Quote from: CRKrueger;914955What Would Jesus Do, for example, seems to be ridiculously simple, but actually isn't.

Well I fully believe if goblin babies were selling doves in the temple, He would drive their green buts out with a whip, no questions asked!

Quote from: Bren;914946Here’s why. There is no ethical conflict involving Black or White. If Black and White are absolute EVIL and GOOD, then making choices involving EVIL or GOOD is simple. There is no conflict or difficulty in choosing between GOOD and EVIL, you choose GOOD. Of course that’s always an easy choice. Even choosing between good and evil is easy. You pick good.

Ethical or moral conflict arises when you need to make a choice either between the lesser of two evils or the greater of two goods. But any choice where either GOOD or EVIL is one of the choices, is a simple choice. You pick GOOD or you avoid picking EVIL.

There is no difficulty choosing between good and GOOD. You choose the thing that is absolutely and unconditionally good. What other choice is there? Similarly there is no difficulty or conflict choosing between bad and BAD. The choice is simple, you don’t pick BAD.  

Which is, of course, why GOOD and EVIL and Black and White choices are simplistic.

That's not only a problem with alignment choices though. If I offer you a sword that does 1d4 damage, or a sword that does 1d8 damage, but are identical in every other way (size, weight, cost, appearance, etc...), which sword will you "choose"? With the implication that your character is going to be using the sword to deplete some target's hit points, you'd choose the 1d8 sword every time.

This is where I think the D&D alignment system can actually do some good. Without conflict, there is no choice. So set up scenarios that put the two axis of alignment in conflict. Law versus Good. Evil versus Chaos, etc, etc.

Quote from: tenbones;914931Is alignment absolute? Not unless it's magically part of their nature - which in D&D *is* a thing. So what's so fucking hard about figuring this out? Is it because players wanna cling to some ill-conceived idea their precious PC is a do-gooder whilst decapitating goblin children because their goblin parents raped the horses and road off on the women?

Why in the hell is this even a discussion at this point? It's another indicator of why "alignment" is a useless extra appendix to the D&D system

1: In D&D though alignment is very mutable and depending on the edition theres shades of grey throughout and/or its a sliding scale/karma meter.

2: No. Just an indicator apparently you dont quite get alignment.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;914961That's not only a problem with alignment choices though. If I offer you a sword that does 1d4 damage, or a sword that does 1d8 damage, but are identical in every other way (size, weight, cost, appearance, etc...), which sword will you "choose"? With the implication that your character is going to be using the sword to deplete some target's hit points, you'd choose the 1d8 sword every time.

A rare few will choose the lesser sword if it has a cool backstory. Another not-so-rare few will choose the lesser sword because the d8 for the same price is suspicious. :cool:

Quote from: Manzanaro;914906Actually CRKrueger, I was just reading between the lines, drawing inferences from the multiple references you made to retirement and rolling up new characters. But maybe I was being unfair.

No, you were just paying too much attention to the voices in your own head. You know, the ones that do not reflect what people are actually saying.

Quote from: Omega;9149681: In D&D though alignment is very mutable and depending on the edition theres shades of grey throughout and/or its a sliding scale/karma meter.

2: No. Just an indicator apparently you dont quite get alignment.

There is only the Omega Way and no possible others.

Quote from: CRKrueger;914955Lots of people choose to do things they can be killed for in this life, not to mention things they believe might result in eternal damnation.

Not sure where you are going with this other than, apparently, to try to move to a discussion about religion instead of RPGs.

If you actually have a game example where choosing amongst absolute GOOD and something else or choosing amongst absolute EVIL and something else is more interesting than a choice amongst goods and evils that are not known to be absolute then by all means trot it one out. If not, then I suggest you go argue Christian apologia with someone who wants to do that.

QuoteWhat Would Jesus Do, for example, seems to be ridiculously simple, but actually isn't.

I don’t know why you would think that. I think it isn’t at all simple. Parsing the parables, tales, and books of the bible to arrive at a simple and unambiguous understanding of WWJD in all instances is anything but “ridiculously simple.”

Quote from: Ratman_tf;914961That's not only a problem with alignment choices though. If I offer you a sword that does 1d4 damage, or a sword that does 1d8 damage, but are identical in every other way (size, weight, cost, appearance, etc...), which sword will you "choose"? With the implication that your character is going to be using the sword to deplete some target's hit points, you'd choose the 1d8 sword every time.

I'm really unsure what your example is supposed to be an example of. I've never seen two swords like that. Now if you were talking about two swords with different costs, weights, size, appearances, and/or stat requirements and those two swords did different amounts of damage...well I've seen a lot of RPGs that had two swords kind of like that.

