Quote from: VhaidraSaga on October 07, 2021, 09:02:39 AM

Quote from: Horace on October 06, 2021, 09:25:36 PM
I guess this paragraph in the 5E Player's Handbook won't survive the revision:

"Alignment is an essential part of the nature of celestials and fiends. A devil does not choose to be lawful evil, and it doesn't tend toward lawful evil, but rather it is lawful evil in its essence. If it somehow ceased to be lawful evil, it would cease to be a devil."

Too bad, because it's one of the most sensible things in the book.

EXACTLY. Devils & Demons are evil, Angels are good. If they stop being their alignment, they become something else completely.

Which is not to say a demon or devil could not be redeemed, or an angel or archon could not fall. But such an event should be momentous. There should be signs and portents (depending on your fantasy setting, obviously). Even good-aligned powers should be jockeying and shifting to take advantage or try to stop it, as well as evil-aligned ones.

Quote from: FF_Ninja on October 07, 2021, 04:22:16 AM
My take is this: Motivational ambiguity is a really crap concept in a Bad Guy. I appreciate absolutes, certainties. I appreciate,  for example, the certainty that a chaotic evil demon is really only here to cause as much bedlam as possible, and the certainty that a lawful evil devil has some sort of evil machinations that cannot be trusted to be anything other than evil.


I'm really getting fed up with this moral relativism bullshit.

Agree 100%.

Demon does demon things because that's how he was raised. Deep down, he really just wants to be liked. People think that's clever, but it's been done to death. Complexity can be interesting, but characters like this end up being grey and mushy.

It's more fun to subvert that cliche by having the villain display some moral complexity...but it's a trap and he really is just pure evil.

Quote from: rytrasmi on October 07, 2021, 10:12:51 AM

Quote from: FF_Ninja on October 07, 2021, 04:22:16 AM
My take is this: Motivational ambiguity is a really crap concept in a Bad Guy. I appreciate absolutes, certainties. I appreciate,  for example, the certainty that a chaotic evil demon is really only here to cause as much bedlam as possible, and the certainty that a lawful evil devil has some sort of evil machinations that cannot be trusted to be anything other than evil.


I'm really getting fed up with this moral relativism bullshit.

Agree 100%.

Demon does demon things because that's how he was raised. Deep down, he really just wants to be liked. People think that's clever, but it's been done to death. Complexity can be interesting, but characters like this end up being grey and mushy.

It's more fun to subvert that cliche by having the villain display some moral complexity...but it's a trap and he really is just pure evil.

Or, he really does have some "good" points.  It's merely that they aren't dominant, and they make him that much more effective in his overall evil goal.  Kind of like a more conventional bad guy human who has a plot to wreck the world's economy but is nice to children, polite to ladies, and would never even think of kicking a dog.  Says "sir" and "yes maam" but still needs killing.

This is where I think the whole "everything is grey" thing is adolescent thinking taking to an absurd degree.  Even the analogy is whacked the way they use it.  Usually, "Grey" is some mix of white and black, not the absence of either.  And that mirrors what you said, where "shades of grey" is most interesting when you can still see some of the primary colors.  Once you can't at least tease out something primary, the whole thing is mush.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on October 07, 2021, 10:57:56 AM

Quote from: rytrasmi on October 07, 2021, 10:12:51 AM

Quote from: FF_Ninja on October 07, 2021, 04:22:16 AM
My take is this: Motivational ambiguity is a really crap concept in a Bad Guy. I appreciate absolutes, certainties. I appreciate,  for example, the certainty that a chaotic evil demon is really only here to cause as much bedlam as possible, and the certainty that a lawful evil devil has some sort of evil machinations that cannot be trusted to be anything other than evil.


I'm really getting fed up with this moral relativism bullshit.

Agree 100%.

Demon does demon things because that's how he was raised. Deep down, he really just wants to be liked. People think that's clever, but it's been done to death. Complexity can be interesting, but characters like this end up being grey and mushy.

It's more fun to subvert that cliche by having the villain display some moral complexity...but it's a trap and he really is just pure evil.

Or, he really does have some "good" points.  It's merely that they aren't dominant, and they make him that much more effective in his overall evil goal.  Kind of like a more conventional bad guy human who has a plot to wreck the world's economy but is nice to children, polite to ladies, and would never even think of kicking a dog.  Says "sir" and "yes maam" but still needs killing.

