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.

I haven't had doctrinal disputes in D&D, but I have had them in Harn. My Agrikan priest character in a Rethem campaign secretly belonged to a splinter sect that was separate from the main Agrikan church.

I think it's possible in D&D as well. The D&D rules-as-written specify that the "Commune" spell doesn't necessarily directly contact the deity - possibly only an agent. 5th edition rules are explicit that the answer can be "unknown". A divine agent doesn't necessarily have completely knowledge of the deity - i.e. even an angel or demon might not know the bigger picture, and doesn't know the mind of their deity. In a given setting if the gods aren't hands-on intervening and speaking, then commune might just get mundane answers and not answer doctrinal questions.

In earlier editions, there was a limit to doctrinal differences because "Know Alignment" would tell if a person was doing wrong for their alignment, but that was cut later. If Know Alignment is around, then different sects can at least know if they have slid away from Goodness (or whatever their intended alignment is).

It helps that Harn is lower-magic than D&D typically is, but D&D can still be relatively lower magic if the DM constrains how many higher-level NPCs and PCs there are.

Quote from: jhkim on June 08, 2021, 12:06:46 PM
I haven't had doctrinal disputes in D&D, but I have had them in Harn. My Agrikan priest character in a Rethem campaign secretly belonged to a splinter sect that was separate from the main Agrikan church.

I think it's possible in D&D as well. The D&D rules-as-written specify that the "Commune" spell doesn't necessarily directly contact the deity - possibly only an agent. 5th edition rules are explicit that the answer can be "unknown". A divine agent doesn't necessarily have completely knowledge of the deity - i.e. even an angel or demon might not know the bigger picture, and doesn't know the mind of their deity. In a given setting if the gods aren't hands-on intervening and speaking, then commune might just get mundane answers and not answer doctrinal questions.

In earlier editions, there was a limit to doctrinal differences because "Know Alignment" would tell if a person was doing wrong for their alignment, but that was cut later. If Know Alignment is around, then different sects can at least know if they have slid away from Goodness (or whatever their intended alignment is).

It helps that Harn is lower-magic than D&D typically is, but D&D can still be relatively lower magic if the DM constrains how many higher-level NPCs and PCs there are.

In Ravenloft the line of communication between the deity and the priest is not as clear. Know alignment only detect chaos and law in Ravenloft. Lots of spells like that are impacted in order to mitigate how they can impact horror adventures.

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

I came up with a "novel" approach to that conundrum; Instead of a relatively mundane "Prime Material Plane" with fantastic otherworlds, I operate on the idea that my "Prime Material" IS the Otherworld akin to Narnia or Faerie that mortal (often modern) protagonists would travel to in fiction.

So my Mortal World includes all the fantastic terrain and critters you'd normally only encounter in the D&D planes (by way of a supernatural Cataclysm) and the actual afterlife and realms of the astral gods and primal spirits are completely unreachable by any PC species (one of the contingent requirements for a Raise Dead ritual is that the soul still has to linger in the Mortal World/not yet moved on).

As such, everything past the Mortal World has to be taken on faith. There are at least three different religions (three are all I cover for the section of the default setting I cover) based on the astral gods who only agree on the broadest points and the completely separate monotheistic Old Faith which itself has different interpretations akin to the Orthodox/Roman Catholic split depending on whether you're dealing with one of the Remnant, Revival or Promisory communities.

There's even a viable atheist movement, particularly strong among Arcanists, who argue the "gods" are nothing but rogue AI's running inside the Arcane Web (basically that the gods are "sufficiently advanced technology").

That allows sufficient wiggle room for the missionaries to not be stoned on sight and hope that regardless of whether the good might feel guilty and the wicked justified that they will wind up in the right place.

Quote from: robertliguori on June 08, 2021, 10:22:43 AM
In general, you should not look to real-world religion at all when you design D&D theology and religion.

I disagree with this rather strongly, because real world religions are our basic frame of reference. They're also far richer than any fantasy religions, so incorporating elements from them can make religion in a campaign feel more real and tangible. The problem with purely made-up religions is they almost always feel fake and superficial.

Though I agree with the general thrust, that gods that are verifiably real are qualitatively different from gods in the real world, and that has some implications that should be considered.

Rather than addressing that in detail right now, I'm going to make a tangent and talk about a published campaign setting that deals with some of those issues in an interesting way.

What follows is spoilers for Valus.