QuoteThis is where I think the D&D alignment system can actually do some good.

I dislike the D&D alignment system. I'd much rather see different religions (like we see in virtually every fantasy RPG) track different things individually and vary those things along some sort of spectrum or scale based on individual religious values rather than try to reconcile individual, conflicting deities with a handful of overarching absolute qualities. YMMV.

Quote from: Omega;9149681: In D&D though alignment is very mutable and depending on the edition theres shades of grey throughout and/or its a sliding scale/karma meter.

2: No. Just an indicator apparently you dont quite get alignment.

Nonsense. I get Alignment. I think people don't use it consistently even when they pretend they do. Removing Alignment from play has freed players from using Alignment as this bullshit rational to do bad things.

Case in point - if you know what Lawful Good is - why do you need it on your paper to *roleplay* it? Why why why a thousand times why?

I'm not saying in the metaphysics of D&D's cosmology Alignment doesn't matter, of course it does, but it only matters insofar as your PC has some direct connection to those forces. You mostly don't. And when you do - you still do not need it on your paper to play it. Your very reasoning in #1 is exactly my point. There are plenty of ways to play Lawful Good, Neutral Evil etc. within context of the setting. You're making my point for me.

The whole point of Alignment in 1e/2e as applied to most native creatures to the Prime Material is the general disposition of their behavior. Unless you're trying to say there is Moral Relativism to the notion of alignment - then we'll clearly have a dispute.

Quote from: Bren;914982Parsing the parables, tales, and books of the bible to arrive at a simple and unambiguous understanding of WWJD in all instances is anything but “ridiculously simple.”

I don't know where I'd even find someone selling doves in a temple around here.

I think there's a Sikh one out in Milton?

Which is why by my standard - killing Goblin children is evil.

The real question is - WHY SHOULD IT MATTER TO YOUR PC?

Because you wanna pretend your PC is not evil for doing so? Or because you wanna really debate that Goblins are "genetically predisplosed towards evil" to justify your killing them despite whatever your Alignment on your paper says. Does your PC even know about alignment on some cosmic scale? Which if you wanna play it that way - have at it. It would just mean I'd treat them like demons and act accordingly. And hey look - I don't need alignment on my sheet to do it. Yay, I guess?

Quote from: daniel_ream;914989I don't know where I'd even find someone selling doves in a temple around here.

I think there's a Sikh one out in Milton?

There's a big Hindu Temple just off of Highway 427 between Finch and Albion;)

Shemek

Quote from: jeff37923;914972No, you were just paying too much attention to the voices in your own head. You know, the ones that do not reflect what people are actually saying.

Dude, you quote the guy in your signature block, of course you support him. After all, we've all seen him attack people if he has any doubt that they are not explicitly taking his side in a discussion, so yeah, best to keep that nose firmly planted in the brown zone.

And, to be fair, he does seem like an intellectual giant compared to you.

Quote from: Manzanaro;914998And, to be fair, he does seem like an intellectual giant compared to you.

*Yawn*

Quote from: Omega;914970A rare few will choose the lesser sword if it has a cool backstory. Another not-so-rare few will choose the lesser sword because the d8 for the same price is suspicious. :cool:

Quotebut are identical in every other way

Gotcha covered on the first part.

Quote from: CRKrueger;914891The world still moves.

In my little campaign world, in one area there three factions, each of which wanted the PCs to go and smack over the other two. When the PCs were captured by one faction in the last session, and that faction cast raise dead on two of the PCs and took them off to the lord, who then asked them to smack over another faction, one player said, "I don't get what this adventure is supposed to be about."

"That's up to you," I said.

Players can do and ask whatever they like in the game world. But each action has consequences. The PCs in my group have abused, threatened and ignored the orders of powerful people who wanted their help and to reward them, they've fought when they were asked to just scout around, they've scouted around when they were asked to fight, and so on. All this has consequences. All their actions, good or bad, smart or stupid, well-planned or spontaneous, they all have consequences.

It may be of note that the faction they currently work for is a white dragon who has as his minions... goblins. So now the human adventuring party works for goblins against humans. I haven't put any goblin babies in there, though. Nobody's asked where they are, if they did I'd simply say, "An interesting question, what will your character do to find out?" I would have much the same response if they expressed a wish to adopt some goblin babies. "Great, how will you go about it, cos you know, the human neighbours ain't gonna be happy."

Now, if I was Marzipan or whatever the fuck the commie's name is, I might as the white dragon say, "Since you have slain so many goblins, your next task is to adopt their orphan goblin babies." Wouldn't that be LOADS of fun?

But no. The players make their choices, and the world still moves.