Hello there everyone. I am writing a paper comparing the morality of games like pathfinder and D&D to that of reality. I have put together a quick survey and would love to get as many peoples opinions as possible. Below are the questions, if you have any other questions you would like to ask people or related things that might be helpful feel free to share.
1. Is there a direct correlation between good/evil and law/chaos?
2. Is anything inherently or irredeemably good/evil?
3. Can you know how good or bad an act is without exploring the whole scenario first?
4. Should the morality of a player affect their character?
5. Does the morality of a player affect their character?
6. Does committing an evil act make you evil?
7. Committing several evil acts in pathfinder will change your alignment to evil. How does that relate to real life? Is that an accurate portrayal of morality?
Are you asking these from a real word or Pathfinder perspective? You also need to expand on that first question.
Apart from being rather rambling and unsure of what it wants to find out, this 'questionnaire' suffers from one unfortunate assumption: that there is an objective morality in real life.
I am fully aware that there isn't such thing as objective morality. The questions are meant to be answered based on your own opinion. Clearly you don't think that there is an answer to many of these questions. Some people think that there is such thing as objective morality and I am interested in what they have to say.
Wraithstrike: Pathfinder and real world, I would like to hear about both. What I mean with the first question is "what is the connection between evil or good and chaos or law?" does being chaotic mean you are evil? Is there any connection between chaos and evil at all?
1. Is there a direct correlation between good/evil and law/chaos?
Per game, there is no correlation since the development of the two-axis system in the 1970s. The two axes are independent.
2. Is anything inherently or irredeemably good/evil?
Per game, things are "inherently" good/evil, but generally not irredeemably. Most authors are happy to write exceptions because postmodernism.
3. Can you know how good or bad an act is without exploring the whole scenario first?
No, since no one actually understands the morality system.
4. Should the morality of a player affect their character?
Should the morality of an actor affect the roles they're willing to play? Most actors would consider this unprofessional behavior. Someone's got to play the villain, after all.
5. Does the morality of a player affect their character?
Depends on how good the player is at role-playing. Does your morality affect your portrayal of Iago?
6. Does committing an evil act make you evil?
Per game, yes.
7. Committing several evil acts in pathfinder will change your alignment to evil. How does that relate to real life? Is that an accurate portrayal of morality?
Nothing about the Pathfinder alignment system is an accurate portrayal of morality or relates in any non-coincidental way to real life.
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I'm going to start with two caveats.
1)Real world morality is far more complicated than Dnd and this makes all the real world questions essentially meaningless. Following answers are for campaign world only
2) The answer varies a lot by campaign, by player and by character. Following are the answers for most of my characters
1. Is there a direct correlation between good/evil and law/chaos?
Game world - Some correlation.
2. Is anything inherently or irredeemably good/evil?
Game World - varies immensely by campaign.
3. Can you know how good or bad an act is without exploring the whole scenario first?
Game World - With rare exceptions yes.
4. Should the morality of a player affect their character?
In theory, no.
5. Does the morality of a player affect their character?
Absolutely it does. Look at any discussion of alignment on the net and it is very clear that real world player morality affects what is seen as good, evil, etc.
6. Does committing an evil act make you evil?
Game World - It depends on the act, the reason for the act, the repentance after the act and the particular campaign. In general, a single act will not make one evil.
7. Committing several evil acts in pathfinder will change your alignment to evil. How does that relate to real life? Is that an accurate portrayal of morality?
It does not relate to real life in any way since morality in the real world is far more complicated
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Apart from being rather rambling and unsure of what it wants to find out, this 'questionnaire' suffers from one unfortunate assumption: that there is an objective morality in real life.
This statement is a representation of why these threads don't really work. There is an unfortunate popularity amongst nerds to consider morality wholely subjective, allowing them to take up such regnant philosophies.
Hello there everyone. I am writing a paper comparing the morality of games like pathfinder and D&D to that of reality. I have put together a quick survey and would love to get as many peoples opinions as possible. Below are the questions, if you have any other questions you would like to ask people or related things that might be helpful feel free to share.
