Is this supposed to illustrate evil? *spoiler* [Archive]

SPoD

2009-03-20, 07:48 AM

Strip 639. Is V killing a family of dragons really supposed to illustrate heirm having gone evil?

Sure, it's a horrible act to commit against a sentient being, and if it was a core-PC race shhe targeted with the spell then sure it would be evil. But a dragon? Dragons are monsters.

Generally speaking, it's pretty evil to judge whether or not a creature has a right to exist based on whether it belongs to one race or another race. That is what is called "racism".

This is an evil dragon. Evil monsters are slaughtered by the bulk by adventurers. Killing off a whole kobold clan or a a drow family during a dungeon crawl is standard, and certainly not evil.

Killing the babies would be evil. Babies are innocents. Babies can grow up to be other alignments if raised in a proper atmosphere. If you kill off drow babies in a dungeon crawl, you are certainly committing evil acts, especially considering how many non-evil drow PCs exist.

It's very grim, very horrible and blood thirsty as the 9 hells, but paladins could get away with it. It's going to take something else to persuade at least this playgrounder that V has fallen.

I think this, right here, is why the author feels a need to address these issues. If you can look at the wholesale slaughter of an entire bloodline, without discrimination for their guilt or innocence, as justified, then...I don't even know what.

BenjCano

2009-03-20, 08:07 AM

Generally speaking, it's pretty evil to judge whether or not a creature has a right to exist based on whether it belongs to one race or another race. That is what is called "racism".

Unfortunately for this chain of reasoning [START OF DARKNESS SPOILER], the entire metaphysical underpinning of the Stickverse is that the gods created many races for the sole and explicit purpose of being slaughtered en masse so that other races could reap tangible benefits. V has carried this principle to a logical conclusion.

Admitedly, V did what he/she did for selfish, egotistical reasons, but my point is that judging whether or not a creature has a right to exist based on the race it belongs to is not only an acceptable act to engage in, carrying out that judgement is equally acceptable.[/START OF DARKNESS SPOILER]

CliveStaples

2009-03-20, 08:09 AM

Did V know whether any of the dragons he killed were actually Evil?

If all you know is a character's alignment, is that justification for killing that character?

Without knowing what actions the dragons he killed had done, how can you say whether killing them was Good? Isn't it Evil to kill a group of people simply because of their relation to another person? V didn't know whether or not they would avenge their relation's death; he killed them on the off chance that they might.

Sounds more like Xykon than St. Cuthbert to me; he only punished beings for what they have done, not for what they might do in the future.

Snake-Aes

2009-03-20, 08:32 AM

Strip 639. Is V killing a family of dragons really supposed to illustrate heirm having gone evil?

Sure, it's a horrible act to commit against a sentient being, and if it was a core-PC race shhe targeted with the spell then sure it would be evil. But a dragon? Dragons are monsters. This is an evil dragon. Evil monsters are slaughtered by the bulk by adventurers. Killing off a whole kobold clan or a a drow family during a dungeon crawl is standard, and certainly not evil. Black dragons are just as evil as those creatures, and at least as sentient. Killing a family of black dragons would by DnD logic probably not be evil.

So V casting familicide on the ABD isn't a very good illustration of V going evil. It's very grim, very horrible and blood thirsty as the 9 hells, but paladins could get away with it. It's going to take something else to persuade at least this playgrounder that V has fallen.

This is mostly where the discussions start. Killing someone evil because that someone is evil is a very lame excuse for my group. Killing someone *has* to have a good reason, even if it's as banal as self defense or clearing obstacles to a sworn goal.

What V did there was out of pure loathing towards that dragon. If his acts have to be "aligned", that one's evil.

Theodoriph

2009-03-20, 09:01 AM

Snake-Aes

2009-03-20, 09:16 AM

There are more options than just good and evil. Personally I think V's act was neutral.

In OOTS dragons are "colour-coded for your convenience". It is just to kill non-shiny ones. Black ones aren't shiny. Killing black dragons is good. The forces of good are rejoicing. But V's motivations are bad. Since motivations tend to mitigate deeds in OOTSworld, I tend to see Vs act to equalling out at around Neutral.

Dozens of dragons were killed without a chance to even know what hit them, and they had done nothing to V.
The lack of concern of which "You might be dangerous, someday, maybe. <beheads>" is as evil as it gets. I doubt even a good deity would approve of it.

charl

2009-03-20, 09:17 AM

Generally speaking, it's pretty evil to judge whether or not a creature has a right to exist based on whether it belongs to one race or another race. That is what is called "racism".

You seem to be under the impression that racism applies to creatures other than human. It doesn't. And we humans kill a lot of animals because of their species. The same principle should apply to a dragon, which is not of a different race (the term race is used in a very problematic way in DnD) but rather a completely different specie.

Killing the babies would be evil. Babies are innocents. Babies can grow up to be other alignments if raised in a proper atmosphere. If you kill off drow babies in a dungeon crawl, you are certainly committing evil acts, especially considering how many non-evil drow PCs exist.

