Page 2 of 11 FirstFirst 123456 ... LastLast
Results 11 to 20 of 110
  1. #11
    Member Hrandal's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Partick, Glasgow, Scotland
    Posts
    53
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0
    Interesting to think about what defines a "good" and "noble" leader, isn't it?

    I mean if you're looking at myths, King Arthur made more than his share of mistakes, but you can't doubt he would fit the archetype of a Haelynite king. (Lancelot is more of a Cuiraicenite.) In the end it all goes to pot, but Arthur is still a hero.

    Queen Elizabeth's reign caused a tremendous drop in the living standards of most English, but she's still hailed as a national hero for her military successes (and you'd be forgiven for calling a good deal of those simple piracy.)

    Its ultimately true that the victors tend to decide right and wrong and write history accordingly. Many "great" figures from history were unpleasant on a personal level. Newton was supposed to have been pretty odious, but his genius outweighed his flaws.

    Perhaps its just "cometh the hour, cometh the man" - a particular personality is needed at certain times of crisis. Maybe under some circumstances an evil regent (or at least one willing to do evil) can serve the greater good better. For instance, if Gavin Tael became Emperor he'd have the steel to do almost anything to retain power. In a time of peace that could well cause dissent, but if the Gorgon is marauding, well, suddenly it becomes an asset to be totally ruthless. Sometimes a bastard is needed to make the hard decisions.
    "As soon as war is declared, it will be impossible to hold the poets back. Rhyme is still the most effective drum."

  2. #12
    Birthright Developer irdeggman's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2001
    Location
    Virginia Beach, Virginia
    Posts
    3,945
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0
    The problem this discussion has is that is by its very nature rooted in the D&D alignment system.

    That system is one of the most "contested" and argued over things in all of D&D - so it leads to many esoteric paths.

    Supposedly 4th ed is going to "water down" the alignment system.

    I'll give a good example of a "problem" that applying the alignment system universally causes.

    In Dark Sun things are not so clear cut. Alignment is much more about shades of grey (no reference to The Grey is intended). In the revised box set they talked about alignment in terms of "water" and how someone would "share" such an essential to survival item.

    This setting specific deviation from the standard alignment system is the root of of one of my problems with Paizo's treatment of DS 3.5. {They introduced paladins as a base class, I mean paladins in a world with no gods and where good is a relative term - criminy. /end rant}
    Duane Eggert

  3. #13
    I can highly recommend the historical novels of Sharon Penman, who’s books cover the Plantaganent period, plus that of Stephen & Matilda. The books are very well written and interesting to read (well, except the one about Thomas Becket!). King Stephen comes across as a bit of a tit, really. While he’s a great military leader, he’s clearly got a lawful good alignment, and perhaps a bit foolish, but when out of battles he tries to do “the right thing” from a moral perspective- which isn’t always good for the realm. Penman’s novel “When Christ and His Saints Slept” covers that era very well.

    On Richard I, while his peers think he may have been a good king and John a bad king, from a modern perspective, I think the views should be reversed. Richard was in his kingdom for a very short time, squandered the kingdom’s funds on wars of expansion in France and fighting in the Holy Land, and lumbered the country with a crippling ransom when he was captured. After overextending England militarily and financially and leaving that mess to John, it’s no wonder that John generally receives a bad opinion. John had very little room to maneuver, and so would have had to have devised “cunning plans” that were relatively inexpensive.

  4. #14
    Site Moderator geeman's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2001
    Location
    California, USA
    Posts
    2,165
    Downloads
    4
    Uploads
    0
    At 11:36 AM 2/8/2008, ericthecleric wrote:

    >On Richard I, while his peers think he may have been a good king and
    >John a bad king, from a modern perspective, I think the views should
    >be reversed.

    I don`t know that we can necessarily draw a lot of moral or ethical
    examples from Richard or John. At least, I`m hesitant to do that
    since one can fall on either side of the issue with a lot of plausibility.

