I'm at it again, folks--working on my homebrew game system. My current focus is on alignments, always a topic of much debate. I've decided to do away with Law and Chaos, but to keep Good and Evil as defining traits. I am posting my definitions of the good/evil axis here because they make perfect sense to me in my own head, but I want to make sure that they are clear and defined to others.
Good: Good people care. Good characters are concerned with the welfare of all sentient beings. While neutral and evil people may also be concerned with others, only good people regularly go out of their way to act on their compassion. This does not mean that good people do not ever act selfishly or that a good character must spend every waking moment helping others, but a good character does act on his compassionate impulses more often than not.
Neutrality: The majority of humanity is neutral. Neutral people care for certain sentient beings, perhaps even all sentient beings, but they do not regularly go out of their way to act on their compassion. When a neutral person does act on their compassion for others, it is usually to help a person which they have a strong connection to such as a family member, a friend or a countryman. Neutral people often lack compassion for others whom they are not related to somehow, such as foreigners and people of different race.
Evil: Evil people do not care. While some evil people have an utter lack compassion for anyone, most evil people have compassion for certain sentient beings while having utter disdain or hatred for others. Evil people may go out of their way to help those who are part of a select group, but there is always a group of sentient beings that they actively hurt, oppress or kill.
Well crap, I'm evil. Not that I suppose it's a surprise or anything, though the good news is I have some neutral tendencies!
I like it. Very concise.
Yeah that's why I'm doing away with law and chaos--everyone has a different idea of what they are. (your definitions are totally not how I define law and chaos) Thanks for your thoughts Rez; I was hoping that others would point out any vagueness or inconsistencies with my good/evil definitions.
Well crap, I'm evil. Not that I suppose it's a surprise or anything.
*Gasp* Why are you evil?
*Gasp* Why are you evil?
Unfortunately, revealing additional knowledge may prevent me from faking my way through any more psychiatric evaluations.
*Gasp* Why are you evil?Unfortunately, revealing additional knowledge may prevent me from faking my way through any more psychiatric evaluations.
Awww, I bet you're just misunderstood...but all the same you don't have anything against frumpy old men with long beards and spectacles right?
They are Societal-level distilations of what the Law/Chaos rules were always meant to be through the various editions. As I said previously, I have long thought alignments don't apply well to individuals.
That's interesting; I've always felt that alignments are much more easily applied to individuals than to societies. Just because once you have more than a couple dozen people or so, the law of averages starts to take over.
Also, alignments don't really mean anyting to societies as a whole...although it might be interesting if they did. Imagine an epic Holy Word type spell with Target: One evil society. Sweet!
Well Tequila,
I see no ambiguity with your definitions...
But I am Evil by your scale too.
I can live with that. ;-)
Do not fear though. I am just the counterbalance to my Lawful Good friend. The two of us keep society "Neutral."
For example, in some sources spellcasters were supposed to be Lawful because a Chaotic character couldn't remain focused on one thing long enough to understand the complexities of magic.
Monks are firmly locked into this mindset, unfortunately.
but all the same you don't have anything against frumpy old men with long beards and spectacles right?
Not to worry. I quickly mentally reviewed "the list" and didn't see you on it. ;)
Tequila Sunrise, your difinitons good, evil, neutral works for me. That is how I would define them. Good job.
According to this model ...
LG = Socialists, Liberal Democrats
CG = Moderate Republicans, True Communists
CE = Pure Capitalists, Marxist/Leninist Communists
LE = Facists, Chinese Communists
Yeah, that is a really big problem with trying to relate real life groups to a game model. For example, you have liberal democrats listed as lawful, yet you define lawful as believing "everyone is goverend by specific rules, regulations and codes of law." But liberal democrats often discuss how they do not want government involvement in areas of their lives, particular their private lives, thus lawful wouldn't seem to fit that. Though the socialist aspects might, where the group cares for the individual.
You have moderate republicans listed as chaotic, yet alot of republicans, even moderate ones, believe in a fairly conservative personal behaviour that is tolerated, which would seem to actually point towards lawful, yet they push for very few government influences on business, which would indicate a more liberal attitude.
Most things are extremely complicated with both liberal (chaotic) and conservative (lawful) leanings, and so it is often a bad idea to try to try and catagorize them with game alignments.
Very good, Tequila. Very concise and, I feel, pretty correct as well. I was going to offer a little constructive (I hope) criticism, by suggesting you add in a clause in the Neutrality definition allowing for some personal prejudices. However, upon reflection I think it's unnecessary since 1) I do think such things are an evil and shouldn't be morally excused just because they're common; and 2) by simply being human beings (or whatever; I don't know if other races exist in your homebrew, but even in standard D&D they are all more or less assumed to have mindsets fairly similar to our own), there's an understanding that one doesn't completely conform to these guidelines (so a Good person can have (minor) prejudices and (sometimes) hate, yet still be Good overall [but, unlike others, should, if they ever become aware of this fact, feel guilty about it and at least try to reform]).
