[DF] Dragonlance

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by maximara

Take the Silver Age Superman - a paragon of LG if there ever was one. Then you get into some of the stories...


Let's not forget he "watches Brainiac and Luthor kill two people and because he really, really doesn't like the victims, turns a blind eye while they haul off the bodies (and even says, "Thanks")"

Nothing surprising about that, really. Both Superman and Batman started out as (relatively) realistic, for comics, vigilantes. That is, both would use lethal force, intimidation, and disregard legalities in pursuit of what they considered a higher good.

Since comics were aimed at (or were perceived to be aimed at) kids, that was eventually changed to a more 'black and white' moral arrangement, eventually becoming very simplistic, with contradictions that even kids could perceive.

It got loser again in the 70s and 80s when comics started being pitched more to a teenaged audience. But (and this touches on alignment, too), it rapidly became clear that the lack of black and white moral rules also led to story problems, as became somewhat blatant in the 90s.

Alignment in RPG settings serves as a way to make moral choices something other than personal preferences and 'my side' (and to justify the intense violence). If morality is purely the creation of the people and societies it applies to, it really doesn't mean anything, and you end up fairly quickly with 'power/winning is what really matters'. If morality is going to matter at all, it can't be 100% relative and subjective, because if it is Enlightenment logic will dissolve it away, leaving untrammeled self-interest.

('Murder hoboes' is a cliché for a reason.)

But if the objective alignment system ignores the complicated messiness of realistic situations, you end up with situations where the PCs are not able to distinguish between 'necessary evil' and 'blatant immorality', like the difference between killing a lycanthrope to save other people, or killing someone because they are inconvenient, or acting purely out of revenge and calling it 'justice', as opposed to genuinely seeking justice (but what precisely constitutes justice?). Among Palladium gamers, it's a cliché that a Principled alignment character (the highest good alignment) will get the party into more trouble than a Miscreant character (sort of their version of milder evil), because the Principled character, like the Paladin example, is obligated to behave in ways that ignore practicality.

(Of course it's in these gray areas that the most interesting character conflicts can exist, because it's awfully easy to go from 'necessary evil' to 'convenient' while lying to yourself. As Jim Butcher pointed out about moral conflicts, gray does exist. But he likened it to a software art program, where when you mix black and white to get gray, you reach what is effectively black well before you get all the way to the numbers that officially define 'black' in the program.)

Is slavery evil? Of course. Should a Good PC oppose it? Of course. Is a prisoner condemned to a chain gang for a crime a slave? Well, in the strictest technical sense yes, but suddenly things get complicated. What was the crime? Does it justify the punishment? If the answer is no, should the PC free the prisoner? What will the practical consequences for the PC's friends and family be if he does? Suddenly the simple rule has gotten very messy and complicated, but that doesn't mean the simple rule is invalid or wrong, just that it's messy when it comes into contact with reality.

Or to put it another way, is Batman responsible for the deaths the Joker inflicts because Batman refuses to terminate the Joker? It doesn't have an easy answer, and either 'yes' or 'no' leads to messy uncomfortable implications.

The alignment system endures because it actually serves a function. How well it serves it is another issue.