But we're applying it to none of those things. We are applying it to game design. And game design should be able to answer those questions adequately. Otherwise it violates the game design principle of parsimony in game design. A game should contain all the mechanics needed to serve its purpose and nothing else.
Well, the ideas are taken from Michael Moorcock's Multiverse. His setting has law, chaos, good, and evil as elemental forces. They are varieties of energy that have real impact and interplay with each other. They actually harken back to Joseph Campbell's work on the monomyth. I thought that much in the same way classes like the wizard represent the trope of the fantastic magic user in heroic fantasy and myth, that alignment likewise represents those ideas.
The question you're bringing up about the purpose of the game needs to be defined if we are to define the purpose of alignment. Last I checked, the purpose of D&D was to narratively simulate heroic fantasy. Those Moorcockian/Campbellian forces are very much a part of heroic fantasy. Alignment mechanics represent those. Unless this game's purpose isn't a narrative simulation of heroic fantasy, I can't see how the alignment system isn't serving a purpose.
Exactly how and why it sucks is still open to debate. Maybe it is a good idea presented incredibly badly, so what it is supposed to be doesn't get through to people.
It gets through to some people just fine. I have encountered dozens of people who have no confusion regarding the rules. And if the problem is not universal, then it not objectively true.
Gee, that wasn't hard.
"The world does not work the way you have been taught it does. We are not real as such; we exist within The Story. Unfortunately for you, you have inherited a condition from your mother known as Primary Protagonist Syndrome, which means The Story is interested in you. It will find you, and if you are not ready for the narrative strands it will throw at you..." - from Footloose
Well, the ideas are taken from Michael Moorcock's Multiverse. His setting has law, chaos, good, and evil as elemental forces. They are varieties of energy that have real impact and interplay with each other. They actually harken back to Joseph Campbell's work on the monomyth.
Moorcock's Eternal Hero harkens back to the monomyth, but objective alignment does not. Moorcock's law-chaos stuggle was inspired by the theomachia of Greek myths (Titans vs. Olympians), but he added the objective alignment forces. That's all him. So let's not pretend that alignment is in any way Campbellian, okay? Campbell never posited "law, chaos, good, and evil as elemental forces".
Last I checked, the purpose of D&D was to narratively simulate heroic fantasy. Those Moorcockian/Campbellian forces are very much a part of heroic fantasy.
And this gets back to the same logical fallacy that Chiba_Monkey makes. If the purpose of D&D is to allow people to simulate hroic fantasy then alignment mechanics as an option would be great to allow people to run a Moorcockian campaign. But making alignment mechanics mandatory limits D&D to a Moorcockian world. And that's antithetical to the goal of representing narrative historical fantasy in general.
Alignment mechanics represent those. Unless this game's purpose isn't a narrative simulation of heroic fantasy, I can't see how the alignment system isn't serving a purpose.
The fact that you can't see how restricting the D&D world to Moorockian metaphysics doesn't change the fact that the D&D world has traditionally been limited to Moorcockian metaphysics. Which is fine if all you want is Moorockian metaphysics. But if the goal of D&D was to allow simulation of a variety of types of fantasy, then hard-baking alignment into the system is antithetical to that goal.
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Chiba_Monkey: "Imitating specifc fantasy archetypes" and "eliminating nonconfroming concepts" are not mutually exclusive.
We're just repeating ourselves on this point without adding anything new. Suffice to say I disagree.
Chiba_Monkey: Unless the system is DESIGNED to be removed, difficulty removing it is not an inherent flaw in said system.
You're repeating yourself here as well. I included removal as an issue because the common retort to the first three problems I posited was "Well, remove them." And, in fact, that was precisely your initial response to the first three problems I identified. So if removal is a valid response to alignment problems, which, based on your reference to them, you think it is, then pointing out the difficulty of that endeavor is a valid response.
You cannot have your cake and eat it too, Chiba. If you don't think the removability of alignment mechanics is relevant, then you should never reference it as a point in alignment's favor.
Chiba_Monkey: What I have asked for is for people who ARE playing with alignment, or HAVE played with alignment-and had issues-to discuss what they believe are the problems with the system. It is my experience that most of those problems stemmed from a deviation from RAW. If it can be shown that the RAW do not support those examples, the alignment cannot be said to be an objectively bad system, can it? I've stated this openly from the OP, so there is nothign disingenuous.
What you claim to want to do and what your behavior reveals are two different things. You can claim that you want to discuss alignement all you want, but your responses in this thread have exposed that what you want to do is minimize any problems with alignment, dismiss criticisms as uninformed and blame the players for problems inherent with the alignment system as it has manifested in prior editions.