Once again the same problem. Killing human babies is certainly evil. Killing other species babies? Not so much. We eat baby animals (veal for example) and few people claim it's evil to kill baby cattle.

Though I admit that there's a difference when it comes to sentient creatures, but this is a dragon. As far as I know, they are locked to their born alignment. A black dragon is always evil, just as a devil is always evil. It's part of their being.

I think this, right here, is why the author feels a need to address these issues. If you can look at the wholesale slaughter of an entire bloodline, without discrimination for their guilt or innocence, as justified, then...I don't even know what.

I would never claim that for a human, and I certainly don't think that what V did was justified, but in a DnD-based fantasy world killing huge numbers of sentient creatures just because they are mostly evil seems to be an ok thing to do, especially when it comes to things that aren't (or don't look similar to) humans. What's the difference between V doing this and someone killing a kobold clan in their dungeon?

That said, that's not my personal view on "good and evil". What V did was certainly not a nice thing, no doubt about it, but by DnD standards it's actually pretty mild.

Kish

2009-03-20, 09:21 AM

Well, we agree on exactly one thing: If Rich expected everyone on the forums to see how despicable this act is, he's forgotten what the forums are like.

You seem to be under the impression that racism applies to creatures other than human. It doesn't..
Well, if you want to explicitly contradict the Player's Handbook, clearly you're right and the Player's Handbook is wrong.

Snake-Aes

2009-03-20, 09:28 AM

I would never claim that for a human, and I certainly don't think that what V did was justified, but in a DnD-based fantasy world killing huge numbers of sentient creatures just because they are mostly evil seems to be an ok thing to do, especially when it comes to things that aren't (or don't look similar to) humans. What's the difference between V doing this and someone killing a kobold clan in their dungeon?

That said, that's not my personal view on "good and evil". What V did was certainly not a nice thing, no doubt about it, but by DnD standards it's actually pretty mild.
A good character wouldn't slaughter the whole kobold clan.
If they were hired because the kobolds were a menace, then yeah, since the point is to protect the contratant.
But killing them all because they had to retrieve something?
Killing them all because "They are kobolds"?

No.
Good means COMPASSION just as much as it means evil-hating. A good character doesn't randomly slaughter evil beings just because they are evil.

charl

2009-03-20, 09:35 AM

Ladorak

2009-03-20, 09:42 AM

I think what proves V Evil in this strip isn't the act of mass dragon slaying (Debatably justified) but rather how much s/he seemed to enjoy wiping out a entire bloodline.

Seriously, go and look at it. Not only have we never seen V that happy, I don't think we've ever seen anyone that happy.

Evil as evilsticks

Morty

2009-03-20, 09:46 AM

I agree with that, but to me it doesn't seem like DnD in general does. Maybe I'm just old school, but to me DnD will always be about the dungeon crawling and the fighting and the good-aligned adventurers clearing ruins from monsters, mainly because they want money and magic items.

Unfortunaetly for you then, it seems that the comic's author wants as little to do with this particular playstyle as possible.

Snake-Aes

2009-03-20, 09:48 AM

Well, we agree on exactly one thing: If Rich expected everyone on the forums to see how despicable this act is, he's forgotten what the forums are like.

Well, if you want to explicitly contradict the Player's Handbook, clearly you're right and the Player's Handbook is wrong.

That depends, what are you talking about? The main difference you can see when comparing races and species is that races naturally crossbreed, species don't. Redcloak himself is openly speciecist. He's hates all humans because of what they do.

DigoDragon

2009-03-20, 10:07 AM

I'd say the act was quite evil. Particularly my argument would point out the unborn babies that were killed. The babies haven't done anything yet to warrent being considered evil yet. This reminds me of the movie "Minority Report", where the department of Pre-Crime would arrest people before they commited any crimes.

Laughing Dragon

2009-03-20, 10:14 AM

Originally Posted by Charl:
"Maybe I'm just old school, but to me DnD will always be about the dungeon crawling and the fighting and the good-aligned adventurers clearing ruins from monsters, mainly because they want money and magic items."

DID V get any money or magic items? No. DID V get experience for killing ~62 dragons? Unknown ... probably not since s/he was not physically present at their deaths. DID any of these dragons EVER do ANYTHING to V? I don't think so ... s/he was punishing them for futurecrimes; acts which by definition have not yet occured and which therefore one cannot be held accountable for.

The motivations for this act are: preventitive revenge & vindictiveness. Emotions during the act (proof of a hate crime): Joy/pleasure. The penalty for willfully comitting such an act: alignment shift towards evil. Even at a mere one-third point per murder, this act should shift V ~20 points toward evil.

The problem is that, contrairy to what V had hoped to accomplish with this act ... he has almost certianly attracted the attention of Tiamat! (Who will almost certianally rip V into 5 bite-sized pieces before swallowing.)

I wonder what the IFCC will charge V to fix his new problem ...

magic9mushroom

2009-03-20, 10:25 AM

A lot of you seem to either have forgotten or not noticed the lesson on "How NOT to play a paladin" that Miko was.

Also, genocide is enough to send you to hell by itself according to Fiendish Codex 2.

