HeroMarine
Irenaeus
Yes.Are drow inherently evil?
Yes.Are drow inherently evil?
Per even the updated post-Drizzt description I posted, the "Good" Drow are Neutral at best ftmp.Not every non-evil drow is a "Drizzt clone"
Maybe, but the general culture isn't her fault imo, even if she encourages it.LLolth is a terrible influence on Drow society, the most despicable and terrible deeds committed by drows are all done in her name and at her bidding.
Again, Good and Evil are not subjective in D&D. I've said it multiple times and provided evidence, but you just ignore it and blunder on with your misinterpretation, providing no evidence or examples.That's what I've been saying all along: They HAVE A SOCIETY, and therefore, they have social values, that, while you may disagree with, nonetheless represent a polarity of "good" to them: What is proper behavior. Did you not see the video I linked earlier about this?
They were evil, yes. And in D&D, it would be a provable fact of the universe that only truly deranged people would disagree with. I mean, it is today as well, but people are deluded and I can't cast Know Alignment on any Aztecs to prove my point.Yes, and at the point your cult becomes mainstream and central to a society, it is now a religion. When you sacrifice children to in a hidden lair away from the prying eyes of society, you're a crazy cultist. When you sacrifice children on public altars in front of a cheering crowd of townspeople to secure the rising of the sun, you're the high priest of a major religion. See: The Aztecs. Are the Aztecs "evil", or do they just have different social values?
Unless whoever is currently writing the books changes their opinions on what the alignments mean. E.g. whether slavery, goblin infanticide, or poison is evil or not depends on who is writing. Full stop.Yes, and at the point your cult becomes mainstream and central to a society, it is now a religion. When you sacrifice children to in a hidden lair away from the prying eyes of society, you're a crazy cultist. When you sacrifice children on public altars in front of a cheering crowd of townspeople to secure the rising of the sun, you're the high priest of a major religion. See: The Aztecs. Are the Aztecs "evil", or do they just have different social values?The Drow are literally a baby murdering spider cult AND a society.
This has been covered to death. Morality in DnD is objective, good and evil are tangible, observable forces that do not change based on opinion. As are Law and Chaos!
Just because an author is a retarded leftist cunt doesn't mean the DnD alignments are wrong. We all know leftards should be drowned at birth due to their sheer stupidity. Why base anything off them?Unless whoever is currently writing the books changes their opinions on what the alignments mean. E.g. whether slavery, goblin infanticide, or poison is evil or not depends on who is writing. Full stop.Yes, and at the point your cult becomes mainstream and central to a society, it is now a religion. When you sacrifice children to in a hidden lair away from the prying eyes of society, you're a crazy cultist. When you sacrifice children on public altars in front of a cheering crowd of townspeople to secure the rising of the sun, you're the high priest of a major religion. See: The Aztecs. Are the Aztecs "evil", or do they just have different social values?The Drow are literally a baby murdering spider cult AND a society.
This has been covered to death. Morality in DnD is objective, good and evil are tangible, observable forces that do not change based on opinion. As are Law and Chaos!
I dump alignment in my games because it’s fucking stupid.
Evil.Yes, and at the point your cult becomes mainstream and central to a society, it is now a religion. When you sacrifice children to in a hidden lair away from the prying eyes of society, you're a crazy cultist. When you sacrifice children on public altars in front of a cheering crowd of townspeople to secure the rising of the sun, you're the high priest of a major religion. See: The Aztecs. Are the Aztecs "evil", or do they just have different social values?The Drow are literally a baby murdering spider cult AND a society.
I think it is very appropriate if all the impact that morality is supposed to have in your game is divide who is supposed to be a good guy and who isn't. If you want a game where things such as greed, pride and cupidity and their effects in human life take the forefront of the game; sure, giving people a single tag of "good" or "evil" is counter-productive. On the other hand, if the game is about finding traps, killing orcs and finding a way to make off with the greatest amount of treasure without getting killed, having an alignment to settle any issues of whether A is evil or not, or is good or not; or really whether it is an enemy, can keep the game from going into a useless tangent.(...snip)
I dump alignment in my games because it’s fucking stupid.
Missed this."The debates now make me regret that I ever included the system feature, as it is being taken beyond the pale. Better to have the character's actions speak for their ethics and morality than some letter set."
Not his circus, not his monkeys. If he's not being paid to mediate arguments about D&D, why should he bother?Gary Gygax said:This is a subject that I could write a complete essay on, but it is bootless. Let those who publish the system clean up the mess.
He died less than 5 years later.Gary Gygax said:After about 25 years, the subject becomes a tad shipworn and trite, shall we say...
