Quote from: jhkim on June 09, 2021, 06:26:33 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 09, 2021, 04:17:29 PM

Quote from: jhkim on June 07, 2021, 02:47:58 PM
The clearest case where alignment doesn't work well is when you have two sides who both consider themselves to be good, and the other side evil.

For example, I ran a short campaign that was set in 1600s era England, when there were massive tensions between Catholics and Protestants. Is it *possible* to use alignments in such a setting? Sure, it's possible. But I don't think it adds anything, and if anything muddles how to handle the conflicts. What is the alignment of someone who believes in the divine right of kings and restoring James to the throne versus someone who champions democracy? What about a Presbyterian and a Catholic?

So I ask for a character concept (in D&D, obviously), and you respond with Catholics and Protestants?  Or Harn?  That's like being asked for a good druid concept for D&D and responding with a reference to chaos priests in WH40K.  Who cares if alignment doesn't cover every real word situation?  It covers the situations that matter, characters in Dungeons and Dragons (perhaps you've heard of it?).  About which, I'm still waiting on examples of character concepts that cannot fit into the alignment system.  (BTW, Catholic vs. Protestant is so obviously LG vs CG that even an atheist could figure it out...)

D&D isn't limited to the Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk. It also has real world settings with Protestants and Catholics - like these:



https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16916/HR4-A-Mighty-Fortress-Campaign-Sourcebook-2e



https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17513/The-Gothic-Earth-Gazetteer-2e

Your claim was that alignment was so broad that it can handle anything, but now it sounds like you're saying that handling anything means only handling fantasy worlds that are designed for D&D with the D&D alignment system in mind. My point is that this is inherently limiting. I have nothing against Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms - but I also like other settings. For example, the Harn setting isn't limited to a single system. I've played games set in Harn using HarnMaster but also using GURPS and Burning Wheel.

As for Catholics being lawful and Protestants chaotic -- I'd posit a Gothic Earth game where one PC is a Catholic Irish Fenian who supports rebellion against English law (but respects the Catholic church), while another PC is an Anglican priest who works within English law. Which is lawful and which is chaotic?

I'm not saying that alignment is broken - but I think that games can be interesting and different if one drops the alignment system, and that this isn't the same thing as soulless SJWism.

Arguing alignment is world dependent seems to digress from the question of ravenloft, as I noted earlier, DND back in the day seemed to include worldbuilding elements in the class system, which is why the classes in historic settings required amending. Many of the classic DnD settings, including ravenloft and Dragonlance setting, seem to require it. The problem isn't whether it is needed generically.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 09, 2021, 05:53:17 PM
Also, you are aware that D&D has long been used to roleplay in various historical settings, yes? During the TSR-era how to use the system for various historical periods and places were the subject of multiple Dragon Magazine articles. The idea that D&D exclusively means LotR knockoffs is something you'll only find coming from WotC's mouthpieces.

The fact is, jhkim brought up a perfectly valid campaign type that D&D has long been used for where the D&D alignment system would decidedly not be a good addition and even counterproductive. You're just shift goalposts now because he knocked that one cleanly between the posts.

There is no evidence to suggest that a worshiper of Pelor Alpha would have to be any different alignment to a worshiper of Pelor Beta.

Infact if historical religions prove anything it is that religions can be split along completely secular lines.  What would Pelors answer be to the question of clergy wearing blue hats compared to yellow hats?  Would a yellow hatted Pelorite be a different alignment to a blue hatted Pelorite?

Quote from: Toran Ironfinder on June 09, 2021, 07:15:55 PM

Quote from: jhkim on June 09, 2021, 06:26:33 PM
I'm not saying that alignment is broken - but I think that games can be interesting and different if one drops the alignment system, and that this isn't the same thing as soulless SJWism.

Arguing alignment is world dependent seems to digress from the question of ravenloft, as I noted earlier, DND back in the day seemed to include worldbuilding elements in the class system, which is why the classes in historic settings required amending. Many of the classic DnD settings, including ravenloft and Dragonlance setting, seem to require it. The problem isn't whether it is needed generically.

OK - if we want to focus on Ravenloft. Thus far, I've run the original Ravenloft modules multiple times, and I've also run my own non-D&D gothic horror games -- but I've never run a game set in the demi-plane Ravenloft setting, as I dislike the demi-plane concept. But let's say I get over my dislike, and I run a game set in Ravenloft, and I don't use alignment in my games.