This is where I think the whole "everything is grey" thing is adolescent thinking taking to an absurd degree.  Even the analogy is whacked the way they use it.  Usually, "Grey" is some mix of white and black, not the absence of either.  And that mirrors what you said, where "shades of grey" is most interesting when you can still see some of the primary colors.  Once you can't at least tease out something primary, the whole thing is mush.

Yeah, like Hans Gruber in Die Hard. Polite, intelligent, efficient, and likeable, but still a homicidal nutjob. Just when you think he's getting too grey, he shows his true colors by murdering someone.

And you're right about it being an age related. Kids enjoy stories with obvious morals, teenagers rebel, root for the bad guy, and see everything as relative, and then it dawns on us as we mature that the fables held wisdom all along. At least that was my path.

Quote from: rytrasmi on October 07, 2021, 11:35:17 AM

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on October 07, 2021, 10:57:56 AM
This is where I think the whole "everything is grey" thing is adolescent thinking taking to an absurd degree.  Even the analogy is whacked the way they use it.  Usually, "Grey" is some mix of white and black, not the absence of either.  And that mirrors what you said, where "shades of grey" is most interesting when you can still see some of the primary colors.  Once you can't at least tease out something primary, the whole thing is mush.

And you're right about it being an age related. Kids enjoy stories with obvious morals, teenagers rebel, root for the bad guy, and see everything as relative, and then it dawns on us as we mature that the fables held wisdom all along. At least that was my path.

There's a difference between rebellion and moral relativism, though. Some rebels may go in for moral relativism, but not all. I was certainly rebellious in my teenage years, and what I rebelled against was the book-banning "moral majority" of the 1980s that stood for things like banning D&D for its satanism and blocking any mention of homosexuality. But I never adopted moral relativism, and I still am opposed to the 1980s "moral majority" - they're just not the majority any more.

I cited Good Omens before - and similar is true for other works of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. I don't think that their stories show moral relativism. There is clear goodness in their stories. It's just not as simple as fighting for the white hats against the black hats. I think they both have many great stories which aren't moral mush.

I'm more than fine with redemption stories, and *typically* makes those better imo. If 99.999% of demons want to bathe in pools of baby blood and 99.999% of devils want to condemn all mortals to an eternity of torment, then a demon or devil trying for redemption will have their path made that much harder by the fact that most mortals have a very sensible fear and hatred of them.

The take on celestial/angelic alignment that bothers me, and I'm honestly shocked to have not seen it show up in modern D&D yet, is the notion that angels and celestials are just as bad as or worse than infernal forces. Honestly, I can't think of a single supernatural tv series in the last 20 years with angelic characters has *not* gone this route.

Quote from: therealjcm on October 07, 2021, 12:32:27 PM
I'm more than fine with redemption stories, and *typically* makes those better imo. If 99.999% of demons want to bathe in pools of baby blood and 99.999% of devils want to condemn all mortals to an eternity of torment, then a demon or devil trying for redemption will have their path made that much harder by the fact that most mortals have a very sensible fear and hatred of them.

The take on celestial/angelic alignment that bothers me, and I'm honestly shocked to have not seen it show up in modern D&D yet, is the notion that angels and celestials are just as bad as or worse than infernal forces. Honestly, I can't think of a single supernatural tv series in the last 20 years with angelic characters has *not* gone this route.

Angels are vanishingly rare in D&D, in my experience. Plus because D&D is polytheistic, they're different than the explicitly Christian angels of most fantasy portrayals. Even in broader popular fantasy, angels are much less common than demons.

Plus, the possibility of a fallen angel is very different than the trope of saying that all angels are assholes.

Quote from: jhkim on October 07, 2021, 12:27:39 PM

Quote from: rytrasmi on October 07, 2021, 11:35:17 AM

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on October 07, 2021, 10:57:56 AM
This is where I think the whole "everything is grey" thing is adolescent thinking taking to an absurd degree.  Even the analogy is whacked the way they use it.  Usually, "Grey" is some mix of white and black, not the absence of either.  And that mirrors what you said, where "shades of grey" is most interesting when you can still see some of the primary colors.  Once you can't at least tease out something primary, the whole thing is mush.

And you're right about it being an age related. Kids enjoy stories with obvious morals, teenagers rebel, root for the bad guy, and see everything as relative, and then it dawns on us as we mature that the fables held wisdom all along. At least that was my path.