Alignments made sense back when it was just Moorcock's chaos/order/balance triad (which were cosmic forces rather than personal codes of behavior) or Anderson's simple "chaos=evil, order=good" logic. D&D made it stupid by giving it two axes that oversimplify the issues of morality and then expecting anyone to be able to agree what this means.Just because an author is a retarded leftist cunt doesn't mean the DnD alignments are wrong. We all know leftards should be drowned at birth due to their sheer stupidity. Why base anything off them?
I just let my group play murderhobos who don't give a flying fuck about the morality of their actions. If they can escape the consequences of their actions, then they can do whatever they want. If they want to pretend to be paragons heroically slaughtering evil orcs, then I'm not going to be an asshole and tell them orcs are actually a persecuted minority. So there's basically only two alignments in my games: "can be reasoned with" and "kill on sight."I think it is very appropriate if all the impact that morality is supposed to have in your game is divide who is supposed to be a good guy and who isn't. If you want a game where things such as greed, pride and cupidity and their effects in human life take the forefront of the game; sure, giving people a single tag of "good" or "evil" is counter-productive. On the other hand, if the game is about finding traps, killing orcs and finding a way to make off with the greatest amount of treasure without getting killed, having an alignment to settle any issues of whether A is evil or not, or is good or not; or really whether it is an enemy, can keep the game from going into a useless tangent.
For example, the concept of Lawful Neutral. It only exists to be applied to stuffy obstructive bureaucrats.
Shocking.I just let my group play murderhobos who don't give a flying fuck about the morality of their actions. If they can escape the consequences of their actions, then they can do whatever they want.
I think that if you want to play a classic dungeoneering game, with a good party, you really only need three alignments:(...snip)
I just let my group play murderhobos who don't give a flying fuck about the morality of their actions. If they can escape the consequences of their actions, then they can do whatever they want. If they want to pretend to be paragons heroically slaughtering evil orcs, then I'm not going to be an asshole and tell them orcs are actually a persecuted minority. So there's basically only two alignments in my games: "can be reasoned with" and "kill on sight."
But that's just my opinion. I'm well aware that these sorts of argument never go anywhere even after hundreds of pages so it's not a hill I'm willing to die on.
On that note, you should watch the newer Dredd if you haven't already. Better adaptation of the source material.
I think that if you want to play a classic dungeoneering game, with a good party, you really only need three alignments:
- "Good" guys who you are not supposed to mess with and even help when the opportunity arises.
- "Neutral" guys that can be reasoned with but which can betray you when you aren't expecting.
- "Evil" guys who can occasionally be reasoned with but which you know they will try to betray you later.
The first alignment axis was law/chaos. I believe good and evil became an aspect of it only when they made AD&D.I think that if you want to play a classic dungeoneering game, with a good party, you really only need three alignments:
- "Good" guys who you are not supposed to mess with and even help when the opportunity arises.
- "Neutral" guys that can be reasoned with but which can betray you when you aren't expecting.
- "Evil" guys who can occasionally be reasoned with but which you know they will try to betray you later.
Kinda/sorta related to this, do you any of you guys know why they decided to go with Lawful-Neutral-Chaotic for BECMI instead of Good-Neutral-Evil? From what I'd seen, in practice, Law and Chaos tended to be treated as Good and Evil respectively.
Nah, Lawful Neutral is best summarized in the line "You are technically correct. The best kind of correct!". This is the guy who doesn't care whether the rules are good or bad, just that they are the rules. This is the guy playing Papers Please going for the 100% accuracy mode.For example, the concept of Lawful Neutral. It only exists to be applied to stuffy obstructive bureaucrats. Humans invented laws because we believe laws promote good, not to exist for their own sake. An obstructive bureaucrat is either lawful good because he believes law is good even if he's overzealous in his enforcement, or lawful evil because he likes abusing his power to make people sweat.
This is why we get idiot players who think Paladins going ping-thump! is THE thing to do. A complete misunderstanding of the alignment system and an insistence that their interpretation is the correct one, when even the source material tell them they are wrong.Alignments made sense back when it was just Moorcock's chaos/order/balance triad (which were cosmic forces rather than personal codes of behavior) or Anderson's simple "chaos=evil, order=good" logic. D&D made it stupid by giving it two axes that oversimplify the issues of morality and then expecting anyone to be able to agree what this means.Just because an author is a retarded leftist cunt doesn't mean the DnD alignments are wrong. We all know leftards should be drowned at birth due to their sheer stupidity. Why base anything off them?
For example, the concept of Lawful Neutral. It only exists to be applied to stuffy obstructive bureaucrats. Humans invented laws because we believe laws promote good, not to exist for their own sake. An obstructive bureaucrat is either lawful good because he believes law is good even if he's overzealous in his enforcement, or lawful evil because he likes abusing his power to make people sweat.
