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There are plenty of moral guidlines and codes out there.

Nov 20, 2012 -- 12:19AM, mestewart3 wrote:

my point exactly.

Nov 20, 2012 -- 12:19AM, mestewart3 wrote:

I find that most of the time it creates the expectation of a singular set of moral guidelines, the issue is that no such thing exists.

How can you say that there are plenty of moral codes and guidelines out there, when you said only a post or two previously that no such guideline or code exists?

Nov 20, 2012 -- 12:19AM, mestewart3 wrote:

Horse and cart.

You're trying to imply that one comes before the other, when it isn't the case. The two are one and the same. The actual alignment rules are expressions of those cosmic forces which alignments are.

Nov 20, 2012 -- 12:19AM, mestewart3 wrote:

Sorry I am working from the assumption that you are a human being.

To borrow a rather funny bit of dialogue, I'm actually a Hutt in human form plotting to take over the galaxy. 

Nov 20, 2012 -- 12:19AM, mestewart3 wrote:

If you are some sort of alien who doesn't act in a human way then I apologize for misrepresenting you.

Not everyone has a violent reactionary episode upon the challenging of their world views. There are plenty of people who don't even think that objective morality is a thing, so how could they even posit a theory that would qualify as objective morality? No, not everyone does fight tooth and nail for external validation of their own ideas. There are a lot of people, myself included, that are content with merely having them.

All it does is change the context of personal value judgments. It doesn't negate or eliminate them. Where's the limit?

Nov 20, 2012 -- 12:19AM, mestewart3 wrote:

No alignment RAW pretty clearly gets rid of personal value judgments.

Not at all. It just changes the context in which those judgments are made. Example:

Non alignment-based value judgment: "I believe that x is good and y is evil." Fill x and y in with whatever you want. Say x is classic rock while y is country western, I think we can all agree on that.

Alignment-based value judgment: "I believe that the good alignment isn't beneficial, and the evil alignment is beneficial." See? The only thing that changes is the context, the essence of the value judgment remains the same. Just because alignment good is moral good, doesn't mean a character has to think it is good. Even if they think it isn't morally good, which would make them incorrect, they can still think that. They would be wrong, but nothing stops them from thinking it.

What's more, is that they can judge the good alignment on an amoral scale, where value isn't determined by moral nature, but by how beneficial it is to the individual. For example, "I don't like good-aligned behavior, because when I practice it, the self-sacrifice involved and personal risk diminishes me. I get hurt, I spend resources on people other than myself, and sometimes gain nothing for putting myself at risk." This example value judgment isn't actually wrong, because it isn't speaking to morality, but something else entirely.

DMs who don't use alignment just use other methods of doing this. I also haven't seen a case where this is caused by anything other than a deviation from RAW.

Nov 20, 2012 -- 12:19AM, mestewart3 wrote:

Not really, if the expectation of a definable, enforcable moral code tied to game mechanics wasn't presented then people would be less likely trip over it.

If epic level NPCs weren't a thing, DMs would be less likely to abuse them and use them to punish and railroad players. Of course if something isn't there people can't misuse it, it isn't there for them to misuse. But that can't be a reason for removing something, otherwise we could remove everything on the premise that it can be misused. Since your original comment that spoke to this is the railroading of players, epic NPCs are bad because DMs use them to railroad players, all the time. Also, what are you saying not really to? Are you speaking to my experience of people testifying to alignment problems? I can't imagine how you would be qualified to tell me what I have and haven't seen. So you must be talking about something else. What is it?

Nov 20, 2012 -- 12:19AM, mestewart3 wrote:

Myth and legend don't use anything like the alignment system so I don't see how this could be true.  If this was the designers attempt they failed quite spectacularly.

Of course myth and legend don't use anything like an alignment system. They don't use weapon and armor proficiencies or spell slots either. Those systems are all designed to represent things and ideas seen in heroic fantasy, myth, and legend. Alignment in the case of 3e mechanically represents fluidity and transformation, creative life, death and the dark, and the keeping of the impressive configuration, all concepts that are dealt with in Campbell's work.

The archetypal Hero is a being of fluidity and transofmration, and is the champion of creative life. Holdfast, the Tyrant, is the keeper of the impressive configuration, who wields the power of death and dark. Campbell identifies how these forces appear all over myth and legend across the world's cultures. Later, Moorcock, inspired by the monomythical hero's journey, chose to represent those ideas as law, chaos, good and evil in his setting. Then alignment in D&D was taken from Moorcock's ideas.

You have to ask yourself what the mechanics are representing in the game world, just like you have to ask that for things like spell slots, weapon and armor proficiencies, and other things.

Nov 21, 2012 -- 2:33PM, Centauri wrote:

The desire to see players in moral dilemmas is the start of alignment-based problems with one's players.

Iz badd?

Nov 21, 2012 -- 3:28PM, Centauri wrote:

Nov 21, 2012 -- 3:27PM, Sir_Joseph_the_Crowe wrote:

Nov 21, 2012 -- 2:33PM, Centauri wrote:

The desire to see players in moral dilemmas is the start of alignment-based problems with one's players.

Iz badd?

I guess that depends on what one thinks about having problems with one's players.

I see moral dilemmas as interesting things that happen to characters in stories and I see figuring out 'problems' as one of the key elements of the game... or any endeavour worth doing, for that matter.

Not disagreeing with your statement. When I DM I try to assess how interested the player is in dealing with such problems and weigh the value of placing the dilemma versus how much time it will take to resolve and how the other players will be affected by the pause in the game as one of the characters weighs an important decision.

I feel that having important decisions to make for your character keeps you more engaged with the character and... ditto on what dabeerds wrote earlier (I four).