Fridays seem to be dull days in the Blogging world. So with that in mind I've decided to use that day to comment on things I've seen on other blogs.
So this week, what caught my eye was found at StupidRanger including another post referenced within that article from the same source. The articles drip with Moral Relativism with statements like this:
"I submit that no character (or action) is ever truly Good(tm) or Evil(tm), and it is best simply to figure out how your character would react given the circumstances, his personality and ethics, and his past experiences. "- Vanir
I could speak to the weaknesses and self-destructive ends of the whole concept of Moral Relativism, but this isn't a political blog so I'll pass on that.
Instead, I'd like to examine for a second the disconnect this mindset has with itself and how it relates to rpgs. Why would a Moral Relativist even worry for a second if his character was doing Good or Evil in an adventure. He already knows that it's just a matter of personal opinion. The thought shouldn't have occurred in the first place and dropping alignments from D&D should have been his first house rule.
Indeed, at the end that's exactly where Vanir ends up. So I have to wonder why he even made the trip. Perhaps just to post a blog entry? Maybe to champion the cause of Moral Relativism itself and how it can be used to justify any desired action in an RPG?
Beyond Vanir's own specific case, I often see a related disconnect online: Role-players insisting on inflicting their own Moral Relativism upon characters and settings where it doesn't fit. They worry about the Paladin killing orcs, which at its core is a complete failure to role-play a Paladin who certainly neither believes in nor exists in a world of Moral Relativism.
Besides, if it's up to the individual to decide Good and Evil- how could you condemn the Paladin in any case. It's not as if it's objectively wrong for him to be killing orcs. That's just your opinion you're forcing upon him.
Interesting enough, I've never enountered people so willing to jump to moral judgments as Moral Relativists. And the lines they draw are never so clear as they are in RPGs...
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My gaming has only improved by forgetting alignments. People have motivations for what they do. I find that, for me, having alignments makes thinking those motivations harder. A personal failure, but it does make me eager to speak against alignment.
Alignment is very useful in a game where one wants clearly evil enemies to fight against, though by no means necessary. I don't know of other uses for it thus far.
Alignment is very useful in a game where one wants clearly evil enemies to fight against, though by no means necessary. I don't know of other uses for it thus far.
I see it a little differently, though I don't enforce alignment use for my players. I think it does help to guide the personality for NPCs, monsters, even the setting itself. It's a jumping off point for me to not just line them up as simply good or evil, but fill in the whats and whys as well. What sort of actions and behaviors show that someone is being good or evil and how does the world itself react to that?
I'm closer to James V than not. I don't have a formal alignment label for everything like that found in D&D, but all my settings are highly concerned with Good and Evil.
However I don't use the D&D axis itself (Good vs. Evil, Law vs. Chaos) because I feel that it's a kitbashed model at best.
I'm happy with a "White Hat", "Black Hat", "Rogues & Scoundrels" system for alignment. I don't see the point of the game in being about creating and exploring moral dilemmas, but rather than being about adventures, quests, and what not.
I've never used alignments in my campaigns, and I think that is one of the first things I dropped when running D&D...but I'm not a Moral Relativist either. I think the problem with Good and Evil is that unless the setting supports it, Evil is just not a motivating force for people, even evil people. People may consciously set out to do Good, but I think it's vanishingly rare that people consciously set out to do Evil...they may consciously do things that they know full well are evil and do it without a qualm, but they do it for personal reasons, not to advance the cause of Evil. To put it another way, it's hard to imagine a non-cartoon character being self-sacrificingly Evil--putting aside personal advantage or preference in order to do the more Evil of two actions.
It's different if your campaign world has The Devil, or a stand-in figure, who will in effect pay people to do Evil actions in return for power, advancement, etc.
I've never been a heavy fan of the D&D alignment system as philosophy--but I liked it as a signifier (you knew a good character wasn't going to betray you--and even a Lawful Evil character wouldn't back-stab you outside of contract).
Chaotic Evil was, for me, usually a clue not to play with people. True Neutral guys were always the ones who wound up playing Wolverine ... poorly.
So it was good for that. When I read Michael Moorecock I finally got the Law vs. Chaos thing and understood what they were (I think) trying to do there--and if I ever ran a D&D game that was heavily invested in alignment I'd do it as a cosmic battle between the forces.
-Marco
@Stuart- I think most moral dilemmas in gaming ring false. And when they don't, they rarely make for enjoyable gaming.
@jamused- people tend to lose sight that doing Evil things is Evil, it doesn't exist otherwise. One may kill millions to increase one's own personnal power. That's Evil, but the desire that caused the action was putting power above all else. You won't find EVIL listed amoung the deadly sins, that's the label for the outcome.
