Alignment in 5E still causes arguments

[Desdan_Mervolam]

This entire thread is a great argument for why Alignment is bad for the game.

[Voss]

Of course it is. But they're making an actual effort to make it worse for the game. That a couple posters have decided they need to crusade on behalf of poor oppressed racists everywhere is just vomit frosting on the shitcake.

[Occluded Sun]

Yeah, and designing the game world so that racism is a good, justifiable, and the most reasonable position to hold is a bad thing.

Why? I see no problems with fantasy worlds in which all sorts of harmful-in-our-reality beliefs are true.

Making a fantasy universe that's specifically designed to showcase racist delusions would be in extremely poor taste, but I can't see why it's supposed to be a bad thing. Is the reason you refrain from offering reasons for this position that you don't actually have any?

We're talking more about breeding between subspecies than different species. Furthermore, some species exhibit massive genetic diversity within the species (dart frogs, domestic canines) and some exhibit almost none (cheetahs, bald eagles).

And the species with high diversity often have strains or breeds with distinctive traits. It's not bigotry to acknowledge those differences.

Orcs as they've developed in popular culture have a great number of generic negative traits. Some of these traits are traditionally attributed to various ethnic/racial groups by bigots in reality. That doesn't mean that orcs are meant to remind people of real-world bigotry, that means that those traits are really, really negative. Orcs represent our worst fears of our neighbors, not any real group.

Besides, if we did throw reason and sense out of the window, we'd have to conclude that Tolkienian orcs represent the Yellow Peril. All those asian people, under Morgoth's thrall and far from the light of the West...

[Mistborn]

I see no problems with fantasy worlds in which all sorts of harmful-in-our-reality beliefs are true.

Maybe that's because your beliefs are harmful in our reality.

[sarcasmoverdose]

Orcs as they've developed in popular culture have a great number of generic negative traits. Some of these traits are traditionally attributed to various ethnic/racial groups by bigots in reality. That doesn't mean that orcs are meant to remind people of real-world bigotry, that means that those traits are really, really negative. Orcs represent our worst fears of our neighbors, not any real group.

Besides, if we did throw reason and sense out of the window, we'd have to conclude that Tolkienian orcs represent the Yellow Peril. All those asian people, under Morgoth's thrall and far from the light of the West...

Tolkein, letter to Forest J Ackerman:
"The Orcs are definitely stated to be corruptions of the 'human' form seen in Elves and Men. They are (or were) squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types."

Letter 210 here:http://www.e-reading.ws/bookreader.php/ ... olkien.pdf

[hamstertamer]

This entire thread is a great argument for why Alignment is bad for the game.

I've never had an argument over alignment in the real world gaming in my life. All arguments, if any, were about "I said I had my sword out and ready," "no you didn't." Stuff like that. Really, I think the arguments aren't about the alignment system but about personal ideology and politics. I guess I was lucky that people I played with had an objective definition of evil in mind. No one ever had a problem with a race of monstrous humanoids spawned by an evil god being innately evil. It made sense in the D&D universe. The idea that these evil beings would want to destroy the civilizations of the good races (human and demi-humans) also made sense. Like I said, people are really just arguing about the alignment system on the surface, it's really about modern politics/ideology. Some posters make it more obvious than others.

[Cyberzombie]

If someone with APD who has a tendency towards violence notices that other individuals with APD who are violent suffer some super shitty consequences from society, that may encourage them to rethink that line of behavior - not because of morality, but simple enlightened self-interest.

Sure. And I'm saying that's still evil, at least as far as D&D is concerned. When you behave totally selfishly all the time, you're evil by D&D standards.

If you get a criminal to stop committing crimes because he's afraid of getting caught, that doesn't make that guy a good person. You've managed to suppress his activities, but he's still going to do evil if he gets the opportunity.

