|
chaos, apparently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9MiS9tn_r4
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 21:29
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 16, 2024 00:20 |
|
|
The "actively seeks to promote chaos" bit might be in the description but if you take even a brief glance through the Monster Manual it's self-evidently bullshit. Eladrin, Djinn, and certain species of Giant are all listed as Chaotic Good and they all have relatively organized societies with culture, hierarchy, and so on. Even regular Elves are listed as "usually Chaotic Good" and they have kings and nobility and poo poo. It's basically just an indicator of valuing personal freedom, not lockstep adherence to a philosophy that would make Bakunin blush. e: although if you want radical elven anarchist communes in your game, don't let me stop you Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Sep 21, 2017 |
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 21:31
|
|
|
hyphz posted:The problem with making him CG is that if he were crowned King, so he could make the laws, he would make things fairer for the poor.. so would he suddenly become LG? Seems a bit weak. No, if a CG was crowned king they would cry "do as you will!" while genuinely believing this was a good thing.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 21:32
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:The "actively seeks to promote chaos" bit might be in the description but if you take even a brief glance through the Monster Manual it's self-evidently bullshit. Eladrin, Djinn, and certain species of Giant are all listed as Chaotic Good and they all have relatively organized societies with culture, hierarchy, and so on. It's basically just an indicator of valuing personal freedom, not lockstep adherence to a philosophy that would make Bakunin blush. Sure. I guess it's more that CG is just a stupid alignment, because CE creatures are expected to promote chaos. So either the axes aren't independent or CG creatures are such pollyannas they believe anarchy would lead to everyone being nice to each other. I think 13A bans CG?
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 21:34
|
|
|
hyphz posted:Sure. I guess it's more that CG is just a stupid alignment, because CE creatures are expected to promote chaos, so the axes aren't independent. I think 13A bans CG? CE outsiders who literally embody the forces of evil and chaos, maybe. Orcs (for instance) are just unruly, violent, and disorganized. The real takeaway here is that all alignment is stupid and you'd be much better off writing a sentence or two about a creature's motivations and ideology instead.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 21:35
|
|
|
Like, compare "Orcs are dedicated to spreading Evil and Chaos because that's how they are" to "Orcs were a scattered, predominantly tribal species who regularly raided other cultures, which led to a multi-generation campaign to drive Orcs out of their ancestral home, forcing them to band together. They have a racial supremacist ideology which to them both justifies dominating other species, and also helps keep old tribal antagonisms in check by emphasizing Orcish unity and ascribes their historical defeats to infighting and isolation rather than weakness."
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 21:47
|
|
|
hyphz posted:Sure. I guess it's more that CG is just a stupid alignment, because CE creatures are expected to promote chaos. So either the axes aren't independent or CG creatures are such pollyannas they believe anarchy would lead to everyone being nice to each other. I think 13A bans CG? It's been awhile, but I'm pretty sure 13th Age does away with alignment completely, in favor of the far more sensible Icon relationships (which it then fails to do much with, but hey).