I also approve of ditching Law and Chaos. Western* mythology and folklore, which is the primary basis of D&D, doesn't really seem to have much emphasis on Law vs. Chaos (and when it does, the two are conflated with Good and Evil, respectively); the struggle has mostly been portrayed as Good vs. Evil. Law vs. Chaos has thus always seemed a bit unnatural, somewhat unninteresting, and (I feel it should be) completely secondary to Good vs. Evil. I maintain the distinction in my own games, but there isn't nearly the level of animosity or focus which seems assumed in standard D&D.
*Whether this is true in other cultures (i.e., "Eastern") or not, I have no clue. Thus, I don't mean to exclude them, but to avoid making a statement I am not qualified to make.
Thanks for the comments everyone, they've been very helpful!
Very good, Tequila. Very concise and, I feel, pretty correct as well. I was going to offer a little constructive (I hope) criticism, by suggesting you add in a clause in the Neutrality definition allowing for some personal prejudices. However, upon reflection I think it's unnecessary since 1) I do think such things are an evil and shouldn't be morally excused just because they're common; and 2) by simply being human beings (or whatever; I don't know if other races exist in your homebrew, but even in standard D&D they are all more or less assumed to have mindsets fairly similar to our own), there's an understanding that one doesn't completely conform to these guidelines (so a Good person can have (minor) prejudices and (sometimes) hate, yet still be Good overall [but, unlike others, should, if they ever become aware of this fact, feel guilty about it and at least try to reform]).
Hm, this might warrant a sentence of clarification. Just about everyone has prejudices...well humans at least. In my mind, the difference is that an evil person acts on their prejudices (hurting, oppressing, killing), a neutral person doesn't act on them, while a good person as you said tries his/her best to overcome their prejudice.
Also I think war and slavery deserves mention. Soldiers are not evil, unless they just enjoy killing because of their prejudice. It's very possible for good people to be soldiers for an unjust cause (the draft), although a true saint would simply refuse to lift a sword for an unjust cause.
Slavery and owning slaves is not evil, unless cruelty is involved. Up until very recently in history, being a slave was thought of as something that could happen to anyone, much like we think of being born into poverty today. Nobody wants to be in that situation and good people may fight against it, but it is a part of life.
Slavery and owning slaves is not evil, unless cruelty is involved. Up until very recently in history, being a slave was thought of as something that could happen to anyone, much like we think of being born into poverty today. Nobody wants to be in that situation and good people may fight against it, but it is a part of life.
I think you'd have a better time with slavery not being evil if it was limited to those that "earned" it. If there is a system where someone is born into slavery that is pretty much going to be evil everytime. But a system where a criminal is made into a slave, for example, might not be evil, especially if there are protections for how they must be treated (mistreat might make the slave owner into a slave).
Another reason slavery is usually bad, is because it takes away jobs from other people. Jobs they could be getting paid for.
Slavery and owning slaves is not evil, unless cruelty is involved. Up until very recently in history, being a slave was thought of as something that could happen to anyone, much like we think of being born into poverty today. Nobody wants to be in that situation and good people may fight against it, but it is a part of life.I think you'd have a better time with slavery not being evil if it was limited to those that "earned" it. If there is a system where someone is born into slavery that is pretty much going to be evil everytime. But a system where a criminal is made into a slave, for example, might not be evil, especially if there are protections for how they must be treated (mistreat might make the slave owner into a slave).
Another reason slavery is usually bad, is because it takes away jobs from other people. Jobs they could be getting paid for.
Slavery is the kind of example that tends to break alignments systems in a hurry. I think in general we define alignments from of current, generally western, world view.
As such its really difficult for anyone in this day and age to step up to the pulpit and presume that slavery is somehow morally neutral - and any historical example of slavery is going to involve a lot of cruelty and should clearly fall within the bounds of 'evil' in terms of D&D alignments and yet we kind of bang into a wall here. If we define slavery as it was historically practiced as evil then pretty much every society prior to some point in the 1800s was evil. Basically speaking just about all of them where involved in the slave trade in some form or another. At best we find a handful of northern western societies (I'm avoiding non-western societies as I don't know much about them) that don't practice slavery - but thats mainly because its economically not profitable to have slaves if you have long cold winters. In this case you have to feed and cloth your slaves while their not really able to work for you - such societies usually simply instituted serfdom. Which is a kind of slavery with the side benefit that the slaves have to take care of themselves during the winter. Even societies that did not have slaves in the northern climes generally quickly got into the slave trade if they acquired southern possessions.
Another, possible, example of changing views of good and evil might be eating meat. Now most people today eat meat - myself included. But I'd not be absolutely shocked or anything if we find that society in 200 years views the practice as disgusting and abhorrent.
It shares a lot of similarities with historical slavery in the sense that one tends to justify it through some kind of higher dogma (its always been done like this, a higher power has directed that we can perform this activity, these creatures don't really count and have no rights, I need to do this because of health or economics, etc. etc.) or one simply ignores the issue altogether and refuses to ask oneself hard questions in this regard. One can see this sort of justification both in the present day with meat consumption and in the historical record with slavery.
