The Gaming Den

If you were to make a setting in the 1800s, using the D&D style alignments would be a bad idea. I will grant you that using the D&D alignments in standard D&D would also be bad, but that is beside the point. The point is that I'm trying to think of a way to categorize characters by their philosophical underpinnings.

I am aware of the relation to Dungeons & Discourse. However, the character's philosophy will not be their class, like D&Discourse, but closer to alignment (maybe race).

As part of this goal, I need to list actions and such associated with each in a manner that differentiates them from each other, a kind of crib notes list for the lay gamer. I am an engineer, physicist, and nerd; so while I may be aware of philosophy, I am not very versed about them, especially in the realm of describing distinct behaviors for someone who follows its teachings.

I mean, I may know that a Hegelian believes that a concept can be purified by going through its opposite (the savage, once oppressed by law, is now empowered with actions its base state couldn't perform); but I don't know how someone who believes this would act differently than another. The same principle applies to Spinozans, Cartesians, or the only reason I might be able to do something with Kantian is because of the Den's Paladin variant.

I think something simple like opposing a Kantian ethos with a Nietzschean one could be something simple and expressible enough to be easily grokked by players. You basically just say you have

Kantians: Believes in moral goods and evils, that one should behave in a way that benefits society, that acts and others have an inherent value.

Basically this is your "Good", but a slightly more intellectual seeming one.

Nietzscheans: Believes that no action is good or evil, that you should behave according only to your own desires and what benefits you, that all acts and others are only measurable by how valuable or injurious they are to you.

This is your "Nuetral" or "Evil", but a much more defensible evil than that possessed by most people in black hats in fiction.

Kantian could totally be an alignment- Kant lays out a very clear, specific, regimented ethical system that (theoretically) dictates exactly what you should do in any given situation, which is essentially that you should always treat people as ends in of themselves, instead of as means to some other end, and also that you should always do that which you think everyone should do in that situation, basically. It's a lot more complicated than that and Kant wasn't super clear on some aspects, but that's the nutshell of it. The Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals is probably the best primary text, but if you don't want to wade through Kant (and I kan't blame you (I'm sorry)), the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a good general source.

Hegelianism wouldn't be an alignment so much as it would be an idea about what is needed for the world to progress- Hegelianism as an idea is explicitly concerned with the world-spirit coming to be through the overcoming of contradictions (seriously, Hegel uses the term world-spirit). Actually, one of the main splits in Hegelian thought post-Hegel was between the Left and Right Hegelians- the Left Hegelians thought that action needed to be taken to in order for the world to realize itself, while the Right Hegelians thought that either this had already happened, resulting in the order that existed, or that there was no action that could be taken to spur this process on, and that it would just happen. Keep in mind I've read next to no Hegel, so this is all probably wrong.

As such, Hegelianism would make a great church, with a split between the old monastic orders and the new crusading orders, or something like that. An alignment, not so much, as Hegel is pretty vague on what exactly are the contradictions that need to be resolved. A Hegelian BBEG where the world-spirit is actually a giant evil dragon instead of the pinnacle of humanity would be pretty cool, too.

Spinoza I know nothing about, sorry.

There's classical utilitarianism (you must maximize the pleasure of all humanity in every action,) as promulgated by Bentham and Mill, but that's kinda boring, to be honest. It's basically NG, except with a lot more explicit formulation of kinds of pleasure exist and their relative rankings. In any case, Utilitarianism was intended as more of a code for states and politicians than a code for individuals, which explains its dullness.

Cartesianism would be tricky, too. Descartes is known primarily for two things in philosophy- mind/body dualism and a failed solution to the problem of radical skepticism, neither of which translate especially well into something that can be effectively role-played. And, to be honest, Dungeons and Discourse is basically a bunch of elaborate puns, and the concepts don't really translate into actual long-term concepts outside of a comic.

deanruel87 wrote:I think something simple like opposing a Kantian ethos with a Nietzschean one could be something simple and expressible enough to be easily grokked by players. You basically just say you have

Kantians: Believes in moral goods and evils, that one should behave in a way that benefits society, that acts and others have an inherent value.

Basically this is your "Good", but a slightly more intellectual seeming one.