    That said, I think Richard and John are best suited as examples of
    how one might differentiate between the adventure and domain levels
    of play. From the standard D&D gaming POV, Richard certainly was the
    better PC.... He travels, gets into "adventures" and deals directly
    with a sort of heroic quest. From a BR domain level POV, though,
    John would probably be more interesting to play. His interaction is
    geared towards rulership and the various issues he dealt with could
    easily be `ported into a BR system of domain actions, random events
    and international diplomacy.

    Gary

  5. #15
    Site Moderator kgauck's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    Springfield Mo
    Posts
    3,562
    Downloads
    2
    Uploads
    0

    Notes on Alignment

    The alignment system is based on two overlapping mid-eastern cosmologies made manifest. Originally there was a cosmology of law and chaos, in which chaos was represented by things like Tiamat, who had to be subdued and killed by Marduk before the universe could be formed. In this system law was desirable and chaos fearful and terrible. The founder gods would impose order on the universe and we could live in a world where it rained in spring, the sun rose every day, and elements of chaos, storms, floods, earthquakes, were mostly kept in check by rituals to the gods of order.

    As we get into, say the 6th century BC, we start to see ethical reformers, who argue that order is not sufficient and that compassion, mercy, justice, and such things are also desirable. We see philosophers in China, India, Greece, and the Mid-East reforming religion and philosophy as the axis of good and evil become more prominent.

    In Zoroastrianism we see law and goodness as a tangible force, represented by Ahura Mazda, and chaos and evil represented by Angra Mainya. This are manifest forces and Ahura Mazda have his people purifying fire so that they could detect good and detect evil, as it were.

    The D&D alignment system owes a great deal to this cosmology, where chaos is a tangible force for disorder in the cosmos, law subdues order and allows civilization (because civilized people need agriculture, which requires seasonal order), good represents powerful forces of compassion and evil the forces of darkness.

    The original Dieties and Demigods cyclopedia had the Summerian, Assyrian, and Babylonian mythos included, because early Mideastern mythology was so important to the development of D&D's cosmological thinking.

    Its also worth noting that you could assign elements to these points on the alignment. Fire came from Ahura Mazda and was good. Tiamat was not only a sea serpent, but represented the great salt sea: water is chaos. And depending on which axis you go to first, law could be air (as in Marduk) or earth. Leaving evil as the remaining element.

    So we get the whole D&D cosmology in nutshell from Mid-Eastern ideas about tangible forces, connected to gods who grant power connected to these primordial forces. This makes perfect sense when we stick to magic, and spells concerning law, chaos, good, and evil. If characters are supposed to be lawful and good, it can apply to characters as well, but then chaotic and evil characters are the villains. By AD&D there is a clear attempt to soften chaos as an alignment for characters, without reducing the primordial power of chaos for the cosmology. This creates a problem. Is chaos freedom of individual choice or disorder that makes life in society impossible? Both kind of. Characters who get labeled as chaotic are ones who live apart from society, hermits, elves, fey, barbarians, thieves, and so some partial reconciliation as long as you don't look too closely.

    These early religions (and they influence later ones as well in this respect) had a final climactic battle in which the forces of the desired axis (law or good) would confront the undesired axis (evil or chaos) and creation would end, be transformed, or otherwise produce a new cosmos without the other side. Paradise for the followers. So a priest of some force of chaos might hope to bring about, or reinforce, his side so that creation could be undone and we could live without the tyranny of day/night, land/sea, up/down, ruler/ruled, man/woman, hot/cold, or any other structure you could imagine to the nature of things. Things would just be, they would not be ordered in any way. Imagine Azrai imposing the seeming on everything so that there is no order to anything, and you have an idea of a god of chaos.

    This is not a useful model for politics, is a cosmological model. Alignment has evolved both cosmologically and for character use, but has never shed its dual nature, which makes chaos particularly troublesome. Is it nihilism or freedom? Depends on whether your a spellcaster or not, really.