Similarly in both cases there is a tendency to avoid close inspection of the practice in the its actual mechanics. The general population did not usually actually hang out in the bowels of a slave ship or participate in the capturing of slaves. Any real close look at this sort of activity required a mind set that these creatures simply don't count because if they did then what was going on was simply to filthy to be endured.
Same deal with the meat industry. We avoid looking to closely at the practice because there is something rather distasteful about putting creatures in small cages so forcing them to live short, often excruciatingly painful lives and then killing them in an institutionalized industrial manner, packing them in easy to serve chunks, up and shipping them off to customers for dinner.
I suspect that the practice - in both cases - suddenly is recognized for its rather grim nature due to technological advancements. Slavery became widely recognized as an abhorrent practice when technology came along that mostly made slavery redundant. Its cessation spread, more or less along with the technology so, for example, it ceased in Brazil around 40 years after the British had given up the practice in large part because the technology that made it possible for the British to give up the practice took about 40 years longer to be integrated into Brazilian society.
If the eating of meat becomes a thing of the past likely that will be the result of the same kind of technological advances, if one can grow an authentic tasting steak in a vat through cell replication technology and its possible to do so cheaper then it is to raise such an animal for slaughter the idea is likely to take off and along with it the recognition that the historical practice of the industrialized meat industry was really rather morally repugnant.
Hence choosing alignments can be a bit of a tricky proposition. One can decide that good and evil are relativistic socially created concepts - maybe more or less accurate from a historical stand point, but not necessarily the best option for D&D. Alternatively you can choose a hard and fast rule - but if you do go with a hard and fast rule then you should probably avoid trying to slot history into the system and simply presume that todays morality is some how correct for your fantasy world, not withstanding the fact that it means presuming that our ancestors where by and large all evil and that our progeny will probably look back on us and take for granted that all of us, today, are actually evil and indulge in our evil on a daily basis.
OK now I think I'll go and get myself a hamburger.
Same deal with the meat industry. We avoid looking to closely at the practice because there is something rather distasteful about putting creatures in small cages so forcing them to live short, often excruciatingly painful lives and then killing them in an institutionalized industrial manner, packing them in easy to serve chunks, up and shipping them off to customers for dinner.
Just to nit-pick for a second, that is not really an issue of eating meat, but instead how it is raised and killed. Hunting animals (such as how we still do with animals like deer) would not have those some moral issues.
The eating of meat and how animals are raised and killed are two different issues. They may be related but they are different. As for hunting it is hard to say that hunting in and of itself is morally wrong when we are surrounded by it in the natural world. Lions are not "evil" because they hunt, they are predators. Cows aren't noble because they don't hunt, they are prey (amazingly some "herbivores" do eat meat, sea turtles when they are young, hippos from time to time, etc).
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Evil: Evil people do not care... Evil people may go out of their way to help those who are part of a select group, but there is always a group of sentient beings that they actively hurt, oppress or kill.
I agree with the "Evil people don't care," but the actively seeking to hurt part seems to suggest all Evil people must hold prejudices and are evil because they act on those prejudices. I would say Evil people don't care about others and consistently put themselves or their cause ahead of welfare of others. There may be some prejudices, but they may also honestly believe that what they are doing what is best for the people they oppress ("It's for their own good."). It's that willingness to use others that makes evil to me.
there's an understanding that one doesn't completely conform to these guidelines (so a Good person can have (minor) prejudices and (sometimes) hate, yet still be Good overall [but, unlike others, should, if they ever become aware of this fact, feel guilty about it and at least try to reform]).
I think this is important, too. A Good person can't always pull it off or makes mistakes, but they feel guilty about it and seek to remedy the situation or at least atone for it. A Neutral person might also feel bad about it, but they just never get around to doing anything about it, or they don't change their behavior and keep doing the guilt-causing thing.
Just to nit-pick for a second, that is not really an issue of eating meat, but instead how it is raised and killed. Hunting animals (such as how we still do with animals like deer) would not have those some moral issues.The eating of meat and how animals are raised and killed are two different issues. They may be related but they are different. As for hunting it is hard to say that hunting in and of itself is morally wrong when we are surrounded by it in the natural world. Lions are not "evil" because they hunt, they are predators. Cows aren't noble because they don't hunt, they are prey (amazingly some "herbivores" do eat meat, sea turtles when they are young, hippos from time to time, etc).
Certainly and I agree, but this is not the practice that prevails in the modern world. For probably a good deal more then 90% of us in the west, we consume, on pretty much a daily basis, the proceeds of factory farming and do so while turning a blind eye, to a greater or lesser extent, to what goes on in the meat industry. While I'm busy hammering the west I should note that your not going to find much in the way of human animal rearing practices in the vast majority of the rest of the world either. Technology might well change all of that, presuming it does I don't expect our abhorrent practices will be looked upon favourably by our descendants any more then we today look upon the practice of slavery and think that some how it was morally justifiable.
