|
Well, in the real world, things like evolution and the roundness of the earth are well-verified facts but still widely disputed and disbelieved, so I'd find it plausible to have a substantial minority in a D&D setting who believed things contrary to established facts of the setting too. Especially if we also assume more widespread illiteracy, less universal availability of information, etc. Still. In most D&D settings it seems like clerical magic is commonplace enough that any adult could be expected to have witnessed it, including faith healing and even resurrection (although again, there are plenty of people in the real world who believe they've witnessed faith healing, ghosts, and other supernatural things...). But I think there's lots of room to do something really different and interesting, and it's kinda sad that the settings I've read for D&D (which is admittedly not all of them) mostly stick to a generic fantasy dumbed-down version of real-world polytheism.
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 00:09
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 00:39 |
|
|
Antivehicular posted:Yeah, I honestly feel like D&D-world attitudes towards a lot of spiritual topics should be much different from (and weirder than) real-world ones, given how many metaphysical issues are just verified physical law. I think I've been thinking about "how do I roleplay a cleric in FR when her god is an actual guy whose existence and general desires are completely known? What form does religion even take in this world?" since I was about 15.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 00:12
|
|
|
Planescape torment and the way it handled death was pretty cool since it showed the various philosophies, fears, and values that grew out of things like fearing death, accepting death, worshipping death, avoiding death, or just ignoring death outright even after it has claimed you
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 02:12
|
|
|
Splicer posted:Now factor in that with enough time and effort and murdered goblins she can reliably reach a stage where she could probably beat up her god in a fist fight. which is a pretty awesome hero epic for a religion, tbf.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 06:17
|
|
|
Ratoslov posted:
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 15:59
|
|
|
I was thinking of making a character based off of Judas in JCS and was wondering, what would the appropriate alignment be for this skeptical and cynical lost soul? Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URWa0rbB1Kw Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK5emqWUwkU Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM-gnLRLPdw
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 16:11
|
|
|
trapstar posted:I was thinking of making a character based off of Judas in JCS and was wondering, what would the appropriate alignment be for this skeptical and cynical lost soul? The easiest route would probably be the kind of Chaotic Neutral that used to be Chaotic Good and got disillusioned and worn down. He's too sympathetic to be evil, and too anti-authoritarian to be more lawful than that. Also, obligatory link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iGTYqRio00
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 16:29
|
|
|
Alignment's a dumb way to map human behavior and allegiance but if you're stuck with it that portrayal strikes me as a Lawful Neutral character trapped between two contradictory sets of principles he's compelled to obey and trying unsuccessfully to resolve the contradiction.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 16:34
|
|
|
And again we see why alignment is ultimately only good as a way to map what you personally consider a character's vibes and how you want to represent them on your sheet. Because now you have two opposite suggestions, depending on whether the person making the suggestion prioritized the character's personal faith in the local power structures or their personal moral code as more important in determining their place on the law/chaos axis.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 16:38
|
|
|
Lurks With Wolves posted:The easiest route would probably be the kind of Chaotic Neutral that used to be Chaotic Good and got disillusioned and worn down. He's too sympathetic to be evil, and too anti-authoritarian to be more lawful than that. drat! That's a way more insightful answer than I was expecting. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 16:39
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:Alignment's a dumb way to map human behavior and allegiance but if you're stuck with it that portrayal strikes me as a Lawful Neutral character trapped between two contradictory sets of principles he's compelled to obey and trying unsuccessfully to resolve the contradiction. You mean his Lawful obligation to preventing Jesus causing unrest? Which is why he goes to the Pharisees in the first place.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 16:42
|
|
|
I personally would have assumed True Neutral. Since he seems to play at the whims of others around him.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 16:43
|
|
|
trapstar posted:I personally would have assumed True Neutral. Since he seems to play at the whims of others around him. Honestly, you could probably justify anything Neutral on good/evil. And people have, in this exact conversation, so just do what works for you (and the class you want to play, if this is an edition with alignment restrictions).
