Who wants the mother dragon to be safe?

[Axl_Rose]

I know I do, and while V has been one of my favourite characters, I can't help but hope that he/she fails to destroy/harm the dragon.

I am curious to see what others think.

Opinions?

[chiasaur11]

I, personally, hope the dragon dies horribly via Evan's spiked tentacles of forced intrusion.

Nasty critter.

[Kish]

Meh. Her plan to eat innocent children alive was truly evil.

Desires aside, I would be amazed if she survives the next few strips now. Vaarsuvius had no hesitation about killing black dragons back when s/he was Neutral. The addition of three monsters to his/her soul is unlikely to immediately push him/her in that direction. I do, however, hope s/he eventually feels guilty about casually killing the younger black dragon.

[Kranden]

Not me there's no better joy than dragon slaying.

[Assassin89]

If the mother dragon kills the kolbold oracle rather than Vaarsuvius's children after Vaarsuvius defeated her, I would want the mother dragon to live. Otherwise, die you vile being for threatening the lives of those who did nothing to you.

[Scion_of_Darkness]

I hope the dragon lives. Her potential value to the comic's story is far greater than the value of her death to the story.

[SporeGames]

You could checkmy post in the strip threads for my opinion on the matter (well actualy you can't but thats beside the point). In short the dragon is in thE right here "an eye for adn eye and a tooth for s tooth" and of course a family for a family. what V did was unjustifiable and I hope V suffers for it :smallfurious:


GO TO ****ING HELL V!

[EyethatBinds]

She's going to go down pretty fast and easy, which is honestly my only objection to her death. Somewhat ignoble a death for a dragon, even her son got more comics than her and most of his were combat.

I wouldn't mind her escaping but I certainly doubt it will happen. She's going to be a pile of carpet sweepings in a few comics.

Elf is going to lose a lot more than just some Time Share in his/her body though. A foolish move trusting all three embodiments of pure evil at once.

[Raging Gene Ray]

GO TO ****ING HELL V!

And shi well. And the Abyss and Hades, too.

[Cúchulainn]

V is gonna play around torturing that dragon in so many grotesque and terrible ways that her family is gonna be traumatized watching it. I'd be more worried about V than the dragon, V is going to lose EVERYTHING that matters anyway, the dragon is just a catalyst.

[Lizard Lord]

You could checkmy post in the strip threads for my opinion on the matter (well actualy you can't but thats beside the point). In short the dragon is in thE right here "an eye for adn eye and a tooth for s tooth" and of course a family for a family. what V did was unjustifiable and I hope V suffers for it :smallfurious:


GO TO ****ING HELL V!
While I agree that is was wrong for V to have killed the younger black dragon, your post disturbs me.

"A family for a family," really? That is your idea of justice? V's mate and children did not kill the mother dragon's son. They are innocent of any wrong doing and their lives should not be ended because of V's crime. Not just their lives but their existence all together! The dragon wants to bind their souls, which I am pretty sure means they would not go into the after life. However, the black dragon son does get an after life, (granted he was probably an evil creature which most likely means that his after life will not be a pleasant one). An innocent baker and the baker's two adopted children should not face oblivion just because someone that cares for them committed a terrible crime.

Heck, there is no telling how they might have reacted upon hearing that V killed a young black dragon just because it happened to be in the way of a side quest. In fact I am not entirely sure that they know V was adventuring at all.

In short, V's family is ignorant and innocent of any wrong doing. V should be punished, but his family should be left out of it as much as possible. Killing innocent children is wrong no matter the excuse. Denying them an afterlife is even worse.

[Axl_Rose]

People. It's not necessarily a matter of

1. V kills Dragon, family is safe

or

2. Dragon eats family, V doesn't kill dragon.

Here is what I am hoping for. The dragon does not actually go after the family; she merely wanted to taunt V, and make V realise that even their kind can demonstrate mercy and restraint, and thus deserve respect beyond sacks of exp.

Another alternative where neither V's children nor the dragon has to die would be as follows: The dragon is respected by the oracle and as such is granted the knowledge that V's transformation would occur, thereby not hanging around V's hometown to be fried by UberVarsuvius.

[Da Luniz]

V is gonna play around torturing that dragon in so many grotesque and terrible ways that her family is gonna be traumatized watching it. I'd be more worried about V than the dragon, V is going to lose EVERYTHING that matters anyway, the dragon is just a catalyst.

I honestly see this as the most likely outcome

giving the dragon the last laugh

[Underground]

I would guess the dragon is toast.

[Raging Gene Ray]

Killing incontinent children is wrong no matter the excuse.

Must have missed that comic...

All I have to say that's actually relevant is that I'm with everyone else who hopes it won't be as simple as V teleporting in, blasting the dragon, and being on hir merry way. One likely possibility is V being even more Draconian than the dragon as part of a vicious cycle of ever-increasing vengeance stakes.

V kills Dragon's Son.
Dragon threatens to kill AND soulbind V's family.
V kills, soulbinds, tortures AND enslaves Dragon.
Tiamat/The Dragon's friends take it out on the entire Elf race or something like that.

[NikkTheTrick]

Young dragon was quite combat-worthy and managed to single-handedly defeat whole OotS except V. Also, it should be noted that it was the dragon who attacked OotS first. So, V killing him was not evil at all - it was done to protect lives of V's friends (most of whom are good).

While I understand grief of the older dragon, V did nothing other than pursue combat his party got engaged in. If V is guilty, so would every single paladin out there. Hell, Saphire Guard got away with outright genocide and they were massacring defenseless children, not young adult dragons capable of taking on adventurer parties! V's actions are child's play compared to them!

[David Argall]

V was right to kill Junior and even more right to kill Ma.

These are black dragons. The only reason they do not kill and eat people is that the people are not close by. They are evil, evil, evil.

Have no sympathy for them.

[Rad]

V is gonna play around torturing that dragon in so many grotesque and terrible ways that her family is gonna be traumatized watching it. I'd be more worried about V than the dragon, V is going to lose EVERYTHING that matters anyway, the dragon is just a catalyst.

That would still be good enough... what I am really afraid is
V just killing everybody and everyone, dragon, family and all.

[Optimystik]

It would be funny if, after all this buildup, he warps in and Aarindariuses her in one round, followed by promptly relinquishing control to the fiends and calmly serving out his 36-second term in the Lower Planes.

[Chirios]

It would be funny if, after all this buildup, he warps in and Aarindariuses her in one round, followed by promptly relinquishing control to the fiends and calmly serving out his 36-second term in the Lower Planes.

Correction - V may not have to go to the Lower Planes at all, the fiends just said they would gain control of his soul.

[DigoDragon]

Here is what I am hoping for. The dragon does not actually go after the family; she merely wanted to taunt V, and make V realise that even their kind can demonstrate mercy and restraint, and thus deserve respect beyond sacks of exp.

This is what I've always been hoping for. :smallsmile: She seems like a smart dragon and I have been hoping that she would see that it would be far more satisfying to make a threat to kill V's family and not follow through, playing a mind game to fill V with guilt enough to distroy him from the inside out. Basically let V do the work for the dragon.

I guess we'll see. Usually dragons in fantasy stories get the raw deal and end up as just a statistic on an XP chart.

[Raging Gene Ray]

These are black dragons. The only reason they do not kill and eat people is that the people are not close by.

Just like goblins and orcs!

[Ladorak]

Personally I would consider it something of a karmic kick in the teeth if the dragon gets away.

An eye for an eye in NOT justice. Religion, philosophy AND science agree on this point (Possibly making it the only point in the world they do).

She wants to TORTURE INNOCENT CHILDREN'S SOULS FOR ALL ETERNITY!

And the prime difference between orcs and goblins and Dragons is that (Black) Dragons kill for fun and are several dozen tons of muscle, armour plating, breath weapon, teeth and claws.

I hope she dies, although in light of her loss (And basic human kindness) I hope it's quick and painless.

[Snake-Aes]

Not me there's no better joy than dragon slaying.

Nothing beats the experience of roleplaying the evil monk who was hired as a dragon slaver and tamer. Best Campaign i've had in years!

[Animefunkmaster]

It would be funny if the tele didn't go to the dragon at all, but she went to Belkar to kill him. heh.

[hamishspence]

In D&D, Evil can run the gamut from Well Intentioned (but very ruthless) Extremist, to Soul-devouring Monstrosity.

Where do black dragons fit on this scale? Depends on the source.

Sympathy For Dragons- not as misplaced as one might think. In D&D novels like Cormyr, we see a treaty (of sorts) between elfkind and dragonkind, after a duel between the black dragon ruler and the elf mage (dragon was permitted to leave alive after losing the duel)

or, in Azure Bonds, we see a red dragon and a paladin teaming up against a greater threat, and the heroes are just a little sad to see the dragon die.

the young dragon was acting in defense of home and the hoard his parent left him to guard. while its possible that he's killed innocents in the past, there is no evidence of that in the strip.

Mother dragon's rage is understandable, though her plans for revenge are indeed reprehensible.

[Tensu]

First off, I would like to point out that it was NOT the OotS that acted in self-defense, but was in fact the young dragon.

If a squadron of armed robbers broke into your home, what would your assumtion be? the OotS had no buisness robbing anyone regardless of their alignment. (that said, the OotS seemed oblivious that they where robbing anyone until the dragon showed up) even if the dragon hid low while the OotS made off with everything they owned, then what? even if his mother wouldn't punish him for failure, if word ever got out of what happened both he and his mother would be in mortal danger from vengeful dragons trying to protect the B-dragon rep. the OotS backed the young dragon into a corner just by entering the cave. he had no choice but to fight. his capability of fighting is a non-issue.

that said, while the dragon did have to attack the OotS V. did not have to finish off the dragon. and even if death was his perferred method of neutralizing a threat, he still didn't have to use disentigrate. and while they needed, or at least thought they needed the starmetal, they did not have to take the dragon's horde. that was an action of pure greed.

thinking that all members of a species is evil just because the majority is is very flawed thinking. heck, thinking that something being evil is an excuse to kill it is flawed thinking, lawful neutral at best, and certainly not good. being good is very hard, and very risky. it takes a very special kind of person to look a soul-devouring monstrosity in the eyes and offer it a chance at redemption.

[Ladorak]

thinking that all members of a species is evil just because the majority is is very flawed thinking. heck, thinking that something being evil is an excuse to kill it is flawed thinking, lawful neutral at best, and certainly not good. being good is very hard, and very risky. it takes a very special kind of person to look a soul-devouring monstrosity in the eyes and offer it a chance at redemption.

Black Dragon Alignment: Always Chaotic evil. It says always, which I assume means always

[hamishspence]

according to MM, Always means exceptions are very very rare (but do occur) Savage Species "exceptions are either unique or one in a million"

still, according to various sourcebooks (BoED, Heroes of Horror, Champions of Valor), killing evil prisoners is not "always OK" Nor is it always OK to invade an evil being's home and kill it, without a reason, like, its been raiding towns and you've been asked to stop the raids. And a dragon under V's control, is a prisoner.

[Morty]

There's also the fact that this whole thing with black dragon might be a jab at the unbelivable stupidity of any sentient, intelligent mortal creature being "Always Chaotic Evil". It might very well not be, but it'd definetly fit the theme of the comic.

[HandofShadows]

Better re-read it. The drgon was going to be under control for about 1 more round. As for moma dragon, I hope it dies.

[*Templar*]

It never ceases to amaze me how people have been so conditioned to moral relativism that they can't grasp a D&D world where good and evil have objective, concrete meanings, and certain beings are always evil and self-identify as such.

Even setting that aside, no "eye for an eye"-style arguments apply in the mother dragon's favor here because she is not planning on doing to V the same thing V did to her. Were she only planning to kill V's family, the argument would at least be factually plausible. However, she's also planning to eternally soul-bind them, which mean's she going further than V did. Therefore she is not taking an eye for an eye; to maintain (and strain) the metaphor, she's taking both eyes and both ears for an eye - and then some. Therefore, all such arguments are intellectually bankrupt.

[Ladorak]

It's an armoured plated, flying, killing machine that lives for hundreds of years and it's programmed by the gods themselves (Or god singular, depending on canon) to kill and aquire wealth and kill and aquire wealth and so on and so forth until it dies. Killing it seconds before it resumes its' attempts to kill you and your friends is not a huge leap of morality. Killing it to prevent it enslaving your children's souls is not a huge leap of morality.

[Morty]

It never ceases to amaze me how people have been so conditioned to moral relativism that they can't grasp a D&D world where good and evil have objective, concrete meanings, and certain beings are always evil and self-identify as such.

And it never amazes me how people can't grasp that while people do understand how D&D moralty works, they might think it's incredibly stupid and therefore can't help but not think according to it. And that the comic discussed here frequently challenges the black-and-white setup.

[hamishspence]

Chromatic Dragons, going by D&D novels and sourcebooks, are a bit more than just "kill + loot" in their personalities and motivations.

V seemed perfectly happy to use the younger dragon to threaten the rest of the party. And the younger dragon broke off the attack when V was talking- only attacked V after 3 spells had been cast at it.

and one of the traits of the objective alignment system, according to several sourcebooks, is murder (even murder of an evil creature) is an evil act.

V's killing of the younger dragon, if not murder, was not exactly self-defence, or defence of others "No-one eats my friend and lives to see the next sunrise" shows premeditation.

[Kish]

Black Dragon Alignment: Always Chaotic evil. It says always, which I assume means always
See, this is your problem: Thinking game mechanic terms mean the same thing those terms do in real life.

It never ceases to amaze me how people have been so conditioned to moral relativism that they can't grasp a D&D world where good and evil have objective, concrete meanings, and certain beings are always evil and self-identify as such.
On the other hand, it's long since ceased to surprise me at all that people who have entirely the wrong idea about what default D&D morality is...choose to be incredibly condescending to anyone who disagrees with their idea.

[Snake-Aes]

See, this is your problem: Thinking game mechanic terms mean the same thing those terms do in real life.

Mama dragon's attitude only reinforces her described alignment. What is there to judge other than she being an evil bitch who lost an eye and takes revenge tearing off both eyes, reaming the eye sockets, then plucking off the arms, breaking his knees with the plucked arms, and then deafened through excessive Celine Dion music exposure?

[SteveMB]

I hope she dies, although in light of her loss (And basic human kindness) I hope it's quick and painless.

Well, V presumably now has the power to take her down, either quickly and efficiently or slowly and painfully. Which option s/he chooses will be a clue of just how far V has fallen....

[Ladorak]

Wait wait wait... We're talking about a world where concepts like good and evil, law and chaos are not just concepts. They have physical, spiritual and divine manifestations numbering on the infinate.

Sure in the real world calling someone 'Chaotic Good' (Or whatever) is simple physcology for the really, really, really dumb. This is not the real world however, it's a world where the forces of Chaos and Good have physical manifestation.

How do you overcome (Some) damage reduction? With your alignment, every single creature (With the possible expections of the true neutral) is charged with the forces of creation. Chaos and law, good and evil. It's not called morality, it's called alighment.

This is not a world created by random chance nor are the creatures of this world the product of evolution. Forget all conventional morality, starting with Plato and ending with Sadre. None of it applies here.

In this world the Black Dragon is a creature charged with the (Spiritual?) power of chaos and evil. As such they will always be chaotic and evil. This is the way they are created, programed. They will always be evil because the gods will that they will be evil and the gods control all the powers of creation.

Sure, they've kinda been screwed... But when Harvey becomes Two-face in the Dark Knight he's been screwed, you still gotta take him down tho.

[hamishspence]

thats Fiends. No Evil or Chaotic subtype on black dragons (or any other Chromatic dragon.) How evil a dragon is can vary a great deal.

Evil can mean the bullying landlord just as much as the Blackguard. There is a lot of shading, even in D&D.

[Kish]

In this world the Black Dragon is a creature charged with the (Spiritual?) power of chaos and evil.
See, I know hamishspence's source, and it says what he says it does.

I don't know your source, but in all these assertions you haven't named one, and I doubt you have one. You can, of course, simply assert your opinions and expect them to be treated as authoritative--but you'll probably be disappointed.

[hamishspence]

i'm used to looking at dragons the way the novels, and 3.5 sourcebooks, often portray them- as movers and shakers, to be negotiated with as well as fought.

Sure, they behave in a Chaotic fashion and an Evil fashion, often. So does Belkar. And Hinjo intervened to save his life, when he thought it was the right thing to do.

[The Extinguisher]

On the topic of Always Chaotic Evil not being always, I find myself thinking that if you are of the very intelligent race of Always Chaotic Evil, and you're the exception, you should probably go out of your way to explain that, and not attack random people assuming they know.

And how are people rooting for the soul bind in this one? Sure, V's dealing with evil, but soul bind is EVIL!. Bolding included.

[Tensu]

Well, I spent an hour typing a post, then the forums crashed for five hours, and now it's gone. yipeeeee!

so let me try to replace it:

@Templar: at what point did you convince yourself I was arguing moral relativism? was it when I said stealing is wrong even if it's from someone bad? was it when I said murder is wrong even if it's someone of questionable morals? or was it when I said that the good guys need to adhere to a particular standard of good-doing?

I apologize for the preceding heavy dose of sarcasm, but you can't tell me you didn't earn it. I've never in my life argued ethical for relativism (though I've made some pretty fervent stands against it). what I'm arguing is that the OotS's actions where not justified by a static definition of good and evil.

as for self-identifying as evil, nobody sane would ever do that, at least if they understood what evil meant. take a look at RC, by far the most realistic villain in the comic, who says something to the effect of "we are only evil in the sense that we oppose those who choose to call themselves "good"". RC clearly doesn't believe he's evil. admitting you're evil is admitting you're wrong, so the only ones who would self-identify as evil are the insane and those who don't understand what the word means.

I also never said mama black dragon, hereafter referred to as MBD, was in the right. It is possible for two conflicting people to both be in the wrong.

@ Ladorak: I would argue that the real world is a world where good and evil have physical, spiritual, and divine manifestations numbering on the infinite.

I'm not arguing for relative morality, I never have, and I never will (at least not in any grand terms). What I'm arguing for is logical morality.

trying to be evil is essentially trying to be the bad guy. all villains think their actions are justified on some level or they would not take those actions.

and while demons/devils/ whatever are generally the exception, if a being is capable of reason, it is capable of being reasoned with. "evil" is just a more dramatic way of saying "ignorant" or "foolish". people do the wrong thing because they think it's the right thing (like RC) or that they are somehow entitled to it (like MBD) or because they are crazy (Xykon, apparently) or because they don't believe in/understand the concept of morality (most lesser villains?). If they are taught what they should be doing, they will do it. they problem is wether or not they'll listen. a good character should try to get them to listen whenever conditions allow.

"fantasy" doesn't mean unrealistic, it doesn't mean have your characters act like stereotypical one-dimensional morons or to explain everything with "It's magic!". a fantasy world can be both fantastic and realistic. it can both be unexplainable yet logical. it can have rhyme and reason to it. it should have rhyme and reason to it.

[Finwe]

The morality of V killing the young black dragon is irrelevant in this case. Even if V had intentionally hunted down the young black dragon for the sake of hurting the mother, the mother has absolutely no excuse to kill and soul-bind innocent bystanders. If she is killed while attempting premeditated murder, it's 100% justified.

[Tensu]

The morality of V killing the young black dragon is irrelevant in this case. Even if V had intentionally hunted down the young black dragon for the sake of hurting the mother, the mother has absolutely no excuse to kill and soul-bind innocent bystanders. If she is killed while attempting premeditated murder, it's 100% justified.

again, I never said her actions where justified. they're both in the wrong.

[Finwe]

again, I never said her actions where justified. they're both in the wrong.

My post was not directed at you, merely a general comment on the thread.

[Kish]

These threads have always involved multiple parallel debates.

What D&D says about dragons and about evil is one of them. The specific justifications of the actions of the young black dragon is another. The specific justifications of the actions of the ancient black dragon is yet another. The specific justifications of Vaarsuvius' actions is yet a fourth.

The trouble occurs when the debates get mixed up and people respond as though only the debates they find interesting/graspable were actually taking place, so we get, "No, black dragons aren't guaranteed to be evil" being parsed as, "This particular ancient black dragon isn't doing anything wrong by hideously killing innocents." (And then there's SporeGames, who...I have no clue, but s/he, like everyone else here, speaks for one person, not for everyone on the forum who hasn't publicly endorsed the polar opposite position from his/hers.)

For the record, my positions are:
Vaarsuvius killing the young black dragon was wrong. Vaarsuvius will not be wrong to kill the ancient black dragon. The ancient black dragon would have been perfectly justified in eating Vaarsuvius, but going after innocents proves that SHE (nothing about her species, just her) is evil. But at his/her best, Vaarsuvius will never seriously consider that killing either dragon might be wrong, and that's one of the reasons why s/he hasn't been better than Neutral in a very long time, if ever.

[*Templar*]

so let me try to replace it:

@Templar: at what point did you convince yourself I was arguing moral relativism? was it when I said stealing is wrong even if it's from someone bad? was it when I said murder is wrong even if it's someone of questionable morals? or was it when I said that the good guys need to adhere to a particular standard of good-doing?

At what point did you convince yourself my post was supposed to be a response to you? Was it when I didn't quote you? Was it when I didn't make any reference to your arguments whatsoever?

[Tensu]

I'm sorry, I'm used to forums where everyone attacks me constantly, and claims I said things that I didn't. as a result, I'm in the habit of assuming people are talking to me even when what they're saying has nothing to do with what I'm saying.:smallfrown:

[Lizard Lord]

Must have missed that comic...



wow, how did I make that mistake?

[Talyn]

Killing the MBD - and, heck, the young adult black dragon (hereafter YABD) - cannot be deemed anything other than a public service to the world at large. Black dragons are SERIOUSLY bad news on a macro scale. The typical (that is, not the one-in-million exception) black dragon is greedy beyond the wildest reaches of human avarice, kills for pleasure as well as for food, and devastates their hunting grounds for miles around. It is essentially a one-being plague of locusts, if locusts were actively malicious.

While there are exceptions (to the one-in-a-million extent) in Black Dragon character alignment, we've seen absolutely NO evidence - none! - that either MBD or YABD falls into that exception. Evil beings can still have admirable qualities: courage, faith, cunning, love. That's one of the The Giant's major preaching points in his worldbuilding. That doesn't mean that they aren't any less evil. The MBD's utter malice and targeting of innocents to pay back Vaarsuvius for the loss of her child demonstrates how a truly vile being acts upon their love. Rooting for her because, somehow, Vaarsuvius "deserves it" is horrifically myopic.

So, to recap: Killing a black dragon while in the course of an adventure was not evil. The MBD is an inherently hateful and sadistic creature who nevertheless loved her son dearly. Her need for vengeance is understandable, her proposed plan perfectly in character, and she still needs to be stopped with extreme prejudice.

I want MBD to die efficiently with a minimum of collateral damage. That's the best-case scenario for Vaarsuvius, his family, and the world at large.

I'm under no illusions that the best-case scenario is going to happen, of course...

[Duff]

First off, I would like to point out that it was NOT the OotS that acted in self-defense, but was in fact the young dragon.

Actually, the knights went into a cavern with no indication what (if anything) lived there, saw the black dragon and started running away before the dragon attacked - oots0182

V destroyed the dragon using a potent attacking spell (disintergrate) when time was short before the dragon returned to battle. While it chatted with V during the combat, it made no mention of wanting to negotiate, surrender or otherwise stop fighting.
V could be good (but not very - very good would have been V trying to talk the dragon out of fighting before suggesting, suggesting first is the realisic "you ar an evil black dragon and I have no bonuses on my bluff/negotiate/other skill roll.

[*Templar*]

Killing the MBD - and, heck, the young adult black dragon (hereafter YABD) - cannot be deemed anything other than a public service to the world at large. Black dragons are SERIOUSLY bad news on a macro scale. The typical (that is, not the one-in-million exception) black dragon is greedy beyond the wildest reaches of human avarice, kills for pleasure as well as for food, and devastates their hunting grounds for miles around. It is essentially a one-being plague of locusts, if locusts were actively malicious.

While there are exceptions (to the one-in-a-million extent) in Black Dragon character alignment, we've seen absolutely NO evidence - none! - that either MBD or YABD falls into that exception. Evil beings can still have admirable qualities: courage, faith, cunning, love. That's one of the The Giant's major preaching points in his worldbuilding. That doesn't mean that they aren't any less evil. The MBD's utter malice and targeting of innocents to pay back Vaarsuvius for the loss of her child demonstrates how a truly vile being acts upon their love. Rooting for her because, somehow, Vaarsuvius "deserves it" is horrifically myopic.

So, to recap: Killing a black dragon while in the course of an adventure was not evil. The MBD is an inherently hateful and sadistic creature who nevertheless loved her son dearly. Her need for vengeance is understandable, her proposed plan perfectly in character, and she still needs to be stopped with extreme prejudice.


Well said. While the remote theoretical possibility exists of an individual of an "always chaotic evil" species such as black dragons who does not fit the species' alignment mold, the rule must be "Guilty until proven innocent" - and anyone who thinks that the mother dragon's passion for her offspring somehow serves as evidence in her defense is seriously confused about the nature of evil. In fact, the way in which that natural passion has manifested itself serves as confirming, damning testimony to this black dragon being no better than the general rule for her kind.

[Warren Dew]

And a dragon under V's control, is a prisoner.

For the record, the younger dragon was no longer under Vaarsuvius's control when it was killed. The position shows it actually attacking, but evidently losing the initiative roll to Vaarsuvius.

[SeptimusMagistos]

Black dragons are evil. The mother is evil. The young dragon would have grown up to be evil. The horde was most likely gathered by attacking semi-innocent travelers and population centers.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with killing a creature whose default alignment is evil unless you have good reason to suspect it isn't. And in all probability both of the dragons were indeed evil.

If the dragon tried to kill V, this would have been acceptable. Going after someone else for something they didn't do shows that the dragon is evil and anything that happens to her is justified.

[Spiky]

I'm sorry, I'm used to forums where everyone attacks me constantly, and claims I said things that I didn't. as a result, I'm in the habit of assuming people are talking to me even when what they're saying has nothing to do with what I'm saying.:smallfrown:

Perhaps you are mistaken in those forums as well. The reason for quoting is to directly respond to one person. If no quote, assume they aren't talking to you individually.


Personally, the brief time we've had to see the ancient dragon has made me want more. She is the most intelligent character shown so far in 635 strips, perhaps that is why I want more. (or maybe the fact that she is the most optimized D&D character so far) How about a spinoff comic centered on her life. That's what I want. Nearly 1000 years should give plenty of material. Then it won't even matter that V is about to toast her.

[DanReiv]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with killing a creature whose default alignment is evil

That's not true. Killing is an evil act. By SRD.


"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings.

"Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient.

Ring a bell ? Just because you wrap plain murders in some metagaming excuse doesn't mean they're aren't evil acts.

And in V's case it would apply to both the dragon and Kubota.

[Finwe]

Perhaps you are mistaken in those forums as well. The reason for quoting is to directly respond to one person. If no quote, assume they aren't talking to you individually.


Personally, the brief time we've had to see the ancient dragon has made me want more. She is the most intelligent character shown so far in 635 strips, perhaps that is why I want more. (or maybe the fact that she is the most optimized D&D character so far) How about a spinoff comic centered on her life. That's what I want. Nearly 1000 years should give plenty of material. Then it won't even matter that V is about to toast her.

She's not really that intelligent. She made a classic evil overlord mistake by outlining to the hero exactly what her plan was, before executing it. What, specifically, made you see her as being exceptionally intelligent?

[LurkerInPlayground]

She's not really that intelligent. She made a classic evil overlord mistake by outlining to the hero exactly what her plan was, before executing it. What, specifically, made you see her as being exceptionally intelligent?
Put in D&D nerd-speak: That's really a wisdom issue and not an intelligence issue.

Put another way, she's foolish but not stupid.

She's intelligent mostly for the fact that she has an interest in studying other cultures and developed a particular interest in developing her magical abilities beyond the norm for a dragon. She also shows some modicum of creativity with the new spells she has obtained and knows what a Forcecage is. She also analyzed the best time to attack V, particularly when V is low on spells and isolated from the group.

So she's not especially stupid, but it was a bit much to gloat about her plan. She could have easily done that *after* she had slain V's family and soul bound the kids . . . and through a Sending spell easily enough.

However, I don't much care that she dies. I find her abilities to be respectable and her world-view somewhat admirable, but not enough so that I much care what happens to her in service of a narrative imperative. She understands perfectly the consequences of using force and should expect no immunity from V.

[LurkerInPlayground]

It's an armoured plated, flying, killing machine that lives for hundreds of years and it's programmed by the gods themselves (Or god singular, depending on canon) to kill and aquire wealth and kill and aquire wealth and so on and so forth until it dies. Killing it seconds before it resumes its' attempts to kill you and your friends is not a huge leap of morality. Killing it to prevent it enslaving your children's souls is not a huge leap of morality.
I thought in Rich went to especial pain in his setting to establish that monsters are not mindless killing machines.

Which is why the mama dragon took offense to the idea that she might be interested in the starmetal over her son. Same thing goes to Redcloak and his rant with Miko.

In a different setting, this might be a perfectly valid conclusion about monsters, but definitely not in OotS.

[Kai Maera]

That's not true. Killing is an evil act. By SRD.



Ring a bell ? Just because you wrap plain murders in some metagaming excuse doesn't mean they're aren't evil acts.

And in V's case it would apply to both the dragon and Kubota.

SRD? Who wrote SRD? Was it a group of people whose opinions don't matter when even books so staunch as the Book of Exalted Deeds find that killing in self defense is not an evil act?

