The failure of some DMs to step outside their own prejudices to make a judgement call has no bearing on the objectivity of alignment itself.
Chiba, I didn't say otherwise. Do you actually read my posts? Because it seems like you are simply skimming them and writing the same thing you've been writing in this thread ad nauseum. If you aren't going to read my posts, please be courteous enough not to quote them while you regurgitate your talking points, okay? It is incredibly rude.
I do my very best to be as objective as possible.
The fact that you acknowledge the effort it takes shows you agree with my premise. While alignment is objective in-game, the out-of-game effort to enforce those rules means that people can come to different conclusions, and that makes it subjective, out-of-game. And that was my point, as opposed to whatever it was you thought you were responding to.
Ok, but you are contradicting yourself here, given that you acknowledge the objectivity of alignments within the D&D world.
The in-game objectivity had nothing to do with my second point about the history of alignment as a mechanic. It was said in this thread that alignment was intended to mimic classic fantasy tropes, so I supplied the history of alignment in D&D to show that such was never the intention.
It has nothing to do with whether it can make sense for monks to always be lawful for bards to never be lawful. Absolutely nothing. Again, it appears you merely skimmed my post, saw the word "bard" and assumed I was complaining about alignment-restrictions not making sense for those classes. But I didn't make such a point in the post to which you were responding. And yet you decided to quote me and spend several hundred words responding to a point I didn't make.
But the devs HAVE said that both are Opt-outable, but in as a default.
This is a horribly deceptive statement. The only alignment mechanics they said would be in the game are alignment mechanics tied to the most powerful extraplanar beings. They said nothing about the run-of-the-mill alignment mechanics that comprise most alignment discussions. If you're going to refer to the developers' statements, do so honestly and accurately, please. The way you phrased it makes it sound like all alignment mechanics from previous editions will an assumed part of the game from which you will have to opt-out, rather than an option provided for people who like them to opt-in. That is simply not anything the developers have written.
Here's the relevant quote: " we want alignment to be a tool, not a straightjacket, so the execution of those mechanics should serve that goal, and really only apply when dealing with the powerful, elemental forces of alignments, not someone who just behaves a certain way. Additionally, I believe we'll also want it to be easy for a DM to strip those mechanics out of his or her campaign, if the DM so chooses." -Link
So the only mechanics are those dealing with powerful elemental forces of alignments (like gods, demon lords, archfiends, etc.) and even those mechanics can be stripped out. That's a far cry from what your post indicates -- that the gamut of alignment mechanics of prior editions will be included on an assumptive basis and will have to be stripped by hand by DMs who don't want it.
I suppose here we know reality and fiction are two different things. For example the famous actor Kirk Cameron played the character "Mike Seaver" in the TV family comedy "Growings Pains". The character was a "bad boy" but the actor in the real life is totally opposite (a blessed one).
But...
Usually the fiction shows its author´s ideas and mentality. Apart from that the work can influence the public or consumer. For example: we agree jedi philosophy from Star Wars universe is only fiction created by George Lucas but there ir a official jedi religion in the real world. (I´m sure it wasn´t intention by George Lucas).
The fantasy&sci-fi franchises (comics, rpg, novels, videogames) aren´t only stories about killing monsters, getting threasures and rescueing princess but they are a tool to coveying values and dreams to the next generation.
We are not talking about roleplaying a bad character like Snowhite´s stepmother or Bart Simpson playing pranks. I say if the idea of ethic values aren´t universal, and WotC soucerbooks would accept that moral retavism, some educators could advice againts D&D rpg.
"Ethic is subjetive", "there isn´t good o evil", "end justifies the means"... those are quotes that could be said by sociapaths from fiction or the real world. If morality is subjetive why not a yuan-ti empire could break peace treaty or truce, conquer my land, enslave my people and they wouldn´t lose their "lawful good" aligment"?
In the D&D worlds there is Heaven and Hell, the actions cause consequences. If morality is subjetive a yuan-ti could sacrifice hundres of humans, but his soul wouldn´t be punished by it after death, or githyanki´s spirit would be rewarded in the other life because he conquered lots of lands for glory of Vlaakith, the lich-queen.
Do you think you can say morality is relative, and there isn´t difference between good and evil? How are we going to teach next generations terrorism is bad? is it bad only when it can be detrimental to you?