The Doctrine of Original Sin is actually far more relevant here than you seem to think. It's not "Your ancestors did a bad thing and now you're going to hell if you die before you get baptized", it's "Your ancestors did a bad thing and therefore you are born with the innate nature to do bad things and now you're going to hell if you die before you get baptized". It's really not that different from "Your god created you with the innate nature to do bad things so adventurers will stab you before you're old enough to walk if you're unlucky."

Well, the thing is that Original Sin also carries with it the idea that humans can be redeemed. There are methods by which humans can go to heaven. Obviously it's full of religious propaganda telling us why we need the Catholic church, but it's a religious thing, so that's to be expected. But Original Sin doesn't state that humanity lacks the potential for good either.

In the case of evil races in D&D, redemption is off the table, because there's no fight between good tendencies and bad tendencies. And that's the big difference. If you're genetically evil, you can't be redeemed, you can only be destroyed (at least unless you get some kind of gene therapy).

[Korwin]

If you get a criminal to stop committing crimes because he's afraid of getting caught, that doesn't make that guy a good person. You've managed to suppress his activities, but he's still going to do evil if he gets the opportunity.

If you get someone to stop commiting crimes, before he started any.
Is he an criminal?

[Cyberzombie]

If you get someone to stop commiting crimes, before he started any.
Is he an criminal?

No, but he's still evil. And he's basically a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. Maybe if you had some ultratech totalitarian society that you can watch him at all times, it might be okay. But this isn't some high tech civilization we're talking about. This is D&D, which is a very lightly policed anarchy. Such a person would inevitably start doing bad things because there are virtually no controls to keep him in check.

[Korwin]

Ah sorry, you are claiming D&D Alignment should not be ignored or makes even the slightes sense?
Bowing out of the discussion again.

[GnomeWorks]

If you get someone to stop commiting crimes, before he started any.
Is he an criminal?

No, but he's still evil.

You, sir, are a complete fucking asshole, and I recommend that you study any amount of psychology and/or philosophy before you continue on this bullshit of yours.

Because if you have actually studied any amount of either of those fields, that makes you even more of an asshole than I think you are at the moment, which means there is zero fucking reason to listen to anything you have to say.

[Username17]

Cyberzombie is claiming that people who have the potential to commit crimes under different circumstances than those they find themselves in are 'evil' even if they have not in fact ever committed a crime. Yes, by that definition everyone ever and everyone who could ever be is and was 'evil.'

Listening to Cyber zombie on this or any other subject would seem to be a waste of time, but such is the way of the dedicated concern troll.

-Username17

[Prak]

If you get someone to stop commiting crimes, before he started any.
Is he an criminal?

No, but he's still evil. And he's basically a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. Maybe if you had some ultratech totalitarian society that you can watch him at all times, it might be okay. But this isn't some high tech civilization we're talking about. This is D&D, which is a very lightly policed anarchy. Such a person would inevitably start doing bad things because there are virtually no controls to keep him in check.

Wait, what the fuck?

How the fuck is someone evil without having committed any crimes?

No, seriously, how? Do you actually believe that some people are inherently evil, despite their actions?

Because, the way it sounds, you're saying it would be acceptable to execute me on the basis that i get unreasonably angry and there is a slim chance that I might commit murder one day.

Just answer that one question, do you think I should be killed because I might commit murder one day?

[Stinktopus]

I've never had an argument over alignment in the real world gaming in my life. All arguments, if any, were about "I said I had my sword out and ready," "no you didn't." Stuff like that. Really, I think the arguments aren't about the alignment system but about personal ideology and politics. I guess I was lucky that people I played with had an objective definition of evil in mind. No one ever had a problem with a race of monstrous humanoids spawned by an evil god being innately evil. It made sense in the D&D universe. The idea that these evil beings would want to destroy the civilizations of the good races (human and demi-humans) also made sense. Like I said, people are really just arguing about the alignment system on the surface, it's really about modern politics/ideology. Some posters make it more obvious than others.