You know, the same book that said killing for loot, money, power, or prevention of harm to others is evil?

[kusje]

For the record, the younger dragon was no longer under Vaarsuvius's control when it was killed. The position shows it actually attacking, but evidently losing the initiative roll to Vaarsuvius.

For the record, the first shot was fired while the dragon was not in control. (He stopped being under V's control when V changed back to an elf)

[Talyn]

That's not true. Killing is an evil act. By SRD.



Even ignoring the fact that this argument would make essentially every party in D&D ever evil (since D&D is, you know, at least one half WAR GAME!), killing the young adult dragon falls VERY heavily on the "respect for life" scale. Black dragons kill EVERYTHING for miles around. They have acid breath, acid blood, and they poison the swamps they live in. They kill for fun. They are monsters in every sense of the word.

No way is killing one of them evil.

[Ladorak]

I thought in Rich went to especial pain in his setting to establish that monsters are not mindless killing machines.

Which is why the mama dragon took offense to the idea that she might be interested in the starmetal over her son. Same thing goes to Redcloak and his rant with Miko.

In a different setting, this might be a perfectly valid conclusion about monsters, but definitely not in OotS.

Quite right, let me re-establish... They are flying, armour plated, acid breathing hyper intelligent killing machines programmed by the gods themselves blah blah blah...

And (Spoiler) we actually know the gods created evil creatures for the sole purpose of deserving to be killed by good ones.
Which frankly is totally unfair, certainly the Dark One is in the right on this particular issue, but not in his responce to it... Because he's evil

[Kaytara]

Since this has been revived, I might as well mention something interesting I found on a re-read.

Comic 182 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0182.html). Look VERY closely at the first panel. You can see that Durkon and Roy do not even have their weapons out when the dragon attacks them. Heck, they aren't even reaching for them. Haley and Belkar do, presumably in reaction to the attacking dragon.

It's official. The dragon attacked them first while they were mostly unarmed and attempting to flee.

Regardless of how dragons are treated in general, this completely frees the OotS from any moral obligation to the dragon. They do not owe it to him to go out of their way to keep the dragon alive, especially after he swallowed a party member. To the people arguing that they should have left while the dragon was hypnotized, thus avoiding its tragic death, why would that even occur to them at that point? They had, after an extremely one-sided battle that had very nearly ended fatally for two of the party members, managed to subdue the dragon by luck. Why would the dragon's well-being be any concern of theirs at that point?

Yes, there's the argument that they were intruding in its territory and it was allowed to defend itself, and so on. This is rendered moot not only by the fact that the Order was clearly trying to flee from the dragon as soon as they became aware of him, but also by the dragon's (a sentient being and more intelligent than most of the Order) own lack of willingness or effort to extend the same courtesy to the humanoids that everyone seems to expect from them.
The dragon talks about them as stupid humanoids and tasty snacks. It did not mind killing them in the slightest. Having been on top of the situation for almost all of the battle and being close to invulnerable to their attacks, the dragon had plenty of opportunities to try and prevent bloodshed, but it didn't want to.


For the record, the first shot was fired while the dragon was not in control. (He stopped being under V's control when V changed back to an elf)

To be more precise, the spell ended while Vaarsuvius was talking. Where V casts the first Disintegrate, the dragon is actually already reaching toward V with jaws open and ready for attack. If he had attempted to say something like "No, don't!" rather than trying to resume his snacking on the delicious adventurers, and V had blasted him anyway, then we would actually have a case.

[kusje]

It's official. The dragon attacked them first while they were mostly unarmed and attempting to flee.


Unarmed?! They are armed to the teeth! Just because they were not wielding their weapons doesn't mean they were unarmed. I agree that they were fleeing though.

[Kaytara]

Unarmed?! They are armed to the teeth! Just because they were not wielding their weapons doesn't mean they were unarmed. I agree that they were fleeing though.

Okay, bad choice of words. But "armed to the teeth" is a completely meaningless description in DnD, as ANYONE out in the wild would be stupid not to have a weapon or two.

But yes, I meant that they had not drawn their weapons, and were thus obviously not hostile.

[Morty]

I thought in Rich went to especial pain in his setting to establish that monsters are not mindless killing machines.


He did, but apparently, in many cases it apparently still doesn't work.

[Kaytara]

Actually... Yes, Rich has established perfectly well that monsters are not mindless killing machines.

Exhibit A: the dragon.

They are not mindless killing machines. They are devious, cunning, self-aware killing machines. And they know it. :P

[Volkov]

Even ignoring the fact that this argument would make essentially every party in D&D ever evil (since D&D is, you know, at least one half WAR GAME!), killing the young adult dragon falls VERY heavily on the "respect for life" scale. Black dragons kill EVERYTHING for miles around. They have acid breath, acid blood, and they poison the swamps they live in. They kill for fun. They are monsters in every sense of the word.

No way is killing one of them evil.
Would you kill a sick old great wyrm red dragon's last chicklet? Which is only 2 days old? The Ancient black dragon is no longer capable of having any more kids, thus V killed it's blood line. Killing a blood line is even more evil than killing a person. In fact it's not just plain old evil, it's an act of cruelty.

[Kish]

Even ignoring the fact that this argument would make essentially every party in D&D ever evil

As a D&D player, I can say that while most (not all) campaigns are heavily based around combat and involve killing, it's really not that hard to make sure everyone you kill is actually evil (in terms of actions, not in terms of "the Monster Manual sez its race is"). A remarkable number of people act like if thinking about the morality of your characters' actions at all is part of D&D, D&D suddenly ceases to be any fun at all.


Black dragons
You know, the Player's Handbook defines judging by races rather than individuals as a Lawful Evil quality. I happen to agree with it, but that's less meaningful to this latest iteration of a debate about "what D&D morality actually is" which has roamed the Internet for years.

Kaytara...


You can see that Durkon and Roy do not even have their weapons out when the dragon attacks them. Heck, they aren't even reaching for them. Haley and Belkar do, presumably in reaction to the attacking dragon.

You're choosing to interpret the first panel as "attacking dragon, Haley and Belkar pulling weapons in response, Roy and Durkon not doing so yet." Considering they're nowhere near the darkness in that picture and therefore more than a second would seem to have passed since the strip immediately preceding, I'd say you're putting roughly a ton of excessive weight (which happens to support your preferred interpretation of the morality of the situation) on whether Rich chose to draw tumbling-Durkon with a hammer or Roy with his greatclub ready. Would you like me to assemble a list of all the times between Roy getting his greatclub and him getting his sword back that he was drawn without the club? (For that matter, going by just online strips, the greatclub itself rather appeared out of nowhere.) They are certainly not attempting to flee.

It looks to me like we skipped from the darkness scene to a few rounds later. Everyone was locked in battle. Durkon had dropped his hammer along with tumbling. Roy's greatclub--might have just gotten melted, actually, considering that he appears to have taken the acid breath full-force. Vaarsuvius noted that the dragon seemed to be mopping the floor with the rest of the Order--a rather silly thing to say if all the dragon had yet done was pin Elan and breathe on Roy (and why is Durkon tumbling, then?). Official? Yes, to people who already agreed with you.


To be more precise, the spell ended while Vaarsuvius was talking. Where V casts the first Disintegrate, the dragon is actually already reaching toward V with jaws open and ready for attack.
See, I can look at the other comic you're referring to and see that neither Roy nor Durkon is drawn holding a weapon, and know what you're talking about, even while I think you're wrong.

I can't even do that with this claim. The dragon's head is exactly the same distance behind Vaarsuvius when s/he blasts him as it is in panel 3, when s/he demands the location of the starmetal. Vaarsuvius states that the dragon will only be controlled for one more round, then casts Disintegrate on the controlled dragon. The dragon--his head still in the exact same place--says "the wheels on the bus go round and round." Vaarsuvius blasts him again.

[LoRdofCookIES]

Umm.. guys......
I know 635 was a great comic and all...
And that is obvious that V has scary arcane power right now...
But during the last fight, the dragon simply used Antimagic Field
to counter V's magic.
What makes you think that the Dragon doesn't stand a chance???

[Snake-Aes]

Umm.. guys......
I know 635 was a great comic and all...
And that is obvious that V has scary arcane power right now...
But during the last fight, the dragon simply used Antimagic Field
to counter V's magic.
What makes you think that the Dragon doesn't stand a chance???

Countermeasures.

[Kish]

Umm.. guys......
I know 635 was a great comic and all...
And that is obvious that V has scary arcane power right now...
But during the last fight, the dragon simply used Antimagic Field
to counter V's magic.
What makes you think that the Dragon doesn't stand a chance???
Vaarsuvius will know to prepare for Antimagic Field this time, and the dragon won't be prepared for having to fight anyone, much less the most powerful wizard/sorcerer/archmage thing that ever lived. There are spells that go through Antimagic Field--all epic spells do, for starters.

[Volkov]

Vaarsuvius will know to prepare for Antimagic Field this time, and the dragon won't be prepared for having to fight anyone, much less the most powerful wizard/sorcerer/archmage thing that ever lived. There are spells that go through Antimagic Field--all epic spells do, for starters.

Mordenkainen's disjunction can kill an anti-magic field. And V's ECL will allow h** a practically guaranteed dispelling of the field. And it's not even epic.

[*Templar*]

Would you kill a sick old great wyrm red dragon's last chicklet? Which is only 2 days old?

Unequivocally, yes.


The Ancient black dragon is no longer capable of having any more kids,

Thank the gods.


thus V killed it's blood line. Killing a blood line is even more evil than killing a person. In fact it's not just plain old evil, it's an act of cruelty.

If I wipe out the hornet's nest in the tree in my front yard near where my kids play with a can of bug spray, I have destroyed a blood line, but I have certainly not done evil. Wiping out a family of black or red dragons is the same thing scaled up by a factor of thousands.

[*Templar*]

You know, the Player's Handbook defines judging by races rather than individuals as a Lawful Evil quality.

Which is why the source material makes essential universal moral value generalizations by race.

Darn it, the reactionaries were right! D&D IS corrupting! It's making us all Evil by trickery! Get it away from the kids!

[whatchamacallit]

Personaly I'm wondering how much soup they'll be able to make out of the carcass, assuming V leaves a carcass...

[Kish]

Which is why the source material makes essential universal moral value generalizations by race.
D&D has enough writers, and enough different agendas, that if you gave specifics I might actually agree that that is the correct interpretation of what (some) sources say. However, since you didn't, I'm limited to observing that it would only a take a single neutral goblin anywhere in the D&D source material to prove what you literally said wrong, and the actual source material in question includes a succubus paladin and sections of the Draconomicon devoted to--imagine--non-evil chromatic dragons (and non-good metallic ones).

Cultural evil is different from inherent evil, mind. I take no issue with the idea that the sourcebooks paint orcish culture as likely to result in most orcs being savage brutes; R. A. Salvatore, who, for good or ill, essentially got to define drow culture, lifted sizable chunks of it directly from real-world Nazi Germany.

[*Templar*]

D&D has enough writers, and enough different agendas, that if you gave specifics I might actually agree that that is the correct interpretation of what (some) sources say. However, since you didn't, I'm limited to observing that it would only a take a single neutral goblin anywhere in the D&D source material to prove what you literally said wrong, and the actual source material in question includes a succubus paladin and sections of the Draconomicon devoted to--imagine--non-evil chromatic dragons (and non-good metallic ones).


Always chaotic evil.

Yes, yes, we all know that the possibility is left open of one-in-a-million exceptions, and we've even been given examples like the one you mention, but the fact is the source material itself makes general moral judgments about races and encourages players to do so as well.

[Doug Lampert]

Always chaotic evil.

Yes, yes, we all know that the possibility is left open of one-in-a-million exceptions, and we've even been given examples like the one you mention, but the fact is the source material itself makes general moral judgments about races and encourages players to do so as well.

Always has a definition in the rules. It isn't the POSSIBILITY of an exception being left open, it is rather stated that exception exist.

Where in the rules does it make moral judgements about races or encourage players to do so as well? Is that where it TELLS you that there are exceptions? Or is it were it TELLS you that making judgements by races is Evil?

Even secondary sources that claim killing demons is always justified limit this to creatures with the Evil Subtype, which Black Dragons don't have.

The sources tell you NOTHING that says killing a draconic prisoner is ever justified, find anything that says this. You keep right on bolding ALWAYS like it must mean what you want it to even when the rules repeatedly tell you it doesn't mean that. But all the bold font in the world won't make you right.

[Ladorak]

Always has a definition in the rules. It isn't the POSSIBILITY of an exception being left open, it is rather stated that exception exist.

Although I don't have the book with me... I'm almost certain this is wrong.


Where in the rules does it make moral judgements about races or encourage players to do so as well?

Open monster's manual, any page should do. Look at entry, read alignment.


The sources tell you NOTHING that says killing a draconic prisoner is ever justified,

Reread the comic, Suggestion wears off the same round it dies. V says so. It wasn't a prisoner. it was a totally free (Sorry to labour the point) armour plated, acid breathing, flying, hyper intelligent killing machine that was seconds away from killing people.


You keep right on bolding

k

[hamishspence]

Open MM to back- read alignment. Even Always X alignment is suggested as having exceptions.

[Rotipher]

Not to mention that being Evil-aligned isn't, in itself, a capital crime. Doing evil deeds can be, but an Evil creature that's never actually harmed other sentient beings (even if it's only due to cowardice, lack of opportunity, squeamishness, etc) doesn't automatically deserve to be killed.

[Kish]

Reread the comic, Suggestion wears off the same round it dies. V says so.
Yes, but why were they still there? Vaarsuvius' Suggestion has a duration of 1 hour/caster level. So they sat around for at least 11 hours, probably more, because Vaarsuvius had decided to use a dragon s/he already planned to kill to hold the rest of his/her party prisoner.

Vaarsuvius is Good: "I suggest you stop attacking us and tell the rest of my party that we're LEAVING, NOW."
Vaarsuvius is a less bloodthirsty shade of Neutral, but still greedy: "I suggest you perform watch-me-abuse-the-Suggestion-spell-to-copy-Dominate..." They get the starmetal, they leave, they're miles away when the Suggestion wears off.
Vaarsuvius is distinctly Neutral, wants to bully the rest of his/her party, has already vowed that the dragon will not live to see the next sunrise, and is second most likely of the Order to think "listed alignment Evil=valid target": Vaarsuvius does what s/he did, and months later discovers why it was a bad idea even without any moral considerations.

[e1_conquistador]

Not I. You sell your soul to protect what you love, teh very least you should get is the ability to quickly reduce your enemies to tiny, tiny pieces. Plus the dragons a bloody annoying, arrogant git, just like all spellcasting monsters...

[Dacia Brabant]

You could checkmy post in the strip threads for my opinion on the matter (well actualy you can't but thats beside the point). In short the dragon is in thE right here "an eye for adn eye and a tooth for s tooth" and of course a family for a family. what V did was unjustifiable and I hope V suffers for it :smallfurious:

You sir need to go read The Oresteia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oresteia), right now.

Lex Talionis (your "eye for an eye justice") has been relegated to the ashbin of history for thousands of years and rightly so. Nobody who lives within civilized societies* today can legally assert the so-called right of retribution, it's unequivocally wrong and those who still adhere to it are only holding us back from peace.


*qualifier: by this I mean mass society, city-state or nation-state or otherwise, as contrasted to tribal society where this is sometimes still treated as law.

[hamishspence]

Or, for that matter, if the harm they do is the sort of harm they can get away with- the bully, as opposed to the killer.

A common theme is to have the evil person get a job that allows them to indulge their tendencies, with the sanction of the local authority.

The Dentist in the Little Shop of Horrors musical- about as evil as a law-abiding citizen commonly gets. Doesn't mean its right to kill him.

[GSFB]

Will V kill MBD?

No.


There is no MBD. The whole event was a complicated illusion/suggestion effect put in place by the 3 Fiends to make V play along.

V will arrive to find the family already destroyed. Destroyed by the 3 Fiends.

Thus, even "ultimate arcane power" will have failed V.

Result? V surrenders to the evil within, and acts as the willing servent of the 3 Fiends. V's task?

Destroying all "good" forces of magic, for revenge, for giving V the false hope that magic was useful for anything good.

Result? The 3 Fiends can wipe out the forces of good.

Oh, and the Oracle? The Oracle is on it. Tiamat lives on the first level of the Nine Hells. She is in cahoots with devil-kind.

[hamishspence]

so do several deities- Sekolah, Hextor, Kurtalmak. Residing in Hell isn't the same as being allied with devilkind as a whole- more an uneasy truce.

And The Three only include 1 devil- their overall goals may not be the same as Tiamat's.

[Ladorak]

Will V kill MBD?

No.


There is no MBD. The whole event was a complicated illusion/suggestion effect put in place by the 3 Fiends to make V play along.

V will arrive to find the family already destroyed. Destroyed by the 3 Fiends.

Thus, even "ultimate arcane power" will have failed V.

Result? V surrenders to the evil within, and acts as the willing servent of the 3 Fiends. V's task?

Destroying all "good" forces of magic, for revenge, for giving V the false hope that magic was useful for anything good.

Result? The 3 Fiends can wipe out the forces of good.

Oh, and the Oracle? The Oracle is on it. Tiamat lives on the first level of the Nine Hells. She is in cahoots with devil-kind.


All of that right there... Genius, sheer bloody genius.

I think this discussion is lossing it's focus. Let's try and get it back on track, everyone state your intend before posting... Just so we have a rough idea of where everybody's coming from:

I do not want the dragon to escape because I believe that it's pure bloody evil. I believe this because it wants to enslave innocent children's souls and torture them for all eternity. I admit this is an entirly subjective judgement.

[hamishspence]

the fact that the dragons motive is revenge, rather than "just for kicks" makes it a little more understandable, though still evil.

[Warren Dew]

I can't even do that with this claim. The dragon's head is exactly the same distance behind Vaarsuvius when s/he blasts him as it is in panel 3, when s/he demands the location of the starmetal. Vaarsuvius states that the dragon will only be controlled for one more round, then casts Disintegrate on the controlled dragon. The dragon--his head still in the exact same place--says "the wheels on the bus go round and round." Vaarsuvius blasts him again.

The dragon's head is at roughly the same distance only because Vaarsuvius is already in melee range. That the dragon is attacking is demonstrated by the dragon's open maw - which is different from the passive mouth closed posture in the earlier panel you cite, instead being the same as when preparing to bite earlier in the battle - as well as by the claw preparing to attack Vaarsuvius.

If the dragon were still under the effects of the spell, it would be prohibited from taking any actions, and would still have its jaws closed. It's clear from these frames that Vaarsuvius's first disintegrate occurs not before, but after the suggestion spell expires - on the first round that the dragon is again free. It seems that Roy's question and Vaarsuvius's additional explanation uses up the six seconds that were left when Roy started asking the question.

[Kaytara]

In addition to what Warren said....


The dragon's head is exactly the same distance behind Vaarsuvius when s/he blasts him as it is in panel 3, when s/he demands the location of the starmetal.

But Vaarsuvius is shown walking away from the dragon toward Roy in panel six. That the dragon's head is again inches away from V in the next panel (as you observed, in the same position it was in the first panels) indicates that the dragon moved towards Vaarsuvius, and in a menacing manner.

A possible explanation would be that the dragon did not move and is in fact just experiencing pre-death spasms, but all other victims of the Disintegrate spell have remained perfectly rigid in their positions at the time of casting.

As for the rest of the post, I'm not quite sure what you're talking about. I agree with you that the comic isn't clear on exactly how much time has passed since the dragon and the party came face to face. (With the darkness, though, the dragon could have easily just dismissed the spell.) However, you say that the party is in full combat, yet Durkon and Roy aren't holding their weapons. Your argument hinges on the assumption that both Roy and Durkon's weapons were removed. However, Roy's greatclub has been seen since then; if it had been melted or destroyed and he'd have needed to get a new one, it probably would've been mentioned in the comic. And Rich usually shows it when a character is disarmed and their weapon comes flying out of their hands. If the weapon isn't shown in the panel, then it makes more sense to assume that it hasn't been drawn yet rather than that it's just lying on the floor somewhere - especially since the other character with the presumably not so high initiative seems to not have drawn his weapon yet, either.

[Warren Dew]

I think this discussion is lossing it's focus. Let's try and get it back on track, everyone state your intend before posting... Just so we have a rough idea of where everybody's coming from

I think the discussion is relevant, but this is still a reasonable request.

In my ideal world, the mother dragon would repent before attacking the kids or parent, decide not to do it after all, apologize to Vaarsuvius, and arrange with the fiends to have her soul substitute for Vaarsuvius's soul in Vaarsuvius's arrangement. Vaarsuvius would drop the soul splice promptly to minimize the mother dragon's liability and forgive the mother dragon.

I don't think that's very likely, though.

Assuming that the mother dragon continues to carry out the plan, I'd like to see Vaarsuvius casually one shot the mother dragon in the first panel of a comic, then spend the rest of the comic pontificating in typical Vaarsuvius fashion. That would at least reinforce the notion that what Vaarsuvius got really is ultimate arcane power, even if the rest of the prophecy may not have been accurately fulfilled.

That assumes that 635 really is supposed to be the fulfillment of the prophecy, of course. If it wasn't, well, I suppose having the mother dragon defeat soul spliced Vaarsuvius would help demonstrate that it wasn't.

[Kish]

All of that right there... Genius, sheer bloody genius.

I think this discussion is lossing it's focus. Let's try and get it back on track, everyone state your intend before posting... Just so we have a rough idea of where everybody's coming from:

I do not want the dragon to escape because I believe that it's pure bloody evil. I believe this because it wants to enslave innocent children's souls and torture them for all eternity. I admit this is an entirly subjective judgement.
What do I want? That's a tricky one. I don't want Vaarsuvius' children, or even Vaarsuvius' mate, to die. I don't want Vaarsuvius to leave the comic, or become a character I would want to see leave the comic (one Belkar is plenty). As a matter of course I don't particularly like any of the characters in the comic, as such, and this is a Neutral vs. Evil clash. I would love if it, as someone suggested in the discussion thread for #629 or #630, Vaarsuvius arrived home to find his/her family undisturbed and a note tacked to the door that said "I could have, but I'm better than you."

What I expect to see is Vaarsuvius intercept the ancient black dragon before she can complete her vengeful plan and kill her, either quickly or slowly. And from there, we'll see, but Vaarsuvius will suffer exquisitely for making this bargain, and Vaarsuvius will never regret killing either black dragon. Those are my predictions.

[pendell]

Reading the discussion here of 'always evil' reminds me of a story I once heard about life in Vietnam ...

... our protaganists (this is a non fiction story -- "Chickenhawk" by Bob Mason) encounter a green snake while clearing the ground. A Sergeant wanders over and tells them to get away from the thing, because out of 34 varieties of snakes in Vietnam 31 are poisonous.

So how do we tell them apart? Asks one of the soldiers.

"I think", says the Sergeant, as he drives a shovel into the snake, "that at those odds we can arrive at a sweeping. prejudicial generalization. Like, kill them all."

Which actually makes a certain amount of sense. When you're risking the lives of human beings, it's really not appropriate to spend too much time trying to guess whether this particular snake is really different from all the rest.

Now factor that into a 'snake' that is as large as a small house, with a breath weapon and magic spells to boot.

I think, given the past history of dragons and humans in standard D&D -- non-stop mutual war -- one should no more think twice about killing a black dragon on sight than, say, a soldier in WWII should think twice about shooting an enemy soldier in uniform on sight. A state of war exists. No niceties are necessary, on either side, UNLESS the other side makes some sign -- flag of truce or some such -- indicating a desire for parley.

The young black dragon made no attempt to parley with the party. It attempted to kill them on sight, which is perfectly analogous to what happens when enemy soldiers encounter each other in war time.

Therefore it is right, even in this D&D world, to engage an 'evil dragon' on sight, unless you have good reason to believe this is not the right idea. For example, in Dragonlance a red dragon was found to be babysitting human children, since the poor creature was old, senile, and had mistaken the human children for its own. Killing such a creature out of hand is not good policy, just cruel.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[hamishspence]

In D&D settings like Faerun, the hostility between dragons and humans (or elves, in some cases) varies a lot, war, raids, peace, dragon ruling over people and much later being overthrown, dragon living among humans in disguise, etc. Non-stop war? Not so much.

[Ladorak]

In D&D settings like Faerun, the hostility between dragons and humans (or elves, in some cases) varies a lot, war, raids, peace, dragon ruling over people and much later being overthrown, dragon living among humans in disguise, etc. Non-stop war? Not so much.

Depends on setting. Can't say for sure in Rich's world but given what we do know about how the world was (re)made if black dragons aren't killing humans, elves, drawfs etc. they're not doing what they're designed to do.

[David Argall]

She seems like a smart dragon and I have been hoping that she would see that it would be far more satisfying to make a threat to kill V's family and not follow through, playing a mind game to fill V with guilt enough to distroy him from the inside out. Basically let V do the work for the dragon.
This is called being too clever for one’s own good. V will survive empty threats just fine. The actual violence seems a different story.



Just like goblins and orcs!
Oh, they will eat them too.



the young dragon was acting in defense of home and the hoard his parent left him to guard. while its possible that he's killed innocents in the past, there is no evidence of that in the strip.
It is virtually a certainty, the only doubt being if any innocents got that deep into the wilds. And he was quite in the wrong in the battle.



First off, I would like to point out that it was NOT the OotS that acted in self-defense, but was in fact the young dragon.

If a squadron of armed robbers broke into your home, what would your assumtion be?
Given the ease the dragon had in beating up the party, it would seem they were a party of six-year olds. They did not break in. They came thru an open door, and their first action was to try to run away.



the OotS backed the young dragon into a corner just by entering the cave. he had no choice but to fight
This reason is moral nonsense. We have the party trying to flee. They have no knowledge a dragon is even present. How can they be the aggressors?



that said, while the dragon did have to attack the OotS V. did not have to finish off the dragon.
What was the alternative? Letting the dragon attack and kill people?



and even if death was his perferred method of neutralizing a threat, he still didn't have to use disentigrate.
So he was supposed to use something inefficient?



and while they needed, or at least thought they needed the starmetal, they did not have to take the dragon's horde. that was an action of pure greed.
By the time they took it, they presumed it no longer had an owner.



thinking that all members of a species is evil just because the majority is is very flawed thinking.
That depends on how often there are exceptions. Here, we are told exceptions are quite rare, and we have no evidence that this is one of them.



V seemed perfectly happy to use the younger dragon to threaten the rest of the party. And the younger dragon broke off the attack when V was talking- only attacked V after 3 spells had been cast at it. This is another case of trying to say what didn’t happen on camera didn’t happen. In the battle, we see the dragon talking to V-lizard. There is no sign he asked for a pause in the battle or any sort of truce. He simply assumed he could beat up the party while talking to the lizard. He doesn’t seem to have been especially wrong.



murder (even murder of an evil creature) is an evil act.
And killing somebody who is going to kill you in 6 seconds is not murder.



V's killing of the younger dragon, if not murder, was not exactly self-defence, or defence of others "No-one eats my friend and lives to see the next sunrise" shows premeditation.
Since the dragon is next shown about to eat V, this is clear self-defense.



thats Fiends. No Evil or Chaotic subtype on black dragons (or any other Chromatic dragon.) How evil a dragon is can vary a great deal.
Trying to eat you alive seems to rank pretty high on the evil scale.



Well, I spent an hour typing a post, then the forums crashed for five hours, and now it's gone. yipeeeee!
One reason to type off line. It might also speed up the forum if we did so.


admitting you're evil is admitting you're wrong, so the only ones who would self-identify as evil are the insane and those who don't understand what the word means.
Not really. Admitting you are evil is, in the evil eye, claiming to be smart, to understand that the so-called good are fools and/or frauds. The evil man is “honest” in his crimes.



and while demons/devils/ whatever are generally the exception, if a being is capable of reason, it is capable of being reasoned with.
But we still find a host of cases where reason fails and force is needed, one of them being evil black dragons who are trying to kill and eat you, not necessarily in that order.



"evil" is just a more dramatic way of saying "ignorant" or "foolish".
Nonsense. We have very smart villains who know exactly what they are doing.

[Volkov]

Unequivocally, yes.



Thank the gods.



If I wipe out the hornet's nest in the tree in my front yard near where my kids play with a can of bug spray, I have destroyed a blood line, but I have certainly not done evil. Wiping out a family of black or red dragons is the same thing scaled up by a factor of thousands.

You can defeat the always factor of something's alignment by raising it differently unless that alignment is part of it's subtype.

[Kish]

Reading the discussion here of 'always evil' reminds me of a story I once heard about life in Vietnam ...

... our protaganists (this is a non fiction story -- "Chickenhawk" by Bob Mason) encounter a green snake while clearing the ground. A Sergeant wanders over and tells them to get away from the thing, because out of 34 varieties of snakes in Vietnam 31 are poisonous.

So how do we tell them apart? Asks one of the soldiers.

"I think", says the Sergeant, as he drives a shovel into the snake, "that at those odds we can arrive at a sweeping. prejudicial generalization. Like, kill them all."

Which actually makes a certain amount of sense. When you're risking the lives of human beings, it's really not appropriate to spend too much time trying to guess whether this particular snake is really different from all the rest.

Now factor that into a 'snake' that is as large as a small house, with a breath weapon and magic spells to boot.
And more intelligent than most humans, too.

You seem to be relying on the unstated premise, "The life of anything that looks close to human is inherently worth more than the life of anything reptilian." At which point, your viewpoint exactly mirrors the viewpoint the ancient black dragon appears to hold--except that you would probably kill those "dangerous nonhumans" quickly rather than slowly.