The same can probably be said of historical slavery. Certainly some societies did not practice slavery and there where those in states that did practice it that felt a moral calling to fight the practice or at least fight its worst abuses. Laudable individuals, but most of the societies members engaged in the practice at least indirectly through the consumption of the proceeds of slave labour and would, if pressed, justify the activity with arguments that you and I probably consider feeble at best from the standpoint of the 21st century.
Slavery is the kind of example that tends to break alignments systems in a hurry. I think in general we define alignments from of current, generally western, world view.
I totally agree. My history teacher in high school once pointed something out to us about slavery. Other than the fact that it only became 'wrong' after technological advancements made it obsolete, the idea of slaves' treatment that we have today is heavily influenced by propaganda. No doubt there were slave owners and traders who treated their slaves like dirt, but there were just as surely those who viewed slaves as equals except for an unfortunate accident of birth--much the way an upper class moderner thinks of all those born into poverty. All those movies about the plight of slaves are nonsensical in certain ways if you think about it. For example I remember one movie in which a slave owner shatters the ankle of an attempted-runaway slave with a hammer. But think about the investment that the slave owner has in that slave; slaves were not cheap because only wealthy land owners could afford them. By shattering that slave's ankle he basically flushed a wad of cash down the privy and made useless a productive possession. No doubt whippings did happen and the occasional slave was killed or maimed by a particularly imprudent master but that doesn't make slavery as an institution evil. We make a big deal today, especially in America, about everyone having the opportunity to become rich and powerful but in practice someone born into poverty has about the same chance of becoming rich and powerful as a slave had of escaping somehow. Even if the average working Joe gets paid for his hard work and officially has the same rights as Richy Rich, he is in many ways effectively a slave of the system with lesser effective rights and privilages than Richy Rich.
Anyway that's why I don't consider slavery to be automatically evil, although a Good person should want it to disappear in the same abstract way that we moderners would like poverty to disappear.
I agree with the "Evil people don't care," but the actively seeking to hurt part seems to suggest all Evil people must hold prejudices and are evil because they act on those prejudices. I would say Evil people don't care about others and consistently put themselves or their cause ahead of welfare of others. There may be some prejudices, but they may also honestly believe that what they are doing what is best for the people they oppress ("It's for their own good."). It's that willingness to use others that makes evil to me.
That's a good point. I guess I should clarify that there are several ways to be evil.
In contemporary terms, "Evil" by definition is selfishness, where one exalts himself or thinks more highly of himself than he should. These people are consumed about themselves to the point where they are oblvious to everyone else. This is where the attitude of entitlement originates. They believe that they are God's gift to the world and that everyone else exists solely to wait on them hand and foot. By the way, nearly every evil person would deny that they are evil. They make excuses - "It's a dog-eat-dog world" - and justify their motives and deeds any way they can.
In contrast, "Good" is defined by love; the love of self, but tempered with love of others. They follow their conscience and willingly place themselves in the role of servant - not with the attitude that they are worthless - but with the belief that they care so much about others that they will "turn the other cheek" and "walk the extra mile." They find joy in serving others and in so doing, they find their niche in society.
There really aren't too many "Neutrals" in the world, other than small children and the mentally retarded. To be neutral, one would have to be void of conscience, be without any sense of what is right or wrong. I'm not speaking of those who are ammoral - they actually do have a conscience, but they've seared theirs to the point where they can no longer hear it. True neutrals have never had the opportunity to develop a conscience - much like animals.
So, is anyone in the "real world" all good or all evil? No. Everyone is a little bit of both. However, this doesn't make one neutral. No, the best you could do to classify someone is to determine how much do they follow their conscience? Do they primarily act selfishly or selflessly?
Well, I have always been a firm believer that Good and Evil have to do specifically with intent, purpose, will, and action. Caring is blah, it is just not enough, only meaning that your model would not work well for things in my game.
Law and Chaos are models of how well your behavior type works in groups.
Good and Evil are models of behavior that denotes what types of actions are acceptable or necessary to attain your goals and helps define the goals of both individuals and groups.
I think the 3.5 system currently defines alignments pretty well and the Exalted books do a really good job with enhancements to these issues.
to add some flavor to each alignment and variations between the same alignments through the dietes; therefore the dieties tend to define the alignments a bit; but one CG diety may have a completely differing set of goals and standard from another CG diety but both fit within the CG profile.
Good lord, Valegrim, that's an amazingly coherent post! Bravo. :P
Well, I have always been a firm believer that Good and Evil have to do specifically with intent, purpose, will, and action. Caring is blah, it is just not enough...
I agree with this, and in a form of response to the poster above you, place a special emphasis on action. This is one of the big defining points between Good and Neutral. Neutrals don't lack a conscience- they just don't act on it enough to be truly Good. As the efreeti above has said, "caring... is just not enough." Neutral people care; they just don't go out of their way to act upon those emotions. A Good person does. Taken in that light, there are many Neutrals in the world in D&D terms (they're most likely the overwhelming majority).