Welcome to The Gaming Den. Being called "evil" or "racist" here is equivalent to having someone with severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder complain that your hands are dirty.

[Occluded Sun]

How the fuck is someone evil without having committed any crimes?

Do virgins have sexual orientations?

Do people who haven't made definitive moral choices have moral orientations?

C'mon, this is simple. It's not as though you turn evil when you finish beating the hobo to death with a sack of kittens. If you approve of that scenario, you're already pretty evil, whether you've actually performed it or not.

[momothefiddler]

The Doctrine of Original Sin is actually far more relevant here than you seem to think. It's not "Your ancestors did a bad thing and now you're going to hell if you die before you get baptized", it's "Your ancestors did a bad thing and therefore you are born with the innate nature to do bad things and now you're going to hell if you die before you get baptized". It's really not that different from "Your god created you with the innate nature to do bad things so adventurers will stab you before you're old enough to walk if you're unlucky."

Well, the thing is that Original Sin also carries with it the idea that humans can be redeemed. There are methods by which humans can go to heaven. Obviously it's full of religious propaganda telling us why we need the Catholic church, but it's a religious thing, so that's to be expected. But Original Sin doesn't state that humanity lacks the potential for good either.

In the case of evil races in D&D, redemption is off the table, because there's no fight between good tendencies and bad tendencies. And that's the big difference. If you're genetically evil, you can't be redeemed, you can only be destroyed (at least unless you get some kind of gene therapy).

...You have no clue what you're talking about.

Under Original Sin, you don't get redeemed because of your "good tendencies" or the fight between them and your "bad tendencies" or whatever other bullshit. You are, completely and literally, irredeemable as far as your own choices are concerned. This is the point. This is what justifies infants in hell. Under Original Sin, you're redeemed by, and only by, divine intervention. That is the only thing that makes you better.

It's the same as if Pelor, on a whim, reached down and touched an orc and made him good-aligned. I don't know explicitly that a god can do that in D&D, but given there's an item that can, I'm guessing a spell can, which means at least one god almost definitely can.

[MGuy]

I've never had an argument over alignment in the real world gaming in my life. All arguments, if any, were about "I said I had my sword out and ready," "no you didn't." Stuff like that. Really, I think the arguments aren't about the alignment system but about personal ideology and politics. I guess I was lucky that people I played with had an objective definition of evil in mind. No one ever had a problem with a race of monstrous humanoids spawned by an evil god being innately evil. It made sense in the D&D universe. The idea that these evil beings would want to destroy the civilizations of the good races (human and demi-humans) also made sense. Like I said, people are really just arguing about the alignment system on the surface, it's really about modern politics/ideology. Some posters make it more obvious than others.

Welcome to The Gaming Den. Being called "evil" or "racist" here is equivalent to having someone with severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder complain that your hands are dirty.

I'm not sure whether or not the convo is just flying over people's heads but I thought people had laid down some pretty clear cut reasoning. I'm surprised that anyone who has played the game long enough hasn't had a problem with alignments. More importantly, I think that ham needs to go back and reread this thread or at least the many many breakdowns of the argument that have been given because "It makes sense in the world of DnD is exactly the problem." This conversation is more than about the alignment system but more on the fact that having justifiable racism with auto magically evil orcs in a game is bad with no benefits while you could just "not" do that and not have to deal with any of the negative connotations.

[Cyberzombie]

How the fuck is someone evil without having committed any crimes?

Do virgins have sexual orientations?

Do people who haven't made definitive moral choices have moral orientations?

C'mon, this is simple. It's not as though you turn evil when you finish beating the hobo to death with a sack of kittens. If you approve of that scenario, you're already pretty evil, whether you've actually performed it or not.

This sums up my views on it as well. Good and evil are ways of thinking.

...You have no clue what you're talking about.