Depends on setting. Can't say for sure in Rich's world but given what we do know about how the world was (re)made if black dragons aren't killing humans, elves, drawfs etc. they're not doing what they're designed to do.
I'm not so sure about that. They have a god who was there at the beginning (Tiamat), after all.

Even if that is the case, though, if you came away from Start of Darkness not thinking the gods were wrong to create intelligent species that way, one of us completely missed the point.

[Ladorak]

I'm not so sure about that. They have a god who was there at the beginning (Tiamat), after all.

Even if that is the case, though, if you came away from Start of Darkness not thinking the gods were wrong to create intelligent species that way, one of us completely missed the point.



Which frankly is totally unfair, certainly the Dark One is in the right on this particular issue, but not in his responce to it...

One of us has indeed missed the point.

I'm not sure what you mean about Tiamat... That she made dragons? That she was there at the start? That she helped remake the world?

[Volkov]

Unequivocally, yes.



Thank the gods.



If I wipe out the hornet's nest in the tree in my front yard near where my kids play with a can of bug spray, I have destroyed a blood line, but I have certainly not done evil. Wiping out a family of black or red dragons is the same thing scaled up by a factor of thousands.

Secondly could you live knowing that anything the mated pair of great wyrm red dragons will do to you, your family, your country, and your species, would all be your fault? Not much short of An Very old or Older Prismatic or Force dragon can stop a mated pair of Great Red Wyrms. Or perhaps the tarrasque. Even the majority of abominations or elder evils would fall to such a pair. For all it matters you could have Kyuss himself coming to save you, and he'd be reduced to cinders.

[Kish]

One of us has indeed missed the point.

Well, from your quote we agree on that, so we must both have.



I'm not sure what you mean about Tiamat... That she made dragons? That she was there at the start? That she helped remake the world?
That chromatic dragons are her children. It doesn't make any sense for them to exist to be killed, the way goblins and orcs do. They should be counted among the rest of the favored.

Or to put it another way--what we know about the reason those monsters who lacked a divine sponsor initially were created seems, in my opinion, unlikely to apply to Tiamat's chosen people. The Dark One is, or at least claims to be, sure the goblins would get the status of a PC race if he was there for the world's re-creation. Why would chromatic dragons exist to be killed, like goblins?

[Volkov]

Well, from your quote we agree on that, so we must both have.

That chromatic dragons are her children. It doesn't make any sense for them to exist to be killed, the way goblins and orcs do. They should be counted among the rest of the favored.

Or to put it another way--what we know about the reason those monsters who lacked a divine sponsor initially were created seems, in my opinion, unlikely to apply to Tiamat's chosen people. The Dark One is, or at least claims to be, sure the goblins would get the status of a PC race if he was there for the world's re-creation. Why would chromatic dragons exist to be killed, like goblins?

I am not sure about the existence of the entire Draconic pantheon but Io not Tiamat created all creatures of the dragon type, Io just gave Tiamat jurisdiction over them and the rest of the Chromatic Dragon Pantheon, I.E, Garyx, Falazure and the rest. Although I think those three are about it.

[Ladorak]

Well, from your quote we agree on that, so we must both have.

You must realise just how flimsy a rational that is (Or maybe you missed the point:smallwink:) Come on man, you've proven yourself to be at least reasonable intelligent and a skilled debater, you're better then trying to pul that trick.

@Volkov: We're talking about Rich's world in particular, rather than any source book. There is not (As far as we know) another dragon deity, but on the other hand we don't actually know if Tiamet created the dragons (Although it is a logical assumption)

[ABB]

Far as I'm concerned, the MBD is probably a hypocrite as she likely made her hoard robbing and killing people, many of whom had mothers she never gave a damn about, so for her to get all maternally righteous over the death of her son after not giving a fig about the fact the people she likely murdered to get her hoard were someone's sons is arch hypocrisy.

And to me, a dead hypocrite is a good hypocrite.

(Now of course RB could make me look like a right twit here by revealing that the dragons made their hoard honestly, like on the stock market or something...:smallbiggrin:)

[Volkov]

Far as I'm concerned, the MBD is probably a hypocrite as she likely made her hoard robbing and killing people, many of whom had mothers she never gave a damn about, so for her to get all maternally righteous over the death of her son after not giving a fig about the fact the people she likely murdered to get her hoard were someone's sons is arch hypocrisy.

And to me, a dead hypocrite is a good hypocrite.

(Now of course RB could make me look like a right twit here by revealing that the dragons made their hoard honestly, like on the stock market or something...:smallbiggrin:)

Nothing on the stock market is honest. Ever :smalltongue: It's so obvious Sauron is on wall street, hanging with his Buddies Asmodeus and Tzeentch.

Any way, if that was true, how do you think metallic dragons get their hoards? Then again they could probably do what I do in super paper mario, buy lots of stuff, like say a shroom shake, that's cheap in one place, and sell it somewhere else where it's very expensive.

[Kish]

You must realise just how flimsy a rational that is (Or maybe you missed the point:smallwink:) Come on man, you've proven yourself to be at least reasonable intelligent and a skilled debater, you're better then trying to pul that trick.
I appreciate the compliment, but the truth is that I'm not at all clear what you mean here.

We agree that the gods were wrong to create goblins and orcs as XP fodder. We agree that the Dark One is acting in a morally wrong fashion in response to this. I am saying that, in light of Tiamat having been one of the original deities, chromatic dragons were probably not created as XP fodder. What trick am I trying to pull? (I'm serious.) My "we agree so we must both have missed something" was a joke.

[Ladorak]

I appreciate the compliment, but the truth is that I'm not at all clear what you mean here.

We agree that the gods were wrong to create goblins and orcs as XP fodder. We agree that the Dark One is acting in a morally wrong fashion in response to this. I am saying that, in light of Tiamat having been one of the original deities, chromatic dragons were probably not created as XP fodder. What trick am I trying to pull? (I'm serious.) My "we agree so we must both have missed something" was a joke.

No trick, at least none that I can think of. I'm not trying to win an arguement, but rather learn through discussion, which I think is the point of all debate. I mean if you walk away having won an arguement and haven't learned something, and the other guy walks away having learned a lot which one of you is really the winner?

I was actually just saying it was a lazy way of sidestepping the issue after you elephant trapped yourself.

Speaking of learning... Someone said something earlier (I can' be bothered to go and find out who right now...) About there being a rule about evil creature being abkle to be raised good provided it wasn't on their subtype. Anyone know what book that's it/page number?

[Carnivorous_Bea]

If the mother dragon kills the kolbold oracle rather than Vaarsuvius's children after Vaarsuvius defeated her, I would want the mother dragon to live. Otherwise, die you vile being for threatening the lives of those who did nothing to you.

My take exactly. She's as foul as the foulest serial killer, and EXTREMELY powerful to boot.

The sooner something that malevolent and dangerous is wiped out of reality, the better.

[Occasional Sage]

Speaking of learning... Someone said something earlier (I can't be bothered to go and find out who right now...) about there being a rule about evil creature being able to be raised good provided it wasn't on their subtype. Anyone know what book that's in/page number?

Nor, apparently, to proofread your posts.
Even creatures with the "evil" subtype can become/be raised to be good-aligned. The problem is, they still get treated as evil (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#evilSubtype) by anything that checks alignment, as well as good.

[Roupe]

I think the dragon is safe since

1. Oracle likes sharing additional info, I think the dragon got some extra info. dragon oracle services.
2. a Anti magic shell still makes V into a fragile pointy eared monkey, and the dragon is still a dragon.

[[TS] Shadow]

Would you kill a sick old great wyrm red dragon's last chicklet? Which is only 2 days old? The Ancient black dragon is no longer capable of having any more kids, thus V killed it's blood line. Killing a blood line is even more evil than killing a person. In fact it's not just plain old evil, it's an act of cruelty.

V had no idea he was killing a bloodline. He had no clue if the YBD had brothers or sisters. The only thing he knew about his family was that he knew his mother. There was no way to know that the father had died.

Anyway, the ABD does deserve it's punishment for the evil acts it has committed in the past as well as what it's about to do now.

[Ridureyu]

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if V resurrects the young Black Dragon, and then re-kills it and does a soulbinding BEFORE killing the mother. We're supposed to have no doubts about the evillness, and all.

[Innis Cabal]

Far as I'm concerned, the MBD is probably a hypocrite as she likely made her hoard robbing and killing people, many of whom had mothers she never gave a damn about, so for her to get all maternally righteous over the death of her son after not giving a fig about the fact the people she likely murdered to get her hoard were someone's sons is arch hypocrisy.

And to me, a dead hypocrite is a good hypocrite.

(Now of course RB could make me look like a right twit here by revealing that the dragons made their hoard honestly, like on the stock market or something...:smallbiggrin:)

Everyone is a hypocrite at some point...and the Dragon isn't probably, she is. Killing V's children because she had hers killed and calling it "fair" is a bit hypocritical.

[Volkov]

Nor, apparently, to proofread your posts.
Even creatures with the "evil" subtype can become/be raised to be good-aligned. The problem is, they still get treated as evil (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#evilSubtype) by anything that checks alignment, as well as good.

Crystal dragons occasionally take White Dragon eggs and raise them to lead chaotic neutral life styles instead of chaotic evil. Problem is once the parents find out they get very mad and tend to kill the crystal dragon, the white dragons backed by frost giants. A few Crystal dragons survive and these White dragons become much better people in the world. Sometimes silver dragons take White or Red dragon eggs and do the same. But this time the Silver dragon has nothing to worry about from the former, it's the latter's revenge that typically scares the Silver Dragon.

[SeptimusMagistos]

Here's something interesting.

The game is called 'Dungeons and Dragons'.

The entire point is delving into dungeons and killing dragons.

Dragonslaying is almost universally recognized as the ultimate act of heroism. There's a reason dragons are color-coded, you know. It's so that any good creature seeing a chromatic dragon can instantly determine that it's an enemy of all that is good and needs to be destroyed by someone as soon as possible.

Perhaps it's unfair for a species to be created solely to be slaughtered by heroes. But it was and that's how it remains.

Now if either of the dragons in question were good or at least neutral, or maybe nonviolent, that would be a different story. But we've been given no indication whatsoever that they aren't in fact creatures of pure maliciousness as the rest of their race. In fact the elder dragon pretty much proved herself to be one.

In conclusion: chromatic dragons exist solely to be killed and so they should be.

[Kish]

In conclusion: chromatic dragons exist solely to be killed and so they should be.
And all the many sources people can come up with to the contrary crumble before the power of your unsupported word. All the complexities people reference from all manner of D&D sources are irrelevant: "Chromatic dragons exist solely to be killed and so they should be."

[Volkov]

Here's something interesting.

The game is called 'Dungeons and Dragons'.

The entire point is delving into dungeons and killing dragons.

Dragonslaying is almost universally recognized as the ultimate act of heroism. There's a reason dragons are color-coded, you know. It's so that any good creature seeing a chromatic dragon can instantly determine that it's an enemy of all that is good and needs to be destroyed by someone as soon as possible.

Perhaps it's unfair for a species to be created solely to be slaughtered by heroes. But it was and that's how it remains.

Now if either of the dragons in question were good or at least neutral, or maybe nonviolent, that would be a different story. But we've been given no indication whatsoever that they aren't in fact creatures of pure maliciousness as the rest of their race. In fact the elder dragon pretty much proved herself to be one.

In conclusion: chromatic dragons exist solely to be killed and so they should be.
So killing a clan of gold dragons who mean to protect the innocent and keep the blood war going so neither demons nor devils end up killing us all is morally o.k? So metallic dragons are clearly evil just like their chromatic cousins? So Epic and Gem dragons are also evil and must die? Is that what you're saying? Is it heroic to kill a stoic defender of justice that is a great wyrm gold dragon? IS IT!?!?!?!?!?!?!

[Axl_Rose]

I post fairly infrequently, I like to think, which is why I'd like to preface by saying how pleased I am that my thread sparked this 5 page discussion.

So, it would seem to me that a large deal of discussion in the "anti-dragon" camp is derived from the fact that the black dragon is inherently evil and 'should' consequently be killed.

No one is saying that the black dragon isn't of "evil alignment."

But what about Redcloak? He is of evil alignment, but I would guess that people aren't craving his immediate death. He's had more story time and more character development, likewise with Belkar, so we allow ourselves the hypocrisy of saying, "X is evil, therefore X should die... Belkar and Redcloak are evil, but they are valuable to the story, so we'll let them slide!"

I'm going to predict a counter argument to the above and respond with the following:

Another common argument on the "anti dragon" side is that while red cloak and belkar are of evil alignment, Red Cloak is at heart serving his people with an ends justify the means type thinking, whereas Belkar's killings are comic relief and the lives he takes are inconsequential. The MBD, however, is targeting children, and this is where the "anti-dragon" camp is up in arms.

However, why should the lives of V's children hold more value than random NPCs? If you want to be so damn moral about "Killing Children is wrong!" then how can you be so quick to turn a blind eye to the killings that make you laugh. I'm sorry, is taking the life of a random dude more ethical than taking the lives of V's kids just because *we* know V as a PC?

Anyways, I think that the loss of V's kids would be tragic, but I am hoping (as I have suggested before on page 1 I believe) that the dragon is not targeting the children at all, and merely wants to make an idle threat to V, to demonstrate that her kind are not the monsters that some otherworldly manual condemns to be.

And if the dragon is targetng the children, sure, that's tragic, but some of the best stories are tragedies. And I sure as hell would rather see that kind of tragedy, then to see our first truly strategic and competant antagonist be defeated in what would seem to her as the grand reverse of a deus ex-machina, seeing as to how V literally gets god like powers to turn a situation completely upside down.

I think this is logical justification enough for wanting the mother black dragon to be safe.

[Volkov]

If I go and kill an entire nation because everyone's lawful evil does the fact that everyone's lawful evil make it morally justifiable?

[[TS] Shadow]

But what about Redcloak? He is of evil alignment, but I would guess that people aren't craving his immediate death. He's had more story time and more character development, likewise with Belkar, so we allow ourselves the hypocrisy of saying, "X is evil, therefore X should die... Belkar and Redcloak are evil, but they are valuable to the story, so we'll let them slide!"

Just for the record, Redcloak needs to die. He's a good character yes, but he is endangering the entire world for his own personal desires, and while he has a more noble motive than Xykon, his actions and goals are still evil.

Belkar on the other hand, is an evil creature fighting for the side of good. As Roy described it to the Deva, "Belkar fights an evil greater than himself." He gets to enjoy killing things, and the world around him doesn't get massicered. It's working out pretty well too, as only two innocent people have been killed by Belkar while he was under the juresdiction of the Order. His ability is too valuable to be wasted, which is why he stays with the order.

On the matter of the ABD, her actions were evil, are evil, and if she escapes, will be evil. She killed multiple people to gather a horde that large. She went out and attacked a person out of rage, and will torture at least 2 souls to an eterinty without rest. These seem like evil acts to me.

V's behavior against the ADB, however, doesn't matter on a Good to Evil scale. He is protecting innocent people: a good act by any means. What he did to the YBD is questionable (although I find it to be justified) but any action he takes against the ADB is deserved.

[Volkov]

Shadow;5855708']Just for the record, Redcloak needs to die. He's a good character yes, but he is endangering the entire world for his own personal desires, and while he has a more noble motive than Xykon, his actions and goals are still evil.

Belkar on the other hand, is an evil creature fighting for the side of good. As Roy described it to the Deva, "Belkar fights an evil greater than himself." He gets to enjoy killing things, and the world around him doesn't get massicered. It's working out pretty well too, as only two innocent people have been killed by Belkar while he was under the juresdiction of the Order. His ability is too valuable to be wasted, which is why he stays with the order.

On the matter of the ABD, her actions were evil, are evil, and if she escapes, will be evil. She killed multiple people to gather a horde that large. She went out and attacked a person out of rage, and will torture at least 2 souls to an eterinty without rest. These seem like evil acts to me.

V's behavior against the ADB, however, doesn't matter on a Good to Evil scale. He is protecting innocent people: a good act by any means. What he did to the YBD is questionable (although I find it to be justified) but any action he takes against the ADB is deserved.
By this Logic I should go and destroy the infinite layers of the abyss even though this would doom the upper planes to subjacation by endless armies of devils, with the reasoning that I defeated the more dire evil so it's alright.

[[TS] Shadow]

By this Logic I should go and destroy the infinite layers of the abyss even though this would doom the upper planes to subjacation by endless armies of devils, with the reasoning that I defeated the more dire evil so it's alright.

Belkar isn't a "threatening" evil at this point in time. He is a tool that is being used by the forces of good that will make the fight easier for them. Belkar will be punished at some point, and deserve it, but for now, he isn't hurting anyone and he should be ultilized for some purpose. Just making him die is like leaving a plate of food in the middle of nowhere when somebody probably could have used it.

[Ladorak]

So killing a clan of gold dragons who mean to protect the innocent and keep the blood war going so neither demons nor devils end up killing us all is morally o.k? So metallic dragons are clearly evil just like their chromatic cousins? So Epic and Gem dragons are also evil and must die? Is that what you're saying? Is it heroic to kill a stoic defender of justice that is a great wyrm gold dragon? IS IT!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Well why don't we just let Gorillas eat everyone's babies? Yes, hyperbole is a form of logic.

[Warren Dew]

And more intelligent than most humans, too.

You seem to be relying on the unstated premise, "The life of anything that looks close to human is inherently worth more than the life of anything reptilian."

You seem to be saying that the worth of a creature is based on its intelligence. Is that what you mean? I personally don't think that being more intelligent than someone else automatically makes one a better, more worthy, or more deserving person.

Merely having an 18 intelligence does not give one more of a right to life than having an intelligence of 3. Being more intelligent only makes one more intelligent.


At which point, your viewpoint exactly mirrors the viewpoint the ancient black dragon appears to hold--except that you would probably kill those "dangerous nonhumans" quickly rather than slowly.

I believe that's Pendell's point exactly. Soldiers are not morally wrong to kill enemy soldiers; they go into the war with an implicit willingness to be shot at.

Pendell is arguing that the situation with respect to humans and dragons is similar. I'm not sure I agree, since one has a choice about being a soldier, but his argument does not depend on any asymmetry in the relationship.


Even if that is the case, though, if you came away from Start of Darkness

You might want to spoiler things from Start of Darkness. Some people haven't read that book yet.

[SeptimusMagistos]

No one said it's okay to kill metallic dragons. Again, color coding is there for a reason. Black dragons are there to serve as foes to PCs. Gold dragons are there to serve as helpful encounters. That's how they're described in the monster manual. Black dragons exist to be slaughtered because they're in a book which lists monsters to be slaughtered and are not specifically listed as an exception.

Destroying a nation filled with people who are all lawful evil, without exception, would be perfectly acceptable-nay, heroic. Nothing but good could come out of that act.

Destroying all layers of Abyss would probably be a strategically poor choice. It might be best to destroy half of the Abyss and half of Hell instead.

Naturally there are times when killing an evil creature isn't the best thing to do at the moment. But it's because of practical considerations rather than moral ones.

Redcloak should naturally die eventually. But it's probably not happening any time soon. Desiring to keep him in the comic because that makes it interesting has nothing to do with moral considerations of any kind.

Oh, and here's one big difference between PCs and the evil dragonkind in this respect: If chromatic dragons stopped killing people and decided to help them instead, doing charitable works and not harming anyone not actively attacking them, PCs would stop killing them. If PCs stopped harming evil dragons, tried to help them the best they could, and generally didn't present much of a threat to them...the chromatic dragons would eat well that night.

[Warren Dew]

I'm going to predict a counter argument to the above and respond with the following:

I'm going to predict that the vast majority of those who think that the mother black dragon deserves to die also believe that redcloak deserves to die. You're arguing with a straw man here.

[multilis]

Perhaps the Dragon won't even be attacking V's kids, the goal was to shift V to dark side in cooperation with some fiends. Then V would look at family but family would look at a monster worse than Dragon... what V became.

(For them it may hurt more to see evil V than to be threatenned by unknown dragon, they may not even *believe* V's claims about a dragon threat made me do it)

[Duma]

The Mother Dragon is my favorite villain here after Redcloak, I mean, who wouldn't sympathize with a grieving mother? She's right to seek out vengeance - although if someone killed my children I'd probably do the same to the killer instead of the killer's progeny, but I can understand the "an eye for an eye" thing.

Anyway, of course I don't want to see V's family dead, but I don't want to see the MD tortured/dead either. Maybe she can teleport somewhere safe before V exterminates her, or maybe when she's disabled V's mate will intercede not allowing V to punish her any further (perhaps after overhearing some in-battle dialogue about her dead son), after all, she has suffered enough as it is already...

But what I personally would like to see, and that's something Evil V certainly won't do, is that V would find a way to resurrect MD's son, and maybe even his father. That can only have a chance of happening if MD escapes and V has to come up with a way to end MD's thirst for vengeance to keep hir own family safe (V can't hide them, since the MD can always go to the oracle). Slim chance, but I can only hope.

[Volkov]

No one said it's okay to kill metallic dragons. Again, color coding is there for a reason. Black dragons are there to serve as foes to PCs. Gold dragons are there to serve as helpful encounters. That's how they're described in the monster manual. Black dragons exist to be slaughtered because they're in a book which lists monsters to be slaughtered and are not specifically listed as an exception.

Destroying a nation filled with people who are all lawful evil, without exception, would be perfectly acceptable-nay, heroic. Nothing but good could come out of that act.

Destroying all layers of Abyss would probably be a strategically poor choice. It might be best to destroy half of the Abyss and half of Hell instead.

Naturally there are times when killing an evil creature isn't the best thing to do at the moment. But it's because of practical considerations rather than moral ones.

Redcloak should naturally die eventually. But it's probably not happening any time soon. Desiring to keep him in the comic because that makes it interesting has nothing to do with moral considerations of any kind.

Oh, and here's one big difference between PCs and the evil dragonkind in this respect: If chromatic dragons stopped killing people and decided to help them instead, doing charitable works and not harming anyone not actively attacking them, PCs would stop killing them. If PCs stopped harming evil dragons, tried to help them the best they could, and generally didn't present much of a threat to them...the chromatic dragons would eat well that night.

So Mind flayers deserve to die simply because by some evolutionary fluke that they need to eat brains and other internal organs to survive? Are they evil because they need to use us as hosts for their larvae to reproduce? While it's morally objectional, they gotta eat. Also they need to eat the best brains for the same reasons why it's best to eat healthy foods. That's why they can't just set upon the Orcish Race and annihilate them even though that's what the elven race wishes they would do.

And plus, human brains are some of the best eating possible, races with mental stat bonuses are simply too hard to find to be anything other than pleasant surprises, although they do love the brains of Fey. They Really really love Fey brains. Full of all those delicious Vitamins and Minerals and with plenty of intelligence, wisdom, and charisma. Yummmmmmmm.

Plus Mind Flayers don't even have a moral system, they consider that to be a foolish human system that is rather pointless and idiotic. Even though any Fiend or Celestial would readily object to that.

[*Templar*]

You can defeat the always factor of something's alignment by raising it differently unless that alignment is part of it's subtype.

But if I don't have the means to raise a couple of baby dragons (most likely the case), my other options are to let them grow up to be a menace or stop the problem before it starts.


Secondly could you live knowing that anything the mated pair of great wyrm red dragons will do to you, your family, your country, and your species, would all be your fault?

An appeal to negative personal consequences which is utterly irrelevant in a debate over the morality of an action.

[The Minx]

Better re-read it. The drgon was going to be under control for about 1 more round. As for moma dragon, I hope it dies.

The dragon would have been under V's control for only one more round because they waited a whole night in the dragon cave.

V could easily have told it to reveal that he was indeed the purple lizard, and to relay instructions that the party should leave the cave while the dragon was under the influence of the Suggestion. He could have told the dragon to stay in the cave and not pursue them. None of these are out of league for the Suggestion spell.

There was no need to kill Jr. You can justify it all you want from an alignment perspective, but the tactical necessity was just not there.

[Cúchulainn]

There was no need to kill Jr. You can justify it all you want from an alignment perspective, but the tactical necessity was just not there.

We have a chance to defeat this proven hostile dragon who knows he can easily defeat us all but let's instead try and escape from his lair and into his open surrounding territory where he can use his wings to chase down an easy meal!

[Volkov]

We have a chance to defeat this proven hostile dragon who knows he can easily defeat us all but let's instead try and escape from his lair and into his open surrounding territory where he can use his wings to chase down an easy meal!

Black dragons prefer to eat Fish, mollusks, aquatic critters, some red meat from terrestrial animals. Nothing sentient in that favored diet. Nothing at all. Black dragons aren't the type of dragons to actively go out of their way to eat sentients, too far from their preferred habitat to be worth what little meat they give.

[Cúchulainn]

Black dragons prefer to eat Fish, mollusks, aquatic critters, some red meat from terrestrial animals. Nothing sentient in that favored diet. Nothing at all. Black dragons aren't the type of dragons to actively go out of their way to eat sentients, too far from their preferred habitat to be worth what little meat they give.

They shot it in the frickin' eye, it's alignment is evil, do the math. There's no way the dragon wouldn't pursue, no way at all.

[DigoDragon]

This is called being too clever for one’s own good. V will survive empty threats just fine. The actual violence seems a different story.

I think an empty threat is an intelligent and very good way to get back at V. The MBD seems to have done her research and knows V couldn't follow her on a Teleport. So saying she's going to eat and soul-bind V's family (but not doing so) while V can do nothing to stop her would torture V while showing to us she's not going to stoop to the level of monkeys by taking an eye-for-an-eye.

I think it would make for a great plot idea and would show some real wisdom and cunning on the MBD's part, rather then a stereotypical "Dragon Eats People Rampage". Of course that's just my opinion and it's not likely to be the same one the writer has, but it's still a great plot idea.

[Mystic Muse]

I want like other people have posted this to happen. the dragon was simply making a threat that they never intended to actually carry out or decide against at the last minute and leave a note saying something along the lines of "we both know I could have but I'm better than that" I prefer it when the badguys get a chance at redemptiona dn take it but I honestly think that V is probably going to have to battle the dragon and kill her.

now for the argument about dragons. THEY ARE NOT ALL EVIL. there are races of good dragons as well as bad and even among the bad dragons there are exceptions. any race can be good or evil.

oh and chromatic dragons do not exist solely to be attacked and should be. they have as much right to live as any other sentient being. what SHOULD be said is chromatic dragons cannot expect to be left alone.

also for the one thing about destroying a country of completely lawful evil people. that depends on the extent of how evil the people are. personally I think genocide is evil and there are very few exceptions to that rule. also there could be a few lawful good people in the bunch as well.

and for the first and last time STOP ARGUING ABOUT WHO ATTACKED WHO FIRST! it's completely irrelevant. it's like when the lawyers were complaining about the OOTS destroyed the castle when they were SUPPOSED to be proving that they intentionally destroyed the gate. the dragon doesn't care who attacked first and even if the order DID attack first every dragon they've met so far has been evil so there's no reason to expect this one to be any different.

and for my last point this isn't a discussion about whether all dragons are evil, whether the order attacked first or whether the dragon is actually getting an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. (although in this case I'd say the dragon is taking a lot more than a tooth.) this is about whether you want the momma dragon to live or die so lets please stay on topic.

[hamishspence]

as far as we know, they've only met one dragon.

[Mystic Muse]

yeah forgot. I thought that they met two but technically my statement is still correct.

[hamishspence]

If you go right back to Basic D&D, Dragons are portrayed as one of the few monsters that do not exist to be killed- the Subdual rules in their entry- dragon surrenders when reduced to effectively zero hit points, because it knows the heroes could have killed it if they'd been striking to kill. Dragon can be made to serve those who defeated it.

Similarly, it points out that even the greediest dragons are not immune to flattery- they can be negotiated with.

So, in that sense, as written, the idea that it isn't always necessary to fight the chromatic dragon, goes back a long way.

[Tessa]

Trying to make people brought up in the nineties understand the concept that it is alright to kill evil just because it is evil is like trying to shave your legs with a lawnmower.

You'll never get the job done to your satisfaction, it'll get messy fast and it's bound to end in tears.

[Deathcon300]

GO TO ****ING HELL V!

i hape the dragon dies it not only failed to kill V but also its an evil creature type + NEWS flash the kid fouught in combat, he attacked first by casting the darkness spell and by (acid?) flameing the ootsers so (s)he was rithgfull in killing the kid

also does anyone else think V's mate looks like a guy to you

[Rotipher]

So saying she's going to eat and soul-bind V's family (but not doing so) while V can do nothing to stop her would torture V while showing to us she's not going to stoop to the level of monkeys by taking an eye-for-an-eye.


I agree that this would be a nice twist to the usual dragons-eating-people schtick, but I don't think this is the right circumstance for such a ploy to be put to use. If a hero had wounded a dragon, then yes, seeing it take the moral high ground and forego vengeance would be appropriate and pretty cool. But in Mama's case, the circumstances argue against it.

Why? Not because Mama is "innately Evil" and is biologically incapable of taking such a stance -- she's sentient, and not an outsider; she does have a choice -- but rather, because her rage at V is at least partially a redirection of rage at herself. Deep down, she knows that Junior's death wouldn't have happened if she hadn't left him alone in the first place, and blaming V is her self-serving way to escape any sense that she, herself, also contributed to losing her son. A non-Evil creature wouldn't shirk that burden of guilt, but Mama is foisting all the blame onto V. (That's probably why her means of taking vengeance is so grossly over-the-top.)

The last thing that Mama would want to do is try to take the moral high ground, because then she'd have to do so in other respects as well ... and hence, admit that she blew it as a parent, leaving her kid behind while she went visiting.