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 21:51
|
|
|
The "chaotic" side of alignment was never developed, like, basically at all. That's because OG D&D just kinda vaguely grabbed Law and Chaos from Elric sans-context and stuffed all the monsters into chaos and called it bad, probably for personal reasons. Later they added good and bad and made it a grid...but didn't actually, uh, develop anything beyond saying it exists, kinda. As ZeroCount said, this becomes pretty apparent when you note how many "chaotic evil" groups are just movie authoritarianism. Because when you get down to it, law vs chaos isn't law vs chaos. It's vague ideals of organized western society vs vague stereotypes of "uncivilized" peoples. Which is why Lawful Evil bad guys are always lawyers or "evil kings" or corrupt watchmen - not people who create evil structures, but those who subvert "good" structures. As far as D&D is concerned, "law" in of itself is a net good - Evil happens when you gently caress with it. The core idea is pretty obvious, and the fact that "good kings" even exist at all is absurd to anyone who knows anything about the grueling and grinding horrors of feudalism. And on the other side, it's pretty apparent that the more "Good" your chaos is...the more it resembles lawful good. All these Chaotic Good groups all still somehow seem to have kings or queens, they're still societies covered in laws - I mean, poo poo, the fae are chaotic, and they're literally characterized by their inability to break their own laws and rules. Chaotic Good is fine with laws existing, they'll just break the ones they don't like - yeah, that's real "good" of them. Of course, the opposite holds true. The more chaotic and the more evil you get, the more you rage against lawful society. Chaotic Neutral is characterized by madmen who just can't understand how good and important Following The Law is. Chaotic Evil is...still lawful society! Still groups being lead by single authoritarian leaders! Oh, but now they're primitive. Boy, no undertones or let's be honest outright overtones here! "Cirno that's because D&D isn't meant to be a political treatise" Briefly ignoring the fact that everything is political whether you wanted it to be or not, ok, don't loving claim you rate objective goods or evils then.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 21:58
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:Like, compare "Orcs are dedicated to spreading Evil and Chaos because that's how they are" to "Orcs were a scattered, predominantly tribal species who regularly raided other cultures, which led to a multi-generation campaign to drive Orcs out of their ancestral home, forcing them to band together. They have a racial supremacist ideology which to them both justifies dominating other species, and also helps keep old tribal antagonisms in check by emphasizing Orcish unity and ascribes their historical defeats to infighting and isolation rather than weakness." Sure, but people like alignment because (a) it's a """"""funny"""""" meme, (b) it's a thing they are aware of, and (c) it acts as a very shorthand way to explain your character to other people. obviously alignment means basically anything you want it to (is a wandering ronin chaotic or lawful???) but IN GENERAL there is something of an accepted definition for any of them within the wider, more casual nerd zeitgeist. like if you say "my character is lawful/evil" most people who are familiar with epic alignment chart memes will say "oh they do bad stuff but do so behind the scenes or are the leader of an evil hierarchical organization".
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 22:04
|
|
|
Yeah but part of that is that the concept of alignment is so nonsensical on its face that the individual alignments themselves started becoming shorthand for, like, actually-existing archetypes and societies. It's just that some of them are kinda grody (CE for the reasons Cirno described) some of them describe a way no actual person would act (Lawful Neutral as BEEP BOOP I AM A ROBOT), some of them are basically just a license to act like a jackass (Chaotic Neutral), and almost all of them are vague enough that multiple common but contradictory interpretations can exist even within official written material, let alone how players read it. I've seen one or two alignment chart memes that are actually funny either because they're much better-systematized than the actual concept of alignment (RADICAL SANDWICH ANARCHY) and some that are funny because they're making fun of the existing inconsistencies. Mostly it just falls kind of flat though. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Sep 21, 2017 |
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 22:08
|
|
|
Like, the fact that there's supposed to be a "neutral" between cosmic forces of good and evil should be enough of a hint as to how stupid alignment is.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 22:23
|
|
|
Bear in mind I'm not saying instant PC death on bad luck is necessarily bad. It's just almost always implemented clumsily, and almost always implemented thoughtlessly. Dread has an instant death mechanic as the core of its system, after all, and it's pretty cool! But it's bad in most fantasy games because they're built around long campaigns and generally just lead to uninteresting failure states such as lugging bodies around to get them revived or TPKs that the games usually have no actual answer to other than "well, make new characters'.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 22:29
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:Like, compare "Orcs are dedicated to spreading Evil and Chaos because that's how they are" to "Orcs were a scattered, predominantly tribal species who regularly raided other cultures, which led to a multi-generation campaign to drive Orcs out of their ancestral home, forcing them to band together. They have a racial supremacist ideology which to them both justifies dominating other species, and also helps keep old tribal antagonisms in check by emphasizing Orcish unity and ascribes their historical defeats to infighting and isolation rather than weakness." 
|
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 22:38
|
|
|
I mean, setting aside that I'd be down to play with the group in that comic, all I really said there was "my Orcs are basically low-tech nazis." That's almost as good an excuse to kill orcs as "they're just evil."