Typically speaking, I feel that Good and Neutral are more akin to each other than Neutral and Evil. Neutral is, in most cases, "unrealized Good." Those individuals simply need to be doing more to actually qualify as a truly Good person. Evil is far more aberrant, a negation, rejection, and destruction of the principles of Good, rather than just not living up to them. Of course, in D&D terms, there are many Neutrals "with Evil tendencies" (see: slaadi), but I tend to see them as the exception, not the rule.
also, I think that bar of caring for all living creature's' seems a little high brow. I can't be good if im racist? The Rest Sounded really on althought the sheer number of people popping up as evil under your definitions may worry you. If every other innkeeper is evil its gonna be a little more difficult for your good guys to do you work.
To clarify, a good person can be subconsciously racist. Just about everyone alive 'just feels weird' when in the presence of a strange and exotic person, especially if communication is difficult. Also, being raised to be racist doesn't make anyone evil so long as they don't consciously embrace their hatred. A good person simply tries to overcome their irrational fears and hatreds if they become conscious of them.
A neutral person can be consciously racist, as long as they don't go around terrorizing, plundering or killing the targets of their hatred. Falling for preconceptions, stereotypes and making insulting comments does not make anyone evil.
A person who actively embraces racism by terrorizing, maiming, plundering or killing the object of their hatred is evil. An evil racist can be absolutely caring and generous with his/her own people so it may seem harsh to designate such a person as evil, but this is where I draw the line.
Well, I have always been a firm believer that Good and Evil have to do specifically with intent, purpose, will, and action. Caring is blah, it is just not enough, only meaning that your model would not work well for things in my game.
How would it not work well for you? Did I not make it clear enough that action is what separates the good from the neutral and the evil from the neutral?
well, maybe I am just hung up on the word care as lacking any serious idea of ethics; a person can care but not act; care just means a cause for concern to me or a sense of worry. I would think an evil person by your given definition would care a whole lot if his schemes were about to collapse; if his support network was going to betray him, if his hidden vices were about to be exposed. Perhaps you have something in mind in your own paradigm of caring that I dont see.
I cannot really wrap my head around the idea of no Law or Chaos either, but i mostly just define them as a persons or groups ability to work cooperatively in groups; the more lawful a person or group is the more team based and cooperative they are to attain a goal; while the more chaos based a person or group is the more dissatisfied they are to surrendering their authority to others though they can be cohersed or trade their skills for money or willingly submit to attain a goal; they are most likely to revolt and attempt various actions of undermining a group activity and likely to chafe at micromanagement.
When I graph out the alignments of characters in my game I take the players meaningful actions and weigh them law vs chaos and then good vs evil with neutrality being a general disregard for anyone but themselves and having no strong attachments for causing the advancement of good or evil. This said, I believe that things that are good or evil try to advance that structure of belief in others and the best or proper way of acting. I just dont see evil in your definition trying to promote evil.
Perhaps I missunderstand.
Sure, sounds good; having vices is what gives good peeps something to work on in their lives and keeps em from getting bored and your world from being vanilla.
also, I think that bar of caring for all living creature's' seems a little high brow. I can't be good if im racist? The Rest Sounded really on althought the sheer number of people popping up as evil under your definitions may worry you. If every other innkeeper is evil its gonna be a little more difficult for your good guys to do you work.To clarify, a good person can be subconsciously racist. Just about everyone alive 'just feels weird' when in the presence of a strange and exotic person, especially if communication is difficult. Also, being raised to be racist doesn't make anyone evil so long as they don't consciously embrace their hatred. A good person simply tries to overcome their irrational fears and hatreds if they become conscious of them.
A neutral person can be consciously racist, as long as they don't go around terrorizing, plundering or killing the targets of their hatred. Falling for preconceptions, stereotypes and making insulting comments does not make anyone evil.
A person who actively embraces racism by terrorizing, maiming, plundering or killing the object of their hatred is evil. An evil racist can be absolutely caring and generous with his/her own people so it may seem harsh to designate such a person as evil, but this is where I draw the line.
Slavery is the kind of example that tends to break alignments systems in a hurry. I think in general we define alignments from of current, generally western, world view.I totally agree. My history teacher in high school once pointed something out to us about slavery. Other than the fact that it only became 'wrong' after technological advancements made it obsolete, the idea of slaves' treatment that we have today is heavily influenced by propaganda. No doubt there were slave owners and traders who treated their slaves like dirt, but there were just as surely those who viewed slaves as equals except for an unfortunate accident of birth--much the way an upper class moderner thinks of all those born into poverty. All those movies about the plight of slaves are nonsensical in certain ways if you think about it. For example I remember one movie in which a slave owner shatters the ankle of an attempted-runaway slave with a hammer. But think about the investment that the slave owner has in that slave; slaves were not cheap because only wealthy land owners could afford them. By shattering that slave's ankle he basically flushed a wad of cash down the privy and made useless a productive possession. No doubt whippings did happen and the occasional slave was killed or maimed by a particularly imprudent master but that doesn't make slavery as an institution evil. We make a big deal today, especially in America, about everyone having the opportunity to become rich and powerful but in practice someone born into poverty has about the same chance of becoming rich and powerful as a slave had of escaping somehow. Even if the average working Joe gets paid for his hard work and officially has the same rights as Richy Rich, he is in many ways effectively a slave of the system with lesser effective rights and privilages than Richy Rich.