[Volkov]

They shot it in the frickin' eye, it's alignment is evil, do the math. There's no way the dragon wouldn't pursue, no way at all.

They are also Chaotic, Chaotic beings tend to give up on goals. Now had it been a Green Dragon, it would have pursued them to the nine hells and back. But it's a chaotic evil black dragon, not a lawful evil green dragon.

[The Minx]

I meant to fix something in my message and managed to mess it up, sorry. I'll post again:


They shot it in the frickin' eye, it's alignment is evil, do the math. There's no way the dragon wouldn't pursue, no way at all.

And leave the hoard unguarded?

No, I'm not saying that there is no way that you could justify fighting it, only that tactical necessity is not the justification you're looking for.

[The bit I fixed was re: the Disintigrate. V could not have demonstrated that in lizard form, but the point re: the Hoard still stands, as does the conclusion...]

[SeptimusMagistos]

Well, here's how it went for me, anyway.

The dragon is upset about her child's death

Well, okay, that's understandable.

The dragon relates in detail the story of leaving Junior alone

Heh. That's kind of cute.

The dragon thinks people shouldn't kill black dragons just because they're black dragons.

Interesting point, certainly.

The dragon wants revenge.

Kind of justifiable.

So it's going to attack innocent children, kill them in a painful way, and soulbind them.

Okay, that's why we kill black dragons on sight. Because they do things like that all the time.

Evil creatures may or may not have a right to life, but they certainly lose it when they try to take away other creatures' right to life. For instance, an evil person who's proven he can live within a city, obey its laws, and not murder people in alleyways doesn't necessarily deserve to be killed. But the vast majority of evil creatures do.

[pendell]

You seem to be relying on the unstated premise, "The life of anything that looks close to human is inherently worth more than the life of anything reptilian." At which point, your viewpoint exactly mirrors the viewpoint the ancient black dragon appears to hold--except that you would probably kill those "dangerous nonhumans" quickly rather than slowly.


So what's our measuring stick?

They're both intelligent.

They're both created by the gods of OOTS -- seemingly for the express purpose of being enemies to each other. Why then should they not fulfill the purpose they were made for?

Seriously, what's the yardstick here? If we concede that humans are less intelligent than dragons, why can't dragons treat them as prey animals, the way humans treat cows? And if they do so, are we to blame the cows if they use their horns to fight back?



Even if that is the case, though, if you came away from Start of Darkness not thinking the gods were wrong to create intelligent species that way, one of us completely missed the point.

Whether the gods were right or wrong, those are the rules of OOTSworld. What do you suppose happens to an adventuring party which doesn't play according to the rules, especially if they meet a dragon who does? Better hope they're epic-level.

Now, if dragons and humans were to stand up to the gods *together* and demand a better deal, that might be a story worth telling.

But until that happy day, an adventuring party which doesn't recognize a dangerous enemy when it encounters one and act accordingly is going to be one dead party.



I believe that's Pendell's point exactly. Soldiers are not morally wrong to kill enemy soldiers; they go into the war with an implicit willingness to be shot at.

Pendell is arguing that the situation with respect to humans and dragons is similar. I'm not sure I agree, since one has a choice about being a soldier, but his argument does not depend on any asymmetry in the relationship.


Correct; For whatever reason evil dragons and humans, despite both being intelligent, operate in a default position of 'attack on sight'. It's a risk to parley with a creature when 99.9999% of the experience of other parties is that it only cedes the initiative to a dangerous enemy. As with an enemy soldier, you don't need to go to a complicated parley or process to determine that lethal force is appropriate. See uniform = shoot bad guy.

Few people in myth have ever ceded *any* advantage to a dragon and lived to tell the tale.

I surmise it is because both dragons and human kind aspire to the top of the food chain and neither will accept second place. There will only be peace between them when one or the other is willing to accept being second. Given the incredible arrogance of both species, such an accommodation is not likely.

It might make a good story to have some Gandhi or other saint eschew violence and try to bring peace between human and dragonkind. Perhaps someone did so in the past, and that is perhaps why silver dragons are 'good' dragons. But I don't see how you could ever have any such arrangement long-term with evil ones.

It doesn't make sense, really, that all black, red, white, green and blue dragons are almost all evil while gold, silver, brass and bronze dragons are almost all good. I dream of a day when dragonkind will be judged not by the color of their scales but by
the content of their character.

However, that *is* a fantasy trope. I suspect it's because D&D is an outgrowth of wargames. In wargames it's nice to have all the little counters neatly colored for ready identification between "good guy" and "bad guy". When you start bringing in moral ambiguity and rules of engagement -- making the game less of a commando raid on an enemy stronghold and more like, I don't know, peacetime life -- well, it may be a better simulation. But it's certainly a lot less fun.

Let's play a game called insurgency. I have 10 counters, each identical face up. One of them has an AK-47 on the back. I shuffle the counters, you pick one. If you pick the one with the AK-47, you win. If you pick any other counter, you not only lose a man but you get screamed at for causing innocent casualties.

Can't see that game growing into a best-seller.

Moral ambiguity may be wonderful for simulation, but it's terrible for making fun war games. And D&D is a damn fine game, in no small measure because you don't *have* to have moral ambiguity if you don't *want* it. Want a straight dungeon crawl with readily identifiable good guys and bad guys? You can have it.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Kish]

Moral ambiguity may be wonderful for simulation, but it's terrible for making fun war games. And D&D is a damn fine game, in no small measure because you don't *have* to have moral ambiguity if you don't *want* it. Want a straight dungeon crawl with readily identifiable good guys and bad guys? You can have it.
And if you want a game about playing real, complex characters with motivations inspired by a well-considered backstory? You can have that, too. The problems arise when different group members have different desires, or expectations, or assumptions.

I would say, from a number of things ranging from the explicit statement that judging by race=Lawful Evil behavior, to the way the protagonists of D&D novels generally act, to the very existence of the gradated alignment system and the statement that even "Always X Alignment" doesn't mean "Always" in our real-world terms, that "if it's not a PC race kill it on sight" is not the default setting intended by D&D authors. The game we would have if it was is very easy to picture (starting with two alignments, not nine: one for heroes, one for monsters). More importantly here, I would say that everything from Start of Darkness to Roy's rejection of the idea of killing "listed Chaotic Evil" creatures in On the Origins of PCs, to Rich's posts on this forum, points to those attitudes being inappropriate in the OotS universe. I suspect such assumptions underlay a lot of Vaarsuvius' casual attitude toward killing the young black dragon--s/he is, after all, the least interested in roleplaying of the Order, if it's possible to say that about someone whose entire existence is in a world based on a roleplaying game. On the off chance you hadn't noticed yet, this does not inspire my sympathy for Vaarsuvius.

[[TS] Shadow]

And if you want a game about playing real, complex characters with motivations inspired by a well-considered backstory? You can have that, too. The problems arise when different group members have different desires, or expectations, or assumptions.

I would say, from a number of things ranging from the explicit statement that judging by race=Lawful Evil behavior, to the way the protagonists of D&D novels generally act, to the very existence of the gradated alignment system and the statement that even "Always X Alignment" doesn't mean "Always" in our real-world terms, that "if it's not a PC race kill it on sight" is not the default setting intended by D&D authors. The game we would have if it was is very easy to picture (starting with two alignments, not nine: one for heroes, one for monsters). More importantly here, I would say that everything from Start of Darkness to Roy's rejection of the idea of killing "listed Chaotic Evil" creatures in On the Origins of PCs, to Rich's posts on this forum, points to those attitudes being inappropriate in the OotS universe. I suspect such assumptions underlay a lot of Vaarsuvius' casual attitude toward killing the young black dragon--s/he is, after all, the least interested in roleplaying of the Order, if it's possible to say that about someone whose entire existence is in a world based on a roleplaying game. On the off chance you hadn't noticed yet, this does not inspire my sympathy for Vaarsuvius.


People are getting off topic here. This isn't a morality issue in D&D, here. It's pretty obvious that in a D&D game, if one sees a non-evil dragon, they are going to kill it. Plan and simple.

And there ARE good dragons out there. They are normally a shiny color. The black dragon was not shiny, and thus was a valid target. There's a 99.99999% chance that a chromatic dragon ISN'T evil and WON'T kill you on sight. Are you telling me that in face of an almost always evil creature with the power to kill you in 5 seconds flat, you'd take the chance that it was one of the once in a trillion good ones? No, because nobody is that stupid. It's like being rude on a first date, hoping you get a girl that WON'T slap you as soon as you insult her hair. It's simple logic really.

The MBD deserves to die. Her actions against 3 (or potentally more, if elves come to their assistance) innocent people who have never wronged her in her life are some of the most horrible you can do to a person. However, the YBD isn't so innocent. The Order didn't hunt him down, they ran into him by accident. The Dragon obviously had the upper hand in that battle, and only by sheer luck did they manage to defeat him. Even if V wasn't a lizard at the time, I'm sure that the Order could have lost that fight. The YBD had the upper hand in that fight. A baker and two young children don't even stand a chance.

[pendell]

Roger that. Thank you for the reply, Kish.

So, question: What would you have done in V's case? In the original cave, I mean. Assume that you have just brought the dragon under your suggestion spell and have suggested it will perform no actions except those you specifically order. Roll from there.


I would have done pretty much exactly the same thing as Vaarsuvius did, except that I would not have granted the black dragon permission to 'eat any who would disobey'.

Reason: I would parley with the black dragon and reach a peaceful solution if at all possible. Including buying the starmetal, bargaining for the starmetal, or just plain leaving without it or any treasure. After all, the YBD *is* the rightful owner.

But given the events leading up to that final panel, I see no reason to doubt V's conclusion that the only thing the dragon would attempt to do once the suggestion wore off is attempt to kill the entire party.

I am under no obligation to give the dragon a free attack, or to give it the opportunity to possibly kill one or more of my party members. Therefore, I would hit it while it was still defenseless.

Yes, this would have made ABD angry with me. But y'know what? I think any outcome to that battle that resulted in the defeat of the YBD would have made the ABD angry. I haven't seen any indication in the book that the ABD is *nice* in any way.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[B. Dandelion]

to address a few general things...

I don't play D&D. I'm bringing it up because I know that puts me at a large disadvantage compared to the majority of fans here. In some cases, though, I wonder if it's an advantage because I'm not going into a debate with any particular biases one way or the other. So I hope you'll bear with me.

One thing that I see come up a lot is the idea that if creatures are inherently evil (upwards of 50%), the attitude adopted toward them should be "guilty until proven innocent." I may not play D&D, but I can tell you right now why that is So. Very. Wrong. It's because the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" is not and has never been about pragmatism. It's not a matter of potentially reversible percentage. It's about justice -- about evaluating each and every individual person as an individual, not tainted by their origins or guilty for the sins of their fathers. None of that becomes one whit less relevant or important to a world with "usually" or "always" evil races. If anything it's even more relevant.

If, in a just society, we declare that it is better to let 100 guilty men go free than to imprison one single innocent, we are very much acting counter to the sentiments expressed by people who say it would be better to kill a child of an evil race if there was no option to raise it differently, because the odds were better it too would grow up as an evil, dangerous threat. That's not "moral relativism" just because you don't like it, that's the natural extension of the values we've had all along.

This is usually the part where people ask contemptuously if that means adventurers should sit down and question all the monsters they encounter, to give them a fair shot. The fallacy there is that once again you have conflated pragmatism with justice. If you assume that an "always evil" creature, looking totally pissed and charging at you with weapons at the ready, is there to attack you, and you strike first, even though you wouldn't have if the creature were "always good" -- you've acted pragmatically. Has the creature suffered an injustice? Technically. But you weren't in the business of acting "justly," now were you? You were acting in fear for your life. Do I say that you should be condemned for that? Only if you're bound and determined to conflate ideas of justice and mercy with stupidity and illogic.

As to the encounter with the OOTS, Vaarsuvius, and the young adult dragon -- there is no definitive proof the dragon attacked the OOTS first. People really, really want for there to be, but arguments and interpretations do not constitute ironclad "proof." Moreover, even were we to assume that the dragon did attack Roy and the others first (and while we do not have proof of this, we do have pragmatic reasons to assume it), Vaarsuvius and the dragon were talking peacefully before she instigated an attack against him. Dismiss that if you like, argue that she was implicitly threatened, or what have you, but it is something to take note of, and a potential black mark.

Vaarsuvius killed the dragon after forcing it to hold her party captive for hours, so that Durkon could remove the hex on her. The option did exist for the OOTS to have left without killing it. There's no proof it might not have chased after them once the Suggestion wore out. There's no proof it would, either, so opinions either way are subjective and depend on what weight we assign to different factors (potential embarrassment at its defeat, apprehension at confronting them, a need to guard the treasure hoard...). What does not help V's case here is that she never mentions having taken those into account either way. Much like her execution of Kubota, it was more a matter of convenience than anything else. Therefore the assumption that the dragon "probably had it coming" lends no moral justification to Vaarsuvius' actions.

Digression aside, getting to the OP and the discussion of Momma D. herself, I'm not personally invested in her ultimate potential fate, except for how it relates to V's descent into evil. I would find it cheesy for her to be pulling off a stunt designed to make V feel bad as a person. OOTS can and has used the sympathetic villain / reluctant monster theme to great effect, and its ability to give even the most unlikable characters understandable motivation is a big part of its strength as a narrative work. But I think to use it here, more than it has already, would be crossing the line from thoughtful into preachy. The fact that injustice often goes on in the OOTS world, even horrifying and cruel injustice committed by otherwise kind and likable characters, doesn't mean that we don't sometimes have evil that lives up to its reputation. Nothing that the momma dragon does retroactively justifies what V did, but understanding where she's coming from doesn't actually make a difference when I think her goals are STILL totally reprehensible. Avenging her son is understandable even though it doesn't really accomplish anything else. Avenging her son by torturing innocent children? BBQ the bitch. There's also just a little bit too much "how dare you lesser creatures imagine you can get away with this" arrogance going on here. She wants to teach V a lesson not just for hurting HER child but for hurting the child of a DRAGON, the superior race compared to V who is a lesser "monkey."

I think that part of the tragedy and horror of the situation to come is going to stem from V's paying evil onto evil and actually OUTDOING the Momma dragon in that regard. This would actually be lessened if Momma were more likable. As it is, looking back on the whole thing, Vaarsuvius will have to deal with the chilling realization that while the mother dragon was totally and inexcusably black-hearted, Vaarsuvius herself managed to be even WORSE.

My $0.02 anyway.

[[TS] Shadow]

As to the encounter with the OOTS, Vaarsuvius, and the young adult dragon -- there is no definitive proof the dragon attacked the OOTS first. People really, really want for there to be, but arguments and interpretations do not constitute ironclad "proof." Moreover, even were we to assume that the dragon did attack Roy and the others first (and while we do not have proof of this, we do have pragmatic reasons to assume it), Vaarsuvius and the dragon were talking peacefully before she instigated an attack against him. Dismiss that if you like, argue that she was implicitly threatened, or what have you, but it is something to take note of, and a potential black mark.

There is no proof that the Order attacked first either, however. Why do the adventurers have to take the initaitive to call for peace? The YBD was intelligent, if it wanted to make peace, it could have. It also attacked V before it could have done anything to him. While V did cast Suggestion before the YBD attacked him, they both knew that the chances of V succeeding were realtively low. In the kill-or-be killed world that the Order lives in, if something attacks you, you attack back, simple enough. Do you think that the Order should interrogate Xykon, Redcloak, Nale, Sabine, or any of the OTHER villians in this story before they attack them? No, because they know that they are dangerous and know that they are evil. Do you expect that in a world where 99.999999% of ALL black dragons are evil, they would interrogate them first BEFORE attacking? No, that's just moronic. Besides, non-evil black dragons probably wouldn't be living alone, and also have a giant horde with them. The YBD was evil. Evil in the OotS world is "anybody who is willing to sacrifice others for progression in his/her goals." Every evil character (Xykon, Redcloak, Nale, Sabine, Samantha, the ABD, Kubota, and Qarr,) in the OotS world has fallen under this rule. The YBD was charged by his mother to "protect" the horde. That doesn't mean he had to kill everyone who came near. He could have chased the Order away easilly. The YBD was in control in that situation, so if ANYONE should be charged with making peace, it's him. He didn't take that chance, and V took the logical choice to protect his friends. There is nothing wrong with that.

[Volkov]

Shadow;5859430']People are getting off topic here. This isn't a morality issue in D&D, here. It's pretty obvious that in a D&D game, if one sees a non-evil dragon, they are going to kill it. Plan and simple.

And there ARE good dragons out there. They are normally a shiny color. The black dragon was not shiny, and thus was a valid target. There's a 99.99999% chance that a chromatic dragon ISN'T evil and WON'T kill you on sight. Are you telling me that in face of an almost always evil creature with the power to kill you in 5 seconds flat, you'd take the chance that it was one of the once in a trillion good ones? No, because nobody is that stupid. It's like being rude on a first date, hoping you get a girl that WON'T slap you as soon as you insult her hair. It's simple logic really.

The MBD deserves to die. Her actions against 3 (or potentally more, if elves come to their assistance) innocent people who have never wronged her in her life are some of the most horrible you can do to a person. However, the YBD isn't so innocent. The Order didn't hunt him down, they ran into him by accident. The Dragon obviously had the upper hand in that battle, and only by sheer luck did they manage to defeat him. Even if V wasn't a lizard at the time, I'm sure that the Order could have lost that fight. The YBD had the upper hand in that fight. A baker and two young children don't even stand a chance.

She Lost her Husband to adventurers and watched as he was skinned by those of V's profession, she lost her last if not only child in a way that bringing him back to life would be far too difficult, as after all finding clerics with both the wealth, the experience points, and the level to cast ressurection are extremely rare, and ones willing to help evil creatures or other evil creatures even rarer.

She was robbed blind, and we all know how much even the most virtous dragon loves their treasure, even Bahumat isn't exempt from this, heck a hoard is more than just a nice bed, it's actually a mark of status for dragons, the more treasure the more respected they are and the more influence they hold over others, and now all of it is gone, so now in one fel swoop she's gone from the top dragon in the marsh, to lower than a Young White Dragon.

And on top of that, Tiamat probably looks upon her as a failure now, as she's failed her in protecting the next generation of chromatic dragons, she's failed her in maintaining her hoard, and numerous other things.

Plus Ancient is the age category where Female Dragons enter their Menopause of sorts. She can't just go and have another child, she's too old to have one now. And she's probably the laughing stock of all the Green and Black dragons in the area, and if she didn't seek out revenge, a Bronze Dragon would waltz up and annihilate her or worse yet a green Dragon would enslave her.

[Warren Dew]

Moreover, even were we to assume that the dragon did attack Roy and the others first (and while we do not have proof of this, we do have pragmatic reasons to assume it), Vaarsuvius and the dragon were talking peacefully before she instigated an attack against him.

They were talking, but it's a matter of opinion whether the talk was peaceful.

The truth is, the dragon had already attacked one of Vaarsuvius's friends - Haley - before Vaarsuvius attacked. Whether or not the dragon or the party attacked first, Vaarsuvius was coming to the aid of a friend.

Vaarsuvius's moral position here, while possibly not pristine, is at least as good as Roy's or Haley's. The fact that we see a lot of criticism of Vaarsuvius, but none of Roy or Haley, makes me suspect that it's mostly because people are happy to blame people they see as unpopular, irrespective of the moral realities of the situation.

[[TS] Shadow]

She Lost her Husband to adventurers and watched as he was skinned by those of V's profession, she lost her last if not only child in a way that bringing him back to life would be far too difficult, as after all finding clerics with both the wealth, the experience points, and the level to cast ressurection are extremely rare, and ones willing to help evil creatures or other evil creatures even rarer.

She was robbed blind, and we all know how much even the most virtous dragon loves their treasure, even Bahumat isn't exempt from this, heck a hoard is more than just a nice bed, it's actually a mark of status for dragons, the more treasure the more respected they are and the more influence they hold over others, and now all of it is gone, so now in one fel swoop she's gone from the top dragon in the marsh, to lower than a Young White Dragon.

And on top of that, Tiamat probably looks upon her as a failure now, as she's failed her in protecting the next generation of chromatic dragons, she's failed her in maintaining her hoard, and numerous other things.

Plus Ancient is the age category where Female Dragons enter their Menopause of sorts. She can't just go and have another child, she's too old to have one now. And she's probably the laughing stock of all the Green and Black dragons in the area, and if she didn't seek out revenge, a Bronze Dragon would waltz up and annihilate her or worse yet a green Dragon would enslave her.

Hey, I never said that the ABD's story was unsympathetic. I felt something for the ADB and her story. However, instead of trying to change the view of black dragons, she only enforces it. She is willing to let 3 souls suffer for eternity (even if she only has 2 Soul Bind scrolls, I'm sure V's mate isn't going to be happy in an afterlife where she knows that her children are tortured,) while the YBD at least has some sort of afterlife (which doesn't get as bad after a while, if my understanding of the evil afterlife in D&D is correct.) These actions aren't helping her case or species. They are mearly making black dragons seem more like monsters and less like beings.

[Kish]

Roger that. Thank you for the reply, Kish.

So, question: What would you have done in V's case? In the original cave, I mean. Assume that you have just brought the dragon under your suggestion spell and have suggested it will perform no actions except those you specifically order. Roll from there.

All right, but with the note that I would only get there after attempting, and failing, to negotiate with the dragon as soon as I learned he spoke Lizard, which already changes the situation.

So, I'm abusing Suggestion to do something that much more closely resembles Dominate. I would tell the dragon to tell the rest of the Order that I am Vaarsuvius, and reveal any circumstances under which he would be willing to let us take the starmetal. If he said there were none, I would have him convey the information that we're leaving, NOW. Sorry about the starmetal, Sir Greenhilt, but apparently it's already someone else's property.


I would have done pretty much exactly the same thing as Vaarsuvius did, except that I would not have granted the black dragon permission to 'eat any who would disobey'.

Reason: I would parley with the black dragon and reach a peaceful solution if at all possible. Including buying the starmetal, bargaining for the starmetal, or just plain leaving without it or any treasure. After all, the YBD *is* the rightful owner.

But given the events leading up to that final panel, I see no reason to doubt V's conclusion that the only thing the dragon would attempt to do once the suggestion wore off is attempt to kill the entire party.

All the events, including Vaarsuvius' immediate, "You can understand me? SUGGESTION!" reaction? Then we have a very different view of Vaarsuvius' moral sense.

Shadow;5859575']Do you expect that in a world where 99.999999% of ALL black dragons are evil, they would interrogate them first BEFORE attacking? No, that's just moronic.
Of course someone who claims to be good should try to talk to an intelligent creature before attacking it, and not wave around statistics as a justification for attacking on sight. If that's moronic then that person's choice is a simple one: Be a moron or be a monster.

Vaarsuvius, of course, has never claimed to be good.

[B. Dandelion]

TS Shadow, are you deliberately messing with me? Just about every single point you make and question you ask was not only answered but spelled out explicitly in the very post you're quoting. I don't mind clarifying, but this is absurd.


They were talking, but it's a matter of opinion whether the talk was peaceful.

That's an ambiguity specifically addressed in the sentence immediately after that one:


"Dismiss that if you like, argue that she was implicitly threatened, or what have you, but it is something to take note of, and a potential black mark."

Notice that it's only a "potential" black mark.


The truth is, the dragon had already attacked one of Vaarsuvius's friends - Haley - before Vaarsuvius attacked. Whether or not the dragon or the party attacked first, Vaarsuvius was coming to the aid of a friend.

See above.


Vaarsuvius's moral position here, while possibly not pristine, is at least as good as Roy's or Haley's. The fact that we see a lot of criticism of Vaarsuvius, but none of Roy or Haley, makes me suspect that it's mostly because people are happy to blame people they see as unpopular, irrespective of the moral realities of the situation.

How is your presumption of insight onto the motives of other posters in any way a solid foundation from which to construct a logical defense of V's actions?

[[TS] Shadow]

TS Shadow, are you deliberately messing with me? Just about every single point you make and question you ask was not only answered but spelled out explicitly in the very post you're quoting. I don't mind clarifying, but this is absurd.

No, I'm not deliberately messing with you, just unintentionally. :)

I was really only combating your point that there's no proof that the dragon attacked first. Since there is no definate proof either way, as you have stated, the matter should be dropped, instead of being put in the YBD's favor, as you post seemed to do.

I then combatted you comment on how the Order was responsible for negotiating with the YBD, when they didn't really have the choice, as the YBD 1. has as much of a duty to avoid conflict as the Order does, 2. is in charge of the area, and thus shouldn't just kill everything to walk in, 3. would probably kill the Order on sight if the Order tried to negotiate.

I used your post as a base for my arguement and kinda rambled from there. Sorry.

[pendell]

So, I'm abusing Suggestion to do something that much more closely resembles Dominate. I would tell the dragon to tell the rest of the Order that I am Vaarsuvius, and reveal any circumstances under which he would be willing to let us take the starmetal. If he said there were none, I would have him convey the information that we're leaving, NOW. Sorry about the starmetal, Sir Greenhilt, but apparently it's already someone else's property.


Okay. I note that you are taking a risk that the dragon will not pursue you out of the cave and kill you anyway.

If it works ... great!
If it doesn't work ... the healing and/or resurrection funding is coming out of your share, Ms. party leader :).

If this was a slightly more realistic world where being killed meant Killed For Real, it's a whole other ball of wax on your conscience.

I guess we all have choices to make.

On the other hand ... if it works ...

I guess I would be happier with this solution if it involved some kind of safeguard in case the dragon *did* try to kill us after all. I don't like flipping a coin when lives of the party are at stake.




Vaarsuvius, of course, has never claimed to be good.

Nope, the fiends tell us in a previous strip that they are trading one good for one service -V has the good, or 'the neutral' in point of fact.

I presume the fiends are competent to detect alignment. V is almost certainly some variant of neutral.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Warren Dew]

How is your presumption of insight onto the motives of other posters in any way a solid foundation from which to construct a logical defense of V's actions?

It's not a presumption; it's an observation. It's relevant in that it points out inconsistencies that weaken their positions.

I mean, Grubwiggler was far less evil than mother black dragon, but no one complained about Haley's robbing him blind. It seems that high charisma characters like dragons can get away with murder while everyone is happy to dump on low charisma characters with bags or spots under their eyes.

Edit: I should point out that I'm not really "defending" Vaarsuvius. For me, it's more of an "innocent until proven guilty" thing, which so many posters have been advocating. I just really haven't seen any real shred of proof yet.

[Assassin89]

If I wanted the mother dragon to be safe, I would want V to cast polymorph any object on the dragon, but that or the black dragon not being harmed might not happen depending on how Mr. Burlew writes the story.

Yes, the death of the young black dragon could have been avoided, but that is not the point. the ABD is only perpetuating the evil behavior that might have been the reason why adventurers killed her mate.

V is perpetuating arrogance that comes from someone who believes magic is the answer to everything.

Comparatively, V is the lesser evil (no alignment pun intended).

[B. Dandelion]

Shadow;5859840']No, I'm not deliberately messing with you, just unintentionally. :)

Well okay then. :smallsmile:


Shadow;5859840']I was really only combating your point that there's no proof that the dragon attacked first. Since there is no definate proof either way, as you have stated, the matter should be dropped, instead of being put in the YBD's favor, as you post seemed to do.

Actually I put the odds against the YBD, largely on the basis that percentage-wise, he's the more likely culprit. Which is a pragmatic consideration blah blah blah -- I found the people arguing for his guilt on the basis of the inconclusive fight scene panel to be somewhat exasperating, as they have a perfectly good reason for siding against him already. It's somewhat counter-productive to have the argument hinge on the point that's so much harder to prove.


Shadow;5859840']I then combatted you comment on how the Order was responsible for negotiating with the YBD, when they didn't really have the choice,

They most certainly did have the choice to spare him -- after Vaarsuvius' spell took hold.


Shadow;5859840']as the YBD 1. has as much of a duty to avoid conflict as the Order does,

Which is as much a defense as it is a condemnation. If we allow the OOTS to act pragmatically by attacking an "always evil" creature, the dragon could equally have been acting pragmatically to attack a bunch of armed adventurers who'd come into his home.


Shadow;5859840']2. is in charge of the area, and thus shouldn't just kill everything to walk in,

Again, potentially mere pragmatism.


Shadow;5859840'] 3. would probably kill the Order on sight if the Order tried to negotiate.

Which is a presumption. For the OOTS to act pragmatically (in this context, "pragmatically" meaning "violently") on a presumption is acceptable depending on circumstances. Are they in immediate fear for their lives? They were to start with. V-as-lizard may have been in a potential bargaining position, since the dragon wasn't initially hostile to her, but that's speculative. They wouldn't have been in immediate danger when the dragon was under V's thrall.


Shadow;5859840']I used your post as a base for my arguement and kinda rambled from there. Sorry.

No need for apologies. Ramble on. :smallcool:


It's not a presumption; it's an observation. It's relevant in that it points out inconsistencies that weaken their positions.

What do their positions have to do with yours?


I mean, Grubwiggler was far less evil than mother black dragon, but no one complained about Haley's robbing him blind.

Yeah, but stealing treasure doesn't rank as high as murdering the most important person in someone else's life. V even asks about the treasure specifically and MD shoots down the idea entirely. There are also plenty of people who side with Celia in the matter of forcing Haley to share a part of that ill-gotten loot.


It seems that high charisma characters like dragons can get away with murder while everyone is happy to dump on low charisma characters with bags or spots under their eyes.

