so you can play the game of chess. Except D&D wound up having red pieces, blue pieces, yellow pieces, and green pieces, and more, when three factions stopped being enough - now you have nine factions.
Writing that analogy just made me think of the game of Heroes of Might and Magic, where you have the knights, the barbarians, the wizards, the warlocks, the sorceresses, the necromancers, and several other factions, depending on which game in the series, and they all fight wars among each other, just because, that's the game.
Yep, had to find some way to bring Hitler back into the fray.
That might be how it is in the real world, but that's not how it goes in Dungeons and Dragons. Alignment isn't just a label that's throw onto someone. The line between good and evil are clearly drawn, and there are absolutes. A demon from the abyss isn't labeled "Evil" just because they oppose the "good guys". They're friggin evil demons from hell. Likewise, the gods of Mount Celestia aren't labeled "good" because they oppose the "evil" side. Alignment isn't just for show nor is it based on perspective.
However, it's a Game. If your DM wants to create a Chaotic Neutral Demon from the Abyss. guess what? The Demon is Chaotic Neutral. Besides, as much as the rules try and make absolutes, the human element in the game kind of makes that a hard line to tow.
And the game, like literature, is by and large a way to look at reality. Even where it differs from our reality, it is always going to differ in ways that make sense to our reality and mirror it BECAUSE we are playing it.
And if every NPC were as black and white as you describe, there would be no intrigue or betrayal or obscure leanings. In short, it would be boring.
If a DM wants to create a Chaotic Neutral Demon, that's fine. However it goes against the established canon. Which is that all demons are chaotic evil. Demons have never been spawned in Limbo / Pandemonium / Ysgard.
The human element certainty exists. A Lawful Good Paladin is technically in character killing orc babies if their holy scripture tells them that they shouldn't be suffered to live. But you shouldn't overblow this element.
The problem with your argument is that every npc DOES act within the confines of their given alignment, and everything IS black and white in D&D. That's why using real world morals doesn't work with D&D. Szass Tam is Neutral Evil. He constantly works to further his own goals and doesn't care who's toes he steps on in order to do so. Thay is a place of constant intrigue BECAUSE the Zulkir act within their alignment. Samas Kul joined forces with that council thing in order to stand against Szass and his army.
The fact of the matter is that, as I mentioned previously, Alignment isn't something that's determined by looking through history. There are no characters who aren't of a particular alignment, and there are forces that take out the "human" element entirely. Regardless of how your DM chooses to play with the source material, good and evil have a clearly drawn line in D&D. If you go *ping* after the paladin or cleric or whoever casts "Detect Evil", then you're evil. No if, and, or but about it.
Additionally, alignments without historical and/or real world examples has zero meaning and would be completely unplayable. Again, as with all literature, the game is a way to express and investigate ourselves and real world things. It is about the story and it is about our own imagination, which by it's very nature HAS to be a part of who we are and how we see the world.
What I meant, the books aside, was that if your party walked into a palace and the Paladin said "That King is Chaotic Evil. I cast Know Alignment and therefore I KNOW that he will betray us in some self serving way." that would pretty much be the end of the story. NPCs just like characters are supposed to work within the range and array of their alignments. A Neutral Evil NPC is capable of doing good and unselfish things, it just isn't going to be their normal mode of interaction. If you pigeon-hole NPCs into only and strictly adhering to their alignments, where is the fun? Where is the intrigue.
To use a BG example, in Watchers Keep, there is a Chromatic Demon who tries to make a deal with the group. You HAVE to deal with him (or at least talk to him so you can find out how to get past him) or you can't get any further in the dungeon. According to your narrow viewpoint on the matter, a party of Minsc, Jaheira, Imoen, Aerie and Anomen would never believe a single word out of his mouth, nor even let him speak without attacking. That quite simply is unreasonable and stifles creativity in the game.
What your DM chooses to do is irrelevant as demons are listen in the monster manual as ALWAYS CHAOTIC EVIL. Just an angel from Celestia are ALWAYS LAWFUL GOOD. That should be the beginning and the end of that discussion. If you ran into a baby tanar'ri, it would be evil. Drow are mortals and operate differently from demons and angels. A mortal is able to change their alignment. Demons are MADE of evil. The lowest form of demon is made from the soul of a Chaotic Evil person. They CANNOT change alignment, and anyone who makes a pact with a demon likewise cannot change alignment.