Moorcock's Eternal Hero harkens back to the monomyth, but objective alignment does not.
It actually does. The Hero is called a being of fluidity, transformation, adn change. The Hero is also referred to as the champion of creatie life. Whereas the Tryant Holdfast, on the other hand, is a being who keeps and preserves the impressive configuration. Campbell likens this freezing of the cycle of life to death. While Campbell may not use words like law, chaos, good, and evil directly, he is dealing with the forces that those names denote.
Moorcock's law-chaos stuggle was inspired by the theomachia of Greek myths (Titans vs. Olympians), but he added the objective alignment forces. That's all him. So let's not pretend that alignment is in any way Campbellian, okay? Campbell never posited "law, chaos, good, and evil as elemental forces".
Those are in fact mentioned in Campbell's monomyth, and those kinds of ideas aren't unique to the Greeks either. They are seen in various forms all across the globe, which is, again, what Campbell's seminal work deals with.
And this gets back to the same logical fallacy that Chiba_Monkey makes. If the purpose of D&D is to allow people to simulate hroic fantasy then alignment mechanics as an option would be great to allow people to run a Moorcockian campaign. But making alignment mechanics mandatory limits D&D to a Moorcockian world. And that's antithetical to the goal of representing narrative historical fantasy in general.
It's only a logical fallacyis the Multiverse is the only one, or is part of only a small group that makes use of those forces. They appear in multiple forms all across the world, hence why they are used. Ahura Mazda and Angru Manyu, Seelie and Unseelie, Apollo and Dionysus, Letter of the Law and the Life Giving Spirit, Yin and Yang the list goes on. This is actually a central concept to the Taoist school of thought, as is the principle of balance and harmony, which these same ideas also express.
One example of that is the god created by the merger of Apollo and Dionysus, the god of balance, Cognus. Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis. The idea of opposing metaphysical forces is far from unique to Moorcock, and all Campbell does is point out the existence of that idea all across the world's myths and legends. This is as common as the warrior hero and the sagely guide, and those tropes are likewise represented in D&D.
Interestingly enough, moral values weren't attached to these ideas of opposing forces until around 600 B. C. when Zorastrian religion became really popular in Persia. Generally Ahura Mazda and Angru Manyu are seen as the big starters of that whole morality thing.
The Hero is called a being of fluidity, transformation, adn change. The Hero is also referred to as the champion of creatie life. Whereas the Tryant Holdfast, on the other hand, is a being who keeps and preserves the impressive configuration. Campbell likens this freezing of the cycle of life to death. While Campbell may not use words like law, chaos, good, and evil directly, he is dealing with the forces that those names denote.
But he doesn't use objective forces of alignment. He is discussing storytelling tropes, not metaphysical forces. It's really inappropriate to try to shoehorn Campbell into an alignment scheme, because that's not what he's discussing.
Moorcock's law-chaos stuggle was inspired by the theomachia of Greek myths (Titans vs. Olympians), but he added the objective alignment forces. That's all him. So let's not pretend that alignment is in any way Campbellian, okay? Campbell never posited "law, chaos, good, and evil as elemental forces".
Those are in fact mentioned in Campbell's monomyth, and those kinds of ideas aren't unique to the Greeks either. They are seen in various forms all across the globe, which is, again, what Campbell's seminal work deals with.
Please, Zaramon, you're not reading what I write. I understand that the theomachia is consitent with Campbell's monomyth. My statement is that neither Campbell nor the theomachy posit elemental forces of morality and ethos. That was Moorcock's contrubtion and his contribution alone.
And this gets back to the same logical fallacy that Chiba_Monkey makes. If the purpose of D&D is to allow people to simulate hroic fantasy then alignment mechanics as an option would be great to allow people to run a Moorcockian campaign. But making alignment mechanics mandatory limits D&D to a Moorcockian world. And that's antithetical to the goal of representing narrative historical fantasy in general.
It's only a logical fallacyis the Multiverse is the only one, or is part of only a small group that makes use of those forces. They appear in multiple forms all across the world, hence why they are used. Ahura Mazda and Angru Manyu, Seelie and Unseelie, Apollo and Dionysus, Letter of the Law and the Life Giving Spirit, Yin and Yang the list goes on.
None of those match Moorcockian metaphysics. If the intent was to allow Seelie and Unseelie, or Zoroastrian cosmology then the better approach was to make each of those moral frameworks modular so that you can insert a Zoroastrian morality into the game, or an Appollonian one. But Gygax chose one -- Moorcockian -- and made it the only one. He did not introduce a series of rules so that you could choose from among the many moral schema found throughout fantasy and myth.
