So, I had this idea for a setting where, yes, Good, Evil, Law,

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Anonymous
2016-08-06 13:42:45 Post No. 48653054
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Anonymous 2016-08-06 13:42:45 Post No. 48653054 [Report]

So, I had this idea for a setting where, yes, Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos are real forces in the universe, but their correspondence to good, evil, order, and chaos in the moral sense is a rough one.

Such that maybe this guy is really reckless and impulsive, kind of a dick, but he's not THAT bad, and so when he dies his soul kind of lazily floats along in the general direction of the abyss, and maybe he gets taken to the abyss or Carceri, but maybe he gets taken to Pandemoneum or Archeron.

Maybe devils debate what constitutes evil in the halls of infernal universities.

Maybe Detect Good/Detect Evil only work on spirits from those planes because they measure Good and Evil, which are detectable, rather than good and evil, which are much more difficult to pin down. Meanwhile the gods and other extraplanar entities are called Good and Evil out of a general tendency among sentient beings (including those gods and entities themselves) to categorize things.

Basically, I'm envisioning a world where the philosophical reasons to believe in or dispute the existence of absolute good and evil (and the fiddly details about whether a specific action is good or evil) as there are in our world, but where these larger forces still exist.

What this does is make alignment a matter of alliance/connection to a specific "side" in the eternal cosmic battle, like it was way back in the earliest D&D editions. It may tend to correlate with actual moral outlook and personality, but it doesn't refer TO it.

This should allow D&D magic centered around alignment to function as intended, allow players to have alignments (or be true neutral like most humans), and maybe create some interesting roleplay opportunities.

Anonymous 2016-08-06 13:46:56 Post No.48653095
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Anonymous 2016-08-06 13:50:21 Post No.48653149
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Anonymous 2016-08-06 13:50:21 Post No.48653149 [Report]

>>48653054
So, you just invented the 1st editions of DnD?

Anonymous 2016-08-06 13:58:08 Post No.48653227
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Anonymous 2016-08-06 13:58:08 Post No.48653227 [Report]

>>48653149
Close-ish. I think there are some differences in implementation, in that the earliest versions to use 3x3 alignment indicated, for example, that being Good and being good were exactly coextensive, and I don't think that's necessarily the case.

I would say that most Good people are probably good people, and most Evil people are probably evil, but what if, say, you had a Lawful Evil god who cares only about his own people, and they know he's Evil, but don't actually think he's evil in the moral sense because he's always protected them in exchange for their service? Is everyone who follows him automatically evil, or just Evil in the alignment/allegiance sense?

Anonymous 2016-08-06 14:03:38 Post No.48653284
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Anonymous 2016-08-06 14:03:38 Post No.48653284 [Report]

>>48653054
What if the spirits, gods, and other extraplanar creatures don't actually have any hard definitions of good and evil themselves, but rather are trying to figure it out for themselves? What if there's all sorts of cosmic disputes along the lines of "I'm good!" - "No, I am!" - "Bullshit, you're both clearly neutral!" and some-such?

What if Detect Alignment doesn't actually do anything of that sort, but rather obtains some sort of morality score determined by magical constructs (kept up-to-date on the most recent morality debate results through a divine-infernal peer-to-peer network) that humanity's extraplanar judges attach to them because it's way too much of a hassle to watch them all, day in, day out?

What if they deliberately deluded their followers into thinking that those constructs are their souls? What if someone figured out a way to remove those and is offering to purge people from those parasites in exchange for a percentage of their property? What if removing ~~thetans from the premises ~~actually works, despite said someone charging an arm and a leg and attempting to brainwash anyone that seeks 'em out by means of "necessary preparation sessions"?~~~~