I never said anything about removing historical examples from alignments. What I'm saying is that you can't place real world morality on characters that are defined with two words. You're trying to say that history is written by the winners of conflict and that if Hitler won, he'd be the one who was listed as Lawful Good, and not the Lawful Evil that he is today. That's not how it works in dungeons and dragons. Alignment is an objective way to determine the character of a person. It's not the subjective ramblings of somebody talking about heroes that have come and gone.
So you're arguing for realism, and yet you're saying that a magical warrior who's life is devoted to the tenants of a god, shouldn't cast know alignment just because it ruins your story? That's the sign of a poor DM. You want to know how to make a Paladin work for someone who's chaotic evil? Here's how you do it. You just have the chaotic evil person say,
"Oh well that's all well and good. But You're the only ones in the kingdom who can put a stop to it. Nah, I'm sure those peasants will be able to deal with it."
Just like that, you have the Paladin working for the Chaotic Evil King, because his tenants say he has to protect the innocent people. You put the party in a situation where they "can't" refuse without taking an alignment hit. If your DM isn't creative enough to work around the fact that alignment is a thing, then you need to find a new DM, or play a game where alignment is more ambiguous. Might I suggest Midnight, or Mage: The Awakening.
And the only reason why you "have" to deal with the Chronomatic Demon, which SHOULD immediatly turn your character Chaotic Evil, is because Baldur's Gate is a video game. The programmers can't "think of everything" all the time and thus have to do what they can. If that situation was in an actual D&D game then I can tell you what I'd do. I'd pray. I'd ask my god to throw me a bone so I don't have to deal with the horrible abomination that the god says I should kill on sight. You say that it's unreasonable and that it stifles the creativity of the game, I say that it forces the Storyteller to be MORE creative, as he has to account for how the characters would act and plan accordingly.
As for the rest, you rely WAY to much on the 'Rules'. They are intended to be guidelines and nothing more. Saying that the Monster Manual lists all Demons as Chaotic Evil and that no situation should ever change that is simply being blind to the possibilities of the game. I feel sorry for your narrow perspective on this.
I also wholly reject your surmise that merely talking to a Chaotic Evil should irrevocably turn your PC Evil. Talking never hurt anything, particularly to a demon that is chained and caged. BELIEVING anything that he says is something else, but still no reason to turn evil. And anyone at all who attacks without even listening to someone who is attempting to parlay, and who is in no way capable of defending themselves, should get a one way trip to Evil-ville.
Finally, read the rest of the thread. Good and Evil, in game or out, are HIGHLY subjective. Ask two people of different religions. Ask two people from different backgrounds and parts of the world. Ask two people from different times in history. these terms, in game or out, are the very definition of subjective.
And the game does not hold any kind of moral absolute authority. It is subject to the rule and whim of the DM and the players.
That's your prerogative. You can choose not to believe that Chaotic Evil king, or you can choose to investigate the claim. Thus, intrigue. I would investigate the claim before deciding what I was going to do, since not investigating it can lead to the helpless masses getting slaughtered.
You say I rely on the rules too much? Ok, let's see what fluff has to say about fiends, demons are a subrace of fiend by the way.
"A fiend is an evil creature from one of the Fiendish Planes. They are not just evil, but born of Evil; primal malevolence is one of the roots of their nature, and the evil essence of the fiendish planes permeates every part of their bodies." McComb , C. (1997). Faces of Evil: The Fiends. : Wizard of the Coast.
There you have it, the fluff agrees with me. These aren't the rules, this is the official fluff on fiends, be they demons, devils, and all of the other varieties that are out there. There are no Lawful Good demons, they aren't just born evil. Their very beings are made of evil.
I didn't say that talking to a demon would make you chaotic evil, I said making a "pact" with a demon will make you chaotic evil. To the point where you can't ever change your alignment. Would YOU bargain with the hell spawned abomination that stands against everything that is good and just in the world? I certainty wouldn't. Especially not when there are other people that I can turn to.
I have read the thread. The problem is the same problem that you don't seem to grasp. Good and Evil are subjective in the real world. In D&D, they aren't. You bring up religion, but whens the last time you saw a catholic priest walk up to a sick guy and cast lay-on hands?
The problem with bringing up religion as your defense is the fact that the gods in D&D are straight up real. There's nobody who can deny that they're real. They speak to the mortals that worship them. They give them powers to reward their faith, and take them away when you displease them. When a Rabbi casts "Draw Upon Holy Might" let me know.
Yes, the game does hold absolute moral authority. Because Wizards of the Coast said so. Now you can ignore what they've written if you like, but that just means that your story literally cannot exist inside the official setting.