Xykon's the most charismatic character in the strip, at least so far as stats go. But people don't even have to know that to notice it about him, and he's STILL wildly popular with the fanbase. He's still a total monster, and no one disputes that. For some it's part of the appeal.

Belkar, meanwhile, has a notably low charisma and yet people were willing to argue against an evil alignment.


Edit: I should point out that I'm not really "defending" Vaarsuvius. For me, it's more of an "innocent until proven guilty" thing, which so many posters have been advocating. I just really haven't seen any real shred of proof yet.

Proof of what exactly? I'm sorry that I just don't seem to be following you here.

[David Argall]

That's not true. Killing is an evil act. By SRD.
The typical Good PC has killed hundreds of times, and is still flatly GOOD. So killing is not necessarily an evil act. It can be, but it can also be neutral, or even good.



I thought in Rich went to especial pain in his setting to establish that monsters are not mindless killing machines.
Not really. He has had evils object to their bad press, and question whether the good aligned are all that superior, but there is plenty in the comic to establish the evil forces as evil.



why were they still there? Vaarsuvius' Suggestion has a duration of 1 hour/caster level. So they sat around for at least 11 hours, probably more, because Vaarsuvius had decided to use a dragon s/he already planned to kill to hold the rest of his/her party prisoner.

Vaarsuvius is Good: "I suggest you stop attacking us and tell the rest of my party that we're LEAVING, NOW."
This imposes a duty on the good to avoid all fights, a position clearly rejected by D&D [not to mention common sense]. The party had full moral right to stay, if not in the dragon cave, then in the general area. Faced with the certainty that the dragon would attack them if they did, they are not under any duty to run away, but can kill it now to avoid the attack later.

Nor is it at all clear the party can escape in any case. They move at 30. The dragon flies at 150, and knows the area a lot better than they do. Even with a lead, they are merely delaying their deaths by fleeing.



Lex Talionis (your "eye for an eye justice") has been relegated to the ashbin of history for thousands of years and rightly so
While one can call it morally flawed, such reasoning pops up repeatedly and widely. It gets out of that ashbin with amazing frequency.



The dragon's head is at roughly the same distance only because Vaarsuvius is already in melee range. That the dragon is attacking is demonstrated by the dragon's open maw - which is different from the passive mouth closed posture in the earlier panel you cite, instead being the same as when preparing to bite earlier in the battle - as well as by the claw preparing to attack Vaarsuvius.
This is putting a fair amount of trust in stick art.



If the dragon were still under the effects of the spell, it would be prohibited from taking any actions, and would still have its jaws closed. It's clear from these frames that Vaarsuvius's first disintegrate occurs not before, but after the suggestion spell expires - on the first round that the dragon is again free.
Going by the rules of D&D, it would seem V cast the spell in the last round of the Suggestion, after which the dragon is shown throwing off the spell. In the next round, V has initiative, and the dragon fails its save.
Now in 481 Hinjo has a round of disorientation after being hit by Disintegrate, and our writer may have put in a house rule that the spell stuns for a round, but that is not in D&D rules. However, that would allow the Suggestion spell to have ended, and then V would go first in the next round. The dragon would be stunned until V cast again.



You seem to be relying on the unstated premise, "The life of anything that looks close to human is inherently worth more than the life of anything reptilian." At which point, your viewpoint exactly mirrors the viewpoint the ancient black dragon appears to hold--except that you would probably kill those "dangerous nonhumans" quickly rather than slowly.
This does not follow. While we don’t get the rest of the quoted story, it is easy to assume the incident mentioned was followed by a case where some local was caught in suspicious circumstances and was killed on general principles [quite possibly correctly, but we should note that Vietnam has 30 poisonous species out of 140 or so, not 28 out of 31. Such gross misguesses of the statistics is one reason such strategies are suspect.] The shape and species of the suspect is not a serious concern here.



You can defeat the always factor of something's alignment by raising it differently unless that alignment is part of it's subtype.
You can raise a wild animal from birth, but any expert will tell you not to treat it as domesticated. Depending on species, it remains slightly to grossly dangerous.
The same should be assumed about any aligned creature. You can hope it will behave more the way you desire if you raise it properly, but it has instincts, quite powerful instincts in some cases, and you had best be prepared for disappointment at least in some degree and sometimes.



, if you came away from Start of Darkness not thinking the gods were wrong to create intelligent species that way, one of us completely missed the point.
SoD is Redcloak spouting Evil propaganda. Now of course the truth can be very good propaganda, but we can’t assume any of what Redcloak says is true without outside verification. The story may be what our writer wants us to accept as “reality”, but any look at reality shows these evil races are poor because they are evil, not because they are discriminated against.



But what about Redcloak? He is of evil alignment, but I would guess that people aren't craving his immediate death. He's had more story time and more character development, likewise with Belkar, so we allow ourselves the hypocrisy of saying, "X is evil, therefore X should die... Belkar and Redcloak are evil, but they are valuable to the story, so we'll let them slide!"

I'm going to predict a counter argument to the above
No need to. That is about the only reason to let them live.



Anyways, I think that the loss of V's kids would be tragic, but I am hoping that the dragon is not targeting the children at all, and merely wants to make an idle threat to V, to demonstrate that her kind are not the monsters that some otherworldly manual condemns to be.
Yeah, right… I really want to show my moral superiority to some jerk instead of pounding the life out of him. And I'’ going to do that with teeth, claws, breathe, tail smash, wing sweep...



If I go and kill an entire nation because everyone's lawful evil does the fact that everyone's lawful evil make it morally justifiable?
It’s a start. It’s not sufficient grounds of itself, but it makes that a good deal easier to justify.



You seem to be saying that the worth of a creature is based on its intelligence. Merely having an 18 intelligence does not give one more of a right to life than having an intelligence of 3. Being more intelligent only makes one more intelligent.
One of the requirements to be human is being able to communicate. If you can’t make a deal with a critter because it can’t understand, it is an animal and you deal with it as such. If you can make the deal, the same critter is human. By the rules, we can make such a deal with someone of int 3, but one rather doubts that.



But what I personally would like to see, and that's something Evil V certainly won't do, is that V would find a way to resurrect MD's son, and maybe even his father.
They were evil and fully deserved their fates. No, we don’t want them back. We’d just have to kill them again.



V could easily have told it to reveal that he was indeed the purple lizard, and to relay instructions that the party should leave the cave while the dragon was under the influence of the Suggestion. He could have told the dragon to stay in the cave and not pursue them. None of these are out of league for the Suggestion spell.
There was no need to kill Jr. You can justify it all you want from an alignment perspective, but the tactical necessity was just not there.



Black dragons prefer to eat Fish, mollusks, aquatic critters, some red meat from terrestrial animals. Nothing sentient in that favored diet. Nothing at all.
Except Haley and talking lizards….and…



Black dragons aren't the type of dragons to actively go out of their way to eat sentients, too far from their preferred habitat to be worth what little meat they give.
The party can not be even a day’s flight away when the dragon chases them down. And the insult is another reason to do so.



I think an empty threat is an intelligent and very good way to get back at V. The MBD seems to have done her research and knows V couldn't follow her on a Teleport. So saying she's going to eat and soul-bind V's family (but not doing so) while V can do nothing to stop her would torture V while showing to us she's not going to stoop to the level of monkeys by taking an eye-for-an-eye.
It’s no stoop. It amounts to a foolish bluff. If V does the least divination, she finds the family is fine. So the torture ends in a few days at most. Killing and binding tortures for much longer.



and for the first and last time STOP ARGUING ABOUT WHO ATTACKED WHO FIRST! it's completely irrelevant. the dragon doesn't care who attacked first
What the dragon cares about is not morally binding on us, so the fact it attacked first is something we consider. Of course, if we assume he didn’t care who attacked first, we are pretty much saying it will attack again as soon as it can, and thus killing it is self defense.

[[TS] Shadow]

Well okay then. :smallsmile:

Which is as much a defense as it is a condemnation. If we allow the OOTS to act pragmatically by attacking an "always evil" creature, the dragon could equally have been acting pragmatically to attack a bunch of armed adventurers who'd come into his home.

My point is that if the Order shouldn't act pragmatically (in your definition, kill something just because the far superior majority is evil,) the dragon shouldn't either (meaning it shouldn't just try to kill and eat them.) However, asking the dragon to be willing to negotiate is like asking a hobo for their booze. It won't happen. If the dragon had the choice between going out to find food and eating a few adventurers that happened to come by, he'd choose the latter, because he'd probably have to fight anyway, and at least he wouldn't need to move. There's no reason to suggest that the dragon would cooperate with the Order, even if they tried. The conversation with V is an entirely different situation, because V at that time was in the form of a lizard, an obviously more relatable form for a dragon than an elf. If there's sufficent evidence that I can't get what I want through negotiation, (and in this case, much of the evidence is plain common sense,) I'll get it through other means. And in a world where killing creatures that are capable of hurting people are unwilling to cooperate, I wouldn't feel bad about killing them.

[B. Dandelion]

Shadow;5860208']My point is that if the Order shouldn't act pragmatically

I didn't say that they shouldn't.


Shadow;5860208'](in your definition, kill something just because the far superior majority is evil,)

Nonono, that's not it at all. Take out the just. Claiming a resort to violence is "pragmatic" applies when the far superior majority is evil, and this presumably puts you in immediate life-threatening danger. A rather critical distinction.


Shadow;5860208'] the dragon shouldn't either (meaning it shouldn't just try to kill and eat them.)

The dragon is not acting in a justifiably pragmatic fashion if it attempts to kill and eat adventurers just because they are good.


Shadow;5860208']However, asking the dragon to be willing to negotiate is like asking a hobo for their booze. It won't happen.

No, you cannot say this for a certainty.


Shadow;5860208']If the dragon had the choice between going out to find food and eating a few adventurers that happened to come by, he'd choose the latter, because he'd probably have to fight anyway, and at least he wouldn't need to move.

Total presumption. Like I've been saying, I don't find it unreasonable to expect that people should, in certain circumstances, behave in accordance with the most likely percentage, but that doesn't prove certainty.


Shadow;5860208']There's no reason to suggest that the dragon would cooperate with the Order, even if they tried.

No "suggested reason" does not eliminate the possibility entirely.


Shadow;5860208']The conversation with V is an entirely different situation, because V at that time was in the form of a lizard, an obviously more relatable form for a dragon than an elf. If there's sufficent evidence that I can't get what I want through negotiation, (and in this case, much of the evidence is plain common sense,) I'll get it through other means. And in a world where killing creatures that are capable of hurting people are unwilling to cooperate, I wouldn't feel bad about killing them.

There is not sufficient evidence. Maybe there's not enough to justify trying a peaceful route, depending on the situation, but "well, he probably wouldn't have listened" doesn't translate to "my killing of him was totally justified." Because you don't know that.

I am trying to provide the alternate justification as a reason of pragmatism, but you're going with the "guilt-by-association" angle that winds up translating into creatures being evil because of what they are and not what they do.

[pendell]

I didn't say that they shouldn't.



Nonono, that's not it at all. Take out the just. Claiming a resort to violence is "pragmatic" applies when the far superior majority is evil, and this presumably puts you in immediate life-threatening danger. A rather critical distinction.



Maybe you've already addressed this, but how is the presence of a hostile dragon who succeeded in eating one party member not an immediate life-threatening danger?



The dragon is not acting in a justifiably pragmatic fashion if it attempts to kill and eat adventurers just because they are good.


Realistically, I don't know any way that initial encounter could *not* have resulted in violence.

The dragon had intruders in his home. Given the fact that the intruders were armed and high-level, it wouldn't be prudent to dialog.

The party had just encountered a dangerous creature with a history of killing adventurers. They on the other hand couldn't afford to give up initiative either.

It would have taken a committment to peace on the level of a Gandhi to prevent that initial encounter from turning violent in a hurry; there was no such committment. I don't see any sign either side even tried to avoid a fight, much.

Maybe if Celia had been in the party.




No, you cannot say this for a certainty.


Perhaps not, but giving the previous history of black dragons in general and this one in particular renewed hostilities is a very high probability.

Lots of decisions in life don't require absolute certainty to act on. It's not absolutely certain I'll wake up alive tomorrow morning. But the probability is high enough I have no contingency plan prepared in case I don't.

People with experience correct me; in a tactical situation, where life or death occur in split seconds, 'certainty' is a luxury few enjoy. It's one thing to review the action at length in the comfort of our rooms later. At the time -- in this case, perhaps a few rounds, less than one minute -- certainty would have been near-impossible to achieve without Time Stop or something.

It's unreasonable to ask that adventurers in the heat of action to hold off on self-defense until they are absolutely certain it is necessary. Or the dragon either, for that matter.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Kish]

It's unreasonable to ask that adventurers in the heat of action to hold off on self-defense until they are absolutely certain it is necessary. Or the dragon either, for that matter.
You're misusing the word "self-defense." Argue that it's unreasonable for either side to hold off on preemptive strikes, if you believe that, but if you attack someone who hasn't attacked you, it's not self-defense, whatever your reasons for believing they probably would have attacked you soon.

[Warren Dew]

This is putting a fair amount of trust in stick art.

True. In general, I find the art more expressive in this comic than the words, though.


Going by the rules of D&D, it would seem V cast the spell in the last round of the Suggestion, after which the dragon is shown throwing off the spell. In the next round, V has initiative, and the dragon fails its save.

Going by the rules of D&D, the discussion should take no time, and Vaarsuvius should still have 12 seconds - 2 rounds - before the suggestion spell wears off. However, it's clear that by frame 6 of 186 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0186.html), one of those rounds has been used up.

My interpretation is that frame 5 uses up one round, and frame 6 uses another, making frame 7 - the first disintegrate - the first after expiration of the spell. As you note, I have to trust the position the dragon is drawn in to conclude that.


Now in 481 Hinjo has a round of disorientation after being hit by Disintegrate, and our writer may have put in a house rule that the spell stuns for a round, but that is not in D&D rules. However, that would allow the Suggestion spell to have ended, and then V would go first in the next round. The dragon would be stunned until V cast again.

Alternatively, the dragon misses in the first round, because that makes the strip funnier. Although, I thought there was some rule stemming from taking a large amount of damage in 3.5?

[Cúchulainn]

They are also Chaotic, Chaotic beings tend to give up on goals. Now had it been a Green Dragon, it would have pursued them to the nine hells and back. But it's a chaotic evil black dragon, not a lawful evil green dragon.

Mummy is a chaotic evil black dragon and she's pursued V pretty damn far and cooked up an evil revenge. A big enough insult is going to make a dragon want to follow and kill you no matter what colour it is; Jr. was a teenager, shot in the eye, has the speed advantage and it knows the party is mostly easy prey. It would have followed. And need I remind that the party has no idea of the layout of the caves at this point, and probably couldn't find the exit before being backed into a corner with the dragon taking initiative.


And leave the hoard unguarded?

No, I'm not saying that there is no way that you could justify fighting it, only that tactical necessity is not the justification you're looking for.

The dragon was a teenager and chaotic, it would have left the hoard.

Tactically when faced with a dragon and not prepared for it, you throw everything you have at it and then look for the proverbial high ground, retreat is more dangerous than facing death fighting it. At least in my experience.

[Kaytara]

They are also Chaotic, Chaotic beings tend to give up on goals. Now had it been a Green Dragon, it would have pursued them to the nine hells and back. But it's a chaotic evil black dragon, not a lawful evil green dragon.

The problem is, you are making assumptions about the future behaviour of a dragon based on its species' usual alignment. Isn't that exactly the kind of logic we're trying to avoid with this dragon?

Also, I'm fairly certain that no adventurer in their right mind would stake their survival on the whims of a flying, acid-breathing killing machine that had neither problems nor issues with crushing them like bugs earlier.

[hamishspence]

the dragon's treasure cannot really be used for "why it must have done evil"

For one thing- its the mother's, not the young dragon's.
For another- all dragons, good and evil, have massive hoards- a hoard is not evidence of any particular alignment.

[Adeptus]

The dragon is probably toast. Too bad, as it's a cool dragon.

[pendell]

You're misusing the word "self-defense." Argue that it's unreasonable for either side to hold off on preemptive strikes, if you believe that, but if you attack someone who hasn't attacked you, it's not self-defense, whatever your reasons for believing they probably would have attacked you soon.

I don't think I agree. A police officer, when confronted by an armed individual, is under no obligation to allow said individual to fire the first shot. Should the officer kill said individual because (s)he believed the individual posed an immediate lethal risk to him/herself or others and that there was no other way to prevent it than to kill the individual, I suspect the plea would be self-defense.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Kaytara]

the dragon's treasure cannot really be used for "why it must have done evil"

For one thing- its the mother's, not the young dragon's.
For another- all dragons, good and evil, have massive hoards- a hoard is not evidence of any particular alignment.

In this case, though, we're talking about an ancient dragon that apparently has no qualms whatsoever about torturing and killing innocent little children. So it makes no sense to assume that she'd go out of her way to avoid evil deeds in order to gather that hoard.

[Volkov]

Shadow;5859613']Hey, I never said that the ABD's story was unsympathetic. I felt something for the ADB and her story. However, instead of trying to change the view of black dragons, she only enforces it. She is willing to let 3 souls suffer for eternity (even if she only has 2 Soul Bind scrolls, I'm sure V's mate isn't going to be happy in an afterlife where she knows that her children are tortured,) while the YBD at least has some sort of afterlife (which doesn't get as bad after a while, if my understanding of the evil afterlife in D&D is correct.) These actions aren't helping her case or species. They are mearly making black dragons seem more like monsters and less like beings.

No tiamat is going to throw YBD into the maggot pit and laugh as he's a lemure for a couple thousand years.

[B. Dandelion]

Maybe you've already addressed this, but how is the presence of a hostile dragon who succeeded in eating one party member not an immediate life-threatening danger?

The claim is invalidated when one of the elements is patently false: under the influence of V's Suggestion spell, the dragon was not hostile, and remained so for hours, so he didn't represent an immediate danger either.

Which applies also to the hypothetical scenario where the OOTS left the dragon alive, and were miles away by the time the spell wore off. The operative word here is immediate.

You can try to make a case for pragmatic self-defense nonetheless, but it's a lot more difficult and depends heavily on subjective arguments: like the idea that V wisely killed the dragon in its home because there was no way it wouldn't have chased after them, which is complete conjecture. Hey, some people might find it convincing conjecture but is it enough to base a death sentence on? This specific case is also weakened by the fact that V never brings up the possibility at all, and the only evident reason they were still in the cave instead of miles away was because she forced them to stay there -- she didn't want them to take another step until her Baleful Polymorph was cured.


Realistically, I don't know any way that initial encounter could *not* have resulted in violence.

The dragon had intruders in his home. Given the fact that the intruders were armed and high-level, it wouldn't be prudent to dialog.

The party had just encountered a dangerous creature with a history of killing adventurers. They on the other hand couldn't afford to give up initiative either.

It would have taken a committment to peace on the level of a Gandhi to prevent that initial encounter from turning violent in a hurry; there was no such committment. I don't see any sign either side even tried to avoid a fight, much.

Maybe if Celia had been in the party.

I think that's a reasonable analysis.


Perhaps not, but giving the previous history of black dragons in general and this one in particular renewed hostilities is a very high probability.

Lots of decisions in life don't require absolute certainty to act on. It's not absolutely certain I'll wake up alive tomorrow morning. But the probability is high enough I have no contingency plan prepared in case I don't.

People with experience correct me; in a tactical situation, where life or death occur in split seconds, 'certainty' is a luxury few enjoy. It's one thing to review the action at length in the comfort of our rooms later. At the time -- in this case, perhaps a few rounds, less than one minute -- certainty would have been near-impossible to achieve without Time Stop or something.

It's unreasonable to ask that adventurers in the heat of action to hold off on self-defense until they are absolutely certain it is necessary. Or the dragon either, for that matter.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Okay, no offense, but you are completely missing the point. Part of the whole reason I bring up this pragmatism angle is to pay specific acknowledgment to the lack of certainty. The same certainty that TS Shadow is blithely asserting. I am saying, it is often reasonable to act even without that certainty, even if that might hypothetically piss off characters like Celia when they're just being self-righteous instead of insightful. But when you forget that that certainty doesn't exist, you wind up declaring that it's reasonable to kill all "evil" creatures because of their listed alignment and only that. Which winds up translating, again, into justifying killing creatures because of what they are and not what they do.

[HandofShadows]

Vaarsuvius's moral position here, while possibly not pristine, is at least as good as Roy's or Haley's. The fact that we see a lot of criticism of Vaarsuvius, but none of Roy or Haley, makes me suspect that it's mostly because people are happy to blame people they see as unpopular, irrespective of the moral realities of the situation.

DING DING DING! We have a WINNAR!

Many many people do this sort of thing and they never think on why they do it.

[Kish]

I don't think I agree. A police officer, when confronted by an armed individual, is under no obligation to allow said individual to fire the first shot. Should the officer kill said individual because (s)he believed the individual posed an immediate lethal risk to him/herself or others and that there was no other way to prevent it than to kill the individual, I suspect the plea would be self-defense.
What, do the newspapers where you live not run cases like that? :smalltongue:

I've seen them a time or two here. ("But it was just a teenage boy who wasn't pointing the gun at the officer, and the protesters are sure the cop wouldn't have fired if it happened to be a white boy in a good neighborhood...") How much, if any, trouble the officer gets in depends on a number of factors--and in the case I'm thinking of, he maintained that he was quite certain the boy would have shot at him in a matter of seconds--but I have never seen the word "self-defense" used. "In the line of duty," yes.

In any event, this is irrelevant because it's really not a good analogy. A police officer, if s/he would claim self-defense, would do so partly on the basis of having less than 10 hit points and being easy to kill or seriously wound with one shot. An adventuring party above level 10 stands to risk minor wounds by not attacking immediately, unless the dragon they confront is so powerful that the only pragmatic response is immediate begging for mercy, and stands to risk becoming murderers by attacking immediately.

[B. Dandelion]

A police officer, if s/he would claim self-defense, would do so partly on the basis of having less than 10 hit points and being easy to kill or seriously wound with one shot. An adventuring party above level 10 stands to risk minor wounds by not attacking immediately, unless the dragon they confront is so powerful that the only pragmatic response is immediate begging for mercy, and stands to risk becoming murderers by attacking immediately.

Damn you, I hadn't even thought of that. When I started talking about "pragmatism" I'd been thinking entirely in real-world terms. I still think I have a point, but that's a whole additional level of potential complication. Risking your life to give everybody a fair shot is one thing, but a handful of HPs when you have hundreds? Not so clear-cut.

[Spiky]

So, I'm abusing Suggestion to do something that much more closely resembles Dominate. I would tell the dragon to tell the rest of the Order that I am Vaarsuvius, and reveal any circumstances under which he would be willing to let us take the starmetal. If he said there were none, I would have him convey the information that we're leaving, NOW. Sorry about the starmetal, Sir Greenhilt, but apparently it's already someone else's property.


I'm confused. I thought you were a D&D player. You just described the end of your game. "I quit." Rather a dull afternoon, no?

Frankly, I don't see what all the fuss is about in this thread, or the others on the same topic. Rich already had the debate, quite succinctly:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0207.html
I mean, if the most warped character in the comic is ok with the killing of the youngling....

[Warren Dew]

Damn you, I hadn't even thought of that. When I started talking about "pragmatism" I'd been thinking entirely in real-world terms. I still think I have a point, but that's a whole additional level of potential complication. Risking your life to give everybody a fair shot is one thing, but a handful of HPs when you have hundreds? Not so clear-cut.

A one round advantage can make a big difference. You'll miss that handful of hit points when you end up running out just before taking the enemy down. Also some effects can make you more vulnerable or less effective for the rest of the battle - for example Durkon's spells lowering the pit fiend's saving throws. D&D doesn't have as much of a "death spiral" effect as some games, where pretty much the first one to hit wins, but a milder form of the effect is still there.

[Kish]

I'm confused. I thought you were a D&D player.

I am. I've played with people who acted like the whole game was a very simplistic video game and I've played with people who actually think about the morality of their characters' actions. And, y'know, the "bringing morality into a D&D game RUINS THE GAME" attitude some people bring to these debates is really nothing more than obnoxious. You do not have the right to define what "proper" D&D playing is, particularly (but not limited to) when you define it in a way that would make so many sourcebooks, most of the alignments, and, as far as I can tell, any rules that don't relate to combat irrelevant, so you play your way and I'll play mine and we can both be glad we're not likely to be in a position to play together.

[Cúchulainn]

The claim is invalidated when one of the elements is patently false: under the influence of V's Suggestion spell, the dragon was not hostile, and remained so for hours, so he didn't represent an immediate danger either.

Which applies also to the hypothetical scenario where the OOTS left the dragon alive, and were miles away by the time the spell wore off. The operative word here is immediate.

Immediate danger? Okay let me run this through you. Did you ever ask yourself why the rest of the Order didn't take the initiative and attempt to slay the dragon while it was under Suggestion? Because most likely it would have wiped the party. Some of you seem to be underestimating the dragon because V killed it with 2 Disintegrates, but that thing would have been more than a match for the Order in a straight-up deus-ex-less scenerio, most likely at least killing Durkon who would have had to engage the dragon in melee. Roy didn't have a weapon, the whole reason they were there in the first place. And no, they wouldn't have gotten away if the dragon had awoken and they had chosen to run. Its like calling a bomb not an immediate danger because you managed to lengthen the lit fuse.

However. Killing the dragon wasn't completely necessary either. V could have allowed the Order to search for and recover the starmetal and then fled with them before the Suggestion wore off, his annoyance lead to the dragons death. The dragons death was realistically avoidable, I don't believe the dragon would have pursued an already long gone company of adventurers with only the starmetal gone, despite V saying it had been 'enshrined' meaning it was obviously valuable to Mummy. The whole hoard however? If the Order had the time left on the Suggestion to pack all of it (or any noticable amount) into the carts the dragon would have caught up with them and probably would have died anyway. Doubtful that they would have had the time to do that, but Haley and Belkar only came along under the pretext of loot and a fight respectively, hell they might even have just attacked the dragon on the spot for the treasure.

Putting aside the fact that the story would be badly screwed up if Jr. hadn't died, its death was not necessary, but it was completely reasonable and within the bounds of expectations. Did the dragon deserve it? To be honest I want to say yes, but only because I hate dragons and I'm biased, but I dont deserve to call myself lawful neutral if I use that as an excuse. The Order was under no lawful or good obligation to be there, no expectation of success (aside from the story) but at the same time did not know it was the nesting place of a dragon. Their acts were purely neutral, but the dragon did not deserve it.

tl;dr the dragon didn't need to be killed, there was a reasonable alternative, the dragon didn't deserve death as a sentient being for its action as they could be attributed to protecting ones home from armed intruders who intended theft. Its actions likewise were purely neutral and not evil despite its overall alignment, there was no reason for its death considering the circumstances.

This doesn't mean what the Order did was WRONG; they're adventurers, it's what they do, they shouldn't have to explain every random encounter monster death. It just means that what they did was avoidable. It by no means validates Mummy's thirst for vengeance, it just makes it avoidable, but hindsight is like that. We can justify or not any action considering what has happened in the future, but they don't have that luxury. V could have done alot of things differently, but couldn't we all have.

[typed at 5 in the morning, can't be bothered proofreading so if it seems badly written I apologize. Also I tend to repeat things, just saying them differently, and I get the feeling I might have done that here.]

[Warren Dew]

What do their positions have to do with yours?

The purpose of discussing things with others, as far as I'm concerned, is to learn things I didn't know or realize before. If people present cogent, self consistent positions, I can change my own position to match. If they present internally inconsistent positions for which the only discernable correlation is that they like characters that look cool, all I learn is just how far the human capacity for self deception goes.


There are also plenty of people who side with Celia in the matter of forcing Haley to share a part of that ill-gotten loot.

Yes. Lots of people think Celia is even prettier than Haley. No one argues about how Grubwiggler has been wronged, though. Steal starmetal from a cool looking dragon? Horrible! Steal a ton of treasure from an ugly looking frog man? No problem, ugly people don't deserve to have treasure.

That's excluding the people who think it's okay to steal from both of them, of course. There's just a disturbing lack of people who think it's not okay to steal from either.


Xykon's the most charismatic character in the strip, at least so far as stats go....

Belkar, meanwhile, has a notably low charisma and yet people were willing to argue against an evil alignment.

Sorry, I didn't mean "charisma" in a stats sense - more in a "how the character is played and drawn" sense. Perhaps I should have used the term "popularity" instead, though that's not a perfect fit either.


Proof of what exactly? I'm sorry that I just don't seem to be following you here.

My inclination is to assume that peoples' motivations are good until proven otherwise, as opposed to instantly assuming the worst about people one doesn't care for.

[B. Dandelion]

Immediate danger? Okay let me run this through you.

I grant the pragmatic consideration of "immediate danger." A person who eats bread that they desperately need in order to stay alive, instead of sharing it with someone else who then starves themselves, may be "selfish" in some technical sense but who in their right mind is going to condemn them for that?


Did you ever ask yourself why the rest of the Order didn't take the initiative and attempt to slay the dragon while it was under Suggestion?

Uh, no. I didn't.


Because most likely it would have wiped the party. Some of you seem to be underestimating the dragon because V killed it with 2 Disintegrates, but that thing would have been more than a match for the Order in a straight-up deus-ex-less scenerio, most likely at least killing Durkon who would have had to engage the dragon in melee. Roy didn't have a weapon, the whole reason they were there in the first place. And no, they wouldn't have gotten away if the dragon had awoken and they had chosen to run. Its like calling a bomb not an immediate danger because you managed to lengthen the lit fuse.