And to those who say "races interbreed, species don't"?

Please don't tell me you haven't noticed the Half-Dragon Template. :smallannoyed:

latwPIAT

2009-03-20, 10:37 AM

Once again the same problem. Killing human babies is certainly evil. Killing other species babies? Not so much. We eat baby animals (veal for example) and few people claim it's evil to kill baby cattle.

However, most people look down on people who indiscriminately kill a species of animal without provocation. There's a difference between killing a calf to eat it and killing all the calves in the world because a cow kicked my mother near-fatally once.
[/QUOTE]
Though I admit that there's a difference when it comes to sentient creatures, but this is a dragon. As far as I know, they are locked to their born alignment. A black dragon is always evil, just as a devil is always evil. It's part of their being.
[/QUOTE]
Is the Oracle evil? Is a certain goblin from Start of Darkness evil? They're both members of evil races.

That said, that's not my personal view on "good and evil". What V did was certainly not a nice thing, no doubt about it, but by DnD standards it's actually pretty mild.
OotS doesn't exactly conform to DnD standards really now does it? The narrative several times questions the morality of killing creatures for profit. Even thought it's made into a joke, when Miko questions Roy on why they killed the first black dragon for their own profit, she's asking a genuinely moral question that is mirrored several times in the story, especially SoD and every other time the DnD alignment axis is brought into play.

BenjCano

2009-03-20, 11:39 AM

Dozens of dragons were killed without a chance to even know what hit them, and they had done nothing to V.
The lack of concern of which "You might be dangerous, someday, maybe. <beheads>" is as evil as it gets. I doubt even a good deity would approve of it.

[START OF DARKNESS SPOILER]
I'd be right up there agreeing with you on that point, if it wasn't for the fact that we have evidence from Start of Darkness that not only to the good gods specifically approve of just such behavior, they created other races for the sole purpose of BEING slaughtered.

We did, after all, see a number of Azure City paladins slaughter their way through a goblin community, including non-combatants, the elderly, and children. Down to a (goblin) man they were killed, with the exception of two survivors. And the Twelve Gods of the South, who were quite happy to strip paladinhood from Miko for the incorrect-but-honestly-held conviction that her liege lord had betrayed the city to Xykon and subsequent execution of the same, were silent on the matter. Certainly none of the paladins involved in that incident were punished in as swift and public a manner as Miko was.
[/START OF DARKNESS SPOILER]

JJ48

2009-03-20, 12:34 PM

Speaking of Miko, I would direct everyone's attention to earlier in the series, if I may. When Miko was about to kill Belkar for no other reason than hatred and vengeance, the consensus of the characters in the comic seemed to be that she would have lost her Paladin powers for having committed an evil act, despite the fact that she was attempting to kill an evil character. Even though it didn't actually happen, the beliefs of the characters seems to indicate that intent, not actions, is what judges an act as good or evil. Further evidence is found when Roy is being judged for the afterlife, and the being says that, despite having participated in many chaotic acts, he is still judged as lawful, in great part because he is TRYING.

Now, applying that to the current situation, V is clearly not doing this for the good of the world. He is doing it solely for vengeance, which is a rather evil act.

Theodoriph

2009-03-20, 12:37 PM

Dozens of dragons were killed without a chance to even know what hit them, and they had done nothing to V.
The lack of concern of which "You might be dangerous, someday, maybe. <beheads>" is as evil as it gets. I doubt even a good deity would approve of it.

I'm not sure if you understand the realities of a D&D world. In OOTS, there are these things called gods, which have been confirmed to exist. These gods created the world. They created some races as good and some races as evil. Shiny dragons were good. Non-shiny dragons (e.g. black, red, white etc.) were evil. No ifs, ands, or buts. No ambiguity. Nice clear objective dividing lines.

Good entities often eradicate evil ones. And thus, it doesn't matter if they're baby black dragons or adult ones, since by the gods' decree, all of them are evil. It doesn't matter who they are now, or what they are now, or what they may be. All that matters is that they are evil.

That's the beauty of having a world where races are classified and having gods who created/encouraged the classifications. It's not about who you are, but what you are.

It's a world designed so Paladins could go forth and smite evil, without worrying why exactly the kobolds were driving the farmers off their farms. :smalltongue: In SoD, paladins do pretty much that without falling.

EdgarVerona

2009-03-20, 01:12 PM

However, even if all full black dragons are evil in the specific campaign setting Rich made (which is up for debate, as campaigns frequently modify the "base" rules of D&D for its flavor), there were many half-dragons in there who could've been any kind of alignment...

... there was even a Dragon/Centaur in there, and Centaurs are generally either neutral or chaotic good. So where does that put a Dragon/Centaur?

The fact of the matter is that V did it without any thought to the implications of his actions, whether innocents would be killed, or whether it was even relevant from a "safeguarding his family" perspective to do so. When he rez'd the dragon, he concurred with the voices in his head that the reason for waking her would be to make her suffer more.

The EXCUSE he gave to his spouse was that it was for their protection, but that isn't at all what he was thinking when he rez'd her... so both from a motive and consequences standpoint, it was evil.

