In regards with redemption...

Quote from: jeff37923;607806Sorry, not interested. Does not sound fun from either a Player or GM perspective.

It can be fun, but like horror there's player buy-in required.

Redemption is actually a prominent demonic theme in In Nomine SJG. It's also crazy difficult because you need to survive a) other evils wanting you dead for betrayal, b) other evils wanting you to trip up and fail, cuz, heh, how deliciously fun, c) find anyone who can help willing to believe your sincerity, and d) actually change your ways and mean it. Finally you have to have intercession from an aspect of the divine (Archangel) -- and you still run the risk of being soul killed and your energies dissipated because your evil make-up cannot withstand the transition. For most a pipe dream, but a dream worth pursuing nonetheless.

And then there's the false flag demonic foils trying to trick the good guys with false attempts at redemption.

It makes for great RPG fodder for both GM and players alike.

But your table has to be interested in the possibility, and the game has to have some sort of support for the concept.

Quote from: CerilianSeeming;607754I think to 'choose' either side alone is naive.  There are things that are grossly, irredeemably evil in the real world, and there are many varying shades of grey.  But for grey to exist, there has to be something for grey to lie between -- true light and true darkness.  They can be as almost-unknowable as the infinite mysteries of the universe, but they are still there.

For gaming purposes though I'd view objective good and evil as tools to an end, used to create certain effects, feelings and environments in games. The philosophical ramifications are less interesting than the reactions they can get out of players, like everything in RPGs I suppose.

Quote from: Settembrini;607735But you, as creator, are not- when you introduce an antagonist and his goal, you have decided that. Stephen Colbert made that point much better than I can ever hope to, in an interview with an HBO show creator who was giving the same answer.

I, as the creator, am not what?
I've decided what?

Are you saying that I've decided an NPC is evil? Actually, I haven't because I don't believe in 'evil'. An NPC might have motives opposed to the PCs and they are free to consider him evil but, you know, that's their bag. Even enemy NPCs have mothers that love them.

Quote from: Premier;607809*Paraphrased*

DERP DERP DERP You don't know anything you only play new games not the real games from long long ago and you never actually played those games you just pretended to you have no education and and and DERP DERP DERP

You know I thought about answering you point for point, but then I thought - why?  I don't really care how you game, and you made my point for me.

Do a quick internet search if you give a shit, if not then continue to play your game how you want.  Nobody gives two shits or a fuck.

I'll leave it with:  I appreciate the mechanical aspects of alignment (which isn't the subject of the thread), don't ban magic items or spells or classes in my campaign, and have used Deities & Demigods + Manual of the Planes to great effect.  I've had a lot of fun with alignment, I think it works very well and I see no reason to modify it in my own game.  

Right now, that's AD&D 1e RaW.  I guess that's nuD&D to you.

Quote from: RPGPundit;607522Do you want there to be things, creatures, and people in your world that are objectively black-and-white Evil? Not necessarily "stupid evil" but none of this "they're just misunderstood" crap?

Or are you one of those guys who likes to constantly wallow in "shades of grey", who loves anti-heroes and villains-who-can-be-redeemed?

In the Majestic Wilderlands I have both. Demons and their ilk are a force of true evil at war with creation itself in a desire to control it for themselves regardless of the cost.

For everything else it depends on how you look at it including some of the gods. The "evil" gods have philosophies that are unpleasant or unappealing.

Set the God of War and Order is viewed as Tyrannical and very much follows the credo of the ends justify the means. His believes only that absolute obedience and order will allow the races of the Wilderland to fight demons. The goddess Mitra the war goddess of honor and justice is considered a misguided fool and sometimes enemy by Set.

Hamakhis is a death god, lord of the death, who in his desire to fight the demons bonded with the shadow. A nihilistic force that in a faustian bargain he has to feed souls too. Souls provided by the human sacrifices of his religion. Or so they claim, as there are older records of when the religion was about the worship Hamakhis in his aspect as judges and human sacrifice was very infrequent.


Kalis was a nature goddess raped by the Demon and afterwards consumed by revenge. She turned to the breeding of monsters and blood magic to give her the power to overthrow the Demons and throw them back in the Abyss. Of the ten main gods she has no religion with her at the focus, the largest groups of followers are organized into cults.

The other religions of the Wilderland revolve around the other seven main gods in various aspects.  The main ones are

The pantheon of the Sylvan cultures i.e. a group of cultures influenced by the elves.

The henothestic worship of Mitra by the Ghinorians who believe they are her chosen people.

The southern pantheon of Mantriv the Sky God of War, Dannu the Earth Mother, and Thoth the wise Ibis Sage. Originally confined to the nomads of the Ament Tundra but spread in the wake of their conquest of the Ghinorian Homeland and the rest of the southern regions of the Wilderlands.

The Desert Lands worship of Daysha the Goddess of Fate, Pleasure and Wealth.
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Phil Zimbardo talks at TED about the true nature of real evil.  You should all watch this if you haven't seen it.

This is the guy who headed the Stanford Prison Experiments.

Well, I and the people I game with are adults, and we like immersion and verisimilitude in our gaming.  I generally prefer D&D variants that only use the law-neutrality-chaos axis as per OD&D because that lets my players map their own morality (and that which they choose for their PCs) onto how they deal with the setting.  The issue with AD&D 9 point alignment is that DMs need to define what they feel good is.  While a D&D campaign is indeed mediated by the DM and the players are exploring his or her setting, I prefer settings where morality more resembles the complex situations in real life.  Also, using a Law-Nuetrality-Chaos axis lets me use deities and themes similar to what is found in Moorcock's writing, which is one of my preferred fantasy authors.  Also, sword and sorcery genre writers (Howard, Lieber et al) as opposed to High Fantasy writers (Tolkien, Lewis, etc) had a more murky and flexible position on issues of morality that I enjoy working with.