Nietzscheans: Believes that no action is good or evil, that you should behave according only to your own desires and what benefits you, that all acts and others are only measurable by how valuable or injurious they are to you.

This is your "Nuetral" or "Evil", but a much more defensible evil than that possessed by most people in black hats in fiction.

That's Randian Objectivism, not Nietzschianism. Nietzsche is incredibly easy to misinterpret, for what it's worth, and professional philosophers do it all the damn time, since his position on morality, especially, is really damn unclear and confused and weird. What is fairly clear, however, is that Nietzsche thinks that certain forms of morality are better than others- he decries Christian and slave morality on the grounds that they suppress and corrupt the true value of humanity, not on the grounds that they provide moral prescriptions at all.

Yes, try to avoid the classic mistakes that philosophers make about other philosophers where they strawman each other. This kind of mistake is really common in philosophy because philosophers are mostly dicks. For example, Existentialists are often accused of being nihilists despite the two positions being fundamentally different.

So don't feel bad that you fell into the trap of confusing Objectivism with Nietzche's theory of master and slave morality. Nietzsche's critics do actually accuse him of advocating selfishness, racism, and white power and his sister sold his work to the Nazi for their propaganda, but he actually is completely against those things (even going so far as to openly mock anti-Semites in one of his works).

Korgan0 wrote:he decries Christian and slave morality on the grounds that they suppress and corrupt the true value of humanity, not on the grounds that they provide moral prescriptions at all.

No way Dood

While I won't argue that Nietzsche's views are incredibly confused, even to himself (partially perhaps owing to his late clinical narcissism and syphilitic mind), there are some things his philosophy is pretty clear about (excepting anything in "The Birth of Tragedy", cause that's like his philosophical training wheels). In Genealogy of Morals and even more clearly I feel in Ecce Homo he's pretty open about the fact that any outside moral system is bullshit. If we were all perfect little Ubermen we'd decide for ourselves at all times what is beneficial to us and what is injurious to us and make our own moral codes on those decisions alone, not because of any outside dictatorship.

And to K, I appreciate you clearing up the common misconception that his writings support racism and white power and whatnot but the fact is he DOES advocate selfishness. He's all about empowering the self. And the concept of a self directed morality IS totally opposed to the dictatorial and institutionalized belief structures of white power and Nazism.

You know what's funny is I thought, of my two gross oversimplifications, that the Kant one was gonna be a bigger sticking point.

"You should figure out for yourself what's right and wrong" is not the same thing as "be a selfish dick all the time."

K wrote:Yes, try to avoid the classic mistakes that philosophers make about other philosophers where they strawman each other. This kind of mistake is really common in philosophy because philosophers are mostly dicks. For example, Existentialists are often accused of being nihilists despite the two positions being fundamentally different.

So don't feel bad that you fell into the trap of confusing Objectivism with Nietzche's theory of master and slave morality. Nietzsche's critics do actually accuse him of advocating selfishness, racism, and white power and his sister sold his work to the Nazi for their propaganda, but he actually is completely against those things (even going so far as to openly mock anti-Semites in one of his works).

Fuck, throughout both my existentialist *and* dialectical materialist phases I've had people decry me as a nihilist. Not believing in moral absolutes, imperatives and metaphysical concepts does not make a "nihilist".

Chamomile wrote:"You should figure out for yourself what's right and wrong" is not the same thing as "be a selfish dick all the time."

That statement is valueless. It doesn't mean that you should actively try to be a "dick" to people no. It does mean that if you believe that killing someone is more beneficial to yourself and those you deem of value to you than you believe it is injurious then you should do it, if you decide to. To this person at this time killing that person is good.

Figuring out right and wrong for yourself really means "Figure out the concept of rights and wrongs are just societal constructs based around things that were beneficial or harmful to society". Not some sort of "find what feels true to your heartsong" bullshit.

To be clear by the way. I'm not saying that Nietzschean beliefs are actually evil even though I said they would be your new "evil". I was just saying that in a D&D style campaign world where you were replacing Good and Evil with these philosophies then the Nietzschean belief is what you would have the Lich final boss believe. I think it's a perfectly valid set of beliefs in real life but in a fantasy world it would definitely be the bad guys shtick.

Empowerment is only usually married to selfishness and evil. It's not always a path to selfishness and evil, and it can even be a path to good.