Thajocoth

2009-03-20, 01:22 PM

Regardless of how Evil the creatures might be naturally, they can always choose another path. Killing them is only Good if they're doing Evil, about to do Evil, or you're defending yourself (or others). Otherwise, killing an Evil creature is still Evil. Think about that guy in the darkness... He's obviously on evil's side. Would you think it Good if one of the Order warped in, stabbed him in the brain & warped out? He's not actually doing anything Evil, so no, it'd be Evil, regardless of his alignment.

Porthos

2009-03-20, 01:24 PM

Evil killing Evil isn't Good. Nor even Neutral.

If so, then every being that takes part of the Blood War would find themselves sliding toward neutral alignments. But they don't. Therefore if you kill for evil reasons, it's still an evil act.

OK, so the side effects might be good. Or not. A tremendous power vaccum was just created and who knows which way it's going to turn out.

Never mind the sudden interest that a certain God is alomst certainly going to take in the activities of V. :smalleek:

BenjCano

2009-03-20, 01:26 PM

misterk

2009-03-20, 01:50 PM

[START OF DARKNESS SPOILER]
I'd be right up there agreeing with you on that point, if it wasn't for the fact that we have evidence from Start of Darkness that not only to the good gods specifically approve of just such behavior, they created other races for the sole purpose of BEING slaughtered.

We did, after all, see a number of Azure City paladins slaughter their way through a goblin community, including non-combatants, the elderly, and children. Down to a (goblin) man they were killed, with the exception of two survivors. And the Twelve Gods of the South, who were quite happy to strip paladinhood from Miko for the incorrect-but-honestly-held conviction that her liege lord had betrayed the city to Xykon and subsequent execution of the same, were silent on the matter. Certainly none of the paladins involved in that incident were punished in as swift and public a manner as Miko was.
[/START OF DARKNESS SPOILER]

They are doing this because of information from their gods no less that these goblins represent a threat to the whole of reality. Certainly for the greater good. V has no such information. She has no idea who is related to the dragon, their alignment, their potential for saving/destroying the world.

One might argue that this would be a somewhat neutral act, if the goal was to remove a threat, but I think it's pretty clear that this move is EXTREMELY vindictive.

Tensu

2009-03-20, 02:00 PM

The problem with killing evil beings -- in any world, fictional or not -- is that it closes the door on repentence, which is always the first option if possible.

So, yes, it was an evil act. There may be some sort of supreme being or what not who has the capability to decide that an entire species or race of creatures should die. No human -- or demi-human -- should ever take that on him/herself.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

This.

Good can't just kill evil. Good has to value redemption and the inherent sacredness of life. If you think that in D&D world it' ok to kill something because it pings as evil, then odds are you have a terrible DM, or at least one who is failing to make a believable world with a realistic idea of right and wrong.

as for deities, a lot of people on earth believe in the existence of some manner of God or gods, I myself am one of them. and just because I believe the God that made them is inherently good-aligned doesn't mean I believe his creations are inherently good-aligned. it's a little thing called free will. any being that has free will can change alignment.

BenjCano

2009-03-20, 02:29 PM

They are doing this because of information from their gods no less that these goblins represent a threat to the whole of reality.

One might argue that this would be a somewhat neutral act, if the goal was to remove a threat, but I think it's pretty clear that this move is EXTREMELY vindictive.

Interesting point. Does that mean that there are certain circumstances in which you believe that it is morally permissible to kill non-combatants, including children and the elderly, and that this is not an evil act?

[START OF DARKNESS SPOILER]
The paladins that killed Redcloak and Righteye's village were obeying the will of the gods and accepted on faith that by the slaughter of the village, including its elderly and its children, they could preemptively remove a great and existential threat. You hold that this is a non-evil act?
[/START OF DARKNESS SPOILER]

This.
Good can't just kill evil. Good has to value redemption and the inherent sacredness of life. If you think that in D&D world it' ok to kill something because it pings as evil, then odds are you have a terrible DM, or at least one who is failing to make a believable world with a realistic idea of right and wrong.

You and misterk seem to disagree about whether or not it was a non-evil act. He says that it was a non-evil act because the paladins were acting on the belief that the goblins represented a threat to the hole of reality. You seem to suggest that it was evil for them to kill the non-combatants because of your conviction that any evil being could, by dint of free will, become non-evil, repent, etc. Is my summation correct?

[START OF DARKNESS SPOILER]
Do you thus believe that it was evil for the gods to grant cart blanche permission to create an entire race of beings for the sole purpose of being killed by the "player" races?
[/START OF DARKNESS SPOILER]

Querzis

2009-03-20, 02:35 PM

People like Charl make me lose any hope for humanity. I really dont think I have to say anything else, if you cant see something like this as evil, if so many humans being cant see this as evil, then by your own logic humanity deserve to be annihilated like the black dragons just were.