1. Is there a direct correlation between good/evil and law/chaos?
2. Is anything inherently or irredeemably good/evil?
3. Can you know how good or bad an act is without exploring the whole scenario first?
4. Should the morality of a player affect their character?
5. Does the morality of a player affect their character?
6. Does committing an evil act make you evil?
7. Committing several evil acts in pathfinder will change your alignment to evil. How does that relate to real life? Is that an accurate portrayal of morality?
1) Yes. However, a great many people conflate that their personal view on Law or Chaos = Good and the opposite view = Evil, so they tend to get mixed up.
But conformity and stability vs individuality and liberty are not necessarily good or evil, and both can be abused and celebrated.2) Outsiders come close, as do psychotics who are simply wired wrong. Otherwise, you're talking absolutes, and absolutes are the provinces of the divine, not mortals.
3) In PF? Sure, wear an Phylactery of Faithfulness, and it will TELL you. The fact that good deeds can have bad consequences and vice versa is completely independent of the act itself.
4) No.
5) Yes. People will skew alignment based on personal perceptions. Hardly unexpected.
6) It depends on the scale of the act and the deed. But being a completely nice guy until you get the chance to send the world to nuclear Armageddon doesn't mean you're good up until you hit the button. The willingness to do evil deeds, even if you don't get the chance to do them often or frequently, means you don't even have to do them, you can just WANT to do them.
7) Making an evil decision makes it easier to make similar decisions. This is a widely known psychological effect, as you get innured and ignore the implications of your action. "It was war" is the most famous excuse. After a time, it simply becomes the way you are.
So, yes, it definitely reflects reality. Of course, reality doesn't have an easy recognition/redemption mechanism like Atonement, only a lot of therapy. The road back to the heights is way harder then the road down.
==Aelryinth
There is one thing I have yet to see in alignment discussions (not to say it's never been brought up, just that I haven't seen it):
In the standard D&D-style cosmology, Good and Evil (and Law and Chaos) are fundamental and physical forces of the universe. Unlike in our world, you can roll Goodness up into a ball, smack someone in the face with it, and physically hurt them. If they themselves are Good, however, they might be protected from it.
To me, Alignment in the D&D/PF model does not determine your behavior or morality, but how said morality is reflected in your soul's resonance with what to these worlds are quantifiable forces of existence.
I bring it up all the time when I'm in them.
In D&D, Good, Evil, law and Chaos ARE...mortals don't get to define them. The only thing you get to choose is how close you stand to them.
Thus, objective morality doesn't exist, because you don't get to determine what is actually moral based on your personal perception.
The scale is there, it is absolute beyond divine and mortals. Now, CHOOSE WHERE YOU STAND.
==Aelryinth
Yeah. Pathfinder and D&D have an actual measuring stick that even the Gods are measured by.
That said, it must be noted that Alignment only goes as far as to say what quadrant of the graph you stand, not where you are on that quadrant. In addition, the Axes are a lot thicker than you'd think.
Thank you all for your answers. These are (almost) all incredibly helpful.
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1.) In game I think they have become fully decoupled. Honestly, I think the Law/Chaos axis is superfluous and adds an unnecessary level of complexity.
In real life, I think trying to label human morality on a two-axis system is a hilarious level of simplification; people are simply too complex for that. One thing I do know is that I have never met a person who honestly believed they were evil, no matter how reprehensible their actions were. I didn't rub shoulders with murderers or anything, but I did know a woman who stole over ten thousand dollars from her kid's PTA; she justified it because her rear end was in a sling and she needed the money and she was going to put it right back, honest. Hell, outside of the clinically depressed, I haven't met anybody who even believed they were bad people, let alone evil.
2.) In game, I have seen lists of "Evil Acts"(TM), however I have never seen a commensurate list of "Good Acts"(TM), odd that.
In real life, who knows. Everybody has a reason for what they do that makes sense to them at the time. True, irredeemable evil is a tall order to find, and I indicated in point 1. In the real world, merciless, soul crushing evil is a team effort requiring a bureaucracy of people simply not giving a s&&+ a la "the banality of evil".