Moreover, I would take issue with the idea that any of these moral schema really represent alignment. Appollo and Dionysus do not represent cosmic forces beyond the gods (as a Moorcockian metaphysics do) -- thay are the gods! Ahura Mazda and Angru Manyu represent divine entities, not cosmic morality and Zoroastrian is very clear that the positions staked out by the gods is not universal in the way the Moorcockian physics is. "Seelie and Unseelie" is equally absurd. These are faerie courts -- their morality in Celtic myth doesn't even extend to moratl worlds, much less comprise a universal objective system of morality.
Essentially, you are simply grabbing random example of opposing forces and trying to use their existence to justify alignment in the most inappropriate (and with respect to the real-life and still-practices religion of Zoroastrianism, astoundingly offensive) ways. Moreover, my reference to the theomachy which is similarly a cosmic struggle between the good gods and evil titans to illustrate that these myths (and thus Campbell's monomyth) don't contain objective standards of morality should have clued you into that fact.
But I don't think you really read what I wrote. You just saw me mention things liek theomachy and felt the liberty to just go off on random tangents about how you might shove square mythology pegs into round alignment holes.
Interestingly enough, moral values weren't attached to these ideas of opposing forces until around 600 B. C. when Zorastrian religion became really popular in Persia. Generally Ahura Mazda and Angru Manyu are seen as the big starters of that whole morality thing.
Interestingly enough, I'm beginning to think you're using my posts as a springboard to talk about stuff you like but which have very little to do with what I wrote.
But he doesn't use objective forces of alignment. He is discussing storytelling tropes, not metaphysical forces. It's really inappropriate to try to shoehorn Campbell into an alignment scheme, because that's not what he's discussing.
What exactly do you mean by the bolded? I think you may have been misunderstanding what I have been saying. All of those things that Campbell mentioned are ideas, specifically ideas that speak to people across the world on the same instinctual level. That's why there's so much commonality in the world's symbolism. All of those ideas that I mentioned earlier are just metaphors for a person's desires and the condition of their spirit. The same forces that alignment provide a mechanical representation of, are likewise metaphorical.
Please, Zaramon, you're not reading what I write. I understand that the theomachia is consitent with Campbell's monomyth. My statement is that neither Campbell nor the theomachy posit elemental forces of morality and ethos. That was Moorcock's contrubtion and his contribution alone.
I am reading what you write. All I'm saying is that all Moorcock did was express those same ideas in a different way. That said, Moorcock did not apply moral or ethical values to those forces either. When his characters said words like "good" or "evil" in his books, they were not refering to any kind of morality. In fact Moorcock has said in the past that he hated moralizing fantasy stories, and for that reason, he didn't care for Tolkien or Lewis. If people took "moral" good and evil, and "ethical" law and chaos from Moorcock's work, they took something other than Moorcock intended.
That was merely the way in which Moorcock represented those timeless forces, which are merely metaphorical for real world ideas.
None of those match Moorcockian metaphysics. If the intent was to allow Seelie and Unseelie, or Zoroastrian cosmology then the better approach was to make each of those moral frameworks modular so that you can insert a Zoroastrian morality into the game, or an Appollonian one. But Gygax chose one -- Moorcockian -- and made it the only one. He did not introduce a series of rules so that you could choose from among the many moral schema found throughout fantasy and myth.
They only don't match Moorcockian metaphysics when viewed through a moral framework. While Zarathustra was the first major (As far as I know.) religious figure to tout morality as we know it today, Zoroastrian ideas aren't any less functional when the moral component is removed, and they funtion likewise as all of those other ideas. Even DC started to pick this up with the Black and White Lanterns, and the Monitor and the Anti-Monitor.
Moreover, I would take issue with the idea that any of these moral schema really represent alignment. Appollo and Dionysus do not represent cosmic forces beyond the gods (as a Moorcockian metaphysics do) -- thay are the gods! Ahura Mazda and Angru Manyu represent divine entities, not cosmic morality and Zoroastrian is very clear that the positions staked out by the gods is not universal in the way the Moorcockian physics is. "Seelie and Unseelie" is equally absurd. These are faerie courts -- their morality in Celtic myth doesn't even extend to moratl worlds, much less comprise a universal objective system of morality.
The gods are all just metaphors. In that way, they are also real. Just like every single element of the monomyth and the Hero's Journey is a metaphor. The real world doesn't work in terms of "moral" good and evil, and neither do these ideas, as they are metaphors of ideas in the real world. They only look so vastly different when viewed through the lens of a moral system. Remove that, and then there is very little difference between, say, Dionysus and Angru Manyu, or Beilobog and Apollo.