[START OF DARKNESS SPOILER]
Do you thus believe that it was evil for the gods to grant cart blanche permission to create an entire race of beings for the sole purpose of being killed by the "player" races?
[/START OF DARKNESS SPOILER]

...Duh. That the whole freaking point of SoD. While Redcloak and Xykon might be evil, the gods are the greatest bastard ever.

hamishspence

2009-03-20, 02:38 PM

I lean towards
"it was evil because, at the time, the non-combatants were, to all intents and purposes, defenseless, not a threat to the paladins" combined with

"they are capable of redemption" and

"there is no evidence, for the paladins, that they themselves have not committed crimes worthy of the death penalty- detecting as evil is not sufficient evidence"

BoED and Champions of Valor both use the first two as the reason for sparing non-combatant members of Usually Evil races.

BenjCano

2009-03-20, 02:41 PM

I lean towards
"it was evil because, at the time, the non-combatants were, to all intents and purposes, defenseless, not a threat to the paladins" combined with

"they are capable of redemption" and

"there is no evidence, for the paladins, that they themselves have not committed crimes worthy of the death penalty- detecting as evil is not sufficient evidence"

And yet these paladins, who committed an evil act by this definition, did not fall as Miko did when she killed Lord Shojo. How do you explain that?

hamishspence

2009-03-20, 02:50 PM

BenjCano

2009-03-20, 02:54 PM

Twelve gods, in OOTS, probably have final sanction over paladins of them falling, unlike in core D&D.

to quote War & XPs "the twelve gods may have sanctioned the paladins's massacres, but even they can't stop karma from kicking them in their divine rears eventually."

Suggesting that the act was, in fact, wrong.

Interesting. So you believe that a paladin may commit an evil act, and remain invested with the powers and abilities of the paladin class, so long as their actions were sanctioned by their pantheon of deities?

hamishspence

2009-03-20, 02:59 PM

in OOTS, yes.

(4th ed already does this- changing alignment does not, apparently, affect the powers of paladins, invokers, avengers or clerics- no rules for loss of powers. 3.5 Eberron does this for clerics)

BenjCano

2009-03-20, 03:06 PM

in OOTS, yes.

Then, may I ask, what does it mean to describe a god or gods as good? If a god can command any act whatsoever from his or her followers, what, in principle, is the difference between the sorts of acts that an evil god would command and those a good god would command?

If Loki could disguise himself as Thor, and command Durkon to commence a genocidal purge of all members, including non combatant children and elderly, of some race, how would Durkon know that this is not the sort of thing Thor would command of him? How would Durkon know to say, "This seems awfully..well...evil...I don't think me Lord Thor would order this of me."

By your stated principle, this is exactly the sort of thing that a "good" god could command, and grant cover for, and sanction.

Trixie

2009-03-20, 03:06 PM

Interesting. So you believe that a paladin may commit an evil act, and remain invested with the powers and abilities of the paladin class, so long as their actions were sanctioned by their pantheon of deities?

And who, pray tell, gave them that powers in the first place? :smallsigh:

It would be dumb to fall them for something they ordered them to do, as those paladins would seek a new pantheon posthaste.

hamishspence

2009-03-20, 03:12 PM

Deities and Demigods stresses that a deity's alignment is a guideline as to how it behaves most of the time, not all the time. An evil deity can do good acts, or a good deity evil acts, if the deity feels the situation warrants this.

Additionally, the twelve gods are not all the same alignment (in SOD, at least 1 appears to be evil) So, as a group, they might be decidedly more ruthless, than any one Good member of the Twelve gods would be.

BenjCano

2009-03-20, 03:17 PM

And who, pray tell, gave them that powers in the first place? :smallsigh:

It would be dumb to fall them for something they ordered them to do, as those paladins would seek a new pantheon posthaste.

I'm not sure. Is the only path to paladinhood the sponsorship of a god or gods? What does that then imply about the relationship between a god and his or her paladin? Is it then the chief duty of the paladin to be obedient to his or her god, above all others?

Deities and Demigods stresses that a deity's alignment is a guideline as to how it behaves most of the time, not all the time. An evil deity can do good acts, or a good deity evil acts, if the deity feels the situation warrants this.

Additionally, the twelve gods are not all the same alignment (in SOD, at least 1 appears to be evil) So, as a group, they might be decidedly more ruthless, than any one Good member of the Twelve gods would be.

But I'm still not quite certain how Durkon could distinguish between an "evil" order given by Thor, and an "evil" order given by Loki pretending to be Thor. How would Durkon know the difference?

The Minx

2009-03-20, 04:15 PM

hamishspence

2009-03-20, 04:26 PM

Which is why I prefer BoED over Just Core, or Just Core & BoVD. Since it, at leasts, admits "evil dragons are not entirely beyond salvation" even if "there is only the barest glimmer of hope"

unlike BoVD's "creatures of consummate, irredeemable evil"

Add in the comments on the treatment of non-combatants- killing them indiscriminately alongside combatants (exactly how is a dragon in an egg a combatant anyway?) is considered evil.

Berserk Monk

2009-03-20, 04:43 PM

This is no longer about protecting V's family. This is vengeance in the most extreme form. V had no other reason to kill those other dragons other than it brought him joy. V even said that he did have enough fun killing the dragon. V enjoying the death of someone, even a monster, is evil.

