Quote from: jeff37923;539998I think that the LG realm would eventually fall apart without any poking from the gods.

All of the corner alignments are unstable because they have to reconcile two priorities that may be in conflict with each other.  Sometimes, to maximize Good or Evil, you need to compromise Order or Liberty.  Sometimes, to maximize Law or Chaos, you need to compromise Good or Evil.  Neutral allows pragmatism either way.

Quote from: Spinachcat;540093What if the spell did not affect their offspring?

It would make an interesting generational battle kind of campaign. Imagine the evil a teenager could wreck in a kingdom of LG where everyone assumes that everyone else is LG...

Dude, that is frickin' AWSOME!!!

I think that it's axiomatic that something of this nature is going to fail, or be twisted into something unexpected, and your suggestion is just so spot on for the proposed Uber-spell of alignment change.

Quote from: Spinachcat;540094I am unsure I'd want a whole campaign in a single alignment zone.

I agree. For me, there are two interesting campaigns that could come from this scenario.

The first campaign would tie into Estar's comments. The plan exists, and it is in motion. The gods wish to stop it, but can't intervene directly.

So, they clue in some mortals with cryptic prophecies or seeming coincidences. The mortals stumble across the plot, and problems ensue.

Imagine a band of mortal adventurers, typical grave-robbing almost-bandits of many races and alignments, fighting to stop the leaders of a genuinely Good, genuinely kind and charitable kingdom, from enacting their epic spell.

Instead of an undead liche, or a demon lord, or Thulsa Doom, the Big Bad is a bunch of really kind and generous guys, who happen to want to do something really, really bad.

(For added emphasis, you could widen the scope of the spell from just the LG kingdom to the continent or world.)

The other campaign is set much, much later. The plan happened. The gods smote the world. Then, long after the... call it... Cataclysm, the campaign begins.

Because of mortal wrongdoing, there are no priests, no miracles, and all mortals have been cut off from the Gods. Then some Evil gods try and edge around the Godly Laws, and the Good gods are forced to respond.

That'd be interesting, I think. Too bad it's never been done before. Not in D&D, at least. Nor anything like it.

Either of those campaigns could be interesting, I think.

Quote from: Drohem;540098Dude, that is frickin' AWSOME!!!

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;540099The other campaign is set much, much later. The plan happened. The gods smote the world. Then, long after the... call it... Cataclysm, the campaign begins.

Because of mortal wrongdoing, there are no priests, no miracles, and all mortals have been cut off from the Gods. Then some Evil gods try and edge around the Godly Laws, and the Good gods are forced to respond.

That'd be interesting, I think. Too bad it's never been done before. Not in D&D, at least. Nor anything like it.

It has been done.

First you only recreated the premise of the DL setting (up to naming the defining event "Cataclysm"), and now you recreated the original DragonLance campaign.

hold on a sec in Firefly aren't the alliance basically Lawful good? A Benign tryany

IN Serenity the Operative actually expalins that he is a necessary evil but once his work is done there is no place for him in the new order. Its not until he sees the necessary compromises that have had to have been made that he realises that any forced hegemony is by its nature antithetical to 'good'.

its not unlike how the USA wants to fix the Middle East to make it better for all the Middle eastern folks to live in.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;540327and now you recreated the original DragonLance campaign.

Did I? To the extent of using the word "Cataclysm"?

Must just be a big coincidence.

EDIT

I should make this clearer: I know that. It's the entire point of the thread.

Quote from: jibbajibba;540347hold on a sec in Firefly aren't the alliance basically Lawful good? A Benign tryany

I don't see them that way. They pretty much come across as a bureaucratized tyranny, with designs on remaking human nature to fit a specific template.

You know, like the Soviet Union.

They kidnap children, perform horrific experiments on them, allow corporate agents to kill at will...

That says D&D LG to you? Because that says LE to me. YMMV.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;540350I don't see them that way. They pretty much come across as a bureaucratized tyranny, with designs on remaking human nature to fit a specific template.

You know, like the Soviet Union.

They kidnap children, perform horrific experiments on them, allow corporate agents to kill at will...

That says D&D LG to you? Because that says LE to me. YMMV.

But they are doing it for the benefit of the state. They were trying to enable those kids to allow them to achieve their full potential and if you recall all those kids volunteered they were not co-erced to join although they may have been coerced as part of their training.

If it were LE then The Operative would have no trouble existing in the Society he is helping to create.
One of the interesting thing about the Serenity universe is that the baddies, the Alliance, are benign. They haven't mass executed the rebels they have tried to reform them.
Now I can see that they might be Lawful Neutral but if you actually asked about their motivation each Allaince Leader woudl say, something like , through a rule of law and a degree of latitude and good governace we are trying to make life better for the majority. They really do want to make the Verse better not just more ordered.