All of which may work to strengthen the pragmatic argument. It does not provide one single solitary ounce of advancement toward the moral one.


However. Killing the dragon wasn't completely necessary either. V could have allowed the Order to search for and recover the starmetal and then fled with them before the Suggestion wore off, his annoyance lead to the dragons death.

Right. I think this is an objective analysis.


The dragons death was realistically avoidable, I don't believe the dragon would have pursued an already long gone company of adventurers with only the starmetal gone, despite V saying it had been 'enshrined' meaning it was obviously valuable to Mummy.

This is more of a subjective analysis, so even if I agree with you, it doesn't matter either way.


The whole hoard however? If the Order had the time left on the Suggestion to pack all of it (or any noticable amount) into the carts the dragon would have caught up with them and probably would have died anyway. Doubtful that they would have had the time to do that,

They probably wouldn't have had time to pack up the treasure, no.


but Haley and Belkar only came along under the pretext of loot and a fight respectively, hell they might even have just attacked the dragon on the spot for the treasure.

Which would have been completely and unambiguously evil. Whatever pretext they labored under was due to Roy's deception, which did not grant them any inherent "right" to treasure whether or not he had been telling them the truth. It would have given them the perfect right to be furious with Roy, and perhaps demand some concession from him, but that's hardly relevant.


Putting aside the fact that the story would be badly screwed up if Jr. hadn't died, its death was not necessary, but it was completely reasonable and within the bounds of expectations.

Does not follow.


Did the dragon deserve it? To be honest I want to say yes, but only because I hate dragons and I'm biased, but I dont deserve to call myself lawful neutral if I use that as an excuse. The Order was under no lawful or good obligation to be there, no expectation of success (aside from the story) but at the same time did not know it was the nesting place of a dragon. Their acts were purely neutral,

Their acts were purely pragmatic. Well, I mean, Roy+Haley+Elan+Durkon+Belkar.


but the dragon did not deserve it.

We don't know if it "deserved" death either way. The reason we can't justify V's actions is because she didn't either, and she didn't act in pure self-defense.


tl;dr the dragon didn't need to be killed, there was a reasonable alternative, the dragon didn't deserve death as a sentient being for its action as they could be attributed to protecting ones home from armed intruders who intended theft. Its actions likewise were purely neutral and not evil despite its overall alignment, there was no reason for its death considering the circumstances.

Its actions were likelyto have been purely pragmatic, which is reasonable.


This doesn't mean what the Order did was WRONG; they're adventurers, it's what they do, they shouldn't have to explain every random encounter monster death.

I'm sorry but this is total B.S. "Killing things because that's what we do" is the attitude of the paladin in "Origin," who was a complete assmunch that wanted to kill creatures intending no harm for no better reason than he could. He also wanted to off Durkon for being "annoying."

The "heroes" absolutely do have to justify every random monster encounter death. Pragmatic considerations may have gone into every single one of them -- but that is their explanation then. Rich has been good enough in developing his characters that I am confident they did have good explanations every time, unless we see otherwise later on.


It just means that what they did was avoidable.

This is a gross misuse of the word "just" which grants the OOTS the automatic right to kill things for no valid moral purpose. Pragmatic purpose is not a "just." Narrative purpose would simply indicate sloppy writing on behalf of the Giant.


It by no means validates Mummy's thirst for vengeance,

What part of "BBQ the bitch" makes you think I sympathize with her goals here? Granted, she has the right to be upset. If you won't grant her that right, than I don't know how to respond to you.


it just makes it avoidable, but hindsight is like that. We can justify or not any action considering what has happened in the future, but they don't have that luxury.

TOO BAD for them. They're not my heroes if they don't have justification. I also generally object to the word "luxury" used in this context -- they didn't have the "luxury" of a compelling reason to murder someone?

[Spiky]

I am. I've played with people who acted like the whole game was a very simplistic video game and I've played with people who actually think about the morality of their characters' actions. And, y'know, the "bringing morality into a D&D games RUINS THE GAME" attitude some people bring to these debates is really nothing more than obnoxious. You do not have the right to define what "proper" D&D playing is, particularly (but not limited to) when you define it in a way that would make so many sourcebooks, most of the alignments, and, as far as I can tell, any rules that don't relate to combat irrelevant, so you play your way and I'll play mine and we can both be glad we're not likely to be in a position to play together.

Try not to get riled up, geez.

According to your current moral commentary (and I say current meaning the 2 posts I've quoted, some other of your posts have suggested other viewpoints on the matter, hence my use of the word "confusion"), you wouldn't have been there, anyway. Obviously the starmetal belongs to someone else at this point, or is at least protected by some one or thing, so if you refuse to take this course of action as SOP, wouldn't you have skipped the side quest altogether? And virtually every other quest in the comic?

But, in the comic, the Order is a party bent on obtaining starmetal to fix the leader's most precious possession, his family's ancestral sword. If your morality dictates not fighting and most likely killing (speaking of within D&D, only) for such an object, is there anything you can do at all? Ever? I suppose if you have a storyline based entirely on such useful artifacts just laying by the side of the road, not protected by any sort of critters....but that doesn't seem like how the game works, despite your comment. Sounds more like....The Sims.

[[TS] Shadow]

No tiamat is going to throw YBD into the maggot pit and laugh as he's a lemure for a couple thousand years.

And he'll deserve it for being an evil creature. Anyways, after that time is over, he'll fight his way up the ranks of the evil like everyone else does in the D&D evil afterlife. V's children, however, would have NO afterlife if the MBD succeeds, and would be tortured as well. The YBD had the better deal.

[Kish]

Try not to get riled up, geez.

According to your current moral commentary (and I say current meaning the 2 posts I've quoted, some other of your posts have suggested other viewpoints on the matter, hence my use of the word "confusion"), you wouldn't have been there, anyway. Obviously the starmetal belongs to someone else at this point,

Which point? The point when a black dragon is glaring down at the group? Or a point before that?


or is at least protected by some one or thing,

Here you're treating an important distinction as though it's irrelevant. I would surmise that the starmetal is already someone else's property when I saw the dragon. Not before.

Xykon is evil. As in, "I killed five people named Fyron in Cliffport for fun," not as in, "Statistics show that 97.83% of all people named Xykon are evil, so kill him!" Setting out to stop and destroy him is clearly a good act. Do you know what a straw man is? It's when you make up an argument you can easily defeat and impute it to the person you're arguing with. I've never said it's impossible to justify killing, or that killing isn't a major part of most D&D games. I've said that "he has something I want" and "the Monster Manual, which my character has read, sez there's only a 0.000001% chance we're doing anything wrong if we kill him" are not good justifications.

I've also said that Vaarsuvius has behaved in exactly the manner I would have expected. S/he has never claimed to be Good, much less to be me. pendell asked me to answer a hypothetical question and I did.

[Cúchulainn]

All of which may work to strengthen the pragmatic argument. It does not provide one single solitary ounce of advancement toward the moral one.

There is no 'moral' argument for me, nothing can convince me that what V did was morally wrong. I gave my opinion on V's actions tactically, that's all. Have fun preaching your 'monsters have feelings too' spiel though.

[B. Dandelion]

[typed at 5 in the morning, can't be bothered proofreading so if it seems badly written I apologize. Also I tend to repeat things, just saying them differently, and I get the feeling I might have done that here.]

You sounded perfectly coherent to me. I hope I didn't sound too harsh. :smallsmile:


you play your way and I'll play mine and we can both be glad we're not likely to be in a position to play together.

I often get the sense that's a major theme of the narrative here -- people playing two different versions of the same game. The voice of the narrative seems to side against the "listed alignment = automatic justification for anything"-type, but the mechanic seems to side with them. I cannot be the only person extremely put out with the evaluation Eugene received as opposed to the one received by his son.


The purpose of discussing things with others, as far as I'm concerned, is to learn things I didn't know or realize before.

I hope it doesn't sound preachy to say I find that an admirable attitude. I wish more people thought that was the purpose of debate instead of "winning," since when it's done right everybody wins.


If people present cogent, self consistent positions, I can change my own position to match. If they present internally inconsistent positions for which the only discernable correlation is that they like characters that look cool, all I learn is just how far the human capacity for self deception goes.

But at the risk of invalidating my first point to you up above, how does that help build a coherent, and independent POV for the purposes of discussion? What you feel about V in relation to how others feel doesn't really help me out -- unless you're accusing me of holding V to a higher standard than other characters? Which you only have reason to think on the basis that you think other people do it?


Yes. Lots of people think Celia is even prettier than Haley.

You don't have definitive proof that this plays a factor. You have conjecture, based on a presumed understanding of other people's perspectives.


No one argues about how Grubwiggler has been wronged, though.

Which may possibly be because it was self-evident. In this case, I don't think that applies, but sometimes that is a factor. But the idea that people don't care because he's ugly is, again, total conjecture, it could have a lot to do with the fact that he deliberately tricked Celia (if it was, in fact, deliberate), or tried to kill her when she refused to pay even though she tried to back down by that point.


Steal starmetal from a cool looking dragon? Horrible! Steal a ton of treasure from an ugly looking frog man? No problem, ugly people don't deserve to have treasure.

I find your conjecture unfounded and unconvincing.

Man, I wish I could make that sound less hostile. Um, no offense?


That's excluding the people who think it's okay to steal from both of them, of course. There's just a disturbing lack of people who think it's not okay to steal from either.

Again, may be self-evident. Also I notice you are skipping over the part where I point out there's a significant amount of difference between stealing someone's money and killing their only child.


Sorry, I didn't mean "charisma" in a stats sense - more in a "how the character is played and drawn" sense. Perhaps I should have used the term "popularity" instead, though that's not a perfect fit either.

How do you explain Xykon, then? People save the attempted justification for Redcloak -- who is also very popular -- but the fact that Xykon is beloved leads very very few people to try and argue he's anything but a depraved monster.


My inclination is to assume that peoples' motivations are good until proven otherwise, as opposed to instantly assuming the worst about people one doesn't care for.

You, um... you realize you are doing the exact opposite when it comes to the motives of the real-life people who post on this board? That you assume they let people get away with murder for being pretty?

[Kaytara]

One thing that bothers me about this is that we're treating the dragon as if it's a human being, with a human sense of morality and a human sense of what's right and wrong.

For humans, morality is a big issue because we live in tightly-knit societies and have to make decisions about how we interact with others every single day. Note that one reason we band in societies in the first place is because we're more effective that way - that is, we're comparatively ineffective without them.

Dragons don't have this problem. They're at the top of the food chain and have no plausible reason to think about morality, as they have no reason to restrict the level of their interaction with others - they are strong enough to afford that kind of behaviour. They live their whole lives by a "might makes right" mentality. Humans are effectively cattle to them, both far less intelligent and physically puny.

The point I'm trying to make is that I think it's absurd to consider dragons "innocent until proven guilty" or "give them a chance as individuals". They do not have a human mindset, they are far more like sentient wild tigers.

Now, obviously there are SOME dragons who are respectful of life. I think one could compare them to animal rights activists. Humans, to them, are beings that are smaller and weaker, yet having some merit anyway. They don't technically NEED to show appreciation for human life, nothing forces them to.

So if, for some strange, reason, draconic humanoid rights activists in DnD are almost always the metallic ones, and the ones who choose to indulge their predatory tendencies and don't care about such obviously inferior beings are all chromatic... Then it makes little sense to "give dragons a chance" just because they are sentient. Sentient doesn't mean human, and being nice to humans simply isn't a priority for chromatic dragons.

Dragons who don't care about humans aren't necessarily immoral - they are likely completely moral in regard to their OWN moral system. (The same way we humans do not consider it immoral to KILL and EAT animals, even though the line between animal and human sentience gets rather blurry at times.) If they care about humans, then they're just the rare ones who've gone the extra distance and questioned their own moral framework and ended up adjusting it.
Labelling them as "Evil" simply because they act according to their established systems and nature is merely a thing of perspective, the same way wolves and similar predators were viewed as "evil" by humans in history before literature made them all fuzzy and misunderstood. :smalltongue:

Based on that, playing nice with chromatic dragons means you expect them to think like humans, which they don't.

[B. Dandelion]

There is no 'moral' argument for me, nothing can convince me that what V did was morally wrong. I gave my opinion on V's actions tactically, that's all. Have fun preaching your 'monsters have feelings too' spiel though.

Cúchulainn, my point is not that it was morally wrong. My point is that after a certain point, the direness of the situation on the tactics side cannot become any more relevant to the moral side. I had already granted that the OOTS had a reason to believe they were in immediate and potentially mortal danger, so nothing that you piled on top of that made any difference.

[Cúchulainn]

Cúchulainn, my point is not that it was morally wrong. My point is that after a certain point, the direness of the situation on the tactics side cannot become any more relevant to the moral side. I had already granted that the OOTS had a reason to believe they were in immediate and potentially mortal danger, so nothing that you piled on top of that made any difference.

Damn server stalling, it's too damn early...

Anyway I wasn't directing everything I said to you, mostly just the first paragraph or so and then I stated my overall verdict on the matter. Honestly I can't see eye to eye with anyone who thinks like you on this matter, I've been slaying dragons too long. Or should I say murdering dragons too long? :smallwink:


You sounded perfectly coherent to me. I hope I didn't sound too harsh. :smallsmile:

What, you, harsh? Nooo...Well, maybe...a bit...If you could surround all your posts with flowers and bunnies for me that'd be great. At least in the mornings when I'm all tired and sensative.

[B. Dandelion]

I have no idea what sort of ethical framework the average OOTS dragon operates under, so the only baseline I can use is my own, plus whatever clues are given by the narrative. If I'm supposed to assume something else, out of sourcebooks I do not own, and the fact that I don't leads me to error, then so be it.

That point conceded, I can still answer this:

The point I'm trying to make is that I think it's absurd to consider dragons "innocent until proven guilty" or "give them a chance as individuals". They do not have a human mindset, they are far more like sentient wild tigers.

This isn't really the point. Actually, even though it may sound really dramatic, what I am attempting to argue is primarily (but not entirely) a matter of mere semantics. Normally people say, they see a monster 99.999~% evil, and dangerous, and within range -- they're justified in attacking. My argument doesn't require that you not do the very same thing or else be a horrible evil person.

What I am doing is breaking down the logic that goes into that declaration of "justified."

"Guilty until proven innocent" is not the reverse of "innocent until proven guilty." That's a fallacy that misunderstands the nature of the concept. Innocent until proven guilty does not imply that you must not defend yourself from someone that you fear will cause you harm, just because you don't know for certain that they will harm you. It's a legal term. It means that justice cannot be served if you presume a person guilty by association, they must be evaluated as individuals. You're not going to get a lot of opportunities to drag monsters into court and wait for conviction or acquittal. So, for the most part -- it's not something that you have to worry about.

The reason I bring it up is that the notion of "guilty until proven innocent" winds up doing the exact opposite and does declare monsters guilty by origin and/or association. Adventurers aren't supposed to be going around killing evil monsters because they are monsters. They should kill evil monsters because they are evil monsters. When you kill one that may or may not have been evil, you are not "acting in the name of justice." You are, generally, acting in the name of pragmatism and/or self-defense. To forget that is dangerous.

And that's it, really. Your hero isn't a hero when he or she kills a dude he thinks may have been evil -- but that doesn't make them a villain. For the most part, your heroes ARE doing the standard hero thing. But "guilty until proven innocent" doesn't fall under that umbrella.

[Kish]

Based on that, playing nice with chromatic dragons means you expect them to think like humans, which they don't.
One thing I see a lot in these argument threads is an argument that takes the form, "If you don't think exactly like I do, you think X (where X is something very specific). X is not valid, therefore your thought processes are wrong." But the person being addressed has not asserted X. If you want to score points with yourself and some people who agree with you, telling people what they mean is an excellent argument technique. If you want someone who doesn't already agree with you to be anything other than annoyed, it's a poor one.

[Kaytara]

One thing I see a lot in these argument threads is an argument that takes the form, "If you don't think exactly like I do, you think X (where X is something very specific). X is not valid, therefore your thought processes are wrong." But the person being addressed has not asserted X. If you want to score points with yourself and some people who agree with you, telling people what they mean is an excellent argument technique. If you want someone who doesn't already agree with you to be anything other than annoyed, it's a poor one.

You'll have to clarify exactly in what way that applies to my post, Kish. I'm afraid I don't see it.

"The person being addressed"? I was not addressing anyone in particular. If I was, presumably I would have used quotes.

At the risk of repeating myself... XD
B. Dandelion, I wasn't directly addressing your point, so I'm not too surprised that I seem to have missed it.

I appreciate the clarification regarding the term "guilty until proven innocent". I hadn't considered the legal roots of the term.

That said...

Adventurers aren't supposed to be going around killing evil monsters because they are monsters. They should kill evil monsters because they are evil monsters. When you kill one that may or may not have been evil, you are not "acting in the name of justice." You are, generally, acting in the name of pragmatism and/or self-defense. To forget that is dangerous.

See, this is what I was trying to say. We keep applying the terms "guilty" and "innocent", "good" and "evil" to monsters, creatures with a way of thinking and a moral framework that is different to ours, sometimes extremely so, because it is based on different factors.

The point is, calling a monster "evil" implies that its behaviour is condemnable because that monster is part of our society, and not acting in accordance to that society's rules is harmful for the society and therefore evil and worthy of punishment.

Obviously, what turns that way of thinking to shambles is that a monster isn't part of OUR society. Therefore, trying to judge certain monsters as "evil" or "good" is inappropriate, since we're only judging how well these monsters adhere to OUR system, when they haven't been trying to. In short, even if they obey the same rules, we have no way of telling if they do so out of respect for OUR rules, or if their culture has the exact same rules for the exact reason humans have them, and not, say, by coincidence, or for reasons entirely different.

The result of that way of thinking is that we ultimately judge monsters based on how harmful they are to us. A monster could be inwardly cruel but timid and cowardly, and we'd consider it "Good" without knowing any better. A dragon is strong enough to treat the less intelligent humans the same way we treat the less intelligent animals, so the less intelligent animal in question considers a dragon to be Evil, and those dragons that humour the puny little things to be Good.

And judging something by how harmful it is ultimately amounts to... pragmatism, perhaps?
I suppose the conclusion is that it is useless to try and apply our own laws to dragons. Since they're different, we have no choice but to view them based on their actions, and, more to the point, those of their actions that influence US.

I'm trying to be as clear as I can, so you may notice I tend to ramble on a bit trying to clarify my point... ^^;

[[TS] Shadow]

One thing I see a lot in these argument threads is an argument that takes the form, "If you don't think exactly like I do, you think X (where X is something very specific). X is not valid, therefore your thought processes are wrong."

She isn't saying that Dragons don't think, because they do. They just don't care about human life, besides a few extremely rare cirmumstances outside of metalic dragons. They're kind of like serial killers who kill for the hell of it; they do what they to do it, they have no remorse and no respect for any life other than their own, or as the ABD as shown, their families. So if the real world is better off without murderers, the OotS world is better off without bloodthirsty chromatic dragons.

And to everyone saying that they should have "checked to see if the YBD is evil," I'd say that a 99.99999999999% chance is good enough for me. If he WASN'T evil, he would have said something at least.

[Kish]

You'll have to clarify exactly in what way that applies to my post, Kish. I'm afraid I don't see it.

"The person being addressed"? I was not addressing anyone in particular. If I was, presumably I would have used quotes.

You stated, "Playing nice with chromatic dragons means you expect them to think like humans."

You could have said "one" instead of "you," and it would have looked less like you meant people here, but it would still be an incorrect assertion about all people's thought processes. Thinking that chromatic dragons think like humans is not necessary to consider it wrong to kill them on sight. That's how what I said applies to the specific post it was a response to.

[Kaytara]

Thinking that chromatic dragons think like humans is not necessary to consider it wrong to kill them on sight.
I would very much like you to elaborate on that. In your opinion, what are other possible reasons for thinking it wrong to kill chromatic dragons on sight? (imagine an emoticon for "this-is-not-a-challenge-I'm-just-curious-about-the-specifics" here)

[Kish]

I would very much like you to elaborate on that. In your opinion, what are other possible reasons for thinking it wrong to kill chromatic dragons on sight? (imagine an emoticon for "this-is-not-a-challenge-I'm-just-curious-about-the-specifics" here)
I am trying, very hard, to think of a way to put this that neither sounds condescending, nor goes in a direction that veers dangerously close to bringing politics or religion into it. I--

I don't see what thinking chromatic dragons think like us even has to do with it. Given that we all recognize that they do think. Either life, or sapient life, conveys inherent value, or...they don't. How does it matter whether they think like real-world humans or not? Charles Phipps either joked or seriously suggested that Celia's life has no value because she's an entry in a Monster Manual, not a PC race. I don't know if he was serious. I know Celia has plenty of detractors, including some who want her dead and some who would probably be annoyed if Roy got angry over Belkar (say) killing her. She's further from being human than a dragon is, not even being native to the Prime Material Plane.

[Ladorak]

I am trying, very hard, to think of a way to put this that neither sounds condescending, nor goes in a direction that veers dangerously close to bringing politics or religion into it. I--

I don't see what thinking chromatic dragons think like us even has to do with it. Given that we all recognize that they do think. Either life, or sapient life, conveys inherent value, or...they don't. How does it matter whether they think like real-world humans or not? Charles Phipps either joked or seriously suggested that Celia's life has no value because she's an entry in a Monster Manual, not a PC race. I don't know if he was serious. I know Celia has plenty of detractors, including some who want her dead and some who would probably be annoyed if Roy got angry over Belkar (say) killing her. She's further from being human than a dragon is, not even being native to the Prime Material Plane.

Well reasoned arguement, I would argue the bit about Celia being 'further from human' than a dragon, I'd say her thought processes are more human then what we've seen from MBD.

I can only really respond by saying the D&D universe operates under different codes of morality then ours. I mean in the real world if you don't have a government mandate killing is wrong (or at least illegal) no matter what the guy/girl's done. We shouldn't, for example, hold it against Socrates and reject his arguements because his society had a different morality regarding sexuality. Certainly we should reject that part of the teaching, but not the teaching as a whole.

[Kaytara]

I see. Thank you.

Though I noticed you say...

Either life, or sapient life, conveys inherent value, or...they don't. How does it matter whether they think like real-world humans or not?

I think an interesting question to explore would be why we consider the quality of being sapient, sentient, as something so inherently virtuous that we use it to measure whether we consider killing something with or without that quality as completely condemnable or simply necessary.

People usually perceive that quality as the ultimate boundary between humans and animals.
Since it can not be argued why sentience in itself should be considered sacred, a possible explanation is that we humans respect other (hypothetical) beings with sentience not because they possess a quality that we consider sacred, but because they possess a quality that we consider sacred and also possess.
Put simply, we respect them because they are similar to us in what we consider to be an important way.
We respect them because they are like us.

Which is how it may matter whether dragons think like real-world humans or not. Because humans automatically equate "sentient" to "similar to ourselves in an important way, therefore in other ways as well".
So any consideration for those creatures is caused not by our respect for life in general (in which case it's silly to discriminate between sentient and non-sentient beings), but because we see them as "part of the pack" and (subconsciously?) expect them to act accordingly, and thus punish them for being "evil" if they do not act in accordance with that expectation.

[Optimystik]

A central theme in OotS has been the folly of basing moral decisions on monster manual entries. There have been numerous examples underpinning both the online comic and the printed books.

The most salient example would have to be Roy's speech to his first party in Origin.
"...count me out then. I may find that I need to kill creatures in the service of some higher duty or in self defense, but I refuse to kill anyone just because its slightly more convenient than talking with them."

Then we have Elan's "long overdue grasp on the basics of sarcasm" to Vaarsuvius in the online comic:
"Wow V, you're absolutely right. It's totally cool for us to go around killing people. As long as it makes it more convenient for us, why worry?

Redcloak and his master run afoul of this concept in SoD as well:
"Reverend master, I don't understand. These are Azurites, I can recognize their clothing. Their homeland is more than a thousand miles south of here. Why are they attacking? What did we do to them?"

"'We?' We didn't do anything to them, other than set off their 'Evil Radar.'"

And most recently, Mother Dragon.
"Ah, yes, because that is what we dragons are to you, right? Monsters that hoard shiny baubles?"

Rich tends to use paladins to show the ridiculousness of the opposite view: that doing technically good acts are good enough to allow them to keep their class features regardless of mindset.

We have Roy's paladin companion in Origin:
"I'd kill [Durkon] myself, but I have to maintain a Lawful Good alignment to keep the paladin class. Damn inconvenient if you ask me."

The paladins at Redcloak's village:
"Wretched Goblins of these forsaken wastelands, the Twelve Gods have judged your hearts and found them to be evil." (an in-universe reference to their monster manual entries, since they were doing nothing evil.)

Followed shortly by "Exterminate the rest and let us be done here."

And last but certainly not least, a little paladin you all may have heard of named Miko.
"My blades will be bathed in the blood of those responsible."
"Ah. Then its destruction was just and necessary."
"Yes! Because they were evil, and so I killed them!"
"I only pray that the Twelve Gods allow it to be my hand that strikes the final blow, so that I might feel your warm sin-stained blood spilled rightfully on the cold hard ground."

This list is by no means exhaustive, but it demonstrates quite pointedly our author's views on the subject. More to the point, nothing he is doing goes against the spirit of D&D. Any table can choose to introduce very complicated issues and repercussions for wanton PC violence. Have the big bad dragon's relatives show up looking for revenge if your PCs didn't try to talk to it first. Give greater XP rewards for solving conflicts with Diplomacy (or Intimidate) than through violence. Penalize your players' paladins for following the letter of their alignment while abandoning its spirit. Such additions may complicate a game, but they enrich its story.

[The Minx]

V could easily have told it to reveal that he was indeed the purple lizard, and to relay instructions that the party should leave the cave while the dragon was under the influence of the Suggestion. He could have told the dragon to stay in the cave and not pursue them. None of these are out of league for the Suggestion spell.

There was no need to kill Jr. You can justify it all you want from an alignment perspective, but the tactical necessity was just not there.

Um, are you disagreeing with me or agreeing? Since your response seems to echo my own statement... :smallconfused:


PS: while I said that you could go and justify it from an alignment perspective, I would not automatically agree with such justification. :smallwink:

[[TS] Shadow]

I think this topic is straying away from what it's intention was. It asks the question, "who wants the mother dragon to stay safe?" For this two camps have formed.

1: This group wants the MBD to be punished for it's actions. V's killing of the YBD wasn't wrong, MBD's reaction is extreme, and should be killed.
2: This group wants the MBD to get away. While not debating that the soul-binding of V's children is wrong, they say that it's fair considering what happened to the YBD.

I fall into the former group. The MBD does have a sad story, and there is a chance that V could have done something different to prevent death. However, as stated before, running away would have done nothing, as the YBD could have tracked them down and caught them after the suggestion wore off. It was much safer the rest of the world for the YBD to be disposed of. The MBD's actions in response to this however, only prove the point that she's evil and heartless towards non-dragons.

[The Minx]

Shadow;5864512']I think this topic is straying away from what it's intention was. It asks the question, "who wants the mother dragon to stay safe?" For this two camps have formed.

1: This group wants the MBD to be punished for it's actions. V's killing of the YBD wasn't wrong, MBD's reaction is extreme, and should be killed.
2: This group wants the MBD to get away. While not debating that the soul-binding of V's children is wrong, they say that it's fair considering what happened to the YBD.

There is a third group. Their position is that V's killing of the YBD was unnecessary and a hallmark of the "evil monsters = XP fodder" mentality. MBD's grief is justified, but her method of seeking revenge is absolutely not.

EDIT: The difference between #2 and #3 being "it's NOT fair considering what happened to YBD".

[Kish]

Shadow;5864512']I think this topic is straying away from what it's intention was. It asks the question, "who wants the mother dragon to stay safe?" For this two camps have formed.

No. There are lots of permutations here. Are all black dragons evil? Is soul-binding two children an appropriate response to disintegrating a child? If all black dragons were evil, would that be in and of itself a reason to kill them? Is there proof that the young black dragon was evil? Did there need to be proof that the young black dragon was evil for Vaarsuvius to be justified in killing him? Two people might agree on all but one of those, or they might disagree on all, and it's a massive oversimplification to try to shove everyone into two camps.


1: This group wants the MBD to be punished for it's actions. V's killing of the YBD wasn't wrong, MBD's reaction is extreme, and should be killed.
2: This group wants the MBD to get away. While not debating that the soul-binding of V's children is wrong, they say that it's fair considering what happened to the YBD.

I fall into the former group.

And not too surprisingly, you describe your own stance accurately, pulling in people who want to see the ancient black dragon die who might not share your other views (heretofore known as the Us), and attribute to everyone who doesn't want to see her die (heretofore known as the Them) a stance stated only by one person in this thread (SporeGames) on the first page.

[Vaarsuvius4181]

i hope the dragon drowns in her own blood

[[TS] Shadow]

No. There are lots of permutations here. Are all black dragons evil? Is soul-binding two children an appropriate response to disintegrating a child? If all black dragons were evil, would that be in and of itself a reason to kill them? Is there proof that the young black dragon was evil? Did there need to be proof that the young black dragon was evil for Vaarsuvius to be justified in killing him? Two people might agree on all but one of those, or they might disagree on all, and it's a massive oversimplification to try to shove everyone into two camps.

And not too surprisingly, you describe your own stance accurately, pulling in people who want to see the ancient black dragon die who might not share your other views (heretofore known as the Us), and attribute to everyone who doesn't want to see her die (heretofore known as the Them) a stance stated only by one person in this thread (SporeGames) on the first page.

The topic was getting so lost in morality issues I thought it would be best to simplify it and start again.