Lets also remember that a half-dragon centaur was killed. Are all creatures with any black dragon blood in them also killed? How do we know that any creature, even on that is only 1/64 or less black dragon also didn't get killed? They could have been good creatures.

BenjCano

2009-03-20, 04:48 PM

I just knew it. Some one was bound to start a thread saying "omg, black dragons are evil, so genocide is ok".

If this most recent episode wasn't a clear case of reductio ad absurdum of D&D "morality", I honestly don't know what could qualify as such. :smallsmile:

[START OF DARKNESS SPOILER]
I'm actually slightly less interested in the D&D moral system than I am the moral framework on which the Order of the Stick is based. The goblin and kobolds races, not to mention every other monster race on the planet, were created by the gods (presumably including the good ones) themselves to be XP fodder for PC races.

So I wonder about that. Does that make the wholesale slaughter of the monster races OK because that is their designated purpose? If so, then why is it bad that V took that act to a logical conclusion, and began murdering dragons? Is it because V did so not to fulfill the black dragons' purpose in the cosmos, but for the heady rush of using his/her new power? If it is not OK to commit the wholesale slaughter of monster races, then by what standard do you arrive at that conclusion? What does it mean to say that a god is good if he or she endorses such wanton slaughter, or would approve the creation of monster races in the first place?

Add in the comments on the treatment of non-combatants- killing them indiscriminately alongside combatants (exactly how is a dragon in an egg a combatant anyway?) is considered evil.

I was actually referring to the slaughter of the non-combatant goblins by Azure City paladins in Start of Darkness, moreso than V's latest escapades.
[/START OF DARKNESS SPOILER]

MickJay

2009-03-20, 05:09 PM

My guess is that the strip was, indeed supposed to illustrate evil, but really, it wasn't more evil than what the paladins did in the SoD, and they didn't even fall for that. The scale might have been greater, but only because of the level of power involved. What happened was: V killed the dragons to protect his family; he might have killed creatures that were not evil, but I'd estimate that over 90% of them were, and these were very powerful evil beings; objectively speaking, he used his immense power to get rid the world of great evil, perhaps at a cost of killing a few non-evil beings (which is, of course, evil). V's other motives (revenge, exerting his immense power and having fun out of it in general) are also evil, but still, ruthlessness towards almost exclusively evil creatures and perhaps short-sightedness are far from the evil that, Xykon for example, has already done.

hamishspence

2009-03-20, 05:12 PM

tcrudisi

2009-03-20, 05:17 PM

After having read and considered both sides of this debate, I finally reached a decision on how I would handle V if I were running V in a 3.x game.

I'd ask for his character sheet, scratch out whatever alignment was there, and then write CG in permanent marker, because I don't see V doing anything that could possibly top the "goodness" of his act.

That's in D&D terms, mind you. If someone did that in real life, I would consider it evil. But in D&D the players often commit murder against evil creatures, and it's considered good. So considering the morality of real life versus D&D, this is a clear example where one thing is correct and the other wrong.

And yeah, so the half-centaur might have been good. One good half-centaur dies compared to countless always evil black dragons? That is still such an overwhelmingly good act that it can't be tainted in my eyes.

I suspect Rich will disagree with my opinion, but that's why I read the comic. It really does not matter what any of us think, only what Rich thinks and says. And I am loving V's character development. Keep up the butt-kicking, V!

BenjCano

2009-03-20, 05:22 PM

Same applies- since goblins are only "usually NE" anyway, and BoED is very clear on the killing of "the women and children of at least some races" as Evil- they are not a threat, + not irredeemable.

by BoED rules, the paladins would have fallen, if not for the original attack on warriors, then for the killing of goblin children, whether they are evil or not.

Yes, but I'm afraid that you still haven't answered my question. How could someone tell if an act was commanded by a good god, or an evil god in disguise, since on the face of it there doesn't seem to be anything "off limits" that a good god would never demand of his or her followers?

Godskook

2009-03-20, 05:25 PM

For this general discussion, I submit:
http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g146/Godskook/Villainy.jpg

Well, we agree on exactly one thing: If Rich expected everyone on the forums to see how despicable this act is, he's forgotten what the forums are like.

Well, if you want to explicitly contradict the Player's Handbook, clearly you're right and the Player's Handbook is wrong.

Actually, Rich is the one who originally contradicted the PH. Redcloak clearly differentiates between racism(Hating a subgroup of a species disproportionatly to others of the species) and specieism(Hating an entire species equally <and yet disproportionately to other species>).

hamishspence

2009-03-20, 05:27 PM

I prefer the BoED approach- murder of non-fiends is still Evil, no matter how good the motive. In any case, D&D rules on "alignment of acts" currently only exist for Evil and Lawful ones. A few Evil acts and a whole bunch of Good ones, simultaneously, with same act? Evil.

That is, if you consider "killing an evil creature" a good act- BoED points out it is, at best Neutral, if the motive is not Good.