Basically, the Superman of DC Comics is far closer to the Nietzschean ideal of the Ubermench than the caricatures that a Nazi, Satanist, or other asshat would imagine. I could break it down for you, but the next level really is digging out page references and academic articles and making a case.

That being said, Nietzsche will always be the villain in poorly-designed world-views because he's a pre-Existentialist who deconstructs existing morality, and that's always super-threatening to the masses. It's literally the same thing that scares the fuck out of the people about Existentialists, the challenging of the very idea of fixed values that are universal. The only thing missing from Nietzsche is a work about how one should formulate morality once popular morality has been deconstructed, but if he'd done that, then Sartre would have been out of a job.

Obligatory links to:

Dungeons and Discourse

Advanced Dungeons and Discourse

Okay. I'm with K on this one- I really don't want to start digging through the Genealogy of Morals because fuck that book, seriously. Ecce Homo is even worse.Here's a brief overview of a few of the more common Nietzsche myths by an expert. Hopefully that helps, because you're totally wrong about Nietzsche, albeit in a way that a lot of people are wrong about him.

As I understand it, Nietzsche sort of has a formulation of correct morality, namely one that's a throwback to vaguely Homeric ideas of virtue and duty, as evidenced by his endless nattering about "master morality." He certainly doesn't have a strict formulation in the same way that, say, Kant does, but he has an idea.

Back on topic, I think you'd have a lot of trouble extrapolating from 19th century philosophy to actual, roleplaying-centric character alignments. Most philosophical theories from this period really don't tend to deal with out-and-out prescriptions about the world- Kant, Mill, and Nietzche (sort of) are really the exceptions in that regard, and even then they don't really say that much.

To be honest, if you want to incorporate these kinds of philosophical theories, they'd probably work much better as a source of character abilities- something like this, which is basically a fully constructed dungeons and discourse RPG. I haven't gone through it in any depth, but it seems decent on a quick overview.

The Right Hegelians should just be called "Hegelians". He personally advocated a rather iron-handed Lutheranism and that's as coherent a moral philosophy as you're going to get. Left Hegelianism should just be called "Marxism", because that has a fairly simple and coherent moral component.

-Username17

I mean, sure, but it's telling that two moral theories as contradictory as those can be derived from the same basic set of philosophical premises. You could just as easily claim that in order to actualize the weltgeist you need to paint everything purple, or something. As far as I know, Hegel's philosophical ideas don't necessarily entail any particular set of moral imperatives, regardless of what its practitioners thought, which makes it kinda unsuitable if you're looking for a moral code that can be easily applied to a given character.

Korgan0 wrote:

deanruel87 wrote:
Nietzscheans: Believes that no action is good or evil, that you should behave according only to your own desires and what benefits you, that all acts and others are only measurable by how valuable or injurious they are to you.

This is your "Nuetral" or "Evil", but a much more defensible evil than that possessed by most people in black hats in fiction.

That's Randian Objectivism, not Nietzschianism.

Given that Randian Objectivism has some pretty clear limits against the use of coercion, lying, and theft, I'd have to say that the philosophy/moral code described above isn't Randian Objectivism either.

There are a lot of things to not like about Randian Objectivism, but you shouldn't strawman it, either.

Virgil,

Since you don't have a background in philosophy and you don't want your players to get confused, you could make some easy to grok philosphical traditions specific to your world.

For example, you could have a group that takes the mantra 'do no evil'. This is the group that would never do something obstensibily bad for a goal obstensibly good. Ie, you'd never shoot the innocent child, even if it means saving 100 other innocent children - you're responsible only for your own actions, and you choose to always do what is 'morally right'.

Another group could argue for 'the greatest good'. They are more willing to accept that the ends justify the means, and may do things that are reprehensible for a greater good. For example, they might be willing to wipe out a small human town to prevent escalated conflicts with intelligent humanoids for the next couple of centuries.

A third group could be dedicated to 'whatever benefits ME most'. They can be enlightened (a just society that applies equal laws to all men benefits me since I am happy to abide by these laws) or selfish (I want his watch - I will kill him).

Another group could focus on championing the weak, and a final group could even be dedicated to eliminating the weak - only the strongest survive.

