Author Topic: Thought Experiment: Name that society's alignment  (Read 9058 times)

Offline Arz

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Re: Thought Experiment: Name that society's alignment
« Reply #20 on: July 16, 2014, 06:40:55 PM »
The thing with anarchism (or communism, or many similar movements) is that it involves two stages. In the first stage, the existing system is torn down or removed, which is clearly a chaotic act. In the second stage, a new order arises; this new order is often lawful and almost never chaotic.

It follows the same pattern as "you have to spend money to make money" - by doing something contrary to your goals in the short term, you make those goals more achievable in the long term. (This is also how governments justify stuff like torture.)

The people who do well at the tearing down in the first stage are usually not very good at building things up again in the second. When the revolutionaries hold power (as happened in the French Revolution), they carry on the revolution, instead of pursuing the ideals that inspired it.

Though I don't ascribe to this view one could view all the US constitution's compromises as a chaotic building-up. So two lawful factions could actually be creating chaos. Main issues of compromise would be citizenship and sufferage.

Offline LudicSavant

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Re: Thought Experiment: Name that society's alignment
« Reply #21 on: July 17, 2014, 04:27:10 AM »
One of the somewhat more salvageable ways of handling Law vs Chaos I've used was essentially (to put it briefly) to turn the question of "is this person lawful or chaotic" into the question of..."When the rights of few and the needs/desires of the many conflict, which side do you tend to take?" 

In that case, the compromises in the Constitution could probably be seen as Chaotic, yes.  Although, I don't really see any value in bothering to define acts or societies by alignment.  The only things you need to define by alignment for use with the default D&D rules are targets.

So, you need to know what someone Detects as, you need to know what things get blasted by Blasphemy, you need to know what things you get AC bonuses against when you use Protection from Alignment.  But you don't need to know whether a given law is Chaotic or Lawful.
« Last Edit: July 17, 2014, 04:30:09 AM by LudicSavant »

Offline X-Codes

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Re: Thought Experiment: Name that society's alignment
« Reply #22 on: July 17, 2014, 05:49:30 AM »
Another handy thing about the "everyone is neutral" approach, the scope of divine magic is restricted ever so slightly to... divine things.

What pops as Lawful when you cast Detect Law?  Lawful Outsiders and Clerics and Paladins of Lawful Deities.  What pops as Evil when you cast Detect Evil?  Not the Assassin.  Hide/Move Silently no longer foiled by a first-level spell!

Offline LudicSavant

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Re: Thought Experiment: Name that society's alignment
« Reply #23 on: July 17, 2014, 08:39:22 AM »
Removing alignment entirely is a possibility.  Or, perhaps a less-intrusive goal would be to remove alignment from all things that don't have "special alignment auras."  In that case, one must ask "what do we do about those mechanics which depend on it?"

The important effects are... lessee... Protection from X, Detect X, and the Word line.  If there are any important ones I'm forgetting, lemme know.

- Alignment restrictions for acquiring features, generally speaking, can go the way of the dodo without impacting much of anything.  Paladins no longer have alignment requirements but do have codes of conduct.  I recommend defining new codes of conduct rather than using the existing ones, since queries like "evil acts" return "undefined."

- Protection from X spell could perhaps become reflavored as a sort of "Planar / Possession Ward" spell.  It prevents summoned extraplanar creatures from entering an area, it provides an AC bonus against anything not native to the caster's plane or summoned, undead, clerics, paladins, and it suppresses attempts to control you (compulsions and such).  Maybe make it interact with Eberron's possession rules.  The most important part of PfX is the suppression of compulsions, so it's important to keep that part intact, and that seems to fit with the "possession ward" flavor.

- Detect X becomes "detect clerics/paladins/blackguards/outsiders/undead/deathless" or more simply "detect aligned auras / aligned energy channeling."  Clerics ping as the alignment of their deities, regardless of their own personalities.  Paladins / Blackguards / etc all ping as the alignment of their aura.  Deathless always ping Good, other undead always ping Evil, Outsiders ping of their respective alignments.  Anyone who doesn't have a deity (or has a neutral aligned deity) who can turn undead pings Good, and vice versa for Rebuke Undead.

- Holy Word / Blasphemy / Dictum / Word of Chaos simply affect all beings not from your plane that don't share your deity's aligned aura.  If a balor does it on the material plane, he's hitting everyone except for, say, clerics of Erythnul.

- Radiant Charge / Doom Charge / Tide of Chaos / Law Bearer can simply work on any sentient enemies whom you have a specific moral disagreement with (e.g. you must know something, even if it is a minor or generalized detail, about the target.  You can't use it on random peasants).  Radiant charge may work on undead/evil outsiders, Doom charge may work on Deathless/good outsiders.  To qualify to have these maneuvers, your deity's alignment must be within one step of the maneuver's alignment requirement.

- Aura of Chaos / Perfect Order / Tyranny / Triumph stances make you ping as if you were a cleric of a god of those alignments.  Aura of Triumph simply procs against all targets.

- Smite works on everything.  No I don't care that this is a buff, Paladins are a low tier class.
« Last Edit: July 17, 2014, 08:51:42 AM by LudicSavant »

Offline Childe

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Re: Thought Experiment: Name that society's alignment
« Reply #24 on: July 20, 2014, 02:57:03 AM »
Guess what?  Those two societies I did not make up.
Was this supposed to be like a "gotcha" moment? Your title belied what you said in your first post.

I understand that there are problems with ... providing such a brief snapshot of both, but both groups in D&D are traditionally chaotic-aligned.

In spite of Society A not having a central authority or hierarchy, many of you (on these boards and elsewhere) placed them as a non-chaotic option
Not having a central authority doesn't inherently mean something is Chaotic. Why would there even be a Neutral alignment on that axis otherwise?

I was planning on using this thought experiment (just the questions, not the responses) in it to show readers the shortcomings of alignment
Last nitpick, I promise: so you decided to preach to the choir? These boards have a pretty good density of people who dislike the alignment rules as they exist. That said, I'll let you know now I have 0 interest in buying a book about this.

All in all, this activity was fun. 7/10. Would speculate and reason again.
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Offline Libertad

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Re: Thought Experiment: Name that society's alignment
« Reply #25 on: July 20, 2014, 01:51:02 PM »
Guess what?  Those two societies I did not make up.
Was this supposed to be like a "gotcha" moment? Your title belied what you said in your first post.[/quote]

Quote
Not having a central authority doesn't inherently mean something is Chaotic. Why would there even be a Neutral alignment on that axis otherwise?

Many gamers conflate the two.

Quote
Last nitpick, I promise: so you decided to preach to the choir? These boards have a pretty good density of people who dislike the alignment rules as they exist. That said, I'll let you know now I have 0 interest in buying a book about this.

All in all, this activity was fun. 7/10. Would speculate and reason again.

I posted this on a bunch of other message boards.  GiantITP, RPGnet, Intangibility, and Something Awful Traditional Games to be specific.