There's a difference between rebellion and moral relativism, though. Some rebels may go in for moral relativism, but not all. I was certainly rebellious in my teenage years, and what I rebelled against was the book-banning "moral majority" of the 1980s that stood for things like banning D&D for its satanism and blocking any mention of homosexuality. But I never adopted moral relativism, and I still am opposed to the 1980s "moral majority" - they're just not the majority any more.

I cited Good Omens before - and similar is true for other works of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. I don't think that their stories show moral relativism. There is clear goodness in their stories. It's just not as simple as fighting for the white hats against the black hats. I think they both have many great stories which aren't moral mush.

Let me put it this way, a Demon can't be Good, it might do a good deed to further it's plans but it and it's plans are Evil.

The moment a Demon stops being Evil it also stops being a Demon.

The same is true in the reverse for Angels.

If you go against this then that's moral relativism and it's just a grey mush.

There's well written and even fun grey mush moral relativism out there. Doesn't stop being grey mush moral relativism tho.

Just like there's badly written and boring stuff that's not grey mush moral relativism and it doesn't stop being badly written and boring.

Lets jump to a different example, take a supervillain, for whatever reason this character repents of his evil ways and stops doing evil stuff and starts doing heroic stuff. As long as it's not a plot to fool the Heroes then he's no longer a villain is he?

Reverse the roles and take a Superhero, for whatever reason he stops doing heroic stuff and starts doing evil stuff... Is he still a Hero?

Why then can a Demon be Good or an Angel Evil? Fallen Angles have a name = Demons, likewise redeemed/good Demons have a name = Angels.

Anything else IS Moral Relativism.

Personally I like the 4e cosmology, where "Angel" just means a celestial servant of the astral gods; and "Demons" are corrupted Elementals, "Devils" are corrupted Angels - but I keep Hell as a prison plane, whatever the Devils say about having killed God and taken His stuff.

Quote from: jhkim on October 07, 2021, 12:27:39 PM
I cited Good Omens before - and similar is true for other works of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. I don't think that their stories show moral relativism. There is clear goodness in their stories. It's just not as simple as fighting for the white hats against the black hats. I think they both have many great stories which aren't moral mush.

So, in the context of a game, where's the party of PCs situated? Would the demon and angel's cooperation matter much if a party of PCs was the protagonist? The party encouters the demon in Good Omens and immediately panics because holy shit a demon but then panic subsides because he's not a terribly evil demon and in fact is buddies with an angel. I'm not feeling the same punch when this is put into the context of a role playing game. It's more like, oh neat, a demon who is not pure evil and didn't immediately attack us, so anyway how to we find this antichrist child? Going from faint recollection, the antagonists in Good Omens are actually evil.

Quote from: rytrasmi on October 07, 2021, 02:02:17 PM

Quote from: jhkim on October 07, 2021, 12:27:39 PM
I cited Good Omens before - and similar is true for other works of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. I don't think that their stories show moral relativism. There is clear goodness in their stories. It's just not as simple as fighting for the white hats against the black hats. I think they both have many great stories which aren't moral mush.

So, in the context of a game, where's the party of PCs situated? Would the demon and angel's cooperation matter much if a party of PCs was the protagonist? The party encouters the demon in Good Omens and immediately panics because holy shit a demon but then panic subsides because he's not a terribly evil demon and in fact is buddies with an angel. I'm not feeling the same punch when this is put into the context of a role playing game. It's more like, oh neat, a demon who is not pure evil and didn't immediately attack us, so anyway how to we find this antichrist child? Going from faint recollection, the antagonists in Good Omens are actually evil.

The angels aren't the good guys in Good Omens.  Or rather, the whole aspect of what it means to be a "fallen angel" is not confined to a one and one event shortly after the creation of the world, but is still happening as the story unfolds.  Given the authors, this is one of the rare cases where such an idea is handled well.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on October 07, 2021, 02:32:18 PM

Quote from: rytrasmi on October 07, 2021, 02:02:17 PM
So, in the context of a game, where's the party of PCs situated? Would the demon and angel's cooperation matter much if a party of PCs was the protagonist? The party encouters the demon in Good Omens and immediately panics because holy shit a demon but then panic subsides because he's not a terribly evil demon and in fact is buddies with an angel. I'm not feeling the same punch when this is put into the context of a role playing game. It's more like, oh neat, a demon who is not pure evil and didn't immediately attack us, so anyway how to we find this antichrist child? Going from faint recollection, the antagonists in Good Omens are actually evil.