How do you think that a game that uses alignment would be different from my game?

In my non-alignment-using game, I would learn towards running subplots of temptation and corruption, as I discussed in the thread "Temptation and Corruption in Horror Games". I also think this is in line with the 5E Ravenloft book. For example, here is a section from their chapter on creating domains (page 40),

QuoteCorrupt Beyond Redemption

Darklords aren't misunderstood souls condemned through no fault of their own. If a person's potential for evil is particularly great, the Dark Powers might indirectly nurture further transgression, but they don't force individuals to undertake actions against their will. When an evildoer's wickedness ripens, the Dark Powers engulf them forever.

When creating your Darklord, consider the depth of their greatest evil and what made it more significant, abominable, or poetic than more common forms of villainy. The following elements all might be aspects of this corruption:

Evil Acts. The Dark Powers consider an act to be evil if it is intentional, unnecessary, and successful, and most importantly, if it causes significant harm. Accidents, self-defense, deeds necessary for survival, and forced or coerced actions do not qualify. Early in the character's creation, consider what evils your Darklord performed, and revisit these crimes as you develop the villain's other details.

Those Harmed. The people the Darklord harmed need to feel real. Give them names. Imbue them with agency, and don't define them as victims or props. The people who survived the Darklord's evil might be part of a Darklord's history or allies who join the players' characters, or might hold the key to righting the Darklord's wrongs. For each character, consider whether they were important to the Darklord and how that relationship changed.

Irredeemable. Once the Dark Powers take an evil person, that individual's fate is sealed. Before the final corruption, a person can atone--but only if they take genuine responsibility, heal the harm caused, and reform to prevent future harm. Once an evildoer becomes a Darklord, it is far too late. Consider whether your Darklord had a chance to redeem themself and the decision that led to their current fate.

As far as this goes, this sounds fine to me. On the other hand, my distaste for the demi-plane setting is mostly that it is inherently hopeless. Even if the characters do defeat a Darklord, it's not clear that anything is improved. A new Darklord will just arise or the old one restored.

I think my approach would be that each domain could potentially be freed from the demi-plane if the Darklord is defeated in a proper way -- such that justice is served and another Darklord isn't created. Then the people of the domain are freed, but the PCs are swallowed by the mists and brought to another domain. Over the course of the campaign, there would be a suggestion that even the Dark Powers themselves might be defeated and/or escape from the demi-plane is possible. Alternately, I might take a nod from a Dreamlands campaign, and have that the characters think they are dreaming.

Not a DnD expert, though as I understand it alignment is objective and descriptive, it is not a measure of the PCs view of themselves, but an attempt to objectively describe the characters actions by the DM, thus its not merely what is written on the page. Actions that shift the characters actions have in-game consequences, such as clerics violating their ethos, and losing their ability to cast spells unless they atoned. As I understand it, evil in Ravenloft led to rolling on a chart that had similar degenerative consequences, turning into a monster. Paladins likewise could lose their abilities, if their alignment shifted in play. That is, in many DND games the characters alignment has an impact on their abilities and their place in the world, in dragonlance, alignment influenced what objects you could use, as I understand it. Sort of like WEG's Star Wars game, too many DSPs, and you are an NPC villain.

If you want to go sans alignment, sure, fine, but to do what you are doing with Ravenloft means you have something different from Canon Ravenloft because of the way alignment interacts with rules. The problem with changing Drow etc. is one of the world's metaphysical/cultural/ historical continuity. Whatever you have isn't Ravenloft anymore, which is OK for your own game, but I think its a problem for the Publisher. That is, it's not merely a temptation by dark powers thst causes degeneration, but also responses to one's own willingness to take the easy route to solving a problem. The good evil alignment is baked into the system in the campaign world, and in the general DnD cosmology.

Also the Lord's of the demiplanes, again in my understanding, can't be defeated, they can be redeemed, but Ravenloft is a type of punishment for their evil deeds. That is, you really aren't doing Ravenloft anymore, you are still homebrewing, but using the campaign setting as a starting point. Again, for your own setting it isn't an issue, it is an issue for a publisher, as changing continuity drastically leads to a low quality product.  if I were creating a setting, I would eliminate Neutral entirely, and use a DSP approach to evil and a reputation system (murder hobos should face consequences from civil authorities), but I don't think that works in most of the DnD primes as written, and I would consider it unwise to do that for the next edition of the realms, for example.

