tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post8630366363071183881..comments2024-03-29T06:16:21.012+08:00Comments on Monsters and Manuals: Law vs. Chaos, versus Good vs. EvilUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-86468934630112331162010-03-01T19:27:20.098+08:002010-03-01T19:27:20.098+08:00I wouldn't call "Good vs. Evil a weak and...I wouldn't call "Good vs. Evil a weak and artificial conflict" per se.<br /><br />I see it a little differently, in that the Law-Chaos points of view are 'objective' (outside of personal references, and therefore axiomatic), whereas the Good-Evil axis is 'subjective'.<br /><br />Instead of seeing that as a flaw in the design of RPGs, I would prefer to see it as an extra layer of philosophical richness, if you can play out that subjectivity not only in your fluff but also in your crunch.<br /><br />Unfortunately, franchises like D&D, that advocate the whole double axis alignment system, fail to do just that. Instead of keeping the Good-Evil axis interchangeable, depending on whose point of view you take, they artificially pinned it down saying that 'the good guys' are always Good, and their opponents are always Evil. They hardcoded it in the rules when they started creating spells around the concept where being Good or Evil were prerequisites.<br /><br />Now, wouldn't it be fun if you could turn that whole thing around? Spells like Detect Evil, for example, don't really detect 'Evil' but rather the people or objects that you perceive as being adversary to yourself. Two people trying this spell on the same person might get different results. That could spark some interesting roleplaying opportunities within a group of mixed characters.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06595985292279036152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-48676380955783267792010-02-22T20:23:56.758+08:002010-02-22T20:23:56.758+08:00The Final Solution didn't come about because t...<i>The Final Solution didn't come about because the Nazis wanted to be Evil.</i><br /><br />Are you sure about that? I mean, black hats and trenchcoats, skull and lightning bolt insignia, imperial eagles, atavistic torch-lit parades, book-burning, the loony political platform (basically: "let's go be b*st*rds to the Slavs and Jews" + blood purity myths). They were over-egging the bad guys pudding, even by grand guignol standards.<br /><br />on-topic: Moorcock would approve. As, I suspect, would Lovecraft.Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04072272223837426211noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-31044789844728541882010-02-22T18:13:49.390+08:002010-02-22T18:13:49.390+08:00Zak S: There is some confusion among philosophers ...<b>Zak S</b>: There is some confusion among philosophers as to whether law and chaos themselves are exentomps. Some argue that since law is the antithesis of chaos and vice versa, the two do not interact and hence are not exentomps; others argue that since they both rely on their opposition to each other for their existence, this is a form of interactions and hence they are indeed exentomps.<br /><br /><b>Stuart</b>: I'd be more inclined to see the dichotomy not between civilisation and "the wild", but between the natural world and the physical world - human and animal life is governed by chaos; the world itself (e.g. seasons) is governed by law.<br /><br /><b>Jayson</b>: Thanks.<br /><br /><b>Blizack</b>: I think the gameable conclusion for me is that alignment works well on the Law-Neutral-Chaos axis but not on the Good-Neutral-Evil one. So a bit like OD&D, really, except OD&D always seemed to falsely equate chaos with evil.<br /><br /><b>Squidman</b>: Yes, although the followers of Chaos in Warhammer do seem to have a lot more fun than the followers of Law.<br /><br /><b>faustusnotes</b>: As I said in the post, a lot of what we might see as "chaotic" and random is really quasi-random - the weather is not actually governed by random factors. But the point is that for all intents and purposes it might as well be. Just like the train - there was a reason why the ticket office at my local station was unmanned this morning so I couldn't buy a ticket, but because nobody has told me why, the reason may as well have been random variance. <br /><br />Which is to leave aside thermodynamics. ;)<br /><br /><b>Kelvingreen</b>: Yeah, you always have to draw a distinction between gaming with one's thinking cap on, and with it off.<br /><br /><b>Trollsmyth</b>: "There are many planes of existence. In some the Lords of Chaos are strong. In some they are weak. In some, I have heard, they do not exist at all."<br /><br /><b>Victor</b>: I did play it once or twice. Maybe this entire post arrive in my mind through a process of osmosis from MAR Barker's ideas.<br /><br /><b>Coopdevil</b>: <i>The beauty about Law/Chaos is that it creates ambiguity.</i><br /><br />Quite right, A star for you.<br /><br /><b>Divorce Solicitors Liverpool</b>: It seems to me one of the crap attempts at spam.noismshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09933436762608669966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-70230115757640488152010-02-22T17:02:40.447+08:002010-02-22T17:02:40.447+08:00It seems to me one of the good post on Laws....It seems to me one of the good post on Laws....Divorce Solicitors Liverpoolhttp://www.easylaw.co.uk/services/family-law.htmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-62180155227326414242010-02-22T16:52:39.303+08:002010-02-22T16:52:39.303+08:00I've always felt that Good and Evil were simpl...I've always felt that Good and Evil were simply different manifestations of self-interest. Where self-interest starts to harm what was recognised as society is where evil starts (c.f. self-interest of the Nazi party) and good is all too often done for the doer's benefit (c.f. charity donations) or to uphold a status quo in which they have some stakeholding. You don't have to look far to see the multitude of religious abuses committed because the abuser thought he was being right and proper.<br /><br />Good proper and evil proper only really works in a black hat/white hat setup - so is ideal for Space Opera. But even Star Wars's black hat/white hat setup bothers me - surely a lot of Imperial citizens would have thought "Empire good - law and order and they build hospitals and schools, Rebellion bad - terrorists" even if only because the Empire writes the news broadcasts they see.