The angels aren't the good guys in Good Omens.  Or rather, the whole aspect of what it means to be a "fallen angel" is not confined to a one and one event shortly after the creation of the world, but is still happening as the story unfolds.  Given the authors, this is one of the rare cases where such an idea is handled well.

I agree. I thought the novel was handled well, especially because it was directly parodying The Omen, which was a very wrong-headed take on Christian theology IMO. There is still clear right and wrong in Good Omens - it's just that the angels aren't on the side of right. That makes it an explicitly humanist rejection of the theology of The Omen - but its humanism still has an absolute moral compass. In Good Omens, killing Damien as a toddler would be wrong, because he still has a chance at redemption.

Unfortunately, it had a lot of inferior imitators and trashy takes on angels-are-assholes, but inferior imitators are par for the course of good literature.


I hadn't been suggesting a direct adaptation of Good Omens into an RPG scenario. But I can see how similar themes might be adapted into a mystery scenario. I could easily see a D&D scenario revolving around a demon-spawned child, where there is a possibly-rogue deva that wants to kill the child, and a bunch of evil cultists that want to reclaim the child - but where the PCs end up saving the child and having him raised away from the control of the cultists. There are some parallels to Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill, which deals with a type of dualism -- where the mystery isn't solved just by killing the enemy, but by resolving it through other means. (A bit vague here to avoid spoilers.)

Quote from: jhkim on October 07, 2021, 12:27:39 PM
And you're right about it being an age related. Kids enjoy stories with obvious morals, teenagers rebel, root for the bad guy, and see everything as relative, and then it dawns on us as we mature that the fables held wisdom all along. At least that was my path.

There's a difference between rebellion and moral relativism, though.

Well, that's why I referred to adolescent thinking, which is more than just being a teen or being a rebel.  People can rebel for all kinds of reasons, including against tyranny.  There is a high correlation between teens and adolescent thinking.  Or more precisely, "thinking," because it is primarily emotionally-driven rationalization for what they think they want.  You can pretty much define a large chunk of "modernism" starting with Rousseau as "decided that 'teenager' was a thing, and then a bunch of people tried to stay one their entire lives". 

Seeing shades of gray and noticing that the people have good and bad traits that blend in often surprising ways is part of growing up and gaining a little wisdom.  Noticing that once and making the emotional leap into moral relativism results in mush.  It isn't always immediately 100% mush, because even mental adolescents live off the capital of the society around them, but taken to its logical conclusion it results in a mush so pure that it doesn't occur naturally, only when manufactured.

Quote from: S'mon on October 07, 2021, 01:40:48 PM
Personally I like the 4e cosmology, where "Angel" just means a celestial servant of the astral gods; and "Demons" are corrupted Elementals, "Devils" are corrupted Angels - but I keep Hell as a prison plane, whatever the Devils say about having killed God and taken His stuff.

  The 'nothing is evil in the beginning' was an element of the 4E cosmology I really liked, and I toyed with the idea that 'He Who Was' was still alive in the depths of the Nine Hells and Asmodeus was pretending to godhood while leeching off his divine power.

Quote from: VhaidraSaga on October 07, 2021, 09:02:39 AM

Quote from: Horace on October 06, 2021, 09:25:36 PM
I guess this paragraph in the 5E Player's Handbook won't survive the revision:

"Alignment is an essential part of the nature of celestials and fiends. A devil does not choose to be lawful evil, and it doesn't tend toward lawful evil, but rather it is lawful evil in its essence. If it somehow ceased to be lawful evil, it would cease to be a devil."

Too bad, because it's one of the most sensible things in the book.

EXACTLY. Devils & Demons are evil, Angels are good. If they stop being their alignment, they become something else completely.

This is why my Angels (or Primal Spirits as they're called in the setting) and Demons are explicitly the same type of entity in my setting. The only inherent difference is the side they chose in relation to the purpose of Creation.

The demons lost, were exiled to the Outer Darkness and The Great Barrier erected to forever bar them from Creation (unless a foolish mortal inside Creation opens a door for them, but even then they need a tether to not be immediately re-ejected once the spell ends).

The main reason anyone would even call on a demon is because primal magic is only gifted to individuals based on the need for it to advance the Source's will (translation bring about the salvation of souls) and never to someone seeking power for its own sake.