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 16:46
|
|
|
trapstar posted:You mean his Lawful obligation to preventing Jesus causing unrest? Which is why he goes to the Pharisees in the first place. Yeah his dilemma is basically does he prioritize a higher moral / divine order or the laws of society. Everything he does is out of deference to authority and his fatal error is falling back on selfishness as a way to choose between the two at a crossroads. Judas doesn't want to be free, if anything he's loving terrified of self-determination, he wants someone to tell him what to do and to be sure it's the right answer.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 16:47
|
|
|
Alignment should be like how it works in Fate/ where you are what you believe yourself to be
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 16:57
|
|
|
The alignment system can be pretty one-dimensional IMO. Lots of people are more complicated than what it's equipped to handle.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 16:57
|
|
|
trapstar posted:The alignment system can be pretty one-dimensional IMO. Lots of people are more complicated than what it's equipped to handle. Yeah whatever hippie, just tell me what color dust I need to sprinkle on my Circle of Protection to keep you out of my club house.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 17:08
|
|
|
Alignments as portrayed really only function well when it's less about actual morality in a cosmic sense and more contextually based on the person assigning the alignment. Really the Good-Evil axis should be read more as "I personally like them and we get along" vs "We want to kill each other" with no wider benevolent or malevolent implications. Law-Chaos is really more how predictable or not a person is TO YOU based on how compatible your worldviews are. It still kinda works on a larger Cosmic sense if you just view it as humanity's cumulative assessments of how big of jerks Fiends are to literally every mortal that encounters them.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 18:08
|
|
|
Good-Evil is pretty easy to define and apply consistently, as it broadly refers to whether you'll go out of your way to aid others, go along to get along, or harm others for your own gain. Law-Chaos is totally incoherent, which is good insofar as alignment restrictions with mechanical weight exist but bad insofar as people want to have conversations rather than sing songs in which words have tonality but not meaning.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 18:19
|
|
|
PerniciousKnid posted:Yeah whatever hippie, just tell me what color dust I need to sprinkle on my Circle of Protection to keep you out of my club house. i do kind of like the idea of a setting where alignment works but also doesn't make any sense and people know it doesn't make sense and there's regular philosophical discussions about "ok so why does person x doing action y cause them to change alignment, but person z doing action y doesn't"
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 18:25
|
|
|
Alignment is best understood as factions of immortal, inhuman pieces of poo poo who don't care about you but that you can ally with for strategic reasons. The Good deities are the ones who conquered the Good Energy Plane and slaughtered everyone who said they're not Good
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 22:25
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:Alignment is best understood as factions of immortal, inhuman pieces of poo poo who don't care about you but that you can ally with for strategic reasons. this just furthers my interpretation!
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 22:30
|
|
|
I like the idea of the alignments being those extraplanar factions, but *mostly* / typically adhering to expectations secondary to the faction conflict, with most mortal creatures not being affiliated with any of them, aside from clerics etc, powerful individuals, and unusual cases.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2022 00:50
|
|
|
It’s also important to remember that a person’s behavior is not going to correspond to their alignment 100% of the time, and that alignments can shift. We all compromise our principles or act against our nature at one point or another. Is Judas’s betrayal of Jesus to maintain social order Lawful? Yeah, definitely. What alignment is Judas, fundamentally, at the core of his being? I’d say that’s up for interpretation at the table.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2022 01:00
|
|
|
Kestral posted:It’s also important to remember that a person’s behavior is not going to correspond to their alignment 100% of the time, and that alignments can shift. We all compromise our principles or act against our nature at one point or another. Is Judas’s betrayal of Jesus to maintain social order Lawful? Yeah, definitely. What alignment is Judas, fundamentally, at the core of his being? I’d say that’s up for interpretation at the table.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2022 04:06
|
|
|
Something frequently missing from alignment systems is how serious/explicit characters are about their beliefs. Let's take Neutral Evil: this is classic selfishness, basically. There's a big difference between: "I think I'm fairly normal but ultimately I don't give a poo poo about most other people except insofar as they relate to my wants and needs." and "Everyone for themselves." and "The weak are here as my food, tools, and playthings." They all have the same basic outlook, but the differing degrees are important in practice. The first one could get through life in a normal society with nothing more than maybe a diagnosis of narcissism or something. The second is probably going to end up causing serious trouble eventually. The third is going to do so almost immediately.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2022 05:18
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:Good-Evil is pretty easy to define and apply consistently, as it broadly refers to whether you'll go out of your way to aid others, go along to get along, or harm others for your own gain. I'd argue that Law-Chaos is coherent, but only in the context of the old Moorcock one-axis stuff. Of course, it was in service of 'lawful civilization is the only bastion of goodness against the chaotic hordes of the Other' but it was coherent.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2022 07:02
|
|
|
Doctor Zaius posted:I'd argue that Law-Chaos is coherent, but only in the context of the old Moorcock one-axis stuff. Of course, it was in service of 'lawful civilization is the only bastion of goodness against the chaotic hordes of the Other' but it was coherent. Yeah, when it's the only thing, it's basically "Good" and "Bad" and just a simple shorthand(just like other abstractions like Armor Class) for a game that had the design sensibilities of a boardgame. Trying to describe morality with a two-axis graph is always going to be insufficient.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2022 10:50
|
|
|
Panzeh posted:Trying to describe morality with a two-axis graph is always going to be insufficient. the question is: how many axes do we need for a useful morality system? my instinct says if i need to pick from any less than 7 or 8 options at chargen, then it's likely to be insufficiently modeled
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2022 11:55
|
|
|
Doctor Zaius posted:I'd argue that Law-Chaos is coherent, but only in the context of the old Moorcock one-axis stuff. Of course, it was in service of 'lawful civilization is the only bastion of goodness against the chaotic hordes of the Other' but it was coherent. But even in this, there’s an inherent understanding that absolute Law would be just as ruinous as absolute Chaos. There’s no real downside to good, just as there’s no real upside to evil.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2022 13:18
|
|
|
Use the model outlined in the philosophical treatise "Team America: World Police".