Marco- I think I'll take that up as a subject in a future article.
And why is it that most people play Wolverine badly... heck, why is it that he's nearly always written badly? I think the problem with that character is that he speaks to very negative things in us- so it's little wonder that people playing (or writing) characters based upon him express those very negative things back.
It's different if your campaign world has The Devil, or a stand-in figure, who will in effect pay people to do Evil actions in return for power, advancement, etc.
I agree and that's something that I hang a lot on when I consider alignment. To expand upon what I posted earlier, when I do use alignment, it's not just a guideline for characters, it's also reflected in the setting. Good and Evil, Law and Chaos are active forces in my settings, which if you notice means that alignment means most for me when I play D&D. For other games I run, I should number myself among those who de-emphasize alignment, though as others have said, you don't have to have it noted on the sheet to truly know who the good and bad people are.
I agree with Gleichman that moral dilemmas often ring false. And when they do work I find them unpalatable to my sense of fun. Political dilemmas (choose A piss off the king, choose B piss off the archbishop) work much better, in my opinion.
A pet hate, alignments. Curse be upon the fool who thought it would add to the system and the whole roleplaying experience.
I spent many of my early player years trying to get out from under the yoke of this all encmpassing alignment issue. Did I follow law? Well yes I guess so but whose law and I've yet to see someone who wouldn't throw out the law when it was an ass. So where does that leave us? We live by our own laws, even if some of them are a bit random. That leaves you in the neutral camp in the end.
Am I good? Once again yes of course I am and as long as your definition of good matches mine then we're going to get along fine. Is he good? Hell no he's from over there and we all know that those bastards are all evil sinners and there aint no crime in wiping them out. I find it odd though that they have the audacity to call me evil. So were does that leave us?
You guessed it neutral city again.
Its only use seems to be in pointing out Paladins(and if your stupid enough to want to play one of those in my game then good luck to you) and defining nasties such as undead. Although I have meet more than one well behaved Vampire and morrally superior werewolf.
Most people tend to define good and evil by asking a question. Will it hurt me? If yes then its evil. If no then it's good. If your not sure then it's evil by default until proven otherwise.
Don't really need and alignment system for that now do we.
@gleichman - right, that's why in most settings alignment systems make more sense to me when they're used as measures that track how characters are acting, rather than allegiances or motivations. Descriptive rather than prescriptive as it were. D&D alignment makes a nod towards that, with the possibility of your alignment flipping (and losing certain powers or classes as a result), as well as aspects of the setting that make them factions, but that just ends up kind of a muddle, imo.
@jamused - right, that's why in most settings alignment systems make more sense to me when they're used as measures that track how characters are acting, rather than allegiances or motivations. Descriptive rather than prescriptive as it were.
Really? Funny how people take something and draw completely different conclusions. :)
I like to use alignment when it has an aspect of the prescriptive. When alignment is just descriptive, I think that the actions speak louder than words, so they're less necessary.
I do think that D&D's nine-part alignment allegiances can get muddled, though I find their attempts to base a whole cosmology off it (The Great Wheel) was a gamely attempt and good imagination fuel.
Gleichman said: "I think most moral dilemmas in gaming ring false. And when they don't, they rarely make for enjoyable gaming."
When running a game I attempt to create situations where there is no correct thing to do, or at least no obviously correct thing. Moral dilemmas qualify for this, but they feel too forced if they are deliberately created. Creating situations that are rife for moral dilemmae to appear in normal play, on the other hand, is (for my style, in my opinion) a good idea.
I've been thinking of making the effects of some Cleric and Magic-User spells in my D&D game somewhat affected by alignment.
Only Lawful clerics can cast healing spells, and they work better on Lawful characters; Chaotic spell-casters get bonuses on damage-dealing spells and can summon more powerful monsters, etc.
Having more magic items that only work for characters of a certain alignment is another way to make alignment more relevant as well.
@thanuir- that is exactly what I mean by ringing false. Such dilemmas are not rife in reality for anyone with good moral grounding. That they would be in a game makes it obvious that someone (the GM) is creating them.
And I must also point out, if there is nothing correct to do in your campaign- I'll find nothing interesting in your campaign.
Gleichman: I should have written "no one correct thing". My bad.
One of the great strengths of fantasy is that certain aspects of life can be exaggerated, hence making certain moral dilemmas plausible.
I believe the Paladin class was given the power to discern good and evil in others and other things, so the player could properly play the class. If the point of the class is to aid the good and oppose the evil, then there needs to be an in-game determination of those labels. Good and evil are frequently defined outside of the game surely, but for it to be a game with rewards for acting within the role the rules define, then the definitions of good and evil must be game definitions.
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