Anyway that's why I don't consider slavery to be automatically evil, although a Good person should want it to disappear in the same abstract way that we moderners would like poverty to disappear.
Well slaves are clearly a commodity, though one thats heavily influenced by various forms of morality.
As a commodity their treatment can vary quite highly depending on their value and their place within society. In Rome the treatment of slaves changed depending on the skills of the slaves, Greeks, while seen as lazy and conniving were also highly valued for their skills as teachers especially as teachers for children of the wealthy. Slaves fit only for the mines had less value and were generally worse treated.
We tend to think of slavery, in terms of America circa 1850. Now at that point in time a slave had a lot of value. The Royal Navy had pretty much cut off the slave trade from Africa. Black Market slaves cost a fortune and even the ones being bought and sold at auction fetched very high prices. In this case most slaves had been Christianized and were generally accorded some rights. Many will even receive some kind of an education. The only way to get new slaves in general was to breed them, a fairly long process and costly in the fact that you got less work out of your slaves as they were parenting. By this point the poor whites had been removed from the market - they simply could not afford slaves any longer.
Some specific slaves could be worth a small fortune. I recall reading about a specialty market that essentially involved breeding a slave girl with whites then doing the same with her daughters; generation after generation in order to get a slave that might be 1/128th black - essentially blue eyed and blond haired. Selling such a slave could be difficult as morally pretty frowned upon but she was worth a small fortune to the right buyer.
However lets drop back about 100 years and move our location to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Here a slave ship rolls into port with new merchandise just about every single day. These slaves are destined for the suger plantations and maybe the new coffee plantations as the coffee craze has just swept Europe from the Ottoman Empire. These slaves are cheap, probably worth less then 100th of what a slave will be worth in 100 years time. Even poor farm holders can usually afford a bunch and they need them. Without slaves its basically unprofitable to grow suger or coffee for the voracious European market.
Your going to be buying slaves constantly because the life expectancy of your newly bought slave is about 7 years. They rarely live longer and maybe thats OK because they'll probably be able to work less as they get older and they'll likely cost about the same to maintain, hence diminishing returns. You don't teach these slaves religion, there is no time for that and you keep them segregated otherwise the females will get pregnant and you'll loose money while she can't work.
If something goes wrong, and somehow one of your females does get pregnant then your faced with a bit of a dilemma. Your father would not have raised this child - too expensive and its not like it will have a life worth living, kinder just to expose it. But your more enlightened - after all your father just grew sugarcane - but you also grow this new crop coffee and your smart enough to know that children can pick coffee from a very early age. Your son will be even more enlightened then you, he'll probably stop segregating the slaves, but then he's destined to grow a lot more coffee then sugarcane.
Note that neither society considers themselves 'evil' and their only about 100 years apart. I switched locations partly because my own expertise change locations in terms of slaves and the slave trade but back in the 1750s in America slaves would still be a lot cheaper and therefore much less valuable, more easily replaceable and probably more prone to dying, primitive as the state of health and medicine was in 1850 it was a significant improvement compared to 1750.
hehe I think slavery ended in America because people like Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin and other devices that made work intensive project like farming not require so many people; then there was the big problem of what do you do with all these people that you have to feed and care for that you dont need anymore; well, they got moved to factories, but then the same thing happened; machines replaced people in factories; so slaves only become viable for service industries and jobs that require very little education or special training; nowadays slaves are mostly for illicite sex and slavery is certainly evil. I have always found it interesting that the Bible says that if your a slave; be a good one.
So with D&D alignment morality and your world; is slavery evil, perhaps only some types of slavery, can you be a Good slave owner, can their be a Good reason to make someone a slave, what is it that makes slavery evil. Hard questions to fit into a wishy washy moral system.
I have no idea where one of the posters gets the idea that a slave only lasts 7 years, and the idea of dimishing returns is so full of holes it is hardly worth talking about; it really depends on how they are cared for and the labor required of them or to say how tyrannically greedy their master is of their lives. Anyone with at least a moderate understanding of animal husbandry would just treat them like any other animal with care and breeding, basic stuff for any farmer or plantation owner; wow talk about disgusting.
hehe I think slavery ended in America because people like Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin and other devices that made work intensive project like farming not require so many people;
Well that was Whitney's intent, unfortunately it had the opposite effect. Cotton at that point just wasn't that economically feasible with or without slaves. To get more cotton you had to have more slaves, more slaves meant you had to spend more on food and other goods, as well as paying for the oversees and such. But you weren't really getting much more profit then with a smaller group since you were also having to spend alot more money.