  6. #16
    Site Moderator kgauck's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    Springfield Mo
    Posts
    3,562
    Downloads
    2
    Uploads
    0
    Quote Originally Posted by geeman View Post
    I don`t know that we can necessarily draw a lot of moral or ethical
    examples from Richard or John. At least, I`m hesitant to do that since one can fall on either side of the issue with a lot of plausibility.
    I think this is because there is a difference between personal and public ethics. What is good in a person is not necessarily good for states. This creates a good built in dilemma for rulers. Richard was a good person, goes on Crusade, does the right thing, leaves his realm in chaos. John tries to bring order, pay his brother's ransom, deal with the alliance of France and the Empire that is a consequence of Richard's conduct.

    So John looks like a good king and a bad person, while Richard looks like a good person and a bad king.

    There are great ways to build these dilemmas into the game. One common problem faced by rulers was the need to get rid of good ministers when the king's policies become unpopular. Either the king accepts sinking domain loyalty (basically agitating against himself) or he banishes, executes, or imprisons a loyal servant who is just doing what the king wanted in the first place. The policy may yet be a good policy, but circumstances (bad harvests, twists in diplomacy, costs of implementation) make it unpopular.

    Good king (kill your friend) or good person (riots in the streets)?

  7. #17
    This is a pretty interesting discussion, though it always feels like I'm coming in halfway on these things. Is there, like, a mailing list or something that I haven't been able to find where this stuff starts?

    Anyway! Alignment. Whooboy.

    I think that a lot of the trouble over alignment comes from the classes that "must" be a certain alignment. This leads some folks to assume that, say, what would cause Johnny Paladin's grace to shake a bit applies to everyone who happens to be lawful and good. Similarly, look at the monk: one of the classic evil martial artist archtypes is the vicious brute who only cares about personal power and perfection at the cost of anyone around him or her. Which is pretty darn Chaotic Evil, no?

    I've found that two things tend to make alignment fights much less vicious when I play, and especially when I DM. First, I don't hold material beings to the same standards as spiritual beings: Things that have alignment as a part of their essential makeup, like fiends and archons, are going to adhere much more strictly to the ideals of said alignment than someone who's simply following a philosophy, while conversly, the mortal creatures are almost expected to be, well, only human, and are given a wider berth based on background, culture, personal nurosies, and the thousand other things that makes up a person's personality.

    This has several benefits; first and foremost, it encourages my players to have alignment be a summary of the character's morals and ethics, not the rigid way they react to every situation. The Lawful Good Paladin isn't afraid to occasionaly do something for herself, or just have a character flaw, because I won't set her on fire the first time she does something I can spin as 'chaotic' or 'evil'. The Chaotic Good priest won't feel the need to throw a pie in any authority figure's face for fear of losing his god's approval. Players are less afraid to portray weaknesses and honest moments of doubt because there isn't the fourty pound "change your alignment!" hammer above of their heads. Instead, I keep a little journal-if the Chaotic Good priest, for example, starts acting more selfishly or more rules-focused, I'll check my notes to see that, yes, the change in behaviour is consistant, and talk to the guy about it.

    Secondly, it helps make spiritual beings strange and alien. The angel of Haelyn /does/ have to strive to be something that a human being just can't be: the perfect reflection of one of nine moralistic generalizations. It helps get the PCs to sell the otherworldliness of things that should be otherworldly, as well as subtly encouraging them to think outside of the alignment box in order to avoid being an inhuman being.

    Anyway, what all of this bar bar bar means is: Nine times out of ten, an alignment fight can be solved by taking a step back and going, "Settle down, Beevis."; like, our king example. One incident should very rarely be enough to totally change someone's alignment; if this guy makes a habit of ignoring what someone actually did in order to pacifiy the mob, then sure, send him a step towards moral neutrality. If he makes a habit of letting his people riot in the streets because he can't find a way to calm them down while figuring out what is really what, then edge him towards ethical neutrality.

    As to the "bad king" question, well, it all depends on who you are. Some would think that a king who stops a lynch mob is a very good king, while other people don't want to be beaten up because they were just doing a little rioting. Generally, though, I figure Haelyn himself would say that while honesty is all well and good, someone who's responsible for the saftey of a country probably shouldn't make a promise like that in the first place. Course, that's the tricky part about Birthright dieties: they're quiet. They're not going to show up and go, "This temple regent is right, the rest of y'all is wack."-which means that even a Lawful Good diety can have followers who disagree, civily, rudely, or violently, on how to best inteprit said diety's philosophy.