The people with brain and good aligment accept the Natural Law, moral values like Justice are eternal and unchanging. Nothing is good or bad only because it depends on anybody´s opinion. If our code of behavior can change like fashion we could accept monstrosities like a society where worse students went to Battle Royal, a reality-show to kill themselfs (or the hunger games) or like "Logan´s Run" where people had to die when they were 30 years old. Why not can´t I kill that man because has commited thoughtcrime? The big brother would be proud of me. What if elves decides all human population in the zone must to be terminated or to save ecosystem? Why can´t we expel people who pray certain religion? Why can´t I kill cops if I were a anarchist, a anti-system a figther for liberty (or a terrorist).
But if we accept whe shouldn´t pass any lines of behavior we are accepting there are universal values that can´t be changed by caprice or conveniencie.
The D&D fiction shouldn´t promotes ethic relativism, but it warns us about it.
And now excuse me, I must go because a sending of slave centaurides is on the point to arrives and I must pick it up and try some "samples".
"Say me what you're showing off for, and I'll say you what you lack!" (Spanish saying)
Book 13 Anaclet 23
Confucius said: "The Superior Man is in harmony but does not follow the crowd. The inferior man follows the crowd, but is not in harmony"
I often try reading your posts, but after a maximum of half the posting I give up. They're written so inconsistently and jumpy, and make little sense to me... at least use a spellchecker?
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I say in the real world the evil people are the first ones to say ethic is relative, and the fiction should teach us, warn us, it isn´t the truth becase a injustice doesn´t become good only because it can be justified by demagogic sophisms.
Anytimes finding the right election isn´t easy, there are gray zones without right good choice but less bad, but it can not the reason to say the morality is subjetive.
Be careful people who says morality is relative, you shouldn´t trust them too much, because folks with ideas could later justify for example the terrorism or betrayal. Could be good a society where the slavery of centaurs and giant-race prisoners of war would be allowed? Because they could say it is only bad for your point of view, but their opinion is different, who are you to judge them and say it isn´t good?
"Say me what you're showing off for, and I'll say you what you lack!" (Spanish saying)
Book 13 Anaclet 23
Confucius said: "The Superior Man is in harmony but does not follow the crowd. The inferior man follows the crowd, but is not in harmony"
Be careful people who says morality is relative, you shouldn´t trust them too much...
NOPE.
You know, philosophers have been arguing about this stuff for several millenia. There is a reason for that.
If you have questions about 4th Edition - don't hesitate to ask me via PMs.
Join the Community Monster Manual Group and help to collect a mass of monsters which will make your life as DM easier, and your life as Player pure hell!
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Usually the fiction shows its author´s ideas and mentality. Apart from that the work can influence the public or consumer. For example: we agree jedi philosophy from Star Wars universe is only fiction created by George Lucas but there ir a official jedi religion in the real world. (I´m sure it wasn´t intention by George Lucas).
Ok...but we're talking about a game. Stories conveying messages really has nothing at all to do with alignment.
The fantasy&sci-fi franchises (comics, rpg, novels, videogames) aren´t only stories about killing monsters, getting threasures and rescueing princess but they are a tool to coveying values and dreams to the next generation.
Ok...this has absolutely nothing to do with alignment.
We are not talking about roleplaying a bad character like Snowhite´s stepmother or Bart Simpson playing pranks. I say if the idea of ethic values aren´t universal, and WotC soucerbooks would accept that moral retavism, some educators could advice againts D&D rpg.
What are you on? Seriously, some people like D&D and some people hate it. Guess what? The people that hate it tend to be fanatics that hate the presence of gods and magic no matter what morality the system tries to impose. It has nothing to do with alignment or moral relativism. In fact, I've seen alignment used by people arguing against D&D because they took the descriptions of evil alignments and pointed out the fact that you are allowed to play evil characters. So that entire argument is moot. Of course, I wouldn't call any of these people "educators". Besides, why do I care what some random person says about D&D and morality? If I listened to these people I wouldn't have any fun at all.
"Ethic is subjetive", "there isn´t good o evil", "end justifies the means"... those are quotes that could be said by sociapaths from fiction or the real world.
