Quote from: Brimshack1) A willinngess to sacrifice for others does not entail the necessity of killing any particular person, even an evil one. (Surely you can imagine other ways of sacrificing for others or even confronting the evil characters.) Your inference from a willingness to sacrifice to a need to kill is more than a bit of a stretch, to say nothing of the social manicheanism in the concept which is no model of good behavior in any event.

Uh, let's go back to the example as you framed it:

Quote from: BrimshackThe good character won't kill his evil brother, because he can't bring himself to do it even if he knows he should; the evil brother would kill everyone else in the world - slowly - but not his brother

You framed the problem as one in which the Good character should kill his brother.  You are familiar with the word "should", right?  You wax poetic about it quite a bit later on in your reply.

If the Good character should kill his brother (which clearly implies that it is the Good and right thing to do) but won't because of his personal connection to his brother, then he's acting in a Neutral manner, not a Good manner.  Given that his brother would have to be pretty dangerous or awful in order for execution to be how a Good character should deal with him (remember, you lectured me on how the Good alignment doesn't demand the execution of Evil characters) and given that you also said that his brother would kill everyone else in the world except his brother, that suggests that his brother was not simply sitting in the corner thinking Evil thoughts.

Look, I've played this game before.  Offer an anecdote or example that clearly implies certain things and then when someone makes a reply that assumes the implications, pretend that they weren't there.  Of course given the perspective that you express on interpreting text below, I presume you think that words just sort of mean whatever you want them to mean at that moment, right?

Quote from: Brimshack2) With respect to Neutrals commiting to others by personal relationships, the point is that this the (only) way that neutrals form such commitments rather than by virtue of principles (as with goods). You appear to be reading this to mean that anyone who is committed to others by virtue of a relationship is neutral. To wit, good characters have no personal relationships, or perhaps their relationships do not commit them to others.

No.  What I am saying is that if a character puts their personal relationships above the welfare of innocents, then they are Neutral because they are putting their own interests (a personal friendship or relationship) above the lives of innocents.  

Yes, a Good character can have relatives and personal friends that they care about, but if they are unwilling to stop those relatives and personal friends from victimizing innocents in a a significant way, then I think it puts their Goodness into question.  

It's like the firefighter who refuses to go into a burning building because he's afraid of leaving his wife a widow or a firefighter who refuses to turn his brother in, even though he knows his brother is an arsonist.

Quote from: BrimshackOddly Fundamentalist reading of the SRD on both points.

Yes, strawmen are usually easy to knock down.  That's their whole purpose.

Quote from: BrimshackOn the last point, I do not disagree with it in principle, aside from the strangeness of the "should". It's a game really, and I am always at a loss to explain the frequency with which judgements of "ought" and what we are "supposed" to do seem to enter into that. If I break every 3rd rule in the SRD, the fact may be worthy of note, but "should" doesn't enter into it.

I used "should" in the sense that I find the reluctance that people seem to have to using the Neutral alignment seems a bit odd to me.  It's there.  It's pretty clearly defined.  It seems to fit a lot of characters.  Why do people insist on labeling characters with one alignment that doesn't fit very well when the system provides another alignment that fits much better?  And ultimately, I think that leads to at least some of the complaints that people level at the alignment system being unrealistic and unworkable.  I think the one in the 3.5 SRD was designed to hold together pretty well.

Quote from: BrimshackPlayers may choose to run alignment any way they wish, even contradicting themselves right and left if they so choose. Criticism may help them to understand what they are ding, but what they "should" or for that matter should not do, has no bearing on the discussion.

Read "should" as in "you should be true to yourself" or "you should not put your hand on the table and bang it with a hammer".  You can choose to do anything you want to with your hand, including putting it on the table and banging it with a hammer.  But if you do so, don't complain to me that it hurts and I'm going to think you are being pretty stupid.

Quote from: BrimshackI am more disturbed, however, that your final paragraph is offered as an answer to my own points as it's more than a little circular. Reminds me a bit of conservative Christians lecturing their liberal bretheren on the need to follow what the Bible says rather than follow their private interpretations. ...all the while ignoring the very real prospect that the liberal types may have a better handle on the text to begin with.

And that reminds me a bit of smug liberal Christians admonishing conservative Christians about how they have a better handle on the text, while clearly paying almost no attention to the actual text, even when the language is very clear and unambiguous.

Quote from: BrimshackWhat the SRD says as far as alignment is not as narrow as your construction. And when some of us choose to allow for possibilities such as I have mentioned, we are not violating the terms of your holy text. We are applying those terms in ways we find interesting. If that strikes you as inappropriate, then so be it.

In other words, you are finding the meanings you want in the penumbra of the alignment system, right?

I also think that people should be willing to admit when the text of a book, be it Bible, the US Constitution, or the D&D 3.5 SRD doesn't support the conclusions that they want and simply admit that they are just substituting their own ideas instead.  If you already know you can choose to use the alignment system however you want, why not simply say that you aren't bound by the rules and written and want to do your own thing?  Why go through the trouble of insisting that the SRD is flexible just so you can ignore what it plainly says because you find doing so interesting?

Alright John, I can argue a few points, but I clearly did misread your argument. In the main, I am wrong here. Please accept my apologies for the unwarranted harshness of my reply.

Quote from: BrimshackAlright John, I can argue a few points, but I clearly did misread your argument. In the main, I am wrong here. Please accept my apologies for the unwarranted harshness of my reply.

Fair enough.  And in return, I'll apologize for harshness of my reply.

Quote from: WarthurI like the take that the "Design Patterns In RPGs" guy has on alignment: if you want to use it as a means of tagging some characters as "on the PCs' side - don't kill them" and tag others as "enemies - kill them if you like", it works grand. If you want to tie it in with the metaphysics a la Stormbringer or Planescape (or, indeed, the old alignment languages in early editions), that also works. If you want to take it more seriously than a tagging system, but at the same time don't want to hardwire it into the metaphysics, you get problems.

I like this. It is classy.