    I mean, look at the difference between the Oaken Grove Of Eric and the Emerald Grove, the two big Rjurik temples to Eric: The OGE supports the idea of druids aiding their communities, even if these communities grow into cities; the why can range from "because it's our duty" to "who are we to say that cities aren't the natural state of humanity? Insects build complicated structures. It's just another kind of nature.". The EG, on the other hand, is isolationist, for a similarly broad spectrum of reasons, from the simple, "City bad, nature good.", to something as complex as, "Druids should be seperate from the communities they aid because familiarity breeds contempt; if a druid of Eric is "just another silly priest", Eric himself is insulted, the natural world is not held in reverence, and trouble surely follows."

    None of these philosophies couldn't be part of a Neutral character; some lean towards Lawful Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, or whatever else you want to say, but that's a matter of personal preference: There's breathing room, because the setting needs breathing room in order to have competing temple regents.

  8. #18
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Posts
    439
    Downloads
    31
    Uploads
    0
    I haven't read all of this yet (too many posts since I saw it last!), but Kgauck (did you move this here to the new thread? I didn't start it...), what you said on the first page when you were describing good rulership and mentioning St. Augustine, that's "just and virtuous" rulership. I don't know why you don't think that's the standard. Of course a just and virtuous ruler is still going to need to be prepared to wage war or execute people. Of course it is just to stop a dangerous and unlawful rebellion. All of these fit the ideal (call it Judeo-Christian, call it Western, call it Lawful Good or Paladin if you like) of a just and virtuous ruler. It's a matter of recognizing that there are realities in the world that must be contended with, sometimes in harsh manner.

    The real complexities of conscience are when you consider some of the more difficult cases of justice, and the rare conditions under which a lie is a virtue (lying to protect an innocent from imminent death is very clearly a good, but a very rare case; not the only case for a lie, but just an example).

  9. #19
    Member Hrandal's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Partick, Glasgow, Scotland
    Posts
    53
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0
    I would say what probably makes sense in a BR setting is this - for each church write down a few basic tenets. Then have players receive temporal flack if they stray from those tenets (or are seen to encourage others away from them). If you annoy the priests of that religion, or their congregation, then you get the big stick of public hatred.

    For instance, the OIT might have some pretty unyielding tenets like "Always obey ye yer superiors in station". You can imagine some of the nonsensical jobsworth-ing that would produce, but its quite IC for Diemed.

    The NIT, on the other hand, might have a tenet like "Let no evil stand unpunished", resulting in a very different attitude in the commoners of Talinie.

    Rather than alignment per se, this gives you more of a general "rules of conduct" for each specific church.
    "As soon as war is declared, it will be impossible to hold the poets back. Rhyme is still the most effective drum."

  10. #20
    I think that's a good idea, though I wouldn't just have it be tenants. Like, maybe have the NIT be more suspicious of universities than the scholarly priests of the City of Anuire's temple, but having really embraced the whole floral symbolism aspect of Haelyn.

    This gives the individual temples a little more flavor, to presumably be used by PC regents in winning over the priests: Like, you wouldn't give the head of the NIT some ancient Anduran documents that need'a translating unless you want her to get the idea that you're implying that she's a rube, to continue the example.

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Similar Threads

  1. Need Objective Opinion (Rulership Question)
    By OneEyeTigh in forum The Royal Library
    Replies: 13
    Last Post: 04-11-2007, 09:58 PM
  2. Rulership for 3rd Edition
    By talaxar in forum The Royal Library
    Replies: 3
    Last Post: 12-24-2002, 04:06 AM

Tags for this Thread

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
BIRTHRIGHT, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, D&D, the BIRTHRIGHT logo, and the D&D logo are trademarks owned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc., a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc., and are used by permission. ©2002-2010 Wizards of the Coast, Inc.