3.) In game, generally yes. Especially in Paizo products they tend to make the good guys and the bad guys stark and apparent.
In reality, generally not.
4-5.) Should it? No. Does it? Usually.
6-7.) In game, I would say that evil beings tend to commit evil acts; not, evil acts make a being evil.
In reality, you can get used to just about anything even committing horror.
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1. Is there a direct correlation between good/evil and law/chaos?
Law and Chaos in D&D cosmology are incoherent concepts. Since they incorporate a number of unrelated and in some cases incompatible concepts and priorities, they cannot correlate to anything. (The good/evil axis is probably a mess too but most of us salvage it with out of game frameworks to some degree or other).
2. Is anything inherently or irredeemably good/evil?
What do you mean? Objects? Actions? humans? Sentient beings of any type?
If this is really two questions: can any actions be inherently evil regardless of context? Yes. But probably fewer than you would think.
Can any individual person be irredeemably evil? No in theory, yes in practice. No one is beyond redemption. Not all will actually be redeemed. Non-human spirits? Are you seriously asking that?
An object? No.
3. Can you know how good or bad an act is without exploring the whole scenario first?
Are you assuming there are degrees of both goodness and badness? (Many philosophers don't admit both--modern utilitiarian philosophy as advocated by JC Smart or Peter Singer, for example would probably admit degrees of badness but does not have room for degrees of goodness or the concept of superogatory actions. Deontic philosophy tends to have more room to admit degrees of goodness).
What exactly do you mean by the "whole" scenario? Are you asking about the consequences? Do you mean _all_ actual effects, no matter how far removed? That is impossible to explore. Do you mean only immediate and direct effects? That hardly encompasses everything consequentialists hold to be morally significant. Do you mean only forseeable effects? Or reasonably forseeable effects? Or the effects that the actual actor anticipated, regardless of whether they were forseeable in principle or were forseen in actual practice?
For that matter, do you look at the act and its consequences (whatever the heck you mean by that) in isolation or in contrast to alternative courses of action available to the actor? If that's what you mean, is there actually any such thing as counterfactual consequences? If not, how can you evaluate the consequences of alternative actions.
To illustrate this with a gaming example, let's try a dilemma using one of the common utilitarian standards: an action is right if and only if its actual consequences are better than the actual consequences of any alternative course of action. The scenario: The party is down to their last resources. The wizard is out of spells. The cleric is out of healing, and the fighter/wizard has one true strike left. The rogue is dead. They run into a very challenging encounter with a devil and minions which have total encounter level equal to average party level+5. By encounter math, they are likely to lose the battle if they don't run immediately, however there is a significant (if low) chance that they will win. The immediate consequence of the party successfully fleeing is bad but limited--let's say, the devils massacre a village before being stopped by someone else. The immediate consequence of fighting but losing is that all of the same bad stuff happens, but the party is also killed and is unable to prevent another set of bad things later. The immediate consequence of attempting to flee but failing is similar. Now, what is the actual consequence of fighting or fleeing? Let's say the party flees. Do you know what actually would have happened if they fought? You can know the odds. You can play out the scenario a bunch of times and figure out that they win 3 times out of ten, but unless you fixed the dice, you won't know whether the party would have won an epic fight or all been killed if they had actually chosen that option. That's the problem with purporting to evaluate counterfactual consequences--you don't know what they are.
I'm rather tempted to say this is a nonsense question that sounds like it has meaning but that the meaning vanishes when you look at it closely.
Assuming it is a meaningful question, you need to know all morally significant facts in order to evaluate the rightness or wrongness of an action. Exactly what facts are morally significant is likely to be rather complex (indeed, it's not clear that there can be any principled limiting factor for consequentialists like Singer and Smart) and will depend upon your philosophy. However, almost everyone would agree that in the scenario where Kyra shot Regdar with a crossbow on Tuesday morning, the fact that Kyra shot Regdar (rather than a Pathfinder Iconic or Regdar shooting Kyra) is not morally significant, that it is not morally significant that it happened on a Tuesday rather than a Friday, but that it is morally significant whether Regdar is charging Kyra or fleeing from battle.