In Destan's setting, the gods are real. They grant powers. And they live within the Sun, or more properly, the Sun is gateway that gives access to the divine realm, where the gods continually wage war against each other. This leads to clerical power waxing and waning. Big spells also require the direct approval of the god, and come with consequences. If you're raised from the dead, you'll be marked, and required to do something for the god.

So far, fairly standard. But the tagline of the setting is "A World Born without Love". There's a long backstory, but essentially the creator god lost her capacity for love when she was forced to kill her children. The regular gods are her new children, and inherited this trait. They are continually vying for power, and don't care for mortals at all, except in a what can you do for me sense.

This isn't widely know. Most people worship the god with reverence, and feel loved. The same is true for clerics -- until they learn how to cast spells like commune. At which point, they learn the truth.

Think about the implications. The high priests of the setting know the truth, but they didn't learn until late in their career. I assume a few might be devastated and retire in seclusion or go mad, but what would most people do if they learn the thing they spent the last 40 of their life on was a lie? The center of their faith might be hollowed out and they might feel empty, but most just go on. This works mechanically because power and spells aren't about belief or love, but about forms.

Quote from: robertliguori on June 08, 2021, 10:22:43 AM
In general, you should not look to real-world religion at all when you design D&D theology and religion.  There would never be a Martin Luther of Pelor, because the Church of Pelor is in regular and direct communion with Pelor and Pelor's celestial hierarchy of agents.

Ah, you sweet summer child.

Quote from: Pat on June 08, 2021, 03:16:16 PM

Quote from: robertliguori on June 08, 2021, 10:22:43 AM
In general, you should not look to real-world religion at all when you design D&D theology and religion.

I disagree with this rather strongly, because real world religions are our basic frame of reference. They're also far richer than any fantasy religions, so incorporating elements from them can make religion in a campaign feel more real and tangible. The problem with purely made-up religions is they almost always feel fake and superficial.

Though I agree with the general thrust, that gods that are verifiably real are qualitatively different from gods in the real world, and that has some implications that should be considered.

Rather than addressing that in detail right now, I'm going to make a tangent and talk about a published campaign setting that deals with some of those issues in an interesting way.

What follows is spoilers for Valus.

I'm not familiar with Valus - thanks for the intro. I do note that it is advertised as having variant rules for clerics, paladins, and clerical magic.

https://www.diffworlds.com/valus.htm

I agree that it can be interesting to use real-world religions - but I think robertliguori is saying it doesn't fit well with the D&D rules as written. I think using variant rules can make things more workable. There was an excellent historical setting series for AD&D2E including Vikings, Charlemagne's Paladins, Celts, A Mighty Fortress, Glory of Rome, Age of Heroes, and The Crusades. I have three of these, and as I recall, they all suggest significant rules changes for clerics.

The Harn setting has a number of rival sects even within the worship of a single god like Agrik. These were inspired especially by historical religions like Celtic, Norse, and Roman. There were some interesting developments especially by the Harn Religion Team. (One of my Harn GMs was a member.)

https://www.lythia.com/hrt/

Quote from: jhkim on June 08, 2021, 05:12:11 PM

Quote from: Pat on June 08, 2021, 03:16:16 PM

Quote from: robertliguori on June 08, 2021, 10:22:43 AM
In general, you should not look to real-world religion at all when you design D&D theology and religion.

I disagree with this rather strongly, because real world religions are our basic frame of reference. They're also far richer than any fantasy religions, so incorporating elements from them can make religion in a campaign feel more real and tangible. The problem with purely made-up religions is they almost always feel fake and superficial.

Though I agree with the general thrust, that gods that are verifiably real are qualitatively different from gods in the real world, and that has some implications that should be considered.

Rather than addressing that in detail right now, I'm going to make a tangent and talk about a published campaign setting that deals with some of those issues in an interesting way.

What follows is spoilers for Valus.

I'm not familiar with Valus - thanks for the intro. I do note that it is advertised as having variant rules for clerics, paladins, and clerical magic.

I told you that, literally in the next paragraph. Their power varies over time, to represent the gods warring with each other. And casting certain spells can involve a duty and a mark. Valus doesn't diverge a lot from the d20 system baseline, but does make a number of small changes to the rules, primarily adding new consequences or supporting the backstory. It's a fairly minimalist approach; the rules changes tend to be the minimum necessary to emphasize the themes of the setting.

If you're implying the changes are needed to fit the the alignment system, there really aren't any beyond a few guidelines, like the emphasis on form over true belief that I mentioned. It's less than the changes I suggested for a subjective alignment system.