Quote from: Toran Ironfinder on June 09, 2021, 10:53:15 PM
If you want to go sans alignment, sure, fine, but to do what you are doing with Ravenloft means you have something different from Canon Ravenloft because of the way alignment interacts with rules. The problem with changing Drow etc. is one of the world's metaphysical/cultural/ historical continuity. Whatever you have isn't Ravenloft anymore, which is OK for your own game, but I think its a problem for the Publisher.

My main question is, how different is what I'd do without alignment as someone who plays Ravenloft with alignment? I've always generally ignored alignment in my D&D games, so I expect I'd do the same with Ravenloft.

Other than the trivial "well, then you don't fill in the alignment box on the character sheet", how is actual play different? If someone were playing in a canonical Ravenloft game and came over to my game, what would they notice?

Well it would change the mechanic of degeneration rolls for one thing; clerics and others losing abilities for violating their ethos on another; a Paladin stops behaving lawfully, forever loses his Paladin abilities unless it was caused by magical means, similar things were true as I recall for Rangers. Some magical devices will cease to work. Alignment, afterall, doesn't necessarily always follow what is on the sheet, that is a meaningless point, if that is all it is, then the thing is being used wrongly. Alignment is a description of the character's practice, and defines something of how that practice affects his relationships with higher powers. As I'm not a DnD player, I couldn't go beyond those points, other than to suggest, its like trying to suggest we can play a Star Wars RPG without something like DSPs to provide a mechanic for falling to the Dark Side. I've read a copy of the handbook, it seems to function similarly for some important character classes. IN both cases you have a worldbuilding element that has been included in the ruleset.

Lets say someone wanted to play Dragonlance, but didn't like Kender, so they eliminated that race from existence. Its Dragonlancesque; Dragonlance with a personal twist, but to say it is Dragonlance would have people shaking their heads. If WOTC made that move, and claimed they were selling the New Dragonlance game (it turns out, Kender were a figment of everyone's collective imaginations), you would have people suggesting that passing off the new product as Dragonlance was dishonest, and they would be right, its somewhat fundamental to the setting. The type of changes you are suggesting is similar. Ditto for eliminating spell preparation/memorization. Some people want to play Ravenloft, not a Ravenloftesque setting.  Your approach of using shades of gray, rather than the everything is evil vibe of Ravenloft is a shift from Ravenloft to Ravenloftesque, like it or not. Despair is central to the setting, find a way to escape Ravenloft, yes, but the idea it can be fixed, again, you are no longer playing Ravenloft, you are playing a Ravenloftesque setting. Defeating a Dreadlord is again another shift from Ravenloft to Ravenloftesque, the Dread Lords are their to be punished and contained, unless and until they change (such as with Lord Soth).  You will lose something significant in the qualia, now if you don't like that qualia, and prefer a Ravenloftesque game, as you basically stated, and your group goes along with it, and that isn't a problem for your group, great, it is your game. It something you all should discuss first, but hey if it works for your group, great. It may have other uses, a lot of people don't allow evil PCs in a game, that would be my preference both as a GM and a player.

But it would seem to me that it would obviously be viewed as problematic by Ravenloft fans if those types of changes were made in a campaign setting; longtime fans of the game want the real thing; Dragonlance fans like Kender to some degree in their game or they would play something else. Seems to me, the Vets know the specific the qualia of the specific settings well enough to understand when they are being handed a counterfeit. 

Quote from: jhkim on June 10, 2021, 01:11:59 AM

Quote from: Toran Ironfinder on June 09, 2021, 10:53:15 PM
If you want to go sans alignment, sure, fine, but to do what you are doing with Ravenloft means you have something different from Canon Ravenloft because of the way alignment interacts with rules. The problem with changing Drow etc. is one of the world's metaphysical/cultural/ historical continuity. Whatever you have isn't Ravenloft anymore, which is OK for your own game, but I think its a problem for the Publisher.

My main question is, how different is what I'd do without alignment as someone who plays Ravenloft with alignment? I've always generally ignored alignment in my D&D games, so I expect I'd do the same with Ravenloft.