Then the cotton gin comes along and makes it much easier and faster to work with cotton. Suddenly your product expands and it gets alot more economical to grow cotton. You can expand your cotton production and make a lot more profit, therefore you will want more slaves. The cotton gin actually increased the desire for slaves to work cotton plantations not lessing it. Whitney was extremely upset about this fact.
I have no idea where one of the posters gets the idea that a slave only lasts 7 years, and the idea of dimishing returns is so full of holes it is hardly worth talking about; it really depends on how they are cared for and the labor required of them or to say how tyrannically greedy their master is of their lives. Anyone with at least a moderate understanding of animal husbandry would just treat them like any other animal with care and breeding, basic stuff for any farmer or plantation owner; wow talk about disgusting.
I did not say that all slaves only lived seven years. In fact I made a specific argument that treatment of slaves could go up and down based on circumstances. In this case I'm talking about the conditions prevailing in Brazil in an era when slaves are plentiful and cheap. I'll toss a source for the statement however.
Coffee a Dark History, Anthony Wild, p. 127.
Another example of a place where slaves tended to be pretty brutally treated was Haiti where a population of 40,000 whites attempted to control about 450,000 slaves. Escaped slaves would form bands called maroons which would attack plantations and any odd white folk they found. The white population consisted of a number of classes but the overseers of the plantations where generally petty nobility who desired nothing more then to earn as much as possible as quickly as possible to take care of their debts and needs and then escape this hell hole back to Europe. Slave revolts were comparatively common and the treatment of the slaves could be particularly brutal under these conditions of mutual fear and loathing. Haiti, of course, is famous for having been the stage for the only successful slave revolt in history.
Before we can really start defining what it means to be good, neutral, or evil, we must first decide on what kind of distribution we want. I will assume for humans, since various races tend towards one alignment or another so can be respresented by any of the following.
Some possible distributions (G=good, N=neutral, E=evil)
(A) Balanced
NNN
EEE
(B) 1 is rare
NNNN
E
G
NNNN
EEEE
GGGG
N
EEEE
(C) 2 are rare
N
EEEEEEE
G
NNNNNNN
E
GGGGGGG
N
E
(D) 1 is common, 1 is uncommon, 1 is rare
NNN
E
GGGGG
N
EEE
GGG
NNNNN
E
G
NNNNN
EEE
GGG
N
EEEEE
G
NNN
EEEEE
Now depending on what kind of distribution we want humans to have, will determine how much effort it is required to be good or evil. If you want neutral to be very common and good and evil to be rare, then probably good = exalted and evil = vile. If you want good and evil to be common and neutral to be rare, then probably good = nice and evil = mean. Once you determine the distribution you want for your game, then you can pretty easily determine what it takes to be good, neutral, or evil.
well, maybe I am just hung up on the word care as lacking any serious idea of ethics; a person can care but not act; care just means a cause for concern to me or a sense of worry. I would think an evil person by your given definition would care a whole lot if his schemes were about to collapse; if his support network was going to betray him, if his hidden vices were about to be exposed. Perhaps you have something in mind in your own paradigm of caring that I dont see.
I obviously didn't make the importance of commitment and action clear enough in my descriptions of good and evil. *note to self*
I cannot really wrap my head around the idea of no Law or Chaos either...
Really? That's just weird to me, as I can't recall reading a single good book which was about law and chaos. I could be forgetting some though; I am a frumpy old man after all.
When I graph out the alignments of characters in my game I take the players meaningful actions and weigh them law vs chaos and then good vs evil with neutrality being a general disregard for anyone but themselves and having no strong attachments for causing the advancement of good or evil. This said, I believe that things that are good or evil try to advance that structure of belief in others and the best or proper way of acting. I just dont see evil in your definition trying to promote evil.
Evil intentionally promoting evil? That sounds like the DMG's note on 'monolithic evil'. I myself don't like that idea. There are of course situations where evil promotes itself (racists teaching their children to be racist), but I like evil to be self destructive in a general sense. I've always felt that that is a big difference between good and evil; good is better at promoting itself while evil is like a serpent eating its own tail.
Now depending on what kind of distribution we want humans to have, will determine how much effort it is required to be good or evil. If you want neutral to be very common and good and evil to be rare, then probably good = exalted and evil = vile. If you want good and evil to be common and neutral to be rare, then probably good = nice and evil = mean. Once you determine the distribution you want for your game, then you can pretty easily determine what it takes to be good, neutral, or evil.