4. Should the morality of a player affect their character?
How could it not? Even if you are deliberately playing someone with a different moral compass, that will be informed by your habits of judgment and understanding of human affairs.
5. Does the morality of a player affect their character?
How could it not? If nothing else, I'm pretty sure that it impacts what you enjoy thinking about, talking about and describing. One player enjoys graphic descriptions of how they are going to torture their prisoner. Another does not. For many players, that enjoyment or discomfort will be rooted in their moral compass. We play this game for fun, so of course different people will enjoy playing different kinds of characters.
6. Does committing an evil act make you evil?
No. Evil people do evil actions.
7. Committing several evil acts in pathfinder will change your alignment to evil. How does that relate to real life? Is that an accurate portrayal of morality?
Pathfinder imposes alignment as a descriptive tool for characters and as a means to determine what happens if you magically peer into someone's soul to see what kind of person they are, hit them with a holy sword, or cast a spell that has different effects on the wicked and the pure of heart. Since none of those abilities are common in real life (to say the least), there's not much analogy between the latter functions of alignment and real life. As to the descriptive aspect, you could probably see real life events through that lens, and it might even be informative but good luck getting people to agree on any meaningful standards for that evaluation. It's almost like people disagree on matters of morality.
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Quite an interesting thread!
If no one can agree on anything then it pretty obviously isn't objective.
That is somewhat debatable, given some of the conflicting views the human race has shown regarding several things that are known facts.
To give an example, consider the concept of whether the world is round or flat. People argued for years over this, with supporters of a round world being shot down by the clergy. No one could agree on this, even though there was a clear, objective answer to the question of round or flat.
Now, I know that it can be said that there is a difference, since morality is stated to be insubstantial. There are counter arguments to that, however, both secular and religious in nature.
The first way that the aforementioned statement can be refuted is the secular, biological explanation. If all thought, morality included, is determined by strictly chemical, structural, and electrical changes within the human brain, morality must naturally have a naturally recurring pattern, just like all things in nature. This means that it is quite objective. To answer the question of 'if that is true, how are there opposing views?', the answer can be stated as genetic mutation, one that can be passed down the generations. Over time, if the alleles for said mutations are dominant instead of recessive, human reproduction will produce a large enough group that holds an alternate viewpoint. This infers that there is a set morality encoded within the human genome and that all varying viewpoints are simply mutations in the genome that have spread due to the natural reproductive process and how alleles relate to it.
The second way of refuting that statement is religious in nature. If a higher being created the cosmos and all within it, said being likely made morality a universal principle like gravity or cellular mitosis. This too infers that morality is a substantial and objective, though the implications of why it is not universally agreed upon by humanity as a whole relates more to humanity's failure to acknowledge universal fact. That would not be the first time humanity failed to acknowledge something concrete and substantial, examples such as the world being spherical, the laws of gravity, and heliocentricism.
These points can be argued against, of course, but since the actual mechanic of how morality works is not known, one cannot be certain of whether or not these views are correct or incorrect.
So, in all fairness, just because people cannot agree on something does not mean a certain side's viewpoint is correct.
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A)I read morality in the title as molarity, and expected a discussion of acids potency in pathfinder expecting dead catgirls.
B) This is a fine and dandy replacement, I will answer wholeheartedly.
1. Is there a direct correlation between good/evil and law/chaos?
In Game: I feel that there is less of one than before definitely.
IRL: Yeah, lawful people tend to be portrayed as good in media, but many peoples opinions of politicians(diplomancers) and lawyers(RL munchkins) are more closely related to evil and greed(which I find accurate) 4/20, Illuminati, Hitler, Etc.
2. Is anything inherently or irredeemably good/evil?
In Game: Many things are inherently good/evil but nothing is irredeemable.
IRL: I'd say helping others is inherently good, but not always objectively good. Same with hurting others being inherently evil, but not always objectively evil.