Other than the trivial "well, then you don't fill in the alignment box on the character sheet", how is actual play different? If someone were playing in a canonical Ravenloft game and came over to my game, what would they notice?

One way it would be changed specific to Ravenloft is, at least I believe by the Red Boxed Set, the way powers checks work, the probability of attracting the dark powers attention factors in the alignment of victims (so there is a difference between torturing a good NPC and an evil character, or breaking a vow to a good god versus an evil one). This wasn't the case in the black boxed set. But it became the standard. Most other differences would be similar to those you would have in a normal D&D game: magic items keyed to alignment, spells that detect alignment (but again in Ravenloft only law and chaos can be detected), etc. I don't think Ravenloft is uniquely dependent on alignment compared to other settings. But it would still be a change. And I think if you took it a step further and didn't try to have a sense of what constitutes good and evil in the game, managing something like powers could be hard, and the classic horror tone could be hard to hit (that doesn't require alignment but you do need a sense that good and evil exists for something like powers checks to work)

Quote from: Toran Ironfinder on June 10, 2021, 03:24:01 AM
Well it would change the mechanic of degeneration rolls for one thing; clerics and others losing abilities for violating their ethos on another; a Paladin stops behaving lawfully, forever loses his Paladin abilities unless it was caused by magical means, similar things were true as I recall for Rangers. Some magical devices will cease to work. Alignment, afterall, doesn't necessarily always follow what is on the sheet, that is a meaningless point, if that is all it is, then the thing is being used wrongly. Alignment is a description of the character's practice, and defines something of how that practice affects his relationships with higher powers. As I'm not a DnD player, I couldn't go beyond those points, other than to suggest, its like trying to suggest we can play a Star Wars RPG without something like DSPs to provide a mechanic for falling to the Dark Side. I've read a copy of the handbook, it seems to function similarly for some important character classes. IN both cases you have a worldbuilding element that has been included in the ruleset.

Lets say someone wanted to play Dragonlance, but didn't like Kender, so they eliminated that race from existence. Its Dragonlancesque; Dragonlance with a personal twist, but to say it is Dragonlance would have people shaking their heads. If WOTC made that move, and claimed they were selling the New Dragonlance game (it turns out, Kender were a figment of everyone's collective imaginations), you would have people suggesting that passing off the new product as Dragonlance was dishonest, and they would be right, its somewhat fundamental to the setting. The type of changes you are suggesting is similar. Ditto for eliminating spell preparation/memorization. Some people want to play Ravenloft, not a Ravenloftesque setting.  Your approach of using shades of gray, rather than the everything is evil vibe of Ravenloft is a shift from Ravenloft to Ravenloftesque, like it or not. Despair is central to the setting, find a way to escape Ravenloft, yes, but the idea it can be fixed, again, you are no longer playing Ravenloft, you are playing a Ravenloftesque setting. Defeating a Dreadlord is again another shift from Ravenloft to Ravenloftesque, the Dread Lords are their to be punished and contained, unless and until they change (such as with Lord Soth).  You will lose something significant in the qualia, now if you don't like that qualia, and prefer a Ravenloftesque game, as you basically stated, and your group goes along with it, and that isn't a problem for your group, great, it is your game. It something you all should discuss first, but hey if it works for your group, great. It may have other uses, a lot of people don't allow evil PCs in a game, that would be my preference both as a GM and a player.

But it would seem to me that it would obviously be viewed as problematic by Ravenloft fans if those types of changes were made in a campaign setting; longtime fans of the game want the real thing; Dragonlance fans like Kender to some degree in their game or they would play something else. Seems to me, the Vets know the specific the qualia of the specific settings well enough to understand when they are being handed a counterfeit.

Your assumptions on how clerics & paladins interact with alignment and how the Dark Side is handled in Star Wars shows that you haven't really looked at how games have been doing it for the last decade or so. If the Raveloft product looks like changes out of the blue, go back and see what D&D has been doing since (at least) 2008 (4e) and 2014 (5e) as well as what Star Wars has done since 2013 (FFG). Alignment was still there, but not like you suggest, and the Dark Side is no longer quite what you might expect.

