Alignment

There are a variety of game mechanics used in roleplaying games to represent the characters’ morals and attitudes. These are often called “alignment”. Dungeons & Dragons has the “Lawful-Chaotic” dimension and often the “Good-Evil” dimension of alignment. Storyteller games use some form of “Humanity-Monster” dimension. Palladium has its Principled, Scrupulous, Unprincipled, Anarchist, Miscreant, Aberrant, and Diabolic alignments.

Since the PCs usually take on the roles of individual heroes and adventurers, PC alignments tend to be away from the “evil”, “monstrous”, or “miscreant” and more towards the “good” and “human”. Though there are exceptions, by and large most PCs tend to be good or at worst neutral.

The game master, meanwhile, plays the balance of the characters in the world across the wide spectrum of alignments. It’s like one PC is Frodo, another is Sam, and the game master is Sauron, Gandalf, Gollum, Saruman, the orcs, the ents, the elves, and so on, good guys and bad guys alike.

In Gurdjieff’s writings, in terms of “alignment”, humans have subjective morality and objective morality. Subjective morality is acquired from external factors of upbringing, parents, teachers, siblings, and peers. Since it is acquired, it has a very local or tribal character. To give an extreme example, it would be immoral for a member of the Korowai tribe of Papua New Guinea to not engage in ritual cannibalism. Whereas a typical Westerner views cannibalism as immoral. Both are doing what they believe is “good”.

Objective morality is different. It is not acquired, and as such, is universal. 

Continue reading →

The Keep on the Borderlands, Erol Otus, 1979

The Role of Roleplaying Games

Roleplaying games occupy a unique place in contemporary culture. They appear to be a relatively new invention that developed from the miniature wargaming hobby. War games are simulation-type games where each player controls a faction of military units, usually represented by miniature figurines. The player-controlled units are brought into conflict in a particular historical or non-historical setting, represented on the tabletop by a map. Typically in war games, one player acts as the referee, while the other players control the military units that enter into conflict with each other. Each player uses tactics and strategy in order to win. 

Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, both experienced miniature war gamers, are considered the modern fathers of roleplaying games, the most well-known being Dungeons & Dragons, and it is from their innovations that the new hobby sprung.

Continue reading →

To understand, according to Mr. Gurdjieff, where games can go wrong, besides the previously mentioned depriving of children of time to play games or depriving oneself of work-rest balance, one must understand where humans can go wrong (and have gone wrong).

The same problems experienced in life are the same problems experienced in games, only on a smaller scale. This difference in scale can be used to one’s advantage—one can use games to learn about oneself and others to understand the basic problems of humanity in a limited and relatively safe environment. Some of these problems are detailed here in brief.

Continue reading →