3. Can you know how good or bad an act is without exploring the whole scenario first?
In Game: Yes, I'd say so with a simple spell seeing if an act would affect your alignment negatively.
IRL: Yes, the whole scenario is not necessary in my opinion... A good picture is needed though, not just a one-sided view
4. Should the morality of a player affect their character?
In Game: Yeah, if that's how they're playing them.
IRL: The morality of the mind shouldn't necessarily affect the perception of the person, as evil people can be perfectly courteous and live a normal life without committing a single evil act.
5. Does the morality of a player affect their character?
In Game: Usually, also the opposite. If you pretend to be something long enough, that is what you become.
IRL: Yes, usually your mind will convince you to do some act that is in tune with it's alignment no matter the constraints.
6. Does committing an evil act make you evil?
In Game: Slowly yes.
IRL: Not necessarily, depends on if you realize it was evil and if you care.
7. Committing several evil acts in pathfinder will change your alignment to evil. How does that relate to real life? Is that an accurate portrayal of morality?
I believe this is accurate to real life in that sense, if you stop caring about how you affect others in certain ways it does tend to bleed over into a general ethical malaise.
1. Is there a direct correlation between good/evil and law/chaos?
A correlation between the individual axes yes, but the axes exist completely separately, which is what creates the nine alignment system. The premise of morality itself is more or less not tied to law/chaos at all, as law/chaos really has more to do with policy and authority where good/evil is where we deal with morality and altruism.
2. Is anything inherently or irredeemably good/evil?
In the game world, yes. Undead are inherently evil, goblinoids and orcs are inherently evil. Outsiders are inherently tied to their alignments. This is a defined mechanic of the game, not to be diverged from too often because of that inheritance. Drizzt created all sorts of problems with the way players view the alignment system because it opened the door for players and story tellers alike to conceive things such as good undead or evil angels. For contemporary story telling, a Saurumon esk character who defies his inherent goodness is a great tool, for the purpose of writing mechanics for a game such concepts invalidate having mechanics that are based on alignments in the first place if alignments are so flimsy.
3. Can you know how good or bad an act is without exploring the whole scenario first?
Probably not, much like the previous question, there are lots of story telling elements which convert and change what we have. Any system where you know how your alignment is affected regardless of the intentions of the player not only defeats the purpose of having an alignment system, but it interferes with RAW when you look at paladin and antipaladin codes of conduct which either implicitly ban certain actions for being evil, or permit certain actions with the caveat that it ultimately serves a different purpose than what you are trying to convince the alignment system of.
4. Should the morality of a player affect their character?
Should it? Absolutely not. What happens in game is what happens in the context of the game's world, actions, beliefs, and practices ought to be judged solely by the game's mechanics and not by external materials, since the external materials do not have control over the mechanics of the game.
5. Does the morality of a player affect their character?
Indirectly. In western culture it is considered immoral to conduct oneself in premarital sex where in a fantasy world something like marriage may not even exist. Players who don't understand or cannot realize with such concepts often project their own values from the real world onto their characters. Something like slavery may not be considered evil by the game's mechanics (in fact, that is a law/chaos thing) but western culture (especially Americans) will often slam the concept as pure evil. As a result, the sense of morality that exists in the context of the game world is often compromised by the values of the ones playing it.
6. Does committing an evil act make you evil?
Depends on the context. Like I was saying earlier, players who intend to fool the alignment system by acting a certain way go against the written intention of the rules. For instance, I often have players who will run around burning down houses and slaughtering villagers to steal their stuff, but in order to maintain a neutral alignment they will then go and rescue a kitten. Any game system that cannot see that the acts of saving the kitten are only there to mask the true intentions of the character is a flawed one, and in my games at least I see through this and judge the actions of a character by the intentions of the player. I am often at ends with my players for judging them this way and have made many players angry who are not able to abuse the alignment system in this manner.
7. Committing several evil acts in pathfinder will change your alignment to evil. How does that relate to real life? Is that an accurate portrayal of morality?