I've seen the FFG Star Warsesque product, it really isn't star wars anymore, and I won't be playing it as a result. But, Disney's custodianshjp of the force is dishonest in much the same way, though this had been a problem since the prequels, people seem to think the darkside and the "lightside" are balanced, actually Lucas viewed the darkside as an infection in the force, and it's existence was the imbalance and never used the phrase lightside. I would expect this was explained when Disney took over the property, but it could be simply poor interpretationsal skills.


This particular problem has been true of discussions I've heard about recent editions, there were similar complaints.

Quote from: jhkim on June 09, 2021, 06:26:33 PM
D&D isn't limited to the Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk. It also has real world settings with Protestants and Catholics - like these:

As for Catholics being lawful and Protestants chaotic -- I'd posit a Gothic Earth game where one PC is a Catholic Irish Fenian who supports rebellion against English law (but respects the Catholic church), while another PC is an Anglican priest who works within English law. Which is lawful and which is chaotic?

I'm not saying that alignment is broken - but I think that games can be interesting and different if one drops the alignment system, and that this isn't the same thing as soulless SJWism.

1: Exactly. And the little fact that Alignment in D&D is not set in stone. Its what your character starts at and from there could end up anywhere.

2: In your example The PC is probably something like CG (Or CN or even CE depending on how violent or indescriminant their actions are.) Their respect for the church is irrelevant unless their actions lean more to following the church more and rebellion less. Then could be anything from LG to NG to whatever.

3: Alignment works fine long as everyone is aware its not set in stone and possibly not what they think it is. So say the priest above actually sits in the middle between rebellion and doctrine then maybe they start as NG. Or LG with an N leaning. Which is how you were supposed to notate alignments in AD&D and probably 2e.

But over the course of play the priest starts to get more and more rebellion supporter so over time their alignment starts to drift into N and possibly even C territory. Theres alot of RP potential in fighting the slide. Or clawing ones way out of the hole they dug themselves into. Or even in digging that hole and leaping in.

Alignment used well works. But like everything else, used badly, it fails, and potentially fails miserably.

Quote from: Toran Ironfinder on June 09, 2021, 07:15:55 PMArguing alignment is world dependent seems to digress from the question of ravenloft, as I noted earlier, DND back in the day seemed to include worldbuilding elements in the class system, which is why the classes in historic settings required amending. Many of the classic DnD settings, including ravenloft and Dragonlance setting, seem to require it. The problem isn't whether it is needed generically.

Dragonlance did not amend alignment. They just added a tracker to the system for ease of keeping notes on where a character was. TSR I believe even put out an alignment tracker wheel way back. Ravenloft did not either far as know. But with that been a while.

Quote from: Toran Ironfinder on June 10, 2021, 11:42:28 AM
I've seen the FFG Star Warsesque product, it really isn't star wars anymore, and I won't be playing it as a result. But, Disney's custodianshjp of the force is dishonest in much the same way, though this had been a problem since the prequels, people seem to think the darkside and the "lightside" are balanced, actually Lucas viewed the darkside as an infection in the force, and it's existence was the imbalance and never used the phrase lightside. I would expect this was explained when Disney took over the property, but it could be simply poor interpretationsal skills.


This particular problem has been true of discussions I've heard about recent editions, there were similar complaints.

There are a lot of people that bought & played FFG's Star Wars that would disagree with you. It may not be your Star Wars as you choose to remember it, but it's still Star Wars to many.

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on June 10, 2021, 07:58:16 AM

Quote from: jhkim on June 10, 2021, 01:11:59 AM
My main question is, how different is what I'd do without alignment as someone who plays Ravenloft with alignment? I've always generally ignored alignment in my D&D games, so I expect I'd do the same with Ravenloft.

Other than the trivial "well, then you don't fill in the alignment box on the character sheet", how is actual play different? If someone were playing in a canonical Ravenloft game and came over to my game, what would they notice?