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 22:45
|
|
|
Even though I don't believe in the alignment system, I always thought 4e's flavor text had an elegant, if not systematic, solution to such conundrums. Essentially, races' nature was tied to their creator. Orcs aren't all evil, but their god is evil, so they're naturally drawn to it. Baphomet created all minotaurs and then was turned into a demon by the Abyss, so they're drawn to the influence of blood cults and vileness, even if they can overcome it. If you start giving cultural reasons for evil, then it inevitably brings up concepts of nature vs nurture that really take the fun out of killing orcs. And you end up with an idea where an orc raised in a proper society wouldn't be violent and barbaric in any way, which is the most colonialist concept I can imagine.
|
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 22:51
|
|
|
Plutonis posted:It was for people on a pyf forum posts thread and the guy who made it put himself as CN which made everyone made fun of his rear end forever being landerig already did that though
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 22:54
|
|
|
This sucks!!
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 22:56
|
|
|
Lurdiak posted:If you start giving cultural reasons for evil, then it inevitably brings up concepts of nature vs nurture that really take the fun out of killing orcs. And you end up with an idea where an orc raised in a proper society wouldn't be violent and barbaric in any way, which is the most colonialist concept I can imagine. What proper society? Most D&D settings are dominated by cultures somewhere on the "feudal" to "absolute monarchy" spectrum. It's jerks all the way down, some of them just have fancier castle-building techniques. I also don't really see the distinction between "Gods have a powerful, but not absolute influence over their creations" and "but what about nurture?" Isn't the latter kind of inherent in the former? Unless some orcs and minotaurs are just born inherently good, I suppose, which is even weirder.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 23:01
|
|
|
also I'm pretty sure the end point of what I'm proposing here is just "Glorantha"
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 23:04
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:What proper society? Most D&D settings are dominated by cultures somewhere on the "feudal" to "absolute monarchy" spectrum. It's jerks all the way down, some of them just have fancier castle-building techniques. Once again that's a very demoralizing attitude to take when dealing with High Fantasy, one that greatly reduces its escapist appeal. Unless you're playing in Dark Sun or Eberron, I'm not sure it's appropriate to The Witcher things up to that degree. quote:I also don't really see the distinction between "Gods have a powerful, but not absolute influence over their creations" and "but what about nurture?" Isn't the latter kind of inherent in the former? Unless some orcs and minotaurs are just born inherently good, I suppose, which is even weirder. The distinction is that the former presents things as sort of a vague inner struggle between good and evil that each individual must face, which is very evocative and fantasy-esque, while the other suggests that the issues could be solved through reform instead of the heroic actions of individuals. While rugged individualism is not the best philosophy to adopt in real life, it's a bit difficult to avoid in games that are essentially built as power fantasies. Lurdiak fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Sep 21, 2017 |
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 23:08
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:I mean, setting aside that I'd be down to play with the group in that comic, all I really said there was "my Orcs are basically low-tech nazis." That's almost as good an excuse to kill orcs as "they're just evil." It also had the side idea of orcs as a culture looking down on mage-types because they do things the "easy way" rather than the involved research and building they do.  "This is my rifle, made by my hands. With it I can shoot a lead pellet at a beast 100 yards away." "I can just wave my hands and do that, and when I do it I can't miss." "Yes, but I made this myself. I smelted the metal, studied how gunpowder works, experimented for months to learn the correct charge levels. As I did, I learn about gunpowder, metalurgy, physics, and ballistics. What did you learn by 'wiggling your fingers'?" "Uh...well..." "That's what I thought. Now be quiet, the adults are talking."Man, I need to find those notes.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 23:11
|
|
|
that doesn't make any sense because magic isn't "easy" unless you're a sorcerer or had your powers granted by some sort of other figure. wizards work super hard for magic!!