With regards to imperfect gods, I think that "No opinion." is pretty clear.  If Pelor cares about the degree of politicization on his church and wants to crack down on things like selling indulgences, he'll say so through various channels he has open, the Catholic-analogue priests will start losing power, and Martin Luther-analogue will gain new converts since their prayers work.  If Pelor approves of a strongly-integrated-and-political-church, he'll say so, Martin-Luther-analogue will get dinged for being a schismatic, and his prayers will stop working.  And if Pelor just wants the sun to shine, mortals to be healed and protected, and the beasts of darkness to be defended against and has no opinion on the politics of the churches of one continent, then he can say that, both the establishment and Martin-Luther-Analogue will be told to not get distracted on either worldly matters or reforming the church overmuch, and whichever of them doesn't shrug and get back to opening hospitals and sponsoring low-level PCs to raid dark dungeons will start losing power.

Again, the fact that the gods have multiple avenues to tell dissident priests to knock that shit off renders real-world religion a really bad metaphor for D&D religion.  You'll only get actual doctrinal wars if the god is provoking them himself for some reason, incredibly incompetent in how he manages his hierarchy of planar ally candidates and heralds, or if one or more sides are actually maliciously misrepresenting what they are seeing and hearing (which can be addressed by getting a few neutral third parties to also investigate).

---

The Valus case is interesting, but it also reveals the extent of what you need to change.  In D&D, good and evil are absolute concepts of the universe.  Orcus does not make undeath evil; undeath is evil, which is why it's a domain of evil gods and fiends. Destan's gods need to live in a non-stock planar area, because if they have turned their backs on mortals as anything other than ritual prayer batteries, then they'd get kicked out of the upper planes fairly quickly, and this would be noted and observed.  Hell, I don't know anything about the setting, but we can see that it's dropped the Great Wheel (and its later analogues), which raises questions as to if the gods of that world have fiendish or celestial servants, and what happens when the non-divine caster classes examine them.

As a deep setting lore issue, that sounds like an interesting twist, but not something that can really be supported in a default D&D setting, because there are too many other sources of wisdom other than the church.  Are there dragons who remember the original-flavor chief god and original pantheon, and can clearly see the difference? Are there continual issues with cults piling up, who take low-level clerical rituals that can be easily learned but get associated with made-up divinities, or just the cult leader themself?  And if the gods are both warring and uncaring, what happens when the war reaches a point where they decide that the prayer and ritual they'd get from terrified, obedient humans outstrips the slow, calcifying drip of Mother Church, and they show up and start smiting and demanding blood sacrifices?

---

I also feel that I should bring up one of my custom 'gods' that got extremely popular among my players.  The 'god' was a fallen(-ish) Solar celestial for whom the weight of the Grand Cosmic Plan got to be too much, went AWOL to the Prime, and just started doing as much good as he could with what was right in front of him, explicitly not caring for any kind of divine pact, balance of good and evil, or what opportunities he was allowing the forces of evil to sneak in from him deserting his place in the celestial order.  I left it ambiguous if it was his descent that kicked off the various world-threatening events of the campaign or if he was responding to them and buying the players time to level up and deal with the issues, but even with that potential issue, the players decided unanimously that a being whose response to the Problem of Evil was "I'm smiting as hard as I can! Did you have any suggestions? Or could I perhaps please deputize you to deal with the invading orc army over there?" was more honest, more courageous, and closer to what they saw as the actual essence of Good, and so they started proselytizing for and setting up churches to the solar, initially ironically, but eventually in earnest, leading to a rather moving conversation with a previously pantheistic paladin declaring that he'd lost his faith, but found something better.

---

Also, since its fluff doesn't get a lot of love here, I will say that one thing I like about 4E from a player perspective is that there is a concept called divine investiture.  The idea is that you get put onto the path of being a divine spellcasting class via either a ritual by a church, or just getting chosen by the divinity directly.  That is the bond you need to take divine-source class levels.  But it's all you need; once you get a divine investiture, it can't be withdrawn, and the gods can't micromanage your cleric's magic.  You can turn against the entire ethos of the god you've been invested with, and keep all your power; there was a branch of divine class members called Avengers whose job it was to work for the church and hunt down heretics.

It enabled actual doctrinal disputes to be more of a thing, since the 4E gods were also fairly distant, and it also meant that PCs could act in what they perceived the best way for their divine caster to act, without worrying about Asshole GMs turning them into substandard fighters because Drama.

