pathfinder, alignment, worldbuilding, and moral philosophy
thinking about how alignment in pathfinder can be reconciled with my world view and the nature of the world I'm building with it....
is utilitarianism compatible with good alignment? is lawful inherently deontologic or can a lawful good person flip the trolley switch?
pathfinder, alignment, worldbuilding, and moral philosophy
I'm of the opinion that utilitarianism is compatible with lawful and good, *but* I also have a pretty limited understanding of how alignment works
pathfinder, alignment, worldbuilding, and moral philosophy
it's not really at all important to reconcile a fictional morality system with my real world views, which I hope is obvious. but I'm building a fantasy world with the particular/immediate intent of being used in the pathfinder game that I'm running. I want to respect the mechanics, because that's something that's important to jade, who is one of the players...
pathfinder, alignment, worldbuilding, and moral philosophy
(I already am reconciling how some things work. necromancy is not inherently evil, it just lends itself to evil because of the disrespect to people's wishes, and undead are usually evil because violating the boundaries between life and death involves touching a dangerous space in between the two. orcs were seen as evil because they were constantly enthralled to evil lords; they have been free now for 300 years.)
pathfinder, alignment, worldbuilding, and moral philosophy; light structural spoilers for my players
angels are inherently good aligned, because that's a fundamentally elemental thing in the structure of pathfinder. but their aasimar descendents aren't, though that elemental touch does nudge them towards goodness.
but in my view, Good is different from good. stern commitment to good can be destructive. though it isn't inherently so, either.
pathfinder, alignment, worldbuilding, and moral philosophy
@SophiaSurname
GG: oh can i say this particular chunk of worldbuilding absolutely rules????
pathfinder, alignment, worldbuilding, and moral philosophy
@quasar thank you!! the orc thing is one of the pillars from which the world's concepts spring. the necromancy thing is basically just an obsession of mine that grew from a near-shitpost thought about a lawful good necromancer but I'm extremely proud of how I've justified it
pathfinder, alignment, worldbuilding, and moral philosophy
@SophiaSurname
GG: yesss i love the necromancer justification
GG: the angel-descendents thing too!! like, good ≠ Good, thats something i think goes super well recognized
pathfinder, alignment, worldbuilding, and moral philosophy
@quasar the problem with the angel thing is that I don't know if it can be reconciled with pathfinder alignment. it's fundamentally not gonna change but I'd like to be able to combine the two, and I'm willing to tweak my version to do so, hehe.
pathfinder, alignment, worldbuilding, and moral philosophy
@quasar (also, it's important to remember what into the woods taught us: nice is different from good)
pathfinder, alignment, worldbuilding, and moral philosophy
... but the fantasy world I'm making is one that has been in my head for over 10 years, and I won't excise what I believe from its structure.