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 23:13
|
|
|
Like, okay, if you run a setting where you don't have fantasy races, you're a loving racist if you act like a particular ethnicity is inherently evil. But if they're a different species, suddenly it's okay to say that kind of thing? Nah, man. It's not like this is some super complex and difficult hurdle, either. Plenty of settings nowadays treat being a fantasy race as just a kind of ethnicity. What are you losing if your steppe-riding horde isn't 100% orcs, or if some hordes are "good" and some are "bad"? Nothing.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 23:14
|
|
|
tell a swordmage to their face that they did things the easy way. i dare you. i double dare you. fucker
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 23:14
|
|
That Old Tree posted:Like, okay, if you run a setting where you don't have fantasy races, you're a loving racist if you act like a particular ethnicity is inherently evil. But if they're a different species, suddenly it's okay to say that kind of thing? Nah, man. Answer me this: is it racist to say a demon is inherently evil?
|
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 23:17
|
|
|
Lurdiak posted:Answer me this: is it racist to say a demon is inherently evil? A D&D demon isn't a species; it's the end result of a soul that embraced evil in life, died, and managed to get through an afterlife gauntlet by continually being more and more evil, growing stronger as it does so. Demons aren't born, and while they might have a culture (depending on the setting) it's one based at least as much on metaphysics as meat-physics.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 23:27
|
|
|
That Old Tree posted:It's not like this is some super complex and difficult hurdle, either. Plenty of settings nowadays treat being a fantasy race as just a kind of ethnicity. What are you losing if your steppe-riding horde isn't 100% orcs, or if some hordes are "good" and some are "bad"? Nothing. I admit I had a kneejerk response when I opened up the 13th Age Bestiary 2 at GenCon and there were some Bramble Elves or whatever and there was a big sidebar that was basically "No, you can't play Bramble Elves even if you're the only good Bramble Elf it would ruin them as villains! Ruin them! They're eeevil!" and I literally just put it down and didn't open it up again. I hope the rest of the of the book is better than that, but I remember the same argument being held up about dark elves back in the day, and I've never put much stock in it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 23:28
|
|
|
That's even worse then usual fantasy badness because that's why One Unique Things even exist!
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 23:29
|
|
|
My favorite homebrew was in a setting where Orcs and Elves wound up forging alliances due to forests and mountainy areas being both their typical homes, and they both super hated Dwarfs for different reasons. Still typical Fantasy Orcs (a bit less 'unga bunga me chop you' but still the whole 'we're a culture based on harsh survivalist mindset and primal religions'), still typical Fantasy Elves, but they just ages ago agreed to tolerate each other and make efforts to unite to keep those drat Dwarfs from messing their poo poo up. Really that's all you need, just don't make Orcs or whatever 'antagonist race' some kinda savage hivemind and they're fine. Have some examples of when others had to work with them, give them a history deeper than 'every other war is because they wanted to eat the flesh of some princess or whatever those savages do', and spend as much effort as any other race would get in your world on them.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 23:33
|
|
|
Lurdiak posted:Answer me this: is it racist to say a demon is inherently evil? Who says demons gotta be evil?
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 23:44
|
|
|
Mr. Maltose posted:That's even worse then usual fantasy badness because that's why One Unique Things even exist! Ever since reading the F&F review of their faction book, I really want to play the one altruistic Skaven. He's completely terrified of taking credit for any of the good deeds he does, and if he's forced to he reflexively comes up with excuses for why it's really totally to benefit himself, honest.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2017 00:01
|
|
|
Lurdiak posted:Once again that's a very demoralizing attitude to take when dealing with High Fantasy, one that greatly reduces its escapist appeal. Unless you're playing in Dark Sun or Eberron, I'm not sure it's appropriate to The Witcher things up to that degree. Eberron isn't really "jerks all the way down," it's just a setting that eschews Nine-Point Alignment (but has to stick it in there due to contractual obligations, it's still abundantly clear that you're meant to ignore it). Various writers leaned way too hard on the "this member of the Silver Flame is SECRETLY CORRUPT" thing which was never Baker's intent, but otherwise Eberron is really only as shades of grey as you want to press the noir angle as opposed to the pulp adventure angle.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2017 00:02
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:Ever since reading the F&F review of their faction book, I really want to play the one altruistic Skaven. He's completely terrified of taking credit for any of the good deeds he does, and if he's forced to he reflexively comes up with excuses for why it's really totally to benefit himself, honest. There is I think one actually loyal Skaven in the game canon, and he is one of the scariest units in all of Skavendom because he just. Does the job.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2017 00:08
|
|
|
Serf posted:Who says demons gotta be evil? It's in their contract. No, wait, I was thinking of Devils.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2017 00:30
|
|
|
Serf posted:Who says demons gotta be evil? Demons have no free will. Like other similar things, they're the personification of a cosmic force. The cosmic force that they're a personification of is the one that clueless Primes have labelled "evil". Like most things clueless Primes do, this is a bad mistake. Not because it makes them racist towards Demons. They're right about Demons. That cosmic force, and thus Demons themselves, coincidentally match up pretty well with the Prime idea of capital-E Evil. It's going to cause untold woe when they find out about the free-will-less personifications of the opposing cosmic force and decide that because they oppose "evil", they must be "good".