There you go mixing up ethics and alignment again. Let me break it down for you, ethics ARE subjective, that's why different people and cultures and religions and nations all have their own individual sets of ethics and values. There isn't any good and evil, only what individuals define as good and evil, which is subjective. All of those quotes are used from a lot more people than sociopaths. The end justifying the means has been used throughout history.
NONE of that has anything to do with ALIGNMENT. Alignment is a game mechanic. Alignment also does not prevent any of what you described. I can still play a character who believes that the end justifies the means. I can play someone that just wants to watch the world burn. Your arguments are meaningless and quite honestly are barely coherent.
If morality is subjetive why not a yuan-ti empire could break peace treaty or truce, conquer my land, enslave my people and they wouldn´t lose their "lawful good" aligment"?
Stop confusing morality and alignment. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME! Also, your example is pointless. Who cares what alignment the yuan-ti empire is? Alignment was created as a straightjacket for the characters because Dave Arneson couldn't find a better option to keep players from being asshats. It exists for the PCs not the monsters. Sure monsters have alignment, but only as a shorthand for the DM to gauge interactions and for interaction with spells/effects from the PCs.
In the D&D worlds there is Heaven and Hell, the actions cause consequences. If morality is subjetive a yuan-ti could sacrifice hundres of humans, but his soul wouldn´t be punished by it after death, or githyanki´s spirit would be rewarded in the other life because he conquered lots of lands for glory of Vlaakith, the lich-queen.
Alignment, alignment, alignment. These are alignment issues. Do not bring real world morality into this.
Also, in the D&D world there are gods that have domains. Souls of worshippers belong to those gods. So your example still falls flat because in the D&D world there are people that sacrifice hundreds of innocents and are rewarded in the afterlife.
Do you think you can say morality is relative, and there isn´t difference between good and evil? How are we going to teach next generations terrorism is bad? is it bad only when it can be detrimental to you?
Listen, if you keep trying to discuss real world morality and ethics I'm going have to start reporting your posts, because you are straying into some definitely CoC-violating territory. All I will say is that if morality wasn't relative, there wouldn't be people that think terrorism is ok, but to go into further detail on this gets into real-world politics and religion, both of which are a great way to get a temp ban from the forums, so seriously, let's drop that and stick to the game mechanics of alignment.
The people with brain and good aligment accept the Natural Law, moral values like Justice are eternal and unchanging. Nothing is good or bad only because it depends on anybody´s opinion. If our code of behavior can change like fashion we could accept monstrosities like a society where worse students went to Battle Royal, a reality-show to kill themselfs (or the hunger games) or like "Logan´s Run" where people had to die when they were 30 years old. Why not can´t I kill that man because has commited thoughtcrime? The big brother would be proud of me. What if elves decides all human population in the zone must to be terminated or to save ecosystem? Why can´t we expel people who pray certain religion? Why can´t I kill cops if I were a anarchist, a anti-system a figther for liberty (or a terrorist).
People with good alignment exist only in the context of the game, and therefore can embrace eternal values like justice because only in the game can that be an eternal and unchanging value.
However, alignment doesn't prevent anything you described. Dropping the effects of alignment in 4e didn't mean that the world suddenly collapsed into anarchy. Campaign worlds went on as usual. NPCs, monsters, and nations are controlled by the DM. Alignment was meant to control players. And honestly there are better ways to deal with players.
But if we accept whe shouldn´t pass any lines of behavior we are accepting there are universal values that can´t be changed by caprice or conveniencie.
No, that statement is so very wrong. Everyone has a line. Everyone has something that they feel they shouldn't do. However, that line varies from person to person. The fact that people have ethics is universal. The ethics themselves are not. Again, we could go into specific ethical codes and reasons people feel the way they do, but that would bring the ORC-hammer down on this thread.
The D&D fiction shouldn´t promotes ethic relativism, but it warns us about it.
This discussion has NOTHING to do with promoting ethical relativism. Not having alignment has a hammer to bring down on players isn't promoting anything.
I seriously think you are missing the entire point of this discussion. Alignment isn't relative. We all know this because alignment is a game mechanic that is defined in the rulebooks. However, it is defined very poorly. That leaves a lot of room for DM interpretation as to what alignment an action falls under, and exactly when the player has crossed the line to change alignment.
This interpretation requires subjective opinions from the DM on what is or isn't good, evil, lawful, chaotic, etc. So the problem we keep pointing out, which you keep missing, is that alignment is an OBJECTIVE mechanic that is enforced based on the DM's SUBJECTIVE personal views.