One way it would be changed specific to Ravenloft is, at least I believe by the Red Boxed Set, the way powers checks work, the probability of attracting the dark powers attention factors in the alignment of victims (so there is a difference between torturing a good NPC and an evil character, or breaking a vow to a good god versus an evil one). This wasn't the case in the black boxed set. But it became the standard. Most other differences would be similar to those you would have in a normal D&D game: magic items keyed to alignment, spells that detect alignment (but again in Ravenloft only law and chaos can be detected), etc. I don't think Ravenloft is uniquely dependent on alignment compared to other settings. But it would still be a change. And I think if you took it a step further and didn't try to have a sense of what constitutes good and evil in the game, managing something like powers could be hard, and the classic horror tone could be hard to hit (that doesn't require alignment but you do need a sense that good and evil exists for something like powers checks to work)

The key part is the bolded section, which I think is a fundamental category error. As a parallel, many RPGs have specific personality mechanics where each PC has mechanically-assigned traits like "Greedy". Sometimes, proponents of these mechanics will say things like "Well, if you play in a game without these mechanics, then all characters are lifeless and have no personality." I find that in practice, this is simply not the case. Characters having personality is not the same thing as personality mechanics.

The same thing is true with alignment. Not having alignment mechanics has nothing to do with whether there is good and evil in a game. And that's explicitly not the case in 5E Ravenloft. For example, did you read the 5E section on Darklord corruption that I posted? Here it is again:

QuoteCorrupt Beyond Redemption

Darklords aren't misunderstood souls condemned through no fault of their own. If a person's potential for evil is particularly great, the Dark Powers might indirectly nurture further transgression, but they don't force individuals to undertake actions against their will. When an evildoer's wickedness ripens, the Dark Powers engulf them forever.

When creating your Darklord, consider the depth of their greatest evil and what made it more significant, abominable, or poetic than more common forms of villainy. The following elements all might be aspects of this corruption:

Evil Acts. The Dark Powers consider an act to be evil if it is intentional, unnecessary, and successful, and most importantly, if it causes significant harm. Accidents, self-defense, deeds necessary for survival, and forced or coerced actions do not qualify. Early in the character's creation, consider what evils your Darklord performed, and revisit these crimes as you develop the villain's other details.

Those Harmed. The people the Darklord harmed need to feel real. Give them names. Imbue them with agency, and don't define them as victims or props. The people who survived the Darklord's evil might be part of a Darklord's history or allies who join the players' characters, or might hold the key to righting the Darklord's wrongs. For each character, consider whether they were important to the Darklord and how that relationship changed.

Irredeemable. Once the Dark Powers take an evil person, that individual's fate is sealed. Before the final corruption, a person can atone--but only if they take genuine responsibility, heal the harm caused, and reform to prevent future harm. Once an evildoer becomes a Darklord, it is far too late. Consider whether your Darklord had a chance to redeem themself and the decision that led to their current fate.

In practice, I've played plenty of fantasy games and horror games that don't use alignment. Also, when I wasn't DM, I've played in some D&D games where alignment was technically in use. I found that the mechanics rarely came up. The few cases I recall were:

1) In theory, Know Alignment could be used to short-circuit mysteries by just casting on all the suspects to see who was evil - but DMs would find ways around this or simply not run mysteries.

2) In earlier editions, there was possibility that the DM could impose XP penalties if someone didn't play their alignment, but that never came up in my games and has been dropped as part of alignment being descriptive rather than a straightjacket.

3) Magic items keyed to alignment were rare in my experience, and it just meant a slight reshuffling of loot. I found this sort of item was more of a big deal in a game without alignment. For example, if the characters got a holy relic that could only be used by someone pure of heart, it was much more interesting.

I haven't played with Dark Powers checks, but I'm also not sure how much it would be affected. For example, you cited "there is a difference between torturing a good NPC and an evil character".

In practice, if the PCs tortured an NPC, would you really look on the character sheet to see what that NPCs designated alignment is to determine whether the PCs were doing wrong? This seems like the sort of thing that I would generally judge without mechanics.

Quote from: Toran Ironfinder on June 09, 2021, 06:00:47 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 08, 2021, 11:11:59 AM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on June 08, 2021, 10:36:43 AM
Robert's made a good point here. In fact, the word 'faith' in a religious context probably is not the same as what we would consider it, since it is a fact in these settings (except for maybe Eberron) that the god is out there. And if there is a doctrinal dispute, there are spells that can be used to resolve it.

This is an interesting conundrum; I may need to contemplate it for a while myself.