Fiendish Codex 2- For afterlife purpose, only the Evil ones count, assuming they are not atoned for. You are Lawful and commit two murders and never atone or repent? Going to Nine Hells, even if you are Lawful Good.

V has murdered three half-dragons (remember by Monster Manual rules, half-human half-black dragons are "Often Chaotic Evil- in entry. Suggesting alignment is not that restricted.)

EDIT: On the Thor-Loki example- "he wouldn't do that" is a safe way to bet, even if on very rare occasions, you turn out to be wrong.

In Tymora's Luck by Jeff Grubb, the paladin actually finds out how own deity is trying to commit what she sees as a wrong act. She ends up stopping it, and, since, in this case, deity realises, after the fact, that what he was trying to do was wrong, she doesn't Fall.

NamonakiRei

2009-03-20, 05:38 PM

Ok, I think we kinda have two views on this:
Morally for us, on our modern world, and for the OotS verse.

SoD spoilers on the post ahead! You've been warned!

We can all say that what V did was, indeed, Evil, from our modern moral point of view. I mean, killing 62 dragons(I counted them) that had NOTHING to do with her in one shot? Definitley Evil to me. But on the OotS alignment system, it doesn't seem to work that way. It seems to be a justified good act, to kill them prevents them from killing anybody else, not taking on account the motive V had too much.

I mean, the gods don't seem to care if they're babies, kids, elder or what. Look what they did to Redcloack's village, and those were PALADINS doing it. Though it is justified because they thought theçat if they hadn't killed them, "some crazy goblin would go and destroy the Creation", this is not entirely true. Not even "Always CE" races are 100% evil. More like 99%. And heck, goblins aren't even always CE! They're Usually Neutral Evil! (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/goblin.htm) I mean, there's a good chance that some of the were- or would've been- Good aligned! But as the gods classified them only as "Little XP chunks" for all, there's no problem. The same happens with the Black Dragons, here. They're classified as an "Always CE (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htm#blackDragon)" race, and thus, even if they're babies, they are assumed to grow Evil, and thus, it is okay to kill them, because they will grow up to be yet another menace to adventurers, and we don't want that to happen, no. :smallmad:

Justifying acts like this is not a really Good behaviour. It's actually stupid. (On a side note, I'm starting to believe Rich really likes us having this discussions, or else he wouldnt've addressed the issue so many times...) Even if half the motivation(I am being kind to V on this one, it was probably way-more-than-half his motivation) was to prevent further attacks to her family, he actually felt pleasure on doing it. So, if this wouldn't be strictly Evil, it IS Evil because of the will of bringing misery to others. I mean, V agrees with the souls when they say that the dragon's pain had been too short. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0639.html)

So, yes, this IS supposed to illustrate evil.

The difference between both cases of genocide stated on the thread is the reason. To me, the reason the paladins had doesn't suffice to justify their act, even if to the eyes of the gods it does. V did this mainly to "punish" the dragon. To make her suffer. Even if those were 61 Evil creatures and 1 possibly non-evil creature, it is a morally Evil act. I repeat, EVEN IF THE CREATURES KILLED WERE EVIL. I'm not talking solely of DnD alignment system here. I'm trying to mix both.

On another note, I don't think Durkon would disbelieve an order given by Loki pretending to be Thor, but rather that he would ask why. So if disguised Loki could give a plausible reason, I think, with the evidence given so far, Durkon would say "Oh, okay then. Lads, we hafta kill some evil creatures tha' did somethin' wrong out thar! Me god Thor commands it! (Tho'he sounded a little weird... na like 'is usual self...)" ... I find it sort of ridiculous. There seems to be no limits to what a god can/cannot do in order to bring the so-called justice... Tsk.

This is just my 2 copper pieces. Wich means no more moral debate for me today. My brain could explode.

Kreistor

2009-03-20, 05:53 PM

Before deciding if it is a good or evil act: please check your standards. Are you choosing our world's standards, or OotSworld?

In our world, it si murder by any nations' laws. Killing in case someone might decide to avenge your justifiable killing of a threat is unacceptable.

In OotSworld, entire races and monstrous species were created to generate exp for heroes. Paladins can and do kill children of those races and retain their paladinhood. Under that standard, V does not need a good reason to kill the black dragons: they are all just chunks of exp anyway, so killing them is acceptable and not evil.

hamishspence

2009-03-20, 05:59 PM

How about by 3.5 D&D standards, both with and without the various sourcebooks?

If using just the core 3, there is nothing really saying when killing an evil creature is evil, and when it isn't.

If using expanded WOTC sources (BoVD, BoED, Champions of Valor, Champions of Ruin, Heroes of Horror,, Fiendish Codex 2, Exemplars of Evil) you will find quite a lot suggesting that, by these standards, its evil.

BoED- you need just cause to kill evil beings. Just detecting as evil is not enough. And killing defenseless non-combatants is evil (dragon eggs)

Fiendish Codex 2: Murder is Evil act

Heroes of Horror: Killing people just for detecting as evil is Murder.

Etc.