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2022 13:27
|
|
|
Atopian posted:Something frequently missing from alignment systems is how serious/explicit characters are about their beliefs. Splicer fucked around with this message at 13:52 on Sep 4, 2022 |
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2022 13:50
|
|
|
It's "GM says they're okay to murder - GM says not okay to murder" axis and "will call the cops - ACAB" axis
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2022 14:54
|
|
|
Let's just stop beating around the bush and replace alignment with zodiac signs
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2022 15:12
|
|
|
Please the most DnD answer is to use Myers-Briggs.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2022 15:24
|
|
|
Tulip posted:Please the most DnD answer is to use Myers-Briggs. Jungian Archetypes. Waaaaaaaaaay more baggage there.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2022 15:43
|
|
|
G/E and L/C matrix has 9 archetypes. So does the enneagram. Bing bong so simple
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2022 15:57
|
|
|
Doctor Zaius posted:I'd argue that Law-Chaos is coherent, but only in the context of the old Moorcock one-axis stuff. Of course, it was in service of 'lawful civilization is the only bastion of goodness against the chaotic hordes of the Other' but it was coherent. That's true, the original Law/Chaos is plenty consistent so long as we correctly understand "lawful" to have the same meaning as "white". Most of my criticism is for the horizontal axis of the classic 3x3, where there's supposedly a difference between being Lawfully and Chaotically Good or whatever.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2022 16:57
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:That's true, the original Law/Chaos is plenty consistent so long as we correctly understand "lawful" to have the same meaning as "white". Most of my criticism is for the horizontal axis of the classic 3x3, where there's supposedly a difference between being Lawfully and Chaotically Good or whatever. Yeah I think this is largely correct and if anything feeds into me and Tuxedo Catfish treating the alignments as fundamentally alien to any actual, meaningful ethics. I don't know that I'd want to play such a game, I'm not sure I've got players that would be in a place for it, but I could imagine writing a pretty decent book that treats that more explicitly, that the Elemental Plane of Law is ruled by frankly racist pieces of poo poo and the existence of Lawful Good Angels at all is kind of a problem. What I'm saying is that I draw ever closer to a Payday 2 RPG.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2022 17:05
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 00:39 |
|
|
As always the best take on the 2-axis alignment system is from Freebase: LG [Liberal Granola]: Knows that mass social protest is the only way to defeat THE MAN. LN [Liberal Noncommittal]: Buys bumper-stickers against THE MAN on occasion, and would like to rise up against his oppressors and end this cruel reign of tyranny, but prefers Dead shows. LE [Liberal Establishment]: Sells bumper-sticks against THE MAN and T-shirts for Dead shows; pretending to be part of the movement for social change, yet profiteering off his fellow brothers and sisters, finally becoming part of the System that has forced our children to go to die in 'Nam. NG [Noncommittal Granola]: Bought a couple of shirts, thinking this helps, but only practices Iron Butterfly riffs in the garage while the gears of government run by fascist weapon industries crush his remaining freedom. TN [True Noncommittal]: Is happy to live in whatever Orwellian hell is presented to him, unknowingly disposing of his own, and hence others, right of choice. NE [Noncommittal Establishment]: Buys into the propaganda machine of his mom's Rosie the Riveter days, and does not question the Draft, though it will mean his end. CG [Conservative Granola]: Blindly puts faith in other's power to change the world he is increasingly shackled by. CN [Conservative Noncommittal]: Voted for Tricky Dick because he liked his speaking voice. CE [Conservative Establishment]: THE MAN.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2022 17:25
|
|