In Classic Play: The Book of the Planes by Mongoose, they mention something about maybe the GM could have gods be flawed and not know the answer to doctrinal disputes. (emphasis mine):

QuotePart of the charm of a plane-hopping game is encountering truly bizarre phenomena, philosophies and entities, and being able to deal with cosmological questions like the meaning of life and death directly, on a practical level. The downside of this is that there is always one player who nitpicks or finds fault with explanations. Be prepared for questions like 'why is there farming (or mining, or whatever) when there's an infinite plane of food (or minerals, or whatever)?', 'how can there be different versions of the same religion when a cleric can just pop into the god's home plane and ask for clarification?', or 'why do people live here when there is that portal to a much nicer plane that we just came through?' Even the best Games Master can get tripped up sometimes, especially in strange environments where a lot of assumptions no longer apply.

QuoteStealing the player's ideas: Whenever any objection is raised, people will try to rationalise it – 'people don't mine the plane of Earth because it is too dangerous', 'the god allows different versions of the same faith because he's undecided himself' and so on. Listen to your players and do not be afraid to borrow their solutions

I don't like the typical D&D approach to religion precisely because of its ahistoricity (and because different writers write different things and can't agree on theology). I prefer to write religion that is based on actual religious psychology. The Eberron approach where divine magic comes from belief is extremely useful to me. By positing that spells are colored by the belief of the caster then you can set up religious schisms where both sides believe they are right because their "god" told them and can even summon "angels" to fight for them. Naturally, both sides will assume that the other side is consorting with demons.

Technically D&D already operates on "belief makes reality" according to Planescape, but Eberron is the first setting to actually put that into practice.

However, as Terry Pratchet points out, this logic leads to the bizarre disturbing situation where good but guilt-ridden people go to hell, jerks who picket funerals go to heaven, and therefore it's vitally important to shoot missionaries on sight. I'm still trying to figure out that problem because that just doesn't sit well with me ethically.

Modern Relativism is an outgrowth of problems for ethics growing out of materialism, which is not an assumption of DnD fictional worlds. Materialism cannot coexist with universal ethical prescriptions, said prescriptions cannot be true within a materialist system, because material/energy/reactions/whatever cannot bring them into existence. Existentialism, non-reductive materialism, etc., are attempted solutions, though I tend to consider them either arbitrary in terms of systems such as existentialism, or incoherent in the cases such of non-reductive materialism.

Secondarily, moderns in the west are heirs to perfect being theology, which is incompatible by definition with polytheism, the conception of a god in such systems is very different from Christian, Jewish or Islamic worldviews. If using real world religions, at a minimum, monotheistic beliefs would need to be excluded, though you could read up on Roman, Greek, etc., which will be distinct from their mythologies in many respects.

I'm reading theoi.com right now. There's a personification of vice and immorality.  https://www.theoi.com/Daimon/Kakia.html

I know the ancient pagans actively debated philosophy and ethics and stuff. What does that mean for their deities and any setting where their deities are demonstrably real entities? The Euthyphro dilemma still applies.

Quote from: HappyDaze on June 10, 2021, 12:12:53 PM

Quote from: Toran Ironfinder on June 10, 2021, 11:42:28 AM
I've seen the FFG Star Warsesque product, it really isn't star wars anymore, and I won't be playing it as a result. But, Disney's custodianshjp of the force is dishonest in much the same way, though this had been a problem since the prequels, people seem to think the darkside and the "lightside" are balanced, actually Lucas viewed the darkside as an infection in the force, and it's existence was the imbalance and never used the phrase lightside. I would expect this was explained when Disney took over the property, but it could be simply poor interpretationsal skills.


This particular problem has been true of discussions I've heard about recent editions, there were similar complaints.

There are a lot of people that bought & played FFG's Star Wars that would disagree with you. It may not be your Star Wars as you choose to remember it, but it's still Star Wars to many.

Actually the post seems to be the integrity of the custodianship of intellectual properties. The phrase you use represents subjectivist pseudointellectual nonsense in the academy I was thinking about looking for a PBP game to get away from, disheartening to see it here, and I may need to rethink things. It is not "Star Wars as I choose to remember it," the metaphysics of things like the force are defined by a creator or author (in this case Lucas), deviations or changes from that vision are simply bad interpretation. Of course, moderns tend to be horrible interpreters of literature and prose, our English departments have been infected by Continental philosophy since the 70s, and I guess it is filtering down further and further. The Pundit seems to be implying that these same problems have impacted gaming.