I'd use something simultaneously more complex and simple: no alignment system.
That said: it's spelled empathy, impathy sounds like something you would need to go to the doctor for.
impathy sounds like something you would need to go to the doctor for.
Or an exorcist. "Doc I've got an Imp lodged in my ****". lol >.<
Cranewing you're thinking sadism in relation to evil not masochism.
Intent verses action. I completely disagree with your usage of the paladin getting the ability to smite anyone who's actions are harmful I do to a degree agree with your definition of it. Evil requires intent in my opinion.
I reconcile my issues with alignment with some basic psychology and philosophy. I personally despise the notion of an absolute right and wrong. So I tend to view Good and Evil, Law and Order somewhat differently.
They are diametric opposing forces. That much pretty much everyone can agree on. A paladin is a zealot of his chosen belief structure. He takes his faith and belief to such a degree that he derives power from it. On the opposing side a demoniac is a zealot, typically, of an opposing nature. Rather than seek glory and justice for all he seeks power in and of himself. Where the paladin enjoys the benefit of man. A demoniac relishes the pain, chaos, and madness of man.
The problem that I find in game is that invariably most perspectives tend to be auto set to believe that Good is right and Evil is wrong empirically.
I see Good as a force and Evil as force, but attach to neither any sense of right or wrong. A paladin is empowered by good to smite the force of Evil. An antipaladin is empowered by evil to smite the force of Good. The nature of man doesn't factor into it. I can almost see removing alignments from nonessential roles, except for the fact that they are indicative of character. I just think that they should be more flexible.
If a given merchant isn't empowered by an external source then his alignment is flexible in ratio to his perspective. He's LG to his family, NG to people that can help him, and CE to his customers because he sells cruddy merchandise as quality knowing it will cost lives. How do we define his alignment? In my book by intent. His actions towards his customers are profit driven to provide for his family. This action is neither good nor evil. It is evil to his customers and good to his family. He does not desire the pain and death of his customers, quite the contrary that would hurt business, but he accepts their possible deaths as a loss knowing in part it is because of him. In my view he sits true neutral.
The angels are no better than the demons in my head.
"So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth."
I disagree with the notion of paladins being able to smite neutral. As soon as you do that you define paladins as right and the rest of the world as wrong and empower them to enforce their zealous doctrine on not only the opposing force, but those who stand on the sidelines or disagree in a philosophical manner. Also I would imagine make a nasty power imbalance in game.
impathy sounds like something you would need to go to the doctor for.Or an exorcist. "Doc I've got an Imp lodged in my ****". lol >.<
Now that I'm thinking about it, you might need both.
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The difference between motivation for an action and results of an action determining 'goodness' or 'evilness' is just a huge can of worms.
Is it 'more good' to do a good deed when you *don't* have any sort of empathy or 'feel good' moment afterwards? When it isn't a tax write-off or good for some cool popularity and bragging rights? Is it 'less good' to feel a sense of satisfaction after helping someone, and to enjoy that feeling? Are the 'good works' spoiled because you also benefitted from them, and can smile at yourself in the mirror the next morning and be all proud of yourself for making the world a teensy bit better yesterday?
Is it 'less evil' for someone to coldly embezzle 1.2 million dollars from the retirement funds of seventeen thousand senior citizens, leaving them penniless and having to go to work as greeters at Wal-Mart to make ends meet, if I don't get a naughty thrill at all the people now suffering because of my actions? Or is it *more evil* that the plight of all those victims never even occured to me?
I'm totally schizo on this sort of thing.
Sometimes, I'm a results-first kind of guy. I don't really care if one's motivations for doing good works are selfish (I need to do good works, or I won't get into Heaven!) or selfless. Ideally, one should want to do good things because they are the right thing to do, but if someone does good things because they like the feeling it gives them, or crave the 'charity geek cred' it garners them, or because they've coldly reasoned out that donating X dollars to charity Y will improve their own situation by Z, then, hey, good works are good works.
Other times, I find that motivation can poison *my opinion* of people, and it certainly seems to be fashionable to trash entire philosophies or movements based on the words or actions of their least-serious members.
Nah Anton Lavey exhibits too many signs of idealizing sociopaths for me. I stick everything on a relativistic centrifuge and see what sticks.
To me your paladin scans CE. I'm not saying that is badwrongfun. Its just a matter of different perspectives. I think games would run much smoother if the group sat down at the start of a session and worked out a solid working definition of alignments for their group. I suspect that if people did that they'd find more congruency and less mechanics issues.
I'd most likely find your games boring and you'd probably find one that I ran nuts.
Set. I view acting good because of anything other than desire to do good to be false. I can understand the perspective of it, but to me ulterior motives undermine the associated intent of doing good.
I removed a bunch of real-world politics from this thread.
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Set. I view acting good because of anything other than desire to do good to be false. I can understand the perspective of it, but to me ulterior motives undermine the associated intent of doing good.
And yet, if the hungry get fed, the sick get healed, the homeless get shelter from the environment, I'm not terribly concerned that the person who provided that did it because 'it made them feel good' or 'it looks good on a resume' or 'now I can brag about it to my friends.'
I don't have to respect a person's motivations to approve of their results.
It's fairly trendy these days to assign unpleasant motives to anyone we disagree with, to attempt to undermine their position, but, in the end, the human brain has been shown to initiate action a half-second before consulting the part of our brain that then scrambles desperately to justify how what *we just now already did* is consistent with our so-called personal beliefs (which were only rung up and consulted after the fact).
Hence, values/cognitive dissonance, as we spend our lives trying to rationalize what we've already done, and make some sort of 'consistent' characterization out of our terribly inconsistent past behavior, which is kind of a huge waste of time and only leads to self-delusion and frustration, as, when that next immediate decision comes around, we are going to do it all over again.
Behaving in a moral (or immoral, or amoral) manner is a choice, and, like everything else, can become a trained behavior or 'easy path' or default state. Reply with violence or avoidance or outrage enough times, and you'll *always* reach for that tool, even in situations where it doesn't help. You'll get labeled a violent or socially awkward/non-confrontational/passive-agressive or angry/bitter person, but it's because you trained yourself to be that way, and can train yourself *not* to be that way (barring some sort of chemical imbalance...). It might take a heck of a lot longer to get rid of the reputation, 'though.
Ack a behaviorist?
I'm lucky enough to be a nihilist. I rarely care for results or intentions beyond noting them as functions of a math equation.
The act can be good, but does that fact reciprocate unto the idealized version of a good person? In function an act can be evil, but is the person evil? Does it matter?
I say not really and it only matters as it relates to the observer's equation. That is a degree of selfishness that is seemingly apparent in most perspectives despite the arrogance of self that is vanity.
I would not say that the brain initiates action rather decision. We are victims of our own successful fight or flight response.
On a side note most chemical imbalances do not prohibit influence from behavior modification training.
Segueing back on topic: At present Pathfinder uses a semi-permanent constant definition of self, which by nature is flexible based upon a given perspective from moment to moment. I would propose a looser attachment to a single alignment for characters with the exemptions of Paladins, Antipaladins, and all other zealots except that I feel most people would either exploit it or not bother to keep track which unsurprisingly mirrors the real world rather well.