Answering your questions, however...Are all black dragons evil? In the comic, we've seen 2 black dragons, both evil. So far, OotS has a 100% evil black dragon rate. Obviously, there might be very few good/neutral black dragons, but those things are so rare that you have a better chance of learning V's gender within the next 100 strips than meeting one. If all black dragons are evil, is that a good enough reason to kill them? If they kill things, yes. The lives of Good/Neutral people (people who wouldn't hurt people) are more important than the lives of Evil people or creatures (which is why the death penalty exists in some places.) Is there proof that the YBD was evil? There's no proof that he was good, and plenty of circumstantial evidence pointing towards an evil nature. He was raised by an obiviously evil mother, and attacked the Order on sight, even though they haven't wronged him. Both lead towards an evil nature. Did there need to be proof that the young black dragon was evil for Vaarsuvius to be justified in killing him? No, because he had enough proof right there. The YBD tried to eat Vaarsuvius even though his spellcasting attemps were pretty sure to fail. If the YBD was good, he would have negotiated with V, and V would have listened.

And lastly, the main reason I want the ABD to be punished: Is soul-binding two children an appropriate response to disintegrating a child? The answer, plain and simple: NO. Two innocent souls will be tortured forever, while one has an afterlife. One could be ressurected, two can't. If the ABD has resouces to obtain two scrolls for soul bind, a true resserection scroll shouldn't be too hard to find, either. The ABD's story inspires sympathy, but her actions inspire punishment and hate. I'm sure I'd want to kill the man who killed my child (even though I wouldn't), but I wouldn't hurt a hair on HIS child's head for my revenge instead.

[Kish]

Shadow;5864850']The topic was getting so lost in morality issues I thought it would be best to simplify it and start again.

Answering your questions, however...

That's not the point. I know your answers, as well as you likely know mine by now (that is, you know mine if you recognize the person writing this post as a separate entity from both SporeGames and your "second group"). The point is that you can't shoehorn all the people on this thread into two "camps." Not accurately, anyway.

If you're more interested in simplifying thought than in recognizing that there are more minds on this thread than many clones of you and SporeGames, proceed, but I wouldn't expect to accomplish much.

[Warren Dew]

We don't know if it "deserved" death either way. The reason we can't justify V's actions is because she didn't either, and she didn't act in pure self-defense.

Self defense is not generally seen as the only legitimate reason to kill. Others have pointed out that police officers often get away with killing nonthreatening people, sometimes innocents, "in the line of duty". That's an extension of a more general "defense of others" justification.

D&D parties typically consider an attack on one member an attack on all, and this party does not seem an exception. Vaarsuvius's actions against the young black dragon, while not purely self defense, are defense of other party members, and in some of their cases, friends. It seems to me Vaarsuvius is if anything more justified than the other party members, in that Vaarsuvius actually waited until after the young black dragon attacked before attacking it. This is why condemning Vaarsuvius, while not condemning the other party members, seems so hypocritical to me. I'm not saying you're taking that position, but others certainly have.


But at the risk of invalidating my first point to you up above, how does that help build a coherent, and independent POV for the purposes of discussion?

Since I participate in discussion primarily for my own edification, I grant that I don't do a lot of exposition of my own position; people who are interested will likely have to figure it out from multiple posts. I do generally answer direct questions, as for example when I responded to Ladorak in post 96 of this thread, and I do generally try to correct misperceptions of my position if it doesn't involve repeating myself too much.


What you feel about V in relation to how others feel doesn't really help me out -- unless you're accusing me of holding V to a higher standard than other characters? Which you only have reason to think on the basis that you think other people do it?

I was not complaining about you; the comment just happened to come up in a post responding to one of your posts. I actually think your position is pretty self consistent, and your distinction between idealized moral reasoning and reasoning appropriate to pragmatic situations is a valuable contribution to the discussion.


You don't have definitive proof that this plays a factor. You have conjecture, based on a presumed understanding of other people's perspectives.

I have conjecture, combined with decades of empirical confirmation.


I find your conjecture unfounded and unconvincing.

Man, I wish I could make that sound less hostile. Um, no offense?

No offense taken. To you it no doubt sounds like an unsupported assertion, as you haven't been looking at evidence for it for years.


Also I notice you are skipping over the part where I point out there's a significant amount of difference between stealing someone's money and killing their only child.

This is why I examined reactions to stealing the starmetal, as opposed to killing the young black dragon. Comparing to the case of the black dragon is much more complicated; the theft from Grubwiggler is clearly theft, while killing the young black dragon, while a more severe action, is less clearly wrong. In addition, killing the children and binding their souls is more clearly wrong than Grubwiggler's position, which is arguably enforcement of a contract that Celia agreed to. I think the mother dragon's actions are ultimately less justifiable, yet get more support.


How do you explain Xykon, then? People save the attempted justification for Redcloak -- who is also very popular -- but the fact that Xykon is beloved leads very very few people to try and argue he's anything but a depraved monster.

Xykon never tries to rationalize anything that he does, so there's no cause for discussion about whether his rationalizations are valid. Xykon admits to being a depraved monster, so his supporters, in agreeing with him, well, agree with him.


You, um... you realize you are doing the exact opposite when it comes to the motives of the real-life people who post on this board? That you assume they let people get away with murder for being pretty?

As mentioned above, this is not an assumption; it's a conclusion based on years of observation. A presumption of innocence does not preclude a conclusion of guilt, given sufficient evidence.

[galdon]

well lets see.. whats the CR of a young dragon? at least the average adventurer would need to exert themselves while fighting it. whats the CR of two 5 year olds and an NPC class baker?

dragons tend to horde a treasure by killing and stealing from those who pose absolutely no threat to themselves, while adventurers gain treasure by fighting said monsters that pose a great threat to everybody, so that dragon gets no sympathy from me.

[Warren Dew]

Which is how it may matter whether dragons think like real-world humans or not. Because humans automatically equate "sentient" to "similar to ourselves in an important way, therefore in other ways as well".
So any consideration for those creatures is caused not by our respect for life in general (in which case it's silly to discriminate between sentient and non-sentient beings), but because we see them as "part of the pack" and (subconsciously?) expect them to act accordingly, and thus punish them for being "evil" if they do not act in accordance with that expectation.

That's an excellent example of the view that draws the line in that particular place. Of course, since it strips away pretensions to moral superiority, it's unlikely to be accepted by many.

I would point out that there are two other positions.

The first is that the line is drawn between human - or in a D&D universe, perhaps "humanoid" or "human and allied races" - and other species. This line avoids the problem of having to throw mentally retarded humans in with the "lower" animals.

The other is not to draw the line, and to apply the same morality to all animals - or to all life - as to humans. In this comic, Celia seems to be in this category.


A central theme in OotS has been the folly of basing moral decisions on monster manual entries.

I think a more accurate assessment of the theme would be the humor, rather than the folly, of basing moral decisions on monster manual entries, hand picked examples notwithstanding.

[Skaven]

QR to OP:

I'm also hoping the mother Dragon will be safe.

Sadly, she's gonna be used to hype V's new power no matter what.

[ABB]

Nothing on the stock market is honest. Ever :smalltongue: It's so obvious Sauron is on wall street, hanging with his Buddies Asmodeus and Tzeentch.

Ah, touche'. I concede the point.


Any way, if that was true, how do you think metallic dragons get their hoards? Then again they could probably do what I do in super paper mario, buy lots of stuff, like say a shroom shake, that's cheap in one place, and sell it somewhere else where it's very expensive.

Well, buying cheap and selling high usually isn't immoral, as the profit you make is due to your being willing/able to travel from point a to point b.

[David Argall]

They are also Chaotic, Chaotic beings tend to give up on goals. Now had it been a Green Dragon, it would have pursued them to the nine hells and back. But it's a chaotic evil black dragon, not a lawful evil green dragon.
The also chaotic mother dragon has chased V for weeks, and possibly for over a year. She of course has greater motive, but the scale is also much greater. So unless we say mother dragon is an over the top plot element, V can hardly feel any safety in thinking they can get away from junior



And leave the hoard unguarded?
Junior would need only 2-3 days to find and dispose of the party. The strip tells us it took the party weeks to get the goodies out of that hole. So the danger of robbery is on the low side of a guard stepping out to McDonald’s. It might make the dragon pause, but the danger to the treasure is minor at most.



One thing that I see come up a lot is the idea that if creatures are inherently evil (upwards of 50%), the attitude adopted toward them should be "guilty until proven innocent." I may not play D&D, but I can tell you right now why that is So. Very. Wrong. It's because the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" is not and has never been about pragmatism.
Quite wrong. While “innocent until proven guilty” allows a number of guilty to escape, any alternative ruins innocent lives, and this is a very large cost. Our justice system can’t be too expensive before we are better off without it, and convicting the innocent is pure cost.



If, in a just society, we declare that it is better to let 100 guilty men go free than to imprison one single innocent,
The normal stating is letting 10 guilty men go free, and even that is stated as something of an ideal.

However, this standard says V is innocent until proven guilty, and that we need a lot of proof against V.



we are very much acting counter to the sentiments expressed by people who say it would be better to kill a child of an evil race if there was no option to raise it differently, because the odds were better it too would grow up as an evil, dangerous threat.
Not really. We are just putting the border at a different place. If we use a standard of 10-1, when the odds of the child being a dangerous evil exceed 90%, we start thinking of eliminating it now. If we use 100-1, we want it to exceed 99%. Same logic.


As to the encounter with the OOTS, Vaarsuvius, and the young adult dragon -- there is no definitive proof the dragon attacked the OOTS first.
This is a comic, which means limited information, and no definite proof of most anything. We normally have to make do with the preponderance of the evidence. It is unrealistic to call for ironclad evidence. And that majority is heavily in favor of the dragon attacking first.



Vaarsuvius and the dragon were talking peacefully before she instigated an attack against him.
This conversation took place in the midst of battle, and the first fact known to the dragon was that V was on the side of the party. He has no assurance that V would not attack. The only reason to think he would not was that he was unable. He made no effort to ask for true or parley. Nor did he give any assurance of peaceful intent. Rather his behavior is consistent with deeming the party a trivial threat he could kill at will.



The option did exist for the OOTS to have left without killing it.
The option also existed for them to cover themselves in steak sauce and wait for the dragon to work up an appetite.

The party is under no moral obligation to retreat from somebody who attacks them. Quite the contrary, as the heros, we expect them to beat up/kill any who do.



opinions either way are subjective and depend on what weight we assign to different factors (potential embarrassment at its defeat, apprehension at confronting them, a need to guard the treasure hoard...).
Some are subjective, but that does not allow us to dismiss them out of hand. And subjective or not, they argue against the dragon.


What does not help V's case here is that she never mentions having taken those into account either way.
As usual, silence does not give consent, particularly in a comic where the vast majority of actions have to happen off stage. What we do not see V doing does not at all mean she did not do.


Much like her execution of Kubota, it was more a matter of convenience than anything else. Therefore the assumption that the dragon "probably had it coming" lends no moral justification to Vaarsuvius' actions.
Of course it provide some moral justification. The fact of convenience, even if true, does not make it immoral to kill the evil.



Of course someone who claims to be good should try to talk to an intelligent creature before attacking it, and not wave around statistics as a justification for attacking on sight. If that's moronic then that person's choice is a simple one: Be a moron or be a monster.
Most people prefer to be live monsters instead of dead morons. One prefers to talk with intelligent creatures. For one thing, while they are talking with you, they are not attacking you. But at some point talk becomes non-productive, and sometimes suicidal.



How is your presumption of insight onto the motives of other posters in any way a solid foundation from which to construct a logical defense of V's actions?
Given the number here who are absolutely sure of V’s motives on less evidence…



Actually I put the odds against the YBD, largely on the basis that percentage-wise, he's the more likely culprit. Which is a pragmatic consideration blah blah blah -- I found the people arguing for his guilt on the basis of the inconclusive fight scene panel to be somewhat exasperating, as they have a perfectly good reason for siding against him already. It's somewhat counter-productive to have the argument hinge on the point that's so much harder to prove.
The problem is that the point pretty much does hinge on that sort of point. V needs to decide what the dragon will do when he comes out of the Suggestion, and besides the fact he is a black dragon, the chief point would be his behavior up until now.



Which is as much a defense as it is a condemnation. If we allow the OOTS to act pragmatically by attacking an "always evil" creature, the dragon could equally have been acting pragmatically to attack a bunch of armed adventurers who'd come into his home.
The dragon’s behavior, especially when it was speaking with V, suggests it did not see the party as particularly dangerous to it. So there is no pragmatic self defense plea for the dragon.



potentially mere pragmatism.
Pragmatism, at one remote or another, is behind all sound moral principles.


They wouldn't have been in immediate danger when the dragon was under V's thrall.
Immediate is not a part of a self defense plea. The key factor is “unavoidable”. In practice, few threats are unavoidable unless they are immediate, but “immediate” remains merely a rule of thumb, not the proper moral or legal standard. Here we find the threat to be unavoidable, by any required means, and so the fact it may be hours away unimportant.


stealing treasure doesn't rank as high as murdering the most important person in someone else's life.
Given the greedy nature of dragons, that is not a sure thing at all, particularly when this mother-child relationship seems to be a highly unusual one. [Ma should have had her last child centuries ago, and the kid likely should have left home by now.] Of course, the most important person in most people’s lives is themselves, and the young dragon has standing here.



V even asks about the treasure specifically and MD shoots down the idea entirely.
She seems to be lying here, at least in degree. The star metal had a whole room to itself. That is not “nothing”. We can argue she valued the son higher, but not that she deems it valueless.

[Kaytara]

I would point out that there are two other positions.

The first is that the line is drawn between human - or in a D&D universe, perhaps "humanoid" or "human and allied races" - and other species. This line avoids the problem of having to throw mentally retarded humans in with the "lower" animals.
I do not consider this to be a truly separate position from the one I described, mainly because there is effectively very little difference in mindset between the various player races in DnD. Most of the differences in their culture amount to quirks rather than a completely different foundation, so humans considering elves and dwarves to be "part of the pack" is actually pretty accurate.
On a side note, Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card explores that very idea - how would humans be able to interact peacefully with a culture that acts in a way completely alien to them, due to completely different foundations that the culture is built on?


The other is not to draw the line, and to apply the same morality to all animals - or to all life - as to humans. In this comic, Celia seems to be in this category.

And notice how popular she is. XD
On a more serious note, yes, that's definitely a position. This is what I alluded to earlier when I said that it's silly to discriminate between sentient and non-sentient life. Someone with the guts to actually live and die (literally, in some cases) by that belief rather than idly muse about it on a webcomic forum would, thus, have the position of holding ALL life sacred. The problem then becomes survival, as such a position makes self-preservation very difficult for humans.

As a more extreme example, if we hold ALL life sacred and do not discriminate by the level of intelligence or by size, shape and form... then killing mosquitos that land on you would be wrong. Not just mosquitos, taking antibiotics to kill the bacteria would be wrong. And, of course, if we hold all life sacred, then there's no reason to discriminate between plants and animals, as well. And then what would you eat?

In short, the only beings who could realistically hold that position would need to be very, very good at evading or tricking their natural enemies and would need to rely on non-organic materials for their diet.
Except, in that case, not killing organic life would completely lose its value. It only counts as a significant choice if the choice is at least remotely difficult to make, right? If these beings experience no negative drawbacks from living up to their complete and total respect of all organic life, then their decision becomes meaningless rather than moral in any way.

Sorry if I got carried away with this. ^^;

[Optimystik]

I think a more accurate assessment of the theme would be the humor, rather than the folly, of basing moral decisions on monster manual entries, hand picked examples notwithstanding.

Based on what? If humor was the primary focus of this mindset, then Rich's message on the subject would have been found in punchlines, not dramatic speeches and plot points.

[The Minx]

Junior would need only 2-3 days to find and dispose of the party. The strip tells us it took the party weeks to get the goodies out of that hole. So the danger of robbery is on the low side of a guard stepping out to McDonald’s. It might make the dragon pause, but the danger to the treasure is minor at most.

A dragon values every bit of its treasure, so even if only some of it were stolen, that would be bad. Besides, Mama left him there specifically to defend it.


Based on what? If humor was the primary focus of this mindset, then Rich's message on the subject would have been found in punchlines, not dramatic speeches and plot points.

To be fair, there is also situational humor, and overall plots/situations can also be the mode of delivery for it. Just ask Shakespeare.

[werik]

I, for one, do not want the mother dragon to be safe. As others have mentioned, V was defending him/herself and the party when she fought the younger dragon. And the dragon started fighting first. This, of course, ignores the a priori knowledge granted in Dungeons and Dragons that black dragons are evil, a fact pointed out in this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0207.html) comic.

Yet even presuming that these dragons weren't evil, or ignoring their overall evil and still denouncing Vaarsuvius for murdering the young black dragon then certainly we should be able to agree that murdering Vaarsuvius children and trapping their souls is certainly an evil act. Vengeance is not a sufficient reason to do this. To kill Vaarsuvius, sure, but not her children and/or her mate.

[The Minx]

I, for one, do not want the mother dragon to be safe. As others have mentioned, V was defending him/herself and the party when she fought the younger dragon. And the dragon started fighting first. This, of course, ignores the a priori knowledge granted in Dungeons and Dragons that black dragons are evil, a fact pointed out in this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0207.html) comic.

And as I pointed out, that was really not a tactical necessity at the time the dragon came under their control. I'm not saying that it is impossible to justify, only that the tactical situation alone doesn't cut it.

As for the a priori knowledge you refer to: to paraphrase Roy, you just took as valid a justification that came out of Miko's mouth. :smallwink:

But seriously, this once again touches on the central issue of what "Alignment" actually is: is it a description of a person's personality, is it the mark of accumulated karma or is it predestination of some kind? If it is one of the latter two, then perhaps it is justified. Perhaps. But if it is the first possibility, then it really isn't. This sort of issue came up in a previous thread where the question was whether the detect-and-smite paladin made any sense. In that thread, I went and said that given that the detect evil ability was insight granted from the gods, and the gods are smart and just enough to judge the paladin to make him fall and are scanning him continually, it didn't make any sense for them not to calibrate the granted detect evil ability to judge those scanned to the detect evil with the same level of reliability and justice. Kish and others disagreed, saying that one really cannot judge/punish people if they haven't actually done anything (and they questioned the ability of the gods to be ideal judges in any case), but then I asked, what is "evil", exactly, and when do you actually detect as such?

So when we know what "Alignment" actually means, we have a better grip on the question.

EDIT: of course, the OOTS did not have a divinely granted scanner, but as far as alignment justifications are concerned, this is very much a related issue.


Yet even presuming that these dragons weren't evil, or ignoring their overall evil and still denouncing Vaarsuvius for murdering the young black dragon then certainly we should be able to agree that murdering Vaarsuvius children and trapping their souls is certainly an evil act. Vengeance is not a sufficient reason to do this. To kill Vaarsuvius, sure, but not her children and/or her mate.

Absolutely.

[Rotipher]

This is what I alluded to earlier when I said that it's silly to discriminate between sentient and non-sentient life. Someone with the guts to actually live and die (literally, in some cases) by that belief rather than idly muse about it on a webcomic forum would, thus, have the position of holding ALL life sacred. The problem then becomes survival, as such a position makes self-preservation very difficult for humans.

Or you can adopt the position that having the ability to empathize with other sentient beings -- something even the ABD is capable of, else she couldn't have dreamed up a plan to make V share her grief -- automatically confers a moral responsibility to treat them with compassion and respect. Failure to do so, on your part or theirs, revokes the offender's right to such compassion, in equal measure: if you willfully kill another sentient, you revoke your own right to live; rob someone, and your own property is forfeit; if you mistreat other people, then you deserve punishment in kind. Whether you're a red dragon or an elf or an illithid doesn't give you any right to disregard that innate moral responsibility, nor does the other creature's being an orc or a paladin or a baby black dragon excuse you from it.

Would this view be suicidal and/or incompatible with the D&D game? Not if a DM is willing to treat it as more than a dungeon-crawl video game, and sets up conflicts to happen for a better reason than "it's got scales and it's ugly." It's not as if it's a new idea for moral justification to be incorporated into the storyline of an adventure; even vintage 1E modules tend to start with "The militia can't possibly hold off another orc raid; you must defeat their chieftain before the villagers are massacred!" rationales. Frankly, the idea that PCs can call themselves "heroes" if they just wander around at random, knocking off any monsters they happen across, is flawed in the first place: if they're truly supposed to be the good guys, shouldn't they be hunting down the monsters which pose a proven threat to innocent people, first?

Does this mean that the Order was wrong to fight Junior? No, because it was a case of self-defense -- on both sides' parts -- and more of a tragic misunderstanding than a crime. Does it also mean that V was right to kill him later? No, because ve could have used Suggestion to misdirect his anger and send him away (e.g. "Your mother sent me to tell you to go meet her, 100 miles away. Just keep flying north until you find her, and don't look back." [Party waves bye-bye, then heads south at speed.]). Does it mean that Mama deserves to be killed? Yes, definitely ... but because she plans to do something horrible to innocent elves, not because she's Chaotic Evil or a black dragon, or even because she's V's enemy.

[Ladorak]

The mistake here is to view the situation through your own eyes.

When one is reading a text one must always remember the circumstances of the society in which that text was written. This is why [censored] believe Plato was in favour of censorship, because they don't understand the context of his arguement, and thus misunderstand the arguement.

In this case we cannot analyse the morality of dragon-human relations through 21st century eyes. If Black Dragons existed in the real world human society would never have advanced so far or we'd have wiped them out by now.

Admittedly, if one views this through 21st century eyes V is going to be in the wrong, because killing is always wrong unless your life is immediatly threatened. Since V is allpowerful right now there can be no justification for killing MBD. You don't kill when you can just stop (And possibly later bring to justice), it's one of the cornerstones of Western civilisation.

It's better to look at D&D like the old west I think. Take for example the case of Wyatt Eurp: now here's the very defination of a hero, the man practiculy shined with virtue (Maybe that's why people struggled to shoot him:smallsmile:). This is a man so in love with the idea of 'law, order and justice' he goes into a gunfight on his own against over 20 guys and takes them all into custidy! Not one killed.

Of course, on the other hand the only law he was enforcing was his own, when asked to define the old West in one word you'd be forgiven for saying 'lawless'. Also he did kill people. Today we'd lock him up, a mass murderer. But back then he was a hero.

So don't judge Roy and V and even the dragon by your own morality, remember they live in a different world to you. In their world the average human (You can't even use the word citizen) that leaves his township for a stroll along the mountains without a weapon is as good as dead.

[B. Dandelion]

B. Dandelion, I wasn't directly addressing your point, so I'm not too surprised that I seem to have missed it.

D'oh! No, you weren't, were you? But thank you for being so tactful in pointing that out.

It's not always about you, B...

I believe that I do (now) understand your point regarding dragons and their alternate perceptions of morality. Unfortunately, I think that a system that requires a consistent, "objective" morality that only spans through good, evil, and neutral doesn't allow a lot of that subtlety to come through. Having a consistent ethos that simply does not count any non-dragon people as, well, "people" in any meaningful sense of the word sounds Lawful Evil to me.

Which is, yes, totally human-centric and often completely hypocritical (if humans can turn around and do the very same thing to dragons, orcs, goblins, etc., and yet be called "Lawful Good").


i hope the dragon drowns in her own blood

Don't hold back on our account, tell us how you really feel. :smallbiggrin:



Self defense is not generally seen as the only legitimate reason to kill. Others have pointed out that police officers often get away with killing nonthreatening people, sometimes innocents, "in the line of duty". That's an extension of a more general "defense of others" justification.

"In the line of duty" very handily translates to "in the name of justice," since, presumably, that's what gives you the right to act. If innocents (I guess they don't have to be "innocents" per se but you know what I mean, right?) are endangered, lethal action against a perpetrator may be considered acceptable even if it is not clear whether or not the target is "deserving" of death. But how can V be considered acting in the name of justice due to the threat against her comrades, when she was the one who -- knowingly -- put them in danger by forcing them to stay put for the entire duration of the Suggestion spell?


D&D parties typically consider an attack on one member an attack on all, and this party does not seem an exception. Vaarsuvius's actions against the young black dragon, while not purely self defense, are defense of other party members, and in some of their cases, friends. It seems to me Vaarsuvius is if anything more justified than the other party members, in that Vaarsuvius actually waited until after the young black dragon attacked before attacking it. This is why condemning Vaarsuvius, while not condemning the other party members, seems so hypocritical to me.

This seems to be in reference to the initial skirmish, right? I'm not talking about that.


I was not complaining about you; the comment just happened to come up in a post responding to one of your posts. I actually think your position is pretty self consistent, and your distinction between idealized moral reasoning and reasoning appropriate to pragmatic situations is a valuable contribution to the discussion.

What a lovely thing to say. :smallredface: Thank you for that, and the clarification as well. :smallsmile:


I have conjecture, combined with decades of empirical confirmation.

I'm not trying to suggest that conjecture is automatically inadmissible -- just that when I don't have access to the "decades of empirical confirmation" you're basing it on, I can't independently verify it, so it's kind of pie in the sky for me over here.


This is why I examined reactions to stealing the starmetal, as opposed to killing the young black dragon. Comparing to the case of the black dragon is much more complicated; the theft from Grubwiggler is clearly theft, while killing the young black dragon, while a more severe action, is less clearly wrong.

When you say "less clearly wrong," do you mean it wasn't as bad? Or that the percentages are muddier -- as in, while the theft was wrong no matter what way you slice it, killing the dragon was only wrong if he wasn't evil?


In addition, killing the children and binding their souls is more clearly wrong than Grubwiggler's position, which is arguably enforcement of a contract that Celia agreed to.

Yeah, it's hard impossible to dispute that one.


I think the mother dragon's actions are ultimately less justifiable, yet get more support.

I think yes... and yet no. Momma's goals are evil to the core. Grubby may be a jerk or a cruel negotiator, but at least he's not bringing in totally unrelated parties or being needlessly sadistic.

But her motivations are easier to sympathize with. Whether they're more valid than Grubby's is, like you said, a complicated issue. They're definitely more "romantic" since they're founded in a mother's love for her child (ostensibly, but I still think there's very possibly some racism going on here too).

That does play right into what you're saying. But I see several factors not directly related to charisma at all. Grubby would have been more "romantic" if he'd been the one motivated by love, despite being ugly. In fact the more charismatic characters often got popular in the first place for having the more "romantic" motives, because that hits an emotional chord with people and stirs their imaginations. So it winds up being discussed more.

People are more charitably disposed toward characters they can identify with. We're conditioned to think of things like love as a "good" motive for doing things (hence the common refrain of "doing the wrong thing for the right reasons"), while greed and such is a "bad" motive and people don't want to identify with it.

::blinks and goes over argument:: you know, it doesn't sound like I even disagree with you much... mostly just the "pretty people make out better than ugly ones" angle. I think physical attractiveness would be a secondary consideration at best.


Xykon never tries to rationalize anything that he does, so there's no cause for discussion about whether his rationalizations are valid. Xykon admits to being a depraved monster, so his supporters, in agreeing with him, well, agree with him.

Good point.


A presumption of innocence does not preclude a conclusion of guilt, given sufficient evidence.

Yes, agreed.

[Kaytara]

Or you can adopt the position that having the ability to empathize with other sentient beings ... automatically confers a moral responsibility to treat them with compassion and respect. Whether you're a red dragon or an elf or an illithid doesn't give you any right to disregard that innate moral responsibility, nor does the other creature's being an orc or a paladin or a baby black dragon excuse you from it.

You are still making the assumption that dragons, humans, illithids etc. all have the same innate moral responsibilities to begin with. You are projecting your own moral expectations onto creatures that may easily have very little in common with you.
Now, that position would certainly be pragmatic without being inconsiderate. Give the monsters a chance and if they blow it, all calls are off.

But then it is still likely that you would be punishing monsters for acting in what is, to them, a completely justified manner.

As an example, I mentioned earlier that choosing sentience as our measuring stick for a creature's worth is both awfully random and convenient, since it automatically places us on the safe side. Suppose that dragons, being intelligent, ancient and having contact with many powerful beings simply do not make that distinction and do not consider sentience to be something particularly noteworthy. Suppose also that, being very powerful, they respect power instead. (Exactly the way humans, being sentient, respect sentience, mind you.) So in their eyes, anything that fails to stand up to them is fair game.
From that perspective, a dragon would consider killing a human no more evil than a human considers killing a cow to be. There may be some dragons who are a bit more squeamish about it and will pick a different source of food if they don't have to go too far out of their way for it. There may also be dragons who think that humans, while clearly, greatly inferior to dragons, do not deserve to get used as snacks anyway. (Comparable to animal rights activists in real life.) But the basic attitude is the same.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the position you outlined would be very pragmatic, but ceases to be moral as soon as you start applying it to creatures that are sufficiently different from you, because you'd be measuring how much their behaviour harms humans and not how much their behaviour contradicts their ideal morality.

[Spiky]

Which point? The point when a black dragon is glaring down at the group? Or a point before that?
The point where Roy says, 'we are going to xxx woods to fetch some starmetal.' Would it not be your personal assumption that any such valuable item is "owned" already? I do tend to make assumptions of how people think, every few months I turn out to be wrong...


Here you're treating an important distinction as though it's irrelevant. I would surmise that the starmetal is already someone else's property when I saw the dragon. Not before.
Well, it's you claiming distinction, so you can define it. But I think you're bordering on real life decisions here, rather than D&D life. I see the dragon as an obstacle on the road to taking this treasure. Whether the dragon owns the treasure or is merely a mini-boss on the way to the owner (think, Trigak) changes nothing to me. I'd either be there or wouldn't, fight or not. If taking treasure by force is against the morality I follow, I wouldn't even be on the quest. That's where you have confused me.