Quote from: jibbajibba;540351But they are doing it for the benefit of the state. .

I dont watch the show, so really cant comment on the specific case here, but this doesn't seem like a good argument for it being LG. In fact, that seems like the logical starting point for an iconic LE society.

Quote from: jibbajibba;540347its not unlike how the USA wants to fix the Middle East to make it better for all the Middle eastern folks to live in.

And this is where your analogy fails....

Quote from: John Morrow;540096All of the corner alignments are unstable because they have to reconcile two priorities that may be in conflict with each other.  Sometimes, to maximize Good or Evil, you need to compromise Order or Liberty.  Sometimes, to maximize Law or Chaos, you need to compromise Good or Evil.  Neutral allows pragmatism either way.

The more I think about this, the more I agree. Only a Neutral Good or Neutral Evil empire would have any real longevity. Neutral perhaps the longest.

Quote from: jibbajibba;540351if you recall all those kids volunteered

No, those children were lied to, as were their parents. They were told they were being sent to the equivalent of Oxford. Instead, they ended up getting their brains sliced open and getting drugs poured into their systems.

"It was a code. It just said 'they're hurting us.' "

Quote from: jibbajibba;540351But they are doing it for the benefit of the state.

"Everything inside the State, nothing outside the State."
Mussolini

State-worship, sacrificing citizens for the good of the State, has been the hallmark of brutal tyrannies since the first ideological State in 1789, which lead to the Terror. State centered governments have included the Khmer Rouge, Communist China, North Korea, the Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany.

The endeavor to remake man's nature and reinvent society, to bring about a near-paradise on Earth has created dictatorships, police states, and mass murder. 15+ millions murdered by the Nazis, 100+ million by communist dictatorships, including the infamous Killing Fields of Cambodia.

The Alliance was referred to explicitly (most clearly in Serenity) as another government dedicated to "making people better" or "eliminating sin". They are just another in that long list of totalitarian police States.

(Totalitarian, BTW, means "all of society mobilized behind the State.")

I suspect that, to the extent D&D's morality can be extended to modern nation-states in general and ideological States in particular, none of those governments are Lawful Good. Or, at the very least, if you're going to argue that the Khmer Rouge or Fascist Italy were Lawful Good, we can just accept we have vastly different definitions of Good and leave it at that.

Quote from: jibbajibba;540351One of the interesting thing about the Serenity universe is that the baddies, the Alliance, are benign.

I don't see that. I see them as bureaucratic, corrupt, and callous. They used biological and chemical weapons in the war (as mentioned in one episode). Their leaders are "covered in blood. It never touched them, but they're drowning in it." They killed 20 million people, and covered it up.

Much like modern China, a small cabal of powerful hold the reins of power and they rule for their own benefit. They can, and do kick down your door and murder you—"Two by two, hands of blue."—but some people, especially the wealthy, can slide by. So long as they have connections.

That's not Good, which (IMHO) requires benevolence and a regard for the well-being of others. At best, some are Lawful Neutral. The Alliance is not Lawful Good.

Quote from: jibbajibba;540351but if you actually asked about their motivation

In the ideological age, all leaders claim to have benevolent goals. Even the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and Hitler. That doesn't justify mass murder, repression, or the other horrors endemic to dictatorships.

Serenity is a good example of the axiom that something along this line of reasoning will fail.  The Alliance administered the drug to the planet's population in the hopes of suppressing aggression and the unintended consequence was the birth of the Reavers.

Quote from: Drohem;540363Serenity is a good example of the axiom that something along this line of reasoning will fail.

You mean the spell will inevitably fail? There's no proof of that, because Epic Spells can't be reality-tested. They don't exist.

You can't state "X magic will fail" as an axiom, because it isn't. Magic will succeed or fail based on the fictional universe in which it exists.

Magic works one way in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell, another way in "Harry Potter", and yet another way in the Dresdenverse. The spell might not exist in one, might work in one, and might fail in another.

The feasibility and nature of Magic depends entirely on the writer/game designer.

So, if the generational conflict thing holds interest, go with that. (Personally, I'd be more interested in a generation of CG youths, rather than Evil youths, but that's just me.)

If the writer/designer declares the spell will work, and will create a fantasy 1984 ("imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever"), and the campaign is based around stopping it... then it is so.

Or, if you picture a future after the gods punished men for their hubris, then that can work as well.

Your game. Your rules. Your fun.