Quote from: jhkim on June 07, 2021, 02:47:58 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 06, 2021, 09:37:49 AM

Quote from: jhkim on June 05, 2021, 10:46:37 AM
The real crux is whether every published character and creature needs to be given an official alignment. What I really *don't* want is for alignment to be a straightjacket - i.e. an author has a cool character concept, but they get cut or edited because they don't fit the alignment system. On the other hand, if characters are published without regard for whether they fit alignment, then I think the assignments will be highly arbitrary - and the issue might as well be left to GMs to assign alignment based on their views and tastes.

Bigtime citation needed here.  I need to see a character concept (or three) that don't fit into the alignment system.  The system is so broad (and therefore flexible) that just about any personality can be wedged in there to a satisfactory degree.  You are, once again, engaging in the either-or fallacy: either alignment is a straight-jacket, or it's totally arbitrary.  No, there is the possibility that it works just fine for 95% of the cases and is just a little off for a handful of other exceptions, but not enough off to matter.  Which is how it usually works when used.  So I need examples of these "totally unique" character ideas.

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?

Other settings are historically inspired, like HarnWorld. For example, I played in a game where our characters were all missionaries for the worship of Ilvir. We had different values than those who worship Larani, the more traditional good goddess. But to us, individuality and creativity were more important than the chivalry and conformity of the Laranians. We were the equivalent of a strange sect like the Society of Universal Friends or Mormons. And many were repulsed by us, but we gained some followers. Were we good? Were the Laranians who opposed us evil? Were we both neutral despite considering ourselves good?

Or in my Vinland campaign, there were conflicts between the Norse and their Algonquian allies, and the encroaching Haudenosaunee. The Norse considered themselves good, but they still went on raids as a matter of course, to collect good and slaves. And the Haudenosaunee were much the same.

While it is possible to attach alignments, I don't see that it improves the game compared to not using alignment.

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...)

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

Except that some of the Protestants had even more rigid dogma than the Catholics (Hell, half* of Luther's 95 thesis basically amounted to "The Church is not rigorously enforcing X rule that my insane scrupuloucity demands be enforced"). So CG is NOT obvious to some who've actually studied this as part of courses on apologetics.

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.

* since you seem excessively literal, I feel the need to point out that I am using this in the subjective sense of "more than just many, but not all, because I don't actually feel like going to reference them for an exact count just for an internet discussion of morality in elfgames."

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.

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.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 09, 2021, 05:53:17 PM

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

Except that some of the Protestants had even more rigid dogma than the Catholics (Hell, half* of Luther's 95 thesis basically amounted to "The Church is not rigorously enforcing X rule that my insane scrupuloucity demands be enforced"). So CG is NOT obvious to some who've actually studied this as part of courses on apologetics.

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.

* since you seem excessively literal, I feel the need to point out that I am using this in the subjective sense of "more than just many, but not all, because I don't actually feel like going to reference them for an exact count just for an internet discussion of morality in elfgames."

Thank goodness a disinterested party came by to help support jhkim.  Oh, wait, we've already established you don't like the mechanics of OD&D (because of some personal "trauma") and also dislike alignment mechanics.  So it must take some rigorous evidence to persuade you to agree with him... *eye roll*

No goalposts were shifted.  The thread is about Ravenloft and D&D.  Pundit criticized the removal of alignment from a D&D setting and got pushback from the usual suspects. Jhkim, not Pundit or me, brought up non-D&D settings (because he is incapable of answering questions without deflection).  I don't care what other settings you personally try to use D&D mechanics for, because the subject is D&D and games designed for its mechanics.  Now, provide some examples of character concepts in a D&D game that can't be represent by alignment.

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

All mechanical systems create limitations.  That's not even an argument.  By using hit points you are limiting the ways you can represent damage and threats.  That's not a limitation, it's a feature of every system. 

And we're not just talking about fantasy settings.  We're talking D&D mechanics and settings designed for D&D mechanics.  That's the point.  Ravenloft is designed for PbtA or Fate or GURPS.  It IS designed for D&D mechanics.  That's the point.  If you have to go beyond a character playable with D&D mechanics to prove your point, it's not proven.

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.

If alignment is being dropped for mechanical reasons, you might have an argument.  What indications do you have that it is?  We have quite a bit of circumstantial evidence that it isn't (especially considering the other changes made in Ravenloft).  Show me where the designers have mentioned that reason, because there's a nice chunk of interviews where they talk about changing the setting for "inclusivity" and woke.