Essentially, you are simply grabbing random example of opposing forces and trying to use their existence to justify alignment in the most inappropriate (and with respect to the real-life and still-practices religion of Zoroastrianism, astoundingly offensive) ways. Moreover, my reference to the theomachy which is similarly a cosmic struggle between the good gods and evil titans to illustrate that these myths (and thus Campbell's monomyth) don't contain objective standards of morality should have clued you into that fact.
They aren't random examples of opposing forces, they are each culture's expression of a specific set of ideas. One is always an experssion of things like culture, refinement, and order, while the other is always representative of things like abandon, emotion, and primal nature. Both Campbell and Jung make a convincing case that that is because these are core elements of human nature. Interestingly, the one follower of Zoroastrianism that I have expressed these ideas to thought it was interesting, and he didn't seem the least bit offended.
Then again that was just one guy. Maybe others would be offended. Hard to say. I try not to offend anyone, but it seems these days you can't even talk about certain aspects of culture in an anthropological or academic sense without someone getting angry. If anyone in this thread was offended by what I said, I offer my sincerest apologies, offense was most certainly not my intent.
But I don't think you really read what I wrote. You just saw me mention things liek theomachy and felt the liberty to just go off on random tangents about how you might shove square mythology pegs into round alignment holes.
I'm not trying to fit myth into alignment, I'm just saying that the same forces that alignments are in D&D are likewise symbols of the same ideas that other like myths symbolize. If anything, I would be trying to fit sqaure alignment pegs into round myth holes, but I don't see the shapes as any different.
Exactly how and why it sucks is still open to debate. Maybe it is a good idea presented incredibly badly, so what it is supposed to be doesn't get through to people.
It gets through to some people just fine. I have encountered dozens of people who have no confusion regarding the rules. And if the problem is not universal, then it not objectively true.
Gee, that wasn't hard.
You either don't understand what I'm saying, or you don't understand how you are coming across. I have never said that "90% of D&D players are doing it wrong" or anything to that effect. Don't claim that this is what I am trying to say, doing so is Strawman Fallacy, which invalidates whatever you are trying to say or "prove" about my points, because you are misrepresenting my points which you are attempting to counter. First off, you state that it is somehow an objective fact that alignment "sucks", as if that was some kind of self-evident truth that you didn't need to back up with any kind of fact or evidence. That's grossly untrue. If alignment rules were objectively and factually bad, then the problems would be universal. ANY evidence of example that they are not automatically disproves that. You go on to presume a great deal about what Zaramon, Yagami and myself have been saying. What we HAVE said is that many of the people who have problems with alignment experience those problems because they (or their DM) were deviating from RAW, and that if all problems with alignment only stem from deviations from RAW about alignment, then alignment itself is not inherently bad. Now, if you could somehow prove that the number of people deviating from RAW was as high as 90%, then you would be correct, because that would be objective evidence that something about the alignment RAW makes those rules hard to follow.
But you can't. That kind of data does not exist, and NOTHING exists to support your claim that the problems are THAT widespread.
So if you wish to discuss flaws in the alignment system, you are welcome to. But do so with ACTUAL facts. Don't just claim that alignment is bad as if it's a fact and try and work from there. Back up your claims. Say what it is alignment does that you think is bad. Then find where, exactly, in the rules that supports that. If you can't, then perhaps we can show you that the actual printed rules do not support that about alignment. And remember not to succumb to Munchkin Fallacy-which states that just because the rules don't explicitly say you can't do something, that they say you can.
So if you wish to discuss flaws in the alignment system, you are welcome to. But do so with ACTUAL facts. Don't just claim that alignment is bad as if it's a fact and try and work from there. Back up your claims. Say what it is alignment does that you think is bad. Then find where, exactly, in the rules that supports that. If you can't, then perhaps we can show you that the actual printed rules do not support that about alignment. And remember not to succumb to Munchkin Fallacy-which states that just because the rules don't explicitly say you can't do something, that they say you can.
I would like to point out specifically what kind of statement that Chiba is calling out. It's called a tautological statement, which is a statement that operates under the assumption that it is automatically true. Now, at some point you have to start at a place like that with inductive reasoning, because using solely deductive reasoning, you wouldn't be able to prove to yourself that you exist. However, you only engage in inductive reasoning once you reach the realm of absurdity with deductive reasoning, e. g. how do you know your senses are working correctly.
The thing Chiba calls munckin fallacy is also known as appeal to ignorance, assuming that because there is no evidence to the contrary, the point must be true.