That probably would be enough depth to make some interesting games without worrying too much about the real-world philosophy of any particular individual.

K wrote:Basically, the Superman of DC Comics is far closer to the Nietzschean ideal of the Ubermench than the caricatures that a Nazi, Satanist, or other asshat would imagine. I could break it down for you, but the next level really is digging out page references and academic articles and making a case.

Um, as the resident satanist of the board, I feel that I should point out that the things that call themselves Satanism, LaVeyan Church of Satan, Temple of Set, Sinagogue(sic) of Satan, etc, actually are Nietzschian, in that they do reject societal dictates of right and wrong to decide for themselves.

Prak_Anima wrote:

K wrote:Basically, the Superman of DC Comics is far closer to the Nietzschean ideal of the Ubermench than the caricatures that a Nazi, Satanist, or other asshat would imagine. I could break it down for you, but the next level really is digging out page references and academic articles and making a case.

Um, as the resident satanist of the board, I feel that I should point out that the things that call themselves Satanism, LaVeyan Church of Satan, Temple of Set, Sinagogue(sic) of Satan, etc, actually are Nietzschian, in that they do reject societal dictates of right and wrong to decide for themselves.

Nietzsche would openly mock Satanists for forming and self-identifying with a group to validate their beliefs. He'd identify Satanism as another form of slave morality.

Not to be insulting, but all of my encounters with Satanism have reinforced the impression that the various flavors are all self-empowerment cults for douches that exploit their members for sex and money, and that kind of exploitation and groupthink is at the core of everything that Nietzsche railed against.

This is not to say that you aren't a perfectly reasonable and lovely person. It just means that Nietzsche would be horrified to be associated with your belief system and to see his work so profoundly misinterpreted.

K wrote:
Not to be insulting, but all of my encounters with Satanism have reinforced the impression that the various flavors are all self-empowerment cults for douches that exploit their members for sex and money,

Wait, what? I want to exploit people for sex and money, how do I get in on that?

Ted the Flayer wrote:

K wrote:
Not to be insulting, but all of my encounters with Satanism have reinforced the impression that the various flavors are all self-empowerment cults for douches that exploit their members for sex and money,

Wait, what? I want to exploit people for sex and money, how do I get in on that?

So the first thing you do is you get exploited for sex and money a lot. And you don't realize it. Then, when you are at the magic peak where you have been exploited so much that you'd have a really good chance of suing the pants of your exploiters, and you look like you are just about to find out, they figure it's easier to just bring you in on the exploiting side.

If you look like you are finding out too soon though, they just kick you out. And if you take to long to look like you are finding out they just stop exploiting you when you reach a certain point and hope you never realize.

No offense taken. The "aggrandize self at the expense of all others, exploit people for money and sex, and generally be an utter, utter douche" is basically the satanic equivalent of fundie christians. Definitely out there, and depressingly vocal, but not necessarily representative of all. Hell, I tried to break away from using the label because satanists seem incredibly prone to fulfilling the "Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory" but it's a handy descriptor for my basic philosophy. (The part that's basically Nietzscheian and says "no you fucktard, don't hurt kids or animals, and protect yourself and those you care about first and foremost and to hell with everyone else, I mean)

Kaelik wrote:

Ted the Flayer wrote:

K wrote:
Not to be insulting, but all of my encounters with Satanism have reinforced the impression that the various flavors are all self-empowerment cults for douches that exploit their members for sex and money,

Wait, what? I want to exploit people for sex and money, how do I get in on that?

So the first thing you do is you get exploited for sex and money a lot. And you don't realize it.

Yeah, I've been through enough of that already. I'll have to find another scheme for easy money then...

Well, there's always the old standby of finding people who are emotionally vulnerable or who have reduced mental competence, and then making wildly unrealistic promises to them - preferably while telling hurtful lies about other people they know in order to socially isolate them from people who would actually help them. And then exploiting them for money and sex when they think you are going to do something for them in the future and don't have anyone else to turn to.

-Username17

That seems like an awful lot of work. I think I'll work on the money issues first.

K wrote:Not to be insulting, but all of my encounters with Satanism have reinforced the impression that the various flavors are all self-empowerment cults for douches that exploit their members for sex ...

Wait, wait. Are you saying it's wrong to exploit my member for sex?