<br /><br />The beauty about Law/Chaos is that it creates ambiguity. The ultimate victory of Law would be as fatal to humanity as would be that of Chaos, something Moorcock always went out of his way to lend weight to.<br /><br />Kelvin - The Tau aren't good either, it's just that their Soviet propaganda machine works a lot better than the real one did!Coopdevilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16219253658967958289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-53609592665898789022010-02-22T09:26:28.397+08:002010-02-22T09:26:28.397+08:00This is a very elegant summation of the Tekumelani...This is a very elegant summation of the Tekumelani worldview, insofar as the Gods of Stability and Change are concerned. You are now ready to play <a href="http://www.tekumel.com" rel="nofollow"><i>Empire of the Petal Throne</i></a> (despite the use of "Good" and "Evil" in the original game) :) .Victor Raymondhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05928494560036528653noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-37420149186537804252010-02-22T08:36:06.578+08:002010-02-22T08:36:06.578+08:00faustusnotes: As the son of an engineering prof, I...<b>faustusnotes:</b> As the son of an engineering prof, I reject your statistical analysis and counter with the Laws of Thermodynamics, which state quite explicitly that, yes, there is chaos and <i>it is winning!</i> ;)trollsmythhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01895349218958093151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-22569634742012004622010-02-22T08:03:06.050+08:002010-02-22T08:03:06.050+08:00To be fair to Warhammer, it's not quite that s...To be fair to <i>Warhammer</i>, it's not quite that simple. Chaos is against civilisation and order, which is why it comes up against the player characters. There is also plenty of discussion of the gods of Law and how they may actually be the very same entities as the gods of Chaos.<br /><br />In <i>40K</i>, there is no real Good in the setting (except perhaps the Tau). It's all about a battle to maintain order, albeit a scummy, horrible kind of order, in the face of extinction.<br /><br />All that said, Chaos does tend to get lumped in with the Evil side of things, especially in the tabletop game, which I would indeed consider a... "unsubtling" of the setting(s).<br /><br />-----<br /><br />Anyway, excellent, cogent post. I'm not sure I fully agree, as I can see room for self-declared servants of Evil, if only at the more pulpy end of the spectrum where the cackling villains dwell, but if we're there, we're not concerned with realism. But yes, the other 98% of me agrees with your point.thekelvingreenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01928260185408072124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-91561482892906518022010-02-22T07:57:52.208+08:002010-02-22T07:57:52.208+08:00I agree about good vs. evil as fundamental moral m...I agree about good vs. evil as fundamental moral mechanics - to my mind the quintessential paladin has always seemed a lot more evil than good. This segues nicely into your goblin massacre post too, doesn't it, with the general "they're evil so we can exterminate them" ideal underlying that kind of gaming.<br /><br />However, as a statistician I have to resist your chaos vs. law dichotomy. The chaos you describe is largely a set of quite predictable <i>conditional probabilities</i> and the more we know about the laws of the universe the better we can predict the chaos (weather is a good example of this). So there isn't really a chaos/law dichotomy (though I suppose you could argue that the conditions are law triumphing over chaos).<br /><br />Anyway, law and chaos in the original D&D sense fell approximatlye in the pattern of chaos=evil, law=good. And the evil in the classic references (like LoTR) makes for a fun gaming world in any case.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-37855016646017539812010-02-22T07:47:58.910+08:002010-02-22T07:47:58.910+08:00Awesome, refined post!
I also think you pointed ...Awesome, refined post! <br /><br />I also think you pointed out one of the biggest flaws of Warhammer. Most of the time Chaos is just synonymous with Evil and I think it's a horrible mistake.squidmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03486198900111225929noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-48444498125430144832010-02-22T07:43:50.148+08:002010-02-22T07:43:50.148+08:00I struggled with this idea not long ago on my blog...I struggled with this idea not long ago on my blog; I hope this train of thought brings you to a more gameable conclusion than mine did.letsdamagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02145102722055581254noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-43728506146336662962010-02-22T07:16:28.526+08:002010-02-22T07:16:28.526+08:00Outstanding post, thanks. It helps clarify some mu...Outstanding post, thanks. It helps clarify some muddled thoughts on the topic that I was having.Jaysonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03652611193354218021noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-26479842403054832362010-02-22T07:15:43.808+08:002010-02-22T07:15:43.808+08:00A lot of the older RPG writings about Law and Chao...A lot of the older RPG writings about Law and Chaos seemed to match Law with (human) Civilization, and empire. Chaos on the other hand was more in line with Barbarians, outlaws, or smaller groups that were otherwise not part of the civilization / empire (Elves).<br /><br />Law vs Chaos could work well in a campaign themed around Ancient Rome, the Colonization of the New World, the Wild West, Cyberpunk, etc.<br /><br />Although this view of alignment says more about which group your character is "aligned" with, rather than what sort of personality they have. That might be a good or bad thing depending on your point of view.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13457050225967190052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-25322558485073981242010-02-22T06:58:34.049+08:002010-02-22T06:58:34.049+08:00I sense a flurry of posts far less philosophically...I sense a flurry of posts far less philosophically subtle than what you just wrote coming on.<br /><br /><br /><br />Verification word:<br /><br />"Exentomp"-<br />an object that is a result of the interaction of order and chaos. Practically speaking, all things are exentomps.Zak Sabbathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08812410680077034917noreply@blogger.com