That depends entirely on what you believe, and what your relationship with [external universe defining force] is. Certain religions name all people good and forgive them for their acts of evil on Earth where others name people heretics for the blood that flows through their veins or for the sins of their parents. How morality affects the real world is completely variable when you consider where your culture draws its roots from.
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1. Is there a direct correlation between good/evil and law/chaos?
No.
2. Is anything inherently or irredeemably good/evil?
Inherently? No. Irredeemably? Yes.
3. Can you know how good or bad an act is without exploring the whole scenario first?
No, but for extreme enough acts you can get a pretty good idea. Torture is pretty much always really bad regardless of the situation.
4. Should the morality of a player affect their character?
Sometimes. If you believe something is morally right and necessary, your Good aligned characters should probably believe it and do it. On the other hand, just because you believe something specific doesn't mean your character must...there can very much be intentional differences (or even complete reversals).
But just like any departures an imagined society takes from real societies must be in the context of real societies, an departures an imagined morality takes from one's real morality must be in the context of that real morality.
5. Does the morality of a player affect their character?
Yes, somewhat inevitably. But again, not necessarily a direct one-to-one correlation.
6. Does committing an evil act make you evil?
Depends on the severity of the act and the context. Someone can become evil from a single act, but most evil acts aren't bad enough to warrant that.
7. Committing several evil acts in pathfinder will change your alignment to evil. How does that relate to real life? Is that an accurate portrayal of morality?
Not in detail, it's profoundly oversimplified as compared to the complex nuances of real morality. But generally? Yes. You are in some ways what you do, context taken into account, and enough bad acts not justified by said context do indeed make you a bad person.
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1. Is there a direct correlation between good/evil and law/chaos?
No, in game terms, they are four entirely separate cosmic forces.
2. Is anything inherently or irredeemably good/evil?
Yes, abortion, child abuse, and rape are always evil acts and can never be justified.
3. Can you know how good or bad an act is without exploring the whole scenario first?
I don't understand this question. You can, but are not always likely to know. A properly formed conscience helps.
4. Should the morality of a player affect their character?
5. Does the morality of a player affect their character?
These are weird questions. What do you mean here? Are you asking if good people only play good characters or, what? If that's the case, no, the player and the character are different people. A person's views on morality may color their character--someone that thinks X is evil will play a different evil character than someone who thinks X is neutral or even good.
6. Does committing an evil act make you evil?
That's a question well beyond the scope of a quick forum post. In general, no. I'm not sure that you can really label people "evil" in the real world. In D&D, no, a single act doesn't make you evil, either, but a collection of them will.
7. Committing several evil acts in pathfinder will change your alignment to evil. How does that relate to real life? Is that an accurate portrayal of morality?
No, alignment does not equal morality. Alignment is a cosmic force, not a measurement of right/wrong.
And there is objective morality--we just may not always know what it is. ;)
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There is objective good and evil, we just delude ourselves with relativity in order to be a$$*#$!s without accountability
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There is objective good and evil, we just delude ourselves with relativity in order to be a~@!~!~s without accountabilityNow please define "objective good and evil" in the real world context. If you're going to trot out something, then you're obliged to give meaning to it. Spoiler: It's not the simple subject that most people imagine.
Evil: consciously causing avoidable damage to others, especially for personal gain and pleasure.
Good: actively doing something beneficial to others for the gain in conscience
It's not that hard. It's hard to quantify those good and evils in order to determine if A is worse/better than B, but qualify as negative/positive/zero can be pretty straightforward
I can avoid a lot of harm to cows if I stop eating hamburger. For all we know, plants may have feelings as well. Should I feel guilty every time I put gravy on mashed potatoes?
Still think it's easy?
Indeed being carnivorous in a time in which we have the means to feed ourselves adequately without meat is evil. Little evil if the cows die painlessly, but still.
On the other hand we KNOW that plants do not have the nerves to feel physical pain, let alone emotions. Also, it is unavoidable to eat living beings in general. Thus "killing" or "maiming" plants in order to survive is neutral.
I can save 10 people if I send one person on a suicide mission. Is it an easier decision when it's one hundred... or one who's a bit more important in a given context?