Under Original Sin, you don't get redeemed because of your "good tendencies" or the fight between them and your "bad tendencies" or whatever other bullshit. You are, completely and literally, irredeemable as far as your own choices are concerned. This is the point. This is what justifies infants in hell. Under Original Sin, you're redeemed by, and only by, divine intervention. That is the only thing that makes you better.

Religious debates are kind of pointless because like all things religion, there's multiple ways of interpreting it. I don't think I've encountered a single thing in religion that everyone agrees on. Religions have been reinterpreting the bible for centuries. It's all about what gets them the most power and followers.

[Kaelik]

This sums up my views on it as well. Good and evil are ways of thinking.

And there is definitely no way at all that circumstances can change they way people think. So like, Aladdin is evil, because he steals. And anyone in a place with no welfare state who wants to feed their starving siblings or children or self and results to theft in order to do so is evil, and should be executed, and definitely there is no reason to just feed them so they don't have to steal.

[sarcasmoverdose]

This sums up my views on it as well. Good and evil are ways of thinking.

Can you give a coherent definition of either?

[Voss]

This sums up my views on it as well. Good and evil are ways of thinking.

Can you give a coherent definition of either?

He already did. Good people never have criminal thoughts, and Evil people do.

[Mistborn]

Welcome to The Gaming Den. Being called "evil" or "racist" here is equivalent to having someone with severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder complain that your hands are dirty.

I don't think anyone has called anyone "evil" in thread so far, heck we haven't even call anyone racist outright just subtly implied it. (Occluded Sun is totally a racist but that's neither here nor there)

[Cyberzombie]

And there is definitely no way at all that circumstances can change they way people think. So like, Aladdin is evil, because he steals.

See, this is why you don't want to judge good/evil by action, and rather by thoughts. A good person forced to steal would think something like: "Well I really hate to take stuff, but stealing this food isn't going to hurt them that badly and I really need it. I wish there was another way, but right now this is the best I can do."

Where as an evil person is going to be totally guilt-less about the entire thing, actually enjoying the whole act of stealing, and probably trashing the guy's house too that he's robbing, just because he can.

So yeah, the thought process is a lot more important than the act itself. And that has to be true in D&D, because D&D is about a bunch of good-aligned killers. Killing therefore must be justifiable in its own morality.

Can you give a coherent definition of either?

The easiest one I can come up with is that good people care about the well-being of others while evil people care only about their own well-being.

[Occluded Sun]

It's made even more complex because people (whether in reality or D&D) aren't 'pure' anything. People that we consider good have evil aspects, and vice versa.

We can still talk about people being good or evil, because it's a matter of how they're inclined overall. In traditional D&D, many types of creatures are biased towards one type of behavior or another. That doesn't mean that they're pure examples of that sort of behavior, and it doesn't mean that there are no exceptions.

Red Dragons are cruel and vicious creatures that are not only willing to make others suffer for their own benefit, but often enjoy that suffering for its own sake and inflict it for amusement. They're evil things. Modrons are highly ordered, consistent, and obedient entities that are inherently Lawful to an extraordinary degree. Doesn't mean they're utterly and perfectly Lawful, or that there isn't the occasional Nordom.

Entities in D&D can have ethical alignments as part of their basic nature. Now, you might find this disturbing. Tolkien himself found the idea that orcs were so uniformly evil to be disturbing, and tried to find explanations for it. (Basically the species was bred to enjoy chaos and pain, and then was possessed by the bodiless power of a fallen archangel, and any remaining traces of virtue are extinguished their culture. So.)

Nevertheless, it's how the game works. And it's almost inevitable that it will work that way. When you need easy villains that can be slain without guilt, you find them. Would the Indiana Jones movies have been as awesome if Spielburg didn't have all those Nazi soldiers as evil evildoors of evil who could be killed in entertaining ways without us feeling bad about it? Same deal with orcs and stuff.

[infected slut princess]

Because when they're innately evil you save yourself from a lot of moral debates.

SKIP THE DEBATE -- KILL THE OGRE BABIES.