You can keep bringing up real world crap that has nothing to do with this topic all day long, but you're basically having an argument with yourself because I don't think anyone else here is talking about the same thing.
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Luis_Carlos, none of us are advocating moral relativism, simply pointing out that a lot of ethical dilemmas happen to be purely subjective with multiple "right" answers, based in a person's personal ethos and that of their culture. This includes things like state of dress (must they be modest, or is nakedness seen as virtuous?), drinking age or permissibility, how you greet someone, politeness levels (such as in Japan versus the US), fealty to king, country, or deity, , or even what meat is allowable to eat (cattle, deer, dogs, guinea pigs, horses, etc).
I can also tell you've not even glanced at the article I linked earlier, so obviously I must make my arguments here directly. You keep insisting that good and evil are purely objective, while completely ignoring all arguments (and articles) to the contrary. I also notice you are pushing the naturalistic fallacy, which is called a fallacy for very good reasons, and demonstrates that you really don't know much of anything on ethics. What most of us have been pointing out, apparently not in as direct and simple a manner as you need, is that there are many schools of thought and points of view on ethics and morality which greatly conflict with one another, and from which there is no objective measure to know which is correct. There's stoicism, epicureanism, hedonism, cyrenaic hedonism, consequentialism, utilitarianism, state consequentialism, deontology, pragmatic ethics, postmodern ethics, and business ethics, just to give a quick list.
The whole point of ethics and alignment, is to answer these basic questions: What is Good? What is Evil? Why are these so? How is it applied?
After all, there is no divine arbiter or greater cosmic being we can ask for clarification. Billions of people say they have, but they've given billions of different answers which all contradict each other (to differing degrees). Thus, with no widespread agreement on what the "most accurate" or "best" form of ethics are we have a broad spectrum of things that are truly subjective, but we can see there are a great many acts and stances that are very widespread and nearly universal (such as don't murder, don't steal, don't rape). This is why for a fantasy world where morality is objective it must be clearly put forth on what is good, evil, lawful, and chaotic (since those are the alignment axis), but in such a way as to conflict as little as possible with the ethics held near and dear to those who play the game.
Oh, and here, have one of my favourite quotes: "A noble cause is a great vehicle for corruption because nobody wants to look and nobody is going to look" ~Lt. Ariana Klay
Ah yes, and something else that's been bothering me, and seems to be closely tied to your arguments. D&D does not have heaven and hell. There is no heaven and hell war because neither place exists in any of the official or licensed cosmologies I have seen. Yes, there is an elemental plane of Good and an elemental plane of Evil, but they are not heaven or hell. Yes, when people die in D&D they go to the plane of their alignment, but none of them are heaven and certainly none of them are hell (if a person who loves to kill, pillage, and plunder is sent to a plane where they get to kill, pillage, and plunder to their hearts delight, it can't be considered any kind of punishment). Sure there are angels, demons, devils, and gods, but none of them are in heaven or hell.
You are perfectly free to play your D&D game with a cosmology that has heaven, hell, and a dramatic war between the two, but never forget that that is not the default cosmology of any edition or published campaign setting.
"Justified" isn't an alignment, but its how everyone deals with their world. You try to find some reason why the person you stole from "had it coming" instead of admitting you stole it. But ya did.
The trouble with NOT having alignmnet is that we can JUSTIFY anything. We can think up some reason why murder is okay (I mean, we was lipping off and embarrassing me in front of all my friends...you'd shut him up permanentnly too, right? Right?...".
Alignment allows us to DISallow that justification crap. I really liked HackMaster. One of the funniest things you'll ever read in the original Hackmaster Players book is the Knight errant class. Wanna' laugh? Hard? Read that. That class is just a microcosm of what I am talking about.
Alignment gives us hard walls the DM can enforce. The DM can say NO... Your character would never do that. Taking it willy nilly is NOT a good act.
"But he wont talk!". Neither will a dead man. So just don't. "But if we dont hurry, the King could be assassinated". Maybe he will be. But you're not evil. You're not like the people you're chasing down. Unlike THEM, you won't murder when its convenient. Thats how you know you're NOT them.
Anything, and I mean almost anything, can be justified. Doesn't make it true. Just means you feel better about it than you really should.