Back when I used to run AD&D, I generally allowed Paladins be of any alignment, with minor tweaking of their abilities, but enforced strict adherence to the ethos of their religion and mandated a personal relationship with their god.

I have worked out the best summary of my position.

I have no issue with individuals beeing irredeemibly evil. I have an issue with a whole population or class of creature (aside from the divine/demionic but even then I am too steeped in Lucifer and other Vertigo comics to draw a tight line here) being irredeemibly evil.

Quote from: Blackhand;607848Phil Zimbardo talks at TED about the true nature of real evil.  You should all watch this if you haven't seen it.

This is the guy who headed the Standford Prison Experiments.

There are alternate interpretations of that experiment, and follow up experiments along the same line have drawn different conclusions.

Then there's the tendency we have of being willing to do things for our buddies we wouldn't do for a stranger.

Quote from: jibbajibba;607873I have no issue with individuals beeing irredeemibly evil. I have an issue with a whole population or class of creature (aside from the divine/demionic but even then I am too steeped in Lucifer and other Vertigo comics to draw a tight line here) being irredeemibly evil.

Very interesting point that goes hand in hand with definitions of good and evil and cultural right and wrong.

Blackhand's post of the Phil Lombardo video (which I just watched) makes an interesting point of the abuse of power and social systems that allow easy abuse of power.

Most feudal societies then would appear to be lawful evil, and most participating members of the society of a compatible spectrum, depending on how much kool-aid they drink.

Quote from: Blackhand;607824Do a quick internet search if you give a shit, if not then continue to play your game how you want.

Translate: "No, I cannot actually name the articles, guess you called my bluff."

QuoteI'll leave it with:  I appreciate the mechanical aspects of alignment (which isn't the subject of the thread), don't ban magic items or spells or classes in my campaign, and have used Deities & Demigods + Manual of the Planes to great effect.  I've had a lot of fun with alignment, I think it works very well and I see no reason to modify it in my own game.

Which is significant backpedaling from your starting position of "ditching alignment is more trouble than it's worth", i.e. a sweeping statement about an allegedly objective fact that's true for the entirety of D&D, and had to backpedal from there. But I guess it's still an improvement, and had you actually started with this, it would have been a wholly respectable position; so let's just leave it at that.

Quote from: Premier;607983Translate: "DERP"

For real?

I'm really not sure how you perceive it to be backpedaling.  I'm trying not to take the trollbait, but making sure everyone knows why I said what I said by clarifying my position.  I absolutely stand by everything I said, that's why I play the game the way I do.  I think the error is on your part, by thinking everything you read on this forum is someone making a "sweeping" announcement that covers the "entirety" of your hobby.

I even like area alignment, and understand how alignment can be applied to societies.

I really couldn't point to all the articles I've read on the subject.  It could have been ten or more years ago.  I'm not searching them all up just so you can bitch about it.  I've read pieces in Dragon, but here's some fairly recent pieces by the Escapist's Alexander Macriss.

The fact remains that RaW, Alignment is mechanically part of the game.  Therefore, at my table, when we play D&D, we use Alignment.

Anyone who showed up at my table and complained the system didn't give him freedom of expression...well...

I would say I considered that false, and that the system reflects the game's universe.  Therefore, he would be required not only to select an alignment, but also to use it in play.

Quote from: Premier;607983Translate: "No, I cannot actually name the articles, guess you called my bluff."

I'm sorry to hear your fingers are broken. Do you have trouble feeding yourself? Do you have trouble getting dressed in the morning? How is the voice recognition of your computer working?

It's easy to ditch alignment and I often have. To say otherwise indicates a game where RAW is king and deviation from it is near unimaginable. Fair enough but I don't game that way thank god and nor do a great many others.

And interesting variant is to make good and evil wholly subjective at either an individual or societal level. That way you can have a paladin who's anti 'evil' powers come into play against those defined by his faith. Maybe another creed, another race or even just 95% of the world.

Paladins can be real fuckers that way :-)

I go for a bell curve. Most people are somewhere in the middle in the "shades of grey" region. People who are objectively "good" or objectively "evil" are rare.

An objectively good character might be a healer who goes to give aid and comfort to people dying of a plague, despite knowing that they themselves will almost certainly be infected as a result, or an anti-slavery crusader who keeps up their campaign despite all the trouble the slavers throw at them - someone who goes out there and does the right thing, even if they know it's futile and even if they know it'll probably mean their deaths.

An objectively evil character might be someone who, no matter how many chances you give them, always finds some way to pursue their particular agenda - and that agenda involves needless and excessive harm to innocents. The Nazis are a good example of that: every time people tried to talk things out with them it ended badly because the Nazis were experts at using other people's good intentions against them, and I think it's fairly clear from history that going to war with them was necessary because they'd have never backed down voluntarily.

Such characters at either extend of the bell curve should be rare, and where they do become major figures in a campaign it ought to be because they've won a bunch of followers who are somewhat more complex than they are. The followers of an objectively good person might not do the right thing al the time, but if they're sincere they'll be doing their best. Not every German was a psychotic, hate-filled fascist in the Nazi era, but enough were vicious, stupid, or weak enough to go along with the Nazis to give Hitler the momentum he needed.