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2017 01:01
|
|
Kai Tave posted:Eberron isn't really "jerks all the way down," it's just a setting that eschews Nine-Point Alignment (but has to stick it in there due to contractual obligations, it's still abundantly clear that you're meant to ignore it). Various writers leaned way too hard on the "this member of the Silver Flame is SECRETLY CORRUPT" thing which was never Baker's intent, but otherwise Eberron is really only as shades of grey as you want to press the noir angle as opposed to the pulp adventure angle. I'm only familiar with the 4e version of the setting, but I got the strong impression that it had a sword and sorcery vibe, where power structures are inevitably corrupt or at the very least self-serving and untrustworthy.
|
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2017 01:06
|
|
|
Lurdiak posted:I'm only familiar with the 4e version of the setting, but I got the strong impression that it had a sword and sorcery vibe, where power structures are inevitably corrupt or at the very least self-serving and untrustworthy. A big difference of Eberron compared to a lot of the other published settings - esp FR which was then the flagship - is that power structures can be corrupt in the first place. There's no personal intervention on the part of Mystra or whoever to strip power from corrupt or heretical clergy.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2017 01:18
|
|
|
as far as I can tell, neutral evil and chaotic evil are more or less the same thing
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2017 01:24
|
|
|
That's the problem with the 9 point alignment, it's hard to really pin down the differences with the neutral alignments on the law chaos axis
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2017 01:34
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 16, 2024 00:20 |
|
|
Lurdiak posted:I'm only familiar with the 4e version of the setting, but I got the strong impression that it had a sword and sorcery vibe, where power structures are inevitably corrupt or at the very least self-serving and untrustworthy. Uh, are you thinking of Dark Sun? That's the swords (made of bone) and sorcery (which is outlawed by all but the Sorcerer-Kings) setting. Eberron is basically post WWI recovery 1920's-esque fantasy. I mean yes, if you want to take literally the most cynical approach possible you can argue that since Eberron is an attempt at making a vaguely more "real world ish" fantasy setting that of course its power structures will be inevitably corrupt, but Eberron's take on shades of grey cuts both ways. The Queen of Aundair is a generally kind and noble sort of person and Aundair is presented as a pastoral, idyllic sort of nation, and she very much wants to restart the war where it left off because she genuinely believes that Aundair could (and should) be the victor, meanwhile the vampire ruler of necromancy-practicing Karrnath who's impersonating his own grandson and I think locked his actual son away in prison to keep the charade going is adamantly anti-war, not for any sinister agenda but because his country weathered the war poorly and he realizes that a return to hostilities would result in even greater casualties and he loves his country. Breland is a monarchy with a pretty decent king that's nonetheless beginning to undergo a push towards a parliamentary system of representative government, with all the benefits and potential corruption that entails. Then you have the nation of Droaam which is comprised entirely of "monstrous races" (gnolls, goblins, medusas, harpies, trolls, etc) united by an extremely sinister and powerful trio of hags, whose goal is to...get Droaam formally recognized as a sovereign nation by the other major powers instead of a big space on the map labeled "Here There Be Monsters." Eberron's approach to the matter of alignment is basically that people are people, period. Nations, groups, cliques, and individual members of various fantasy races can't be easily boiled down to a maker's mark stamped on your soul, poo poo's complicated. Unambiguous capital-E Evil exists in the form of demons, but otherwise alignment is basically a non-entity and people (by which I mean pretty much everybody and not just the Protagonist Approved races) are complicated.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2017 01:37
|
|