Dungeons & Dragons & Scholars
January 29, 2019 6:41 AM   Subscribe

Are there any good sources that examine Dungeons and Dragons alignments in terms of real-world philosophy, or, alternatively, are there any good sources arguing that the alignment system necessarily relies on narrative logic and can never be productively used outside of the game?

My colleagues are working on an academic paper that frames sustainability stakeholders through the lens of Dungeons and Dragons - I haven't read the paper, but from discussions it sounds like they're using a somewhat modified version as a quirky framework to understand stakeholders, instead of relying on a four quadrants kind of model. As the office nerd, this thoroughly amuses me. However, when I mentioned the 'lawful stupid' problem (to wit: what happens when someone "lawful good" is in a situation where the laws aren't good) they seemed surprised and excited, so it seems like their research into how players have dealt with this framework is pretty lacking. I offered to help by finding background material that tackled the issue from the opposite lens, D&D to real world, but so far I haven't had much luck. (I haven't checked the source books yet, was leaving that 'til last.)

The biggest barrier I've found is that people who want to take the alignment system seriously mostly spend their time extolling the virtues of morality systems in other games that work better. This is fair, but not helpful, and as I've mentioned, various four quadrant models are all over sociology so even having a 'neutral' option is a step up. I suspect that 'good' and 'evil' are not literal in my colleagues' model (that is, instead of being a moral judgement it's more "pro/anti sustainability") but I haven't confirmed that yet.

The other barrier I've found is that there's actually lots of examples of people using the alignment system as a classifier - as memes. A lot of these are pretty arbitrary, and I feel like my colleagues should be able to show a little more academic rigour than Tumblr.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Citeable works (as in, were published, by a known author, at a time) preferred.
posted by Merus to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (4 answers total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
I haven't read it, but you might want to check out Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:55 AM on January 29, 2019 [2 favorites]


However, when I mentioned the 'lawful stupid' problem (to wit: what happens when someone "lawful good" is in a situation where the laws aren't good)

I realize you're looking for sources and not discussion, but generally, their initial response would be to try to work within the system to fix the injustice assuming the source of the law is recognized as legitimate. To change the laws democratically (in a modern context) or appeal to the local magistrate/lord/monarch/whatever in a fantasy setting. The archetypal lawful good paladin might appeal to their church/deity for intervention. Righteous crusades and/or martyrdom are always options too.
posted by Pryde at 5:11 PM on January 29, 2019


What you refer to as "lawful stupid" seems to me very similar to Kant's Categorical Imperative. I googled Categorical Imperative + d&d and got some potentially interesting results

Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy

And in fact there is at least one essay in there touching on how Kantian ethics relate to D&D alignment, as well as a couple of other essays that seem to be alignment related, so that may be what you're looking for?
posted by phoenixy at 11:04 PM on January 29, 2019


Interesting. Just to be clear, it looks like there are two different books titled "Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy": the one linked by phoenixy and the one I linked to at the top of the discussion.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:55 AM on January 31, 2019 [1 favorite]


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