Not only that, but there's a huge difference between concepts like devils that work within laws to exploit it for evil purposes and the cenobites under Leviathan that consider chaos to be evil and go around torturing souls to purge chaos from the universe. Under D&D alignment both would be consigned to Lawful Evil when they don't operate according to the same logic at all. At the same time, "daemons" (the Neutral Evil fiends) are considered a separate race from demons and devils because they sell their services as mercenaries to either. Also, both demons, devils, and daemons are random grab bags of designs and you can't tell which is which without memorizing their MM entries first; whereas chaos daemons from 40k have clearly distinguishable aesthetics.
Correct. Lawful Neutral is the alignment of judges. They are completely neutral on whether the law is Good or Evil. They are just there to adjudicate the law. They don't allow their own biases into their ruling. Having Tyr being Lawful Good is a massive mistake on the part of the FR creator, for example, but given that it is Ed Greenwood, what the heck did you expect?Nah, Lawful Neutral is best summarized in the line "You are technically correct. The best kind of correct!". This is the guy who doesn't care whether the rules are good or bad, just that they are the rules. This is the guy playing Papers Please going for the 100% accuracy mode.For example, the concept of Lawful Neutral. It only exists to be applied to stuffy obstructive bureaucrats. Humans invented laws because we believe laws promote good, not to exist for their own sake. An obstructive bureaucrat is either lawful good because he believes law is good even if he's overzealous in his enforcement, or lawful evil because he likes abusing his power to make people sweat.
BECMI uses a single-axis, 3-alignment system of lawful/neutral/chaotic because this is the same system used in B/X, which in turn took this system directly from original D&D (though not Holmes basic D&D, which is the only version to use the two-axis, 5-alignment system proposed by Gary Gygax in that Strategic Review article mentioned earlier).The first alignment axis was law/chaos. I believe good and evil became an aspect of it only when they made AD&D.Kinda/sorta related to this, do you any of you guys know why they decided to go with Lawful-Neutral-Chaotic for BECMI instead of Good-Neutral-Evil? From what I'd seen, in practice, Law and Chaos tended to be treated as Good and Evil respectively.
As for why, I think it is both a direct translation of the sides of the fantasy wargames D&D came from and because these sides represented the strange pulp fantasy that was the inspiration of so much of AD&D. There is probably more to it as well, but I am sure Zed Duke of Banville will come along shortly to explain that way better than I could.
I personally think that having law and chaos as the only components for alignment can be a pretty good setup. In this case, alignment doesn't shackle morality issues so much, and can well represent sides of a cosmic struggle beyond human ken.
Of course, lawful in this case is still the good option. Chaotic beings want a world that would be hell for most people. Neutral beings are either opportunistic or, if they are actively neutral, inimical to civilization. But while the lawful side is the only "good" side, things aren't so well defined on the personal level. There are people and beings who might be called "good" on all three alignments, and some of the beings on the side of order may be every bit as strange and inimical to humans as those on the side of chaos.
virtuous women like Viconia? (at least trying to be virtuous )
Yes but we have discussed this and we agreed people can change and part of Viconia journey is a change of personality and views....lets be positive and support people who want to become good ?virtuous women like Viconia? (at least trying to be virtuous )
Viconia is still an evil character trough and trough from BG1 to ToB. She's an outcast and hunted by her own people because she was slightly less evil than you typical drow priestress. She's still gonna steal, lie and murder her way trough, it's just that she's deviant among drow because she gains no pleasure in commiting senseless atrocious act.
You raise an interesting question, what about a campaign where Lolth wants to become good or she is cursed by Helm of Opposite Alignment?Lloth is evil. By definition. No shades if gray. And, she's fine with that. She wants power, and she wants 'revenge' for what she feels is a 'betrayal' by Corelleon and the pantheon. She doesn't need or want you trying to use cock bullshit fake philosophy to paint her as 'good'. Lmao This idea that you can naked sacrifices of innocent babies at an altar can be seen as good or justified us sjw nonsense.
As a Chaotic Evil being, Lloth wouldn't want to become Good. And she's so baked into evil that even forcing an alignment change would be difficult to have a meaningful effect beyond making everyone think she was nuts.You raise an interesting question, what about a campaign where Lolth wants to become good or she is cursed by Helm of Opposite Alignment?
It's ultimately a lot more impactful story-wise for someone good to become evil and than for someone evil to become good. What's she going to do, NOT sacrifice babies? Do random acts of charity? Not the most interesting campaign.If Devas and Archons can become evil why cant demons and devils become good?
Obviously, since as a Drider you would have no genitalia.Lolth is hot, I would Romance her but not as a Drider obviously