And Yay, you can quote Wizards of the coast. As far as I can tell, THEY say 'Take and use what rules you want and discard the rest', thus trumping anything that you said. It's a game. Play it how you like. I feel sorry that you choose to shroud your mind in such shackles. More's the pity for you. I think you are loosing out on playing a truly awesome game far beyond the wildest imaginings of your philosophy.
If you're going to respond in ad-hominem then you might as well not respond at all. You should set aside the real world fact that good and evil aren't subjective, and realize that in dungeons and dragons. There are beings of absolute good and absolute evil. These aren't my own words, these are the words of the stories that wizards of the coast have written. They're what actually happen in the world of Faerun / Greyhawk / Ravenloft / Eberron / *Insert official Wizards of the Coast world here*.
As I've said from the Beginning. If your DM wants to create a Lawful Good demon, good on him. He's more than entitled to. However, it breaks the lore of the setting and is something that cannot actually exist within the many worlds of D&D.
What you're suggesting is that, instead of following along with the lore to create a deeper, richer experience for the players. You're instead going to have Drizzt Do'Urden rape and murder pregnant women because "It's just a game, alignments don't mean nothing! He THINKS he's doing good by raping and murdering all these women!".
Good and Evil are objective in D&D. You might not agree, but that's how things go. If you want a setting where good and evil are subjective. I highly suggest White Wolf games. Not Exalted, but Vampire: The Masquerade, or Mage: The Awakening. Changeling is really good. Heck, I'd even recommend Promethean: The Created. White Wolf does subjective morality really well, and I cannot recommend them enough.
What I see going on here is a disagreement between two distinct playstyles. One is kind of "by-the-book", rules-lawyery, and the other is "Make up your own story based on the rules, but don't be bound by them; that will be more fun and interesting than literal adherence to the rulebooks."
Over my 30 years of playing D&D, I started out at age 17 being a rules-lawyer kind of player. I was capable of getting worked up and angry with people who would bend the rules and sometimes outright ignore the rules, and I used to get into these kinds of arguments a lot. I think I enjoyed it. Sometimes I still do. It can be fun, if nobody's going to stop being friends over it.
Now, I've mellowed into an attitude that is more like Spyder's. I see lots of subtleties in things, and possibilities for more than one way to write a story or play a game.
There's another dichotomy that drives these discussions - wargaming vs. roleplaying. D&D started out as a wargame, and the rules were written at first to create a good system for that. "TSR" stands for "Tactical Studies Rules." All demons are evil, because if there's one on the board, it's there for you to attack it with your party.
It was a game played with miniature figures on a big table with a hex map. The roleplaying grew out of that. And grew, and grew, and grew. As people started to get more into the ever-expanding roleplaying elements of the game, the rules started to be expanded and re-written, again and again, to accommodate more roleplaying and storytelling.
Now we have the constant arguing about what alignment means and how it should be applied to the game. There's room in the gaming world for both kinds of playstyles in these dichotomous points of view, both the "alignment is literal, alignment is flexible" spectrum of styles, and the "powergaming war is what the game is about, good roleplaying and storytelling is what the game is about", spectrum of styles.
But allow me to try a different approach. I will admit that the concept "in it's inception" (with all of the abstract high ideals that encompasses) is that good and evil are forces of nature (for lack of a better term) much like Plato's Forms of Good and Evil. These concepts are intended to be absolutes and objective in concept within the confines of the game universe. Where it breaks down is that in more than 2000 years no one has been able to agree on concrete, absolute and objective definitions of these terms. Their interpretation and presentation through human understanding are by their very nature subjective (always assuming that there IS an objective term).
As such, even if you and I could agree on a definition of what Good is or what Evil is, it would still be subjective BECAUSE we as humans are using our flawed and subjective awareness of these concepts as a basis for our argument. And ultimately you would play a Demon or an Angel in a different manner than I would because we would filter in our personal biases. Once that human element enters into the equation, any objectivity in form of Good and Evil go right out the window.
And attempting to remove Religion from the argument when the vast majority of people on this planet interpret the concepts of good and evil through their religious belief system is simply hiding behind or opting out of the argument because you don't want to actually address concepts that absolutely prove the subjective nature of people's concepts of Good and evil.
Finally, I will say it again. it's a GAME. If you are looking for absolute truth or purity of concept in the rules of an entertainment medium, more power to you. Might as well look for truth on the boxtop of a cereal box.