This is a matter of quantity, not quality
No on the cows. They're animals. They don't count.
Eh, while I can get behind the opinion that unintelligent animals like cattle are "lesser" than humans, we nonetheless have the responsibility to avoid to make them suffer for nothing.
You know, with great powers blah blah.
On the suicide mission I'd add that is not evil if the subject knows the risks and is willing.
Hello there everyone. I am writing a paper comparing the morality of games like pathfinder and D&D to that of reality.How much do you understand of reality? Have you written anything in Ethics or Morality, or studied any philosophical works? Do you understand the difference between Ethics and Morality? Do the names Immanuel Kant, Albert Camus, Kirkegard, or Jean Paul Sartre mean anything to you? If the answers to the above are no, what exactly are you going to be comparing the extremely abstract nature of D20 morality to?
I am pretty new to this topic, and while I have heard the first two names I can't claim to know much about their work. That said, i'm mostly doing this due to personal interest in pathfinder. I am not trying to write an extremely philosophical paper and I don't expect it to be on par with those written by people who have put a good amount of time into studying ethics and morality.
To be completely logical, there is no such thing as good and evil. They are false philosophical human constructs that have no place in the universe other than what mortals conjure from their imagination. The universe does not know good or evil, it only knows existence and non-existence. Logical fact.
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To be completely logical, there is no such thing as good and evil. They are false philosophical human constructs that have no place in the universe other than what mortals conjure from their imagination. The universe does not know good or evil, it only knows existence and non-existence. Logical fact.
To assert the non existance of something is most definitely NOT "completely logical".
Even if they are philosophical human constructs, that doesn't make them false nor does it mean that they have no place in the universe.
It is interesting that you think it a logical fact that universe knows things.
Note - The above is mostly my being pedantic. You'd be best to NOT assume that I hold any particular beliefs based upon it.
1. Is there a direct correlation between good/evil and law/chaos?
(Interpreted here as: Is there a direct correlation between good & law, or evil & chaos?)
No. Lawfuls might disagree.2. Is anything inherently or irredeemably good/evil?
In game terms, some things are inherently good or evil. In real life, good and evil are labels we choose to apply, and they're usually not helpful to understanding why people do the things they do.
3. Can you know how good or bad an act is without exploring the whole scenario first?
In my opinion, no, but knowing the consequences of your actions is impossible. This is a problem.
4. Should the morality of a player affect their character?
I don't think it is important one way or another. It's only a game.
5. Does the morality of a player affect their character?
It's hard to see how this could be avoided. A human needs their own moral framework which will affect how they see their character's moral framework.
6. Does committing an evil act make you evil?
I think the game makes more sense if being evil makes you commit evil acts, rather than the other way round. So if a cursed item made you flip from good to evil, your new alignment would cause you to do evil deeds.
An evil act like murdering a child doesn't make you evil - you were already evil, or you wouldn't have done it.This is distinct from an Evil act. For example, using the Ring in Lord of the Rings exposes you to the power of evil, and makes you a worse person. Similarly, in Pathfinder, creating undead calls upon Evil powers and warps your mind and moves you in the direction of an evil alignment, which will cause you to commit evil acts.
7. Committing several evil acts in pathfinder will change your alignment to evil.
I disagree; I think evil acts can only reveal that your true alignment was evil all along.
How does that relate to real life? Is that an accurate portrayal of morality?
It doesn't really relate to real life.
In real life there are five primary factors that make up someone's moral code. These are:
Harm reduction. (Good = acting to help, not hurt others).
Fairness. (Seeing people rewarded for good behaviour, not for bad behaviour, social justice, etc.)
Respect. (Respecting priests, soldiers, the nobility, entrepreneurs, parents, or other strong authority figures who we should seek to emulate.)
Purity. (Avoiding alcohol, drugs, foul language, sexual indiscretion, etc.)
Loyalty. (Consistently supporting 'us' and taking our side against 'them'. Might be loyalty to a country or a trade union or women or gamers or a racial group...)
In general, everyone cares about Harm Reduction and Fairness, but Conservatives take Respect, Purity & Loyalty a lot more seriously than Liberals do.