The obvious point I have not yet stated is.....well, first, which are you? Roy? V?

At the point where they are fighting the dragon, they have no proof the starmetal even resides there, in the hoard, belonging to the dragon. It could be there is a epic-level, true master of this cave area 5 levels farther down. (or is it up?) In fact, Leader-boy had told them giants were defending it and only Haley had figured out it was a lie so far. So the ownership is really a moot point as the rag-tag team is staring up at a young, evil dragon. Which then shoots acid at them, first.

I can see that if you were Roy, the comic would be very different.

[Kish]

Well, it's you claiming distinction, so you can define it. But I think you're bordering on real life decisions here, rather than D&D life. I see the dragon as an obstacle on the road to taking this treasure. Whether the dragon owns the treasure or is merely a mini-boss on the way to the owner (think, Trigak) changes nothing to me. I'd either be there or wouldn't, fight or not.

I'm reminded of nothing quite so much as when Xykon explains to Master Fyron how he's taking the crown, in Start of Darkness. At this point, I think the distinction is not between "real life morality" and "D&D morality," but between morality at all and its absence. There's nothing wrong with preferring D&D games to be hack and slash as long as you're up-front about it and recognize the existence of other playstyles.


I can see that if you were Roy, the comic would be very different.
If any of us were any of the characters the comic would be very different. But I hope you're not under the impression that I would want to be Roy. He's deeply flawed.

[Spiky]

I don't see what thinking chromatic dragons think like us even has to do with it. Given that we all recognize that they do think. Either life, or sapient life, conveys inherent value, or...they don't. How does it matter whether they think like real-world humans or not?

Well reasoned arguement, I would argue the bit about Celia being 'further from human' than a dragon, I'd say her thought processes are more human then what we've seen from MBD.


People usually perceive that quality as the ultimate boundary between humans and animals.
Since it can not be argued why sentience in itself should be considered sacred, a possible explanation is that we humans respect other (hypothetical) beings with sentience not because they possess a quality that we consider sacred, but because they possess a quality that we consider sacred and also possess.
Put simply, we respect them because they are similar to us in what we consider to be an important way.
We respect them because they are like us.

I would reason that the creatures in stories or games who 'do not think like humans' do, in fact, think exactly like humans. They are characters imagined by humans, and therefore cannot think in any other way.

Perhaps all of you should note the clear fact that humans do not all think alike, first. Some are logical, some are not. Some are good, some are not. Some are damaged/handicapped/crazy, most are not. Some are capable of thinking in many different ways, and they make great storytellers.

[Spiky]

At this point, I think the distinction is not between "real life morality" and "D&D morality," but between morality at all and its absence.

There are far too many "moralities" to make blanket statements. It is a term that refers to our inner viewpoints and therefore there are more than 6 billion of them in the real world of this planet, alone. And they change constantly, making the discussion exponentially more complex.

[Kish]

If you hadn't responded yet, I would edit my last post to add this: For the members of the Order, this is real life, the only one they have. If you could convince me that Vaarsuvius approached it with the exact attitude, "This is a game, the lives lost here don't matter," you would have convinced me that s/he has not been, for a long time, any shade of Neutral, but rather quite thoroughly Evil.

[Optimystik]

To be fair, there is also situational humor, and overall plots/situations can also be the mode of delivery for it. Just ask Shakespeare.

Even then, the plot and the message are still the focus; the jokes are the spice, not the entrée, if you will. And I'm glad you mentioned Shakespeare, since he demonstrates that point quite admirably. :smallsmile:

For instance, Merchant of Venice has lots of humor; however, the work's Big Message comes across not through jokes, but a dramatic scene (Portia's speech on "The Quality of Mercy" during Antonio's trial.) That's exactly the kind of message I mean, when a character outright says what's on the author's mind.

[Ladorak]

I would reason that the creatures in stories or games who 'do not think like humans' do, in fact, think exactly like humans. They are characters imagined by humans, and therefore cannot think in any other way.
Not a big Lovecraft fan huh? Of course writers can come up with something that doesn't think like a human. A dog, for instance, can be personified to a believable extent (A philosopher's dog for instance, although there are many examples). You change the goalposts, values, prejudices, pre formed opinions, goals, emotional context, emotional range etc etc etc. These are the things that make us human and therefore are the things that make them not human.


Perhaps all of you should note the clear fact that humans do not all think alike, first. Some are logical, some are not.

Nope, pretty much illogical across the board, why else would we be having this conversation?:smalltongue:


ISome are good, some are not.

Nope. Good and evil are subjective, not objective. Your good may be my evil, as such you can't make that generalisation


Some are damaged/handicapped/crazy, most are not.

I wish I lived in your world...

[The Minx]

Even then, the plot and the message are still the focus; the jokes are the spice, not the entrée, if you will. And I'm glad you mentioned Shakespeare, since he demonstrates that point quite admirably. :smallsmile:

For instance, Merchant of Venice has lots of humor; however, the work's Big Message comes across not through jokes, but a dramatic scene (Portia's speech on "The Quality of Mercy" during Antonio's trial.) That's exactly the kind of message I mean, when a character outright says what's on the author's mind.

I meant that humor could also be conveyed through the overall situation created by the plot, not just through the incidental jokes. And the big message can certainly be told this way too.

[David Argall]

No, you cannot say this for a certainty.
It is the way to bet, and with a dragon, you are betting your life.



Total presumption. Like I've been saying, I don't find it unreasonable to expect that people should, in certain circumstances, behave in accordance with the most likely percentage, but that doesn't prove certainty.
Nor is there a need to. We are mortal. We never have certainty. At all times we must act in a state of doubt. We have to act in the light of the percentages.



There is not sufficient evidence.
There is never “sufficient evidence”, not in a stick comic that can only cover a subject briefly. We have to go by what we have, which is that we have an evil dragon, who attacked the party, and who shows every intent of resuming the attack as soon as he can.




The dragon had intruders in his home. Given the fact that the intruders were armed and high-level, it wouldn't be prudent to dialog.
To the extent the party knew the level of the party, it knew they were not that overwhelming a danger. Now the party was handicapped by Roy missing his favorite weapon, but if the dragon can make an accurate judgment, it can tell that there is no vital need to attack right away. To the extent it was not sure, the odds were high the party could take it anyway, making attacking suicide, or the dragon could win easily, making immediate attack unneeded.


The party had just encountered a dangerous creature with a history of killing adventurers. They on the other hand couldn't afford to give up initiative either.
On the available evidence, they “did”, retreating as their first action.



if you attack someone who hasn't attacked you, it's not self-defense, whatever your reasons for believing they probably would have attacked you soon.
The definition of self defense is preventing attacks against you. It is not retaliating when somebody attacks you. As a practical matter, the guy who slugged you once is rather likely to slug you again, but if you are only interested in self defense, you only attack because somebody is going to attack you soon.



Going by the rules of D&D, the discussion should take no time,
This is only a rule of thumb. The DM is expressly authorized to limit the amount said in a given round, which means longer speeches, which V favors, can take several rounds.



I thought there was some rule stemming from taking a large amount of damage in 3.5?
There is the massive damage rule, which is that if you take 50 hp damage from a single attack, you have to make a DC 15 Fort save or die. However, if you can take 50 hp from a single attack and still be on your feet, you pretty much auto make a DC15 fort roll.




Which applies also to the hypothetical scenario where the OOTS left the dragon alive, and were miles away by the time the spell wore off. The operative word here is immediate.
The operative word is certainty of the attack, not its immediate nature. Generally if the attack is not immediate, you can go find a cop or something. So the difference is often academic, but in theory, immediate is of zero importance.



V never brings up the possibility at all,
There was around a dozen hours that happen off camera, and a lot of dull stuff likely happened. So no, we can’t say “never”.



in the case I'm thinking of, he maintained that he was quite certain the boy would have shot at him in a matter of seconds--but I have never seen the word "self-defense" used. "In the line of duty," yes.
The case you mention is a claim of self defense, whether or not it was directly mentioned.


In any event, this is irrelevant because it's really not a good analogy. A police officer, if s/he would claim self-defense, would do so partly on the basis of having less than 10 hit points and being easy to kill or seriously wound with one shot. An adventuring party above level 10 stands to risk minor wounds by not attacking immediately,
A first level party meets first level threats able to do 10 hp a round. A 10th level party meets 10th level threats able to do 100 hp a round. So no, there is no major difference here.



I don't believe the dragon would have pursued an already long gone company of adventurers with only the starmetal gone, despite V saying it had been 'enshrined' meaning it was obviously valuable to Mummy
Why don’t you believe that a powerful dragon that knows it can crush the party, and has a grudge against them an appetite for adventurers, and an incentive to recover the valuable treasure would not pursue the easily outflown party?



Does not follow.
When one makes such a claim, one should explain why.



I often get the sense that's a major theme of the narrative here -- people playing two different versions of the same game. The voice of the narrative seems to side against the "listed alignment = automatic justification for anything"-type, but the mechanic seems to side with them.
It is not just a matter of alignment. The dragon attacked, and showed no sign of stopping. Perfectly fine to drop it.



it could have a lot to do with the fact that he deliberately tricked Celia (if it was, in fact, deliberate), or tried to kill her when she refused to pay even though she tried to back down by that point.
What deliberate attempt to trick her? Our little old golem maker may not have been the nicest of people, but he was at least as honest in the deal as Celia was.




I think an interesting question to explore would be why we consider the quality of being sapient, sentient, as something so inherently virtuous that we use it to measure whether we consider killing something with or without that quality as completely condemnable or simply necessary.
The sapient creature can make a deal with you. The insapient can’t. Simple pragmatics.


There is no way to respect the “rights” of the tiger. He won’t respect yours and you can only guess as to what his should be. The dragon can tell you, and the two of you can come to an agreement. That agreement can be rather one-sided, as when the dragon is on a virgin a day diet, but you can make that agreement and get on with your life [if you aren’t a virgin…], and you can change the deal as conditions change.



Redcloak and his master run afoul of this concept in SoD as well:
[quote=Optimystik]
"Reverend master, I don't understand. These are Azurites, I can recognize their clothing. Their homeland is more than a thousand miles south of here. Why are they attacking? What did we do to them?"

"'We?' We didn't do anything to them, other than set off their 'Evil Radar.'"
In fact the reverend master was the leader of the gate plan and an entirely legitimate target. The innocence of any goblins around him is rather suspect too.

The paladins at Redcloak's village:


"Wretched Goblins of these forsaken wastelands, the Twelve Gods have judged your hearts and found them to be evil." (an in-universe reference to their monster manual entries, since they were doing nothing evil.)
We merely do not know of anything in particular they were doing, evil or not. The presence of the chief priest who was guiding the program to capture the gate is definite suspicious.



And last but certainly not least, a little paladin you all may have heard of named Miko.
"Yes! Because they were evil, and so I killed them!"
This joke depends on Miko being in the right here. She is here the figure of virtue being harassed by the evil Belkar and his devious lawyer.



"I only pray that the Twelve Gods allow it to be my hand that strikes the final blow, so that I might feel your warm sin-stained blood spilled rightfully on the cold hard ground."
This is right after the party had rescued the evil Belkar from his richly deserved punishment.



This list is by no means exhaustive, but it demonstrates quite pointedly our author's views on the subject.
As the 2nd look shows, our author’s views are rather more complex.

[Optimystik]

In fact the reverend master was the leader of the gate plan and an entirely legitimate target. The innocence of any goblins around him is rather suspect too.

At most you could say that the other members of the priesthood were in on it, but you can't extend that to the rank and file members of the village (like Redcloak's mother), and certainly not to the goblin children (like Right-Eye and his sister.) There were innocents there, therefore the paladins were in the wrong, and the only thing that let them keep their powers was a monster manual entry.


The paladins at Redcloak's village:

We merely do not know of anything in particular they were doing, evil or not. The presence of the chief priest who was guiding the program to capture the gate is definite suspicious.

Not so: we know they were initiating Redcloak into the priesthood. His family was there to watch.


This joke depends on Miko being in the right here. She is here the figure of virtue being harassed by the evil Belkar and his devious lawyer.

Would Hinjo or even O-chul be likely to agree with her methods? Or any other sane paladin?


This is right after the party had rescued the evil Belkar from his richly deserved punishment.

His "richly deserved punishment" was a clear violation of the law (as Shojo pointed out) and more than a little morally suspect as well.


As the 2nd look shows, our author’s views are rather more complex.

Introducing karmic repercussions for killing presumed evil-doers into a story is itself complex. Certainly it is a level of complexity than most D&D games never see. While neither of us is qualified to truly say what is going on in Rich's head, I've yet to see an example of him rewarding the "kill it just because the monster manual says so" mindset in the comic.

[kusje]

Are we seriously rehashing our arguments about the dragons here? Can we just cut and paste from the previous threads?

[imp_fireball]

Meh. Her plan to eat innocent children alive was truly evil.

Desires aside, I would be amazed if she survives the next few strips now. Vaarsuvius had no hesitation about killing black dragons back when s/he was Neutral. The addition of three monsters to his/her soul is unlikely to immediately push him/her in that direction. I do, however, hope s/he eventually feels guilty about casually killing the younger black dragon.

Eh... I don't know man. I mean what would you do if a dragon tried to murder your friends when they stumbled upon it? Also, an initiative check usually leaves PCs wildly guessing that combat will commence (although wily GMs can force initiative checks on any encounter with strangers).

'Cause that's exactly what happened.

[Volkov]

Shadow;5862931']And he'll deserve it for being an evil creature. Anyways, after that time is over, he'll fight his way up the ranks of the evil like everyone else does in the D&D evil afterlife. V's children, however, would have NO afterlife if the MBD succeeds, and would be tortured as well. The YBD had the better deal.

To Fail Tiamat as a Chromatic dragon is to invite the most horrific punishments imaginable. He'll never rise above Red Abishai in the after life. Ever. He'll endure tens millenia of torment, be pushed around by virtually anything in the nine hells with an IQ above ten, he will be forced to accept the lawful alignment, and he'll probably end up being pressed ganged by Bel's cronies into the blood war.

[Volkov]

One thing that bothers me about this is that we're treating the dragon as if it's a human being, with a human sense of morality and a human sense of what's right and wrong.

For humans, morality is a big issue because we live in tightly-knit societies and have to make decisions about how we interact with others every single day. Note that one reason we band in societies in the first place is because we're more effective that way - that is, we're comparatively ineffective without them.

Dragons don't have this problem. They're at the top of the food chain and have no plausible reason to think about morality, as they have no reason to restrict the level of their interaction with others - they are strong enough to afford that kind of behaviour. They live their whole lives by a "might makes right" mentality. Humans are effectively cattle to them, both far less intelligent and physically puny.

The point I'm trying to make is that I think it's absurd to consider dragons "innocent until proven guilty" or "give them a chance as individuals". They do not have a human mindset, they are far more like sentient wild tigers.

Now, obviously there are SOME dragons who are respectful of life. I think one could compare them to animal rights activists. Humans, to them, are beings that are smaller and weaker, yet having some merit anyway. They don't technically NEED to show appreciation for human life, nothing forces them to.

So if, for some strange, reason, draconic humanoid rights activists in DnD are almost always the metallic ones, and the ones who choose to indulge their predatory tendencies and don't care about such obviously inferior beings are all chromatic... Then it makes little sense to "give dragons a chance" just because they are sentient. Sentient doesn't mean human, and being nice to humans simply isn't a priority for chromatic dragons.

Dragons who don't care about humans aren't necessarily immoral - they are likely completely moral in regard to their OWN moral system. (The same way we humans do not consider it immoral to KILL and EAT animals, even though the line between animal and human sentience gets rather blurry at times.) If they care about humans, then they're just the rare ones who've gone the extra distance and questioned their own moral framework and ended up adjusting it.
Labelling them as "Evil" simply because they act according to their established systems and nature is merely a thing of perspective, the same way wolves and similar predators were viewed as "evil" by humans in history before literature made them all fuzzy and misunderstood. :smalltongue:

Based on that, playing nice with chromatic dragons means you expect them to think like humans, which they don't.
By this logic I should kill Gem and Metallic dragons too. Because you never specified what type of dragon I must assume you mean all dragons. Plus Blue Dragons are actually a lot more Lawful than they are Evil. They'll actually make deals with the PC's instead of fighting whenever possible. While appealing to a Blue dragon's sense of right or wrong is futile, it is easy to appeal to it's sense of honor. While Black dragons aren't like this, they aren't as bad as red dragons who are more Evil than Chaotic, but they are worse than white Dragons who are more chaotic than evil.


If a black dragon has a reason to fear you it's rather easy to get a deal out of them. While they may be the cruelest of all dragons, they realize that they are usually not the Apex Predators as they share habitats with Topaz, Bronze, and Green Dragons. They realize that if a Green wanted to It could skin it alive and use it as a rug.

[Warren Dew]

I do not consider this to be a truly separate position from the one I described, mainly because there is effectively very little difference in mindset between the various player races in DnD.

Well, given that the player races don't include dragons, it's different to the extent that it allows indiscriminate killing of dragons, despite their being of equal or superior intelligence. To me, it's different in that it unabashedly draws the line based on genetic or cultural relatedness, rather than attempting to draw a line based on a supposedly objective quality like intelligence.

I agree that in practice, the two are very similar.


As a more extreme example, if we hold ALL life sacred and do not discriminate by the level of intelligence or by size, shape and form... then killing mosquitos that land on you would be wrong. Not just mosquitos, taking antibiotics to kill the bacteria would be wrong. And, of course, if we hold all life sacred, then there's no reason to discriminate between plants and animals, as well. And then what would you eat?

Applying the same morality to all life does not necessarily mean using a morality as strict as Celia's.

For example, while self defense in modern society generally includes some caveats about appropriate levels of force, weakening those caveats could put the cases of the mosquitos and antibiotics squarely into the category of self defense.

The problem of organic food is more difficult, though perhaps not insoluble. It would require acknowledging that dragons maintaining villages of humans to eat would be no more objectionable than humans keeping herds of cattle - or farms of wheat - to eat. I don't see that as completely out of the question, though - if for example the dragons are protecting the humans in their villages from an even worse fate.


Except, in that case, not killing organic life would completely lose its value. It only counts as a significant choice if the choice is at least remotely difficult to make, right?

I guess I don't see morality as an issue of self restraint. To me, a system of morality is a way of preventing mistreatment by and of others. If this can be achieved without requiring difficult decisions, so much the better.


If humor was the primary focus of this mindset, then Rich's message on the subject would have been found in punchlines, not dramatic speeches and plot points.

Exactly. Such punchlines not only exist, but as others have noted recently, there's one specifically related to dragons being "color coded" for the adventurers' convenience.


When you say "less clearly wrong," do you mean it wasn't as bad? Or that the percentages are muddier -- as in, while the theft was wrong no matter what way you slice it, killing the dragon was only wrong if he wasn't evil?

I meant basically the latter; it's less clear that killing the young black dragon was wrong, though if it is wrong, it may well be more wrong.


::blinks and goes over argument:: you know, it doesn't sound like I even disagree with you much... mostly just the "pretty people make out better than ugly ones" angle. I think physical attractiveness would be a secondary consideration at best.

Yeah, I think we're basically in agreement here. To some extent I was using physical appearance because it was easy to explain; as you point out, ease of identification is a big part of it too, and a good sob story helps with that. At most we seem to differ in how we think people weight the details.

[Ladorak]

At most you could say that the other members of the priesthood were in on it, but you can't extend that to the rank and file members of the village (like Redcloak's mother), and certainly not to the goblin children (like Right-Eye and his sister.) There were innocents there, therefore the paladins were in the wrong, and the only thing that let them keep their powers was a monster manual entry.

No, the only thing that allowed them to keep their powers was the approval of the gods. Since the paladins are the servants of the gods I'd say that's where the buck stops. SoD blah blah blah


Are we seriously rehashing our arguments about the dragons here? Can we just cut and paste from the previous threads?

Lol, too true

[DigoDragon]

I agree that this would be a nice twist to the usual dragons-eating-people schtick, but I don't think this is the right circumstance for such a ploy to be put to use.

Agreed. I really like the idea and I'm still interested in seeing it happen, but as I mentioned before I doubt the writer has the same idea in mind so I'm not holding my breath.

It's kind of funny in this scenario that both V and the MBD don't want to admit their faults (V that is arcane power can't solve everything and the MBD for not being a good parent) and they're going at each other back and forth. Two wrongs don't make a right as the saying goes. :smallsmile:



It’s no stoop. It amounts to a foolish bluff. If V does the least divination, she finds the family is fine. So the torture ends in a few days at most. Killing and binding tortures for much longer.

True, but my idea is not to torture by binding the souls of children. Instead, torture by filling V with a large amount of guilt due to his actions. Understandably it's a gamble if guilt would stick to V, but if it does, I'm sure it's not something a Greater Dispel could fix. :smallsmile:

[BillyJimBoBob]

I know I do, and while V has been one of my favourite characters, I can't help but hope that he/she fails to destroy/harm the dragon.

I am curious to see what others think.

Opinions?The dragon is an evil dragon. Thus, it has one role in D&D: To be a tasty pile of EXP for an adventuring party. Death to it, and quickly, before it can put its evil plan into effect. The only sad thing about the entire conflict is that V will not gain any EXP for the killing, as his effective level is now too high for the ABD to be a challenge.

[hamishspence]

Evil dragons can be plotters, schemers, even temporary allies against a greater evil. D&D fiction has dragons, even Evil dragons, as far more than just adversaries, as do D&D campaign settings, Faerun, Eberron, etc.

OOTS is not exactly a Dungeon-crawl strip- at least, not anymore.

[B. Dandelion]

Quite wrong. While “innocent until proven guilty” allows a number of guilty to escape, any alternative ruins innocent lives, and this is a very large cost. Our justice system can’t be too expensive before we are better off without it, and convicting the innocent is pure cost.

"Not about pragmatism" does not mean "divorced from all considerations of realistic functionality." The most pragmatic legal system would be the one that made the fewest mistakes. That's not what ours is about, though, because we believe it is worse to convict an innocent man than to let a guilty one go free.


The normal stating is letting 10 guilty men go free, and even that is stated as something of an ideal.

You have something against Benjamin Franklin?

You're nuts if you think I'm gonna get into this nonsense about morality by the numbers.


However, this standard says V is innocent until proven guilty, and that we need a lot of proof against V.

What, are you suggesting it was V's evil doppelganger from another dimension that killed the first dragon? I'm pretty sure it's safe to say V was the perpetrator.


This is a comic, which means limited information, and no definite proof of most anything. We normally have to make do with the preponderance of the evidence. It is unrealistic to call for ironclad evidence. And that majority is heavily in favor of the dragon attacking first.

What exactly are you taking issue with, here? I have addressed all of these points. A definitive ruling requires definitive proof, and a definitive ruling is a useful concept that gives us a baseline for acceptable behavior. But I don't claim that EVERY argument requires definitive proof, or that NO justification exists without it. "The dragon probably attacked first" is perfectly reasonable and correct, as what little evidence we do have points in that direction.

I wish people wouldn't get so bent out of shape over this issue. "No definitive proof" does NOT equal "BURN HIM!! BURN HIM AT THE STAKE I SAY!!!"


This conversation took place in the midst of battle, and the first fact known to the dragon was that V was on the side of the party. He has no assurance that V would not attack. The only reason to think he would not was that he was unable. He made no effort to ask for true or parley. Nor did he give any assurance of peaceful intent. Rather his behavior is consistent with deeming the party a trivial threat he could kill at will.

I did not rule against V one way or the other. I don't have definitive proof she couldn't have negotiated something from that position. I don't have definitive proof she COULD. Nonetheless, the dragon was NOT attacking her to begin with, and she instigated the hostilities between the two of them. If you want to lump her in with the rest of the OOTS, say she WAS under fire, say she WAS implicitly threatened -- fine by me! I'm not trying to prove you wrong. I'm pointing out a factor I think some people haven't considered, and they can rule whichever way they like on it.


The option also existed for them to cover themselves in steak sauce and wait for the dragon to work up an appetite.

The party is under no moral obligation to retreat from somebody who attacks them. Quite the contrary, as the heros, we expect them to beat up/kill any who do.

Oho, so THAT'S why you didn't like the "no definitive proof of the first attack" bit, hmm? Because while the OOTS may not be "under a moral obligation to retreat" from someone who attacked THEM...

Even if the dragon did attack first this is baloney. If somebody shoots you, and you disarm them, and hold them captive for a time in their own home, and then execute them just as they managed to untie themselves... you think your behavior would be considered above reproach? They're "under no moral obligation" only if their morals don't contain anything about not killing people they don't actually have to, for reasons of self-defense or the defense of others. If the option to not kill it existed, we need a reason why that wasn't the option taken -- and we DO have several potential reasons, but "he hit first!" doesn't cut it even if it's true.


Some are subjective, but that does not allow us to dismiss them out of hand. And subjective or not, they argue against the dragon.

I listed subjective reasons that argue against the dragon, as well as subjective reasons that argue FOR the dragon. You can't dismiss THOSE out of hand either.


As usual, silence does not give consent, particularly in a comic where the vast majority of actions have to happen off stage. What we do not see V doing does not at all mean she did not do.

I said, it does not HELP V's case. I did NOT say, it HURTS V's case. If that was the impression you had from my wording, than I apologize.


Of course it provide some moral justification. The fact of convenience, even if true, does not make it immoral to kill the evil.

Strawman. I did not make the claim that convenience detracts from a valid justification. Convenience cannot automatically SUBSTITUTE for a valid justification.


Given the number here who are absolutely sure of V’s motives on less evidence…

I don't care how many people think Elvis is alive, what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?


The dragon’s behavior, especially when it was speaking with V, suggests it did not see the party as particularly dangerous to it. So there is no pragmatic self defense plea for the dragon.

I don't know that I agree with what you think the dragon's behavior "suggests." Even if it did "suggest," that would be ALL it could do. The statement that that there "is NO pragmatic self-defense plea for the dragon" is definitive, and requires definitive proof.

You wanna say, instead, no LIKELY pragmatic self-defense plea, that's something else.


Immediate is not a part of a self defense plea. The key factor is “unavoidable”. In practice, few threats are unavoidable unless they are immediate, but “immediate” remains merely a rule of thumb, not the proper moral or legal standard. Here we find the threat to be unavoidable, by any required means, and so the fact it may be hours away unimportant.

We already covered this. There existed subjective reasons to think the danger was unavoidable. There existed subjective reasons to think it was NOT. Fortunately, for the purposes of a self-defense plea we don't need DEFINITIVE proof that the dragon was an unavoidable threat, what we need is REASONABLE proof that V thought it represented one. But that's where V's silence is no help on the matter -- I don't know whether she honestly thought there was no other way. She killed Kubota for far, far less than "fear of an unavoidable danger." It was more like, "fear of an unavoidable annoyance."

Now, do you see what this does? You can tell me, "I think it's logical to presume that V did indeed fear the dragon was an unavoidable danger even if they had left LONG before the expected duration of the spell, and so she was justified in killing it on those grounds." And guess what? I can't definitively prove you wrong! You can't DEFINITIVELY prove that you're right, either, but it's certainly a REASONABLE position to take, given that there is almost no "definitive" proof in the facts we know now. Thus there need not be a significant disagreement between the two of us.


Given the greedy nature of dragons, that is not a sure thing at all, particularly when this mother-child relationship seems to be a highly unusual one. [Ma should have had her last child centuries ago, and the kid likely should have left home by now.] Of course, the most important person in most people’s lives is themselves, and the young dragon has standing here.

okay, I'll grant you that my statement was subjective. I suppose treasure could be more important to some people than their kids. I'll say this: the experience of losing a kid and losing a treasure isn't analogous by definition. It's not unreasonable to expect that people would put different weight on it, usually in favor of the kid.


It is the way to bet, and with a dragon, you are betting your life.

Therefore it constitutes reasonable proof, which I have never tried to deny, nor do I suggest is insufficient for the purposes of a self-defense plea.

We don't actually disagree, David. I'm saying "we," as in the posters on this board, do not have definitive proof to back up definitive statements. We are not the ones betting our lives.

I'm going to skip over repetitive points you've made in this post that I feel have been sufficiently answered in the wall of text I've given you already.


There was around a dozen hours that happen off camera, and a lot of dull stuff likely happened. So no, we can’t say “never”.

"Never," as in we never saw V do so. It was a missed opportunity for the Giant to show us V's internal justification. It is not definitive proof that she did not have any, and I do not make that claim.

It may, at most, suggest that she did not.


When one makes such a claim, one should explain why.

He jumped from "Belkar and Haley anticipated treasure" to "it was totally reasonable to kill the dragon," and I don't see how we get from "a" to a moral justification for "b."


What deliberate attempt to trick her? Our little old golem maker may not have been the nicest of people, but he was at least as honest in the deal as Celia was.

Actually you're probably right. I sort of had the impression Celia thought he tricked her, though, which would have given her motive to think he'd wronged her.

[BillyJimBoBob]

Evil dragons can be plotters, schemers, even temporary allies against a greater evil. D&D fiction has dragons, even Evil dragons, as far more than just adversaries, as do D&D campaign settings, Faerun, Eberron, etc.

OOTS is not exactly a Dungeon-crawl strip- at least, not anymore.Sure, many an author has used the "I know! We'll make two enemies work together! That'll give this story an interesting twist!" shtick. But it's a lame attempt in most cases and it doesn't eliminate the fact that the enemy is, when all is said and done, an enemy. And in D&D, where an evil enemy exists it exists to be killed.