In my model, it takes commitment and effort to be Good or Evil though constituents need not be veritable saints or genocidal maniacs. I don't even bother applying statistics to alignments, but as I've said most people are neutral (or at least a majority). The rest of the population is made up of roughly equal good and evil individuals.
well, I equate law with rules; what law doesnt have rules; thou shall not or thou shalls; limits to behavior heck even being polite has rules; we in our culture are so imbedded with them that it is often hard to imagine a much wilder time before such things were prevalent. Thus choas would be the disregard or absence of rules regardless of how abstract or codified. While a choatic person has to live within the laws of nature, form, and existance, they can reject cultural or legal type rules and be more free form; a nuetral person would just use whatever works that is convienient fo the situation. A lawful person adheres and believes that rules are right and neccessary; good and evil colors the perspective of this belief system; so a LG person would have a rule and believe that everyone should follow it and follow it themselves to the extent that their belief in the intent of the law allows exceptions; a LN person follows the rules most of the time, but the rule is more important than the intent of the rule - which we see in our culture quite often - a LE person beleives that rules are important and condemns those who dont follow them, though the exact written word may be followed; intentionally missleading believe in the intent of the law and perverting a law to create an exception is paramount.
so, in game terms of party politics; a chaotic person chafes under leadership and seeks for a change in leadership depending on the situation; chafes under party rules for standing watch; doing chores like cooking and whatnot, argues with decisions and uses fighting or other punative measures, or insight what a lawful person would call insurrection; often these are the people who "go hunting" or some such thing. A Lawful person might not agree on the choice of who is leader; but adheres to rules for nightly watches; chores; and supports the leaders decisions and generaly handles situations by forming a committee ie clique, and seeking representation with the leader that he be required to have their input before making a decision; votes are common.
I certainly believe that Law and Chaos are displayed in games much more than Good or Evil; I have run good, neutral, and evil campaigns and have really found that players are very poor at being evil, pretty good at being neutral; and most have a hard time being good.
When you hear people talk about games they like, groups they liked that stand out; they tell you about funny anectdotes or whatnot, but always you hear about how well the party fit together and how smoothly the campaign ran, and who did what that was effective against the monsters devices and power; this is all about law and chaos; rarely about good and evil though sometimes it is in there for color; sure the primer for the event may have been to save the princess from dragon, but you dont really get to hear about what imporatance that was in relation to the dragon horde; the exps, or why they are saving her; rather if they are doing charity work; expect praise, reward and recongition, or if they demand recompense.
As a gm, it is often difficult to play, adhere to, and reward exps for playing in character which is often alignment based if you do not chart player alignments; alignment just becomes a nebulous cloud with no data to back it up; this is one reason my players willingly do journals or write ups as we call them, to show the intents of their actions and how this comforms to their characters alignments and goals; this is not required, but this directly impacts that players alignment and gives them a exp bonus as I write the exps number at the top of the page as well as any comments like alignment warning or how they are doing very well; or whatnot gm isms. You would be amazed how your players begin to really develop after you do this as their players take on a codified history of events and actions.
I hope this explains a bit of what I meant about not being able to wrap my head around no Law or Chaos.
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My first and most important point is to say that the alignment system is intended to be vague, fast and loose (imo).
Next, I'll note that in its most recent incarnation, the alignment system makes use of individual personality examples in the very definitions of good/evil/neutral/law/chaos. This, I think, highlights the use of the alignment system for PCs, and only to societies as an extension of common personality types.
Third, at various times I have argued about alignment with players. Can the half-vampire feed off of his familiar with no moral qualms? I've come to interpret alignment as a jumble of three things:
1. the PC's intentions, regardless of result
2. the PC's actions
3. the PC's preferences/attitudes/beliefs, or mindset
Of course, through roleplaying all of these things can and do change. That makes an evolving and usually very interesting character with depth, which is one of my favorite parts of the game.
When you hear people talk about games they like, groups they liked that stand out; they tell you about funny anectdotes or whatnot, but always you hear about how well the party fit together and how smoothly the campaign ran, and who did what that was effective against the monsters devices and power; this is all about law and chaos...
That just sounds like a matter of RL group dynamics, not a matter of in-game mechanics. A group of individuals that like each other and have the same play style are going to have more fun than a group of apathetic individuals who are all trying to play the game different ways.
As a gm, it is often difficult to play, adhere to, and reward exps for playing in character which is often alignment based if you do not chart player alignments; alignment just becomes a nebulous cloud with no data to back it up; this is one reason my players willingly do journals or write ups as we call them, to show the intents of their actions and how this comforms to their characters alignments and goals; this is not required, but this directly impacts that players alignment and gives them a exp bonus as I write the exps number at the top of the page as well as any comments like alignment warning or how they are doing very well; or whatnot gm isms. You would be amazed how your players begin to really develop after you do this as their players take on a codified history of events and actions.
What age group do you play with? I might try the 'alignment journal' sometime if I think that anyone will have the time between games to write them.
I hope this explains a bit of what I meant about not being able to wrap my head around no Law or Chaos.
Sorry, I still can't imagine why dropping law/chaos would be an issue for you. Certainly, different individuals have different capacities to work well in groups but that's more of a personality thing rather than an ethical thing. I wouldn't have a problem using your definitions of law/chaos if I were to play in one of your games, I just don't see why it's such a vital part of any game. Have you ever played an rpg without alignments?
Sergio Leone Alignment System:
Good
Bad
Ugly'nuff said
This is my new moral standard!
Man, I've gotta see that movie again...