'Lawful' alignment and Conservatism have a lot in common.
6. Does committing an evil act make you evil?I think the game makes more sense if being evil makes you commit evil acts, rather than the other way round. So if a cursed item made you flip from good to evil, your new alignment would cause you to do evil deeds.
An evil act like murdering a child doesn't make you evil - you were already evil, or you wouldn't have done it.
This is distinct from an Evil act. For example, using the Ring in Lord of the Rings exposes you to the power of evil, and makes you a worse person. Similarly, in Pathfinder, creating undead calls upon Evil powers and warps your mind and moves you in the direction of an evil alignment, which will cause you to commit evil acts.
That answer semi-contradicts itself. You're drawing an unhelpful distinction between an Evil act and an evil act, and saying that the first E makes you evil and therefore more likely to commit acts of the second e.
In Pathfinder, creating undead does not make you (or your character) more likely to murder children unless the GM is in the habit of taking control of your character for what she perceives as alignment violations.
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There is objective good and evil, we just delude ourselves with relativity in order to be a~@!~!~s without accountabilityNow please define "objective good and evil" in the real world context. If you're going to trot out something, then you're obliged to give meaning to it. Spoiler: It's not the simple subject that most people imagine.
We don't have to be able to define objective good and evil for it to exist. Humans were around for thousands of years before we could define DNA, but that doesn't mean it didn't exist or that humans couldn't see its effects in the world.
Since brainpan directed me here I leave you a small nugget of wisdom :)
Good characters are inherently lawful if there is an implied moral code. The commandments if you will. Thou shalt not murder, steal, etc. Those are laws. Good characters follow those laws, evil characters break them. Even with a different moral code, its still a code, effectively a law.
Hello there everyone. I am writing a paper comparing the morality of games like pathfinder and D&D to that of reality. I have put together a quick survey and would love to get as many peoples opinions as possible. Below are the questions, if you have any other questions you would like to ask people or related things that might be helpful feel free to share.
1. Is there a direct correlation between good/evil and law/chaos?
2. Is anything inherently or irredeemably good/evil?
3. Can you know how good or bad an act is without exploring the whole scenario first?
4. Should the morality of a player affect their character?
5. Does the morality of a player affect their character?
6. Does committing an evil act make you evil?
7. Committing several evil acts in pathfinder will change your alignment to evil. How does that relate to real life? Is that an accurate portrayal of morality?
1. no, chaos & law are more about liberty versus Law, good and evil are more inherently ingrained into pathfinder and don't correlate well into the real world. basically the gods desided, and that determines what is detected as what.
2. only in pathfinder, which is clearly labeled.
3. only in pathfinder
4. yes
5. yes
6. it makes you eviler
7. This is basically a discussion on Roman versus Greek Fate. Are you evil therefore do evil acts, AKA is your mind important, or do you perform evil acts and therefore are evil, AKA are your actions important? Pathfinder follows the later, modern western culture uses the former.
Since brainpan directed me here I leave you a small nugget of wisdom :)
Good characters are inherently lawful if there is an implied moral code. The commandments if you will. Thou shalt not murder, steal, etc. Those are laws. Good characters follow those laws, evil characters break them. Even with a different moral code, its still a code, effectively a law.
not really, someone could be chaotic and follow the code because they agree with it, not because they think it is law. basically, someone who abandoned another faith to join one with codes could have done it simply because they fit with him more, making him a more chaotic person.
Personal codes are very much not laws, as the whole religion vs government debate will tell you. Just because you consider it a personal law, doesn't mean it's a Law.
That's what Chaotic characters are. They have a code that butts up against prevailing Law. it's not an evil code, but it's in opposition to the Law. Rules imposed on them by others are to be fought, worked around, or simply ignored.
A Lawful character instead embraces those laws that match his moral outlook, he doesn't fight them.
Large difference.
Now, if you go back a thousand years, law and civilization = Good, chaos and barbarians = Bad, was basically what moral thinking represented.
Different times, different measures.
==Aelryinth