BenjCano

2009-03-20, 06:20 PM

On another note, I don't think Durkon would disbelieve an order given by Loki pretending to be Thor, but rather that he would ask why. So if disguised Loki could give a plausible reason, I think, with the evidence given so far, Durkon would say "Oh, okay then. Lads, we hafta kill some evil creatures tha' did somethin' wrong out thar! Me god Thor commands it! " ... I find it sort of ridiculous. There seems to be no limits to what a god can/cannot do in order to bring the so-called justice... Tsk.

I think that's the absurd degree to which this chain of logic ultimately leads, and why I feel confident trashing it and coming up with something more suitable.

Like, basically, that the Stickverse is not based on justice, equity, fairness, or any standard of goodness or decency, and that the arbiters of what is good and just (the gods) are active participants in rank cosmic injustice and evil, even the good ones. Especially the good ones, because say whatever you will about the evil powers, they at least never pretended to be otherwise.

How about by 3.5 D&D standards, both with and without the various sourcebooks?

But is that the moral standard by which the Stickverse is ordered? It seems to me that it is not; and that the D&D morality spectrum is at best a loose guideline for how things work. The divine purpose of monster races is that they be slaughtered by the player races. Do you believe in such a system that good and evil have the same meanings that they would in a setting in which that was not the case?

EDIT: On the Thor-Loki example- "he wouldn't do that" is a safe way to bet, even if on very rare occasions, you turn out to be wrong.

But on what basis would the follower refuse? Since you earlier said that a good god could command his or her follower to do evil, or an evil god good, then there isn't any way to tell whether or not that was an evil god in disguise he or she just refused, or his or her own true patron deity.

And since a paladin can perform any action at the behest of his or her god, also as you said earlier, isn't it always in a paladin's best interest to obey his or her god, or what he or she thinks of as his or her god, than to not do so? Since a greater crime than doing evil is disobeying one's god under this system of morality, why would the follower say, "I won't do that?"

hamishspence

2009-03-20, 06:23 PM

Charles Phipps

2009-03-20, 06:24 PM

Basically, it's a running theme in The Order of the Stick that while the evil races were created to be canon fodder for the good races, that doesn't mean they're RESTRICTED to being so.

I.e. Goblins and Dragons can be Not-Evil even if they usually are.

That, alone, says all you need to know.

Trixie

2009-03-20, 06:27 PM

I'm not sure. Is the only path to paladinhood the sponsorship of a god or gods? What does that then imply about the relationship between a god and his or her paladin? Is it then the chief duty of the paladin to be obedient to his or her god, above all others?/QUOTE]

I'm pretty sure a blind obedience thing is the core of pretty much any religion, especially those with the god talking to you personally.

Is the only patch to paladinhood being obedient to deity? No. Is the only patch to paladinhood of the Twelve Gods being one? Yes. Unfortunately, as paladin of some ideal or lesser god you have no access to the shrines, to the resources of your cult, armor, weapons, etc. So chances are you die pretty quickly, before reaching the levels which allow you to cast spells and have major bonuses.

And you can still fall, but no one will be there to help you.

[QUOTE]But I'm still not quite certain how Durkon could distinguish between an "evil" order given by Thor, and an "evil" order given by Loki pretending to be Thor. How would Durkon know the difference?

Well, he seems to have a direct line to him (one of the early strips). I'm pretty sure Gods have some sort of contract forbidding them from touching the toys of others.

BenjCano

2009-03-20, 06:48 PM

becasue, in effect, the gods are circumventing normal morality. They are protecting followers from "normal" consequences. A paladin concerned with "doing good" rather than "obeying the gods" might be willing to risk his own power, rather than do the wrong thing.

Ahh, I see. So does that mean that it isn't a meaningful statement to say that a given god, Thor, let's say, is good? Is it an equally meaningless statement to say that another god, the Dark One, for instance, is evil, since the gods circumvent normal morality?

Does it then follow that a "good" god can command anything whatsoever of his or her paladin followers, and the paladin follower has but to obey and not worry about the moral ramifications of his or her action, since, after all, it is a "good" god commanding it?

I would be very careful of that line of reasoning, for it is the "left hand horn" or the Euthyphro dilemma. Carry that through, and you imply that what is good is arbitrary, based merely upon the whims of the gods. If Thor (not a disguised Loki, but actually Thor) commands his followers to wantonly rape and murder, and that it was evil to show charity and mercy, then it is so. You know, since the gods are "outside conventional morality."

It also goes back to what I said: calling a god good makes no non-tautological sense.

And you can still fall, but no one will be there to help you.

That would in effect create two systems of standards for paladins, wouldn't it? The first standard is that which applies to paladins other than those that follow the 12 Southern Gods...they lose their status for committing evil acts, just like the Player's Handbook suggests. OK, that's fine by me.

But the other standard, the "double standard," if you will, applies to paladins of the 12 Southern Gods, and paladins in that standard can fall not for committing evil acts, but from committing evil acts against the express wishes of their deities.

I'm pretty sure Gods have some sort of contract forbidding them from touching the toys of others.

What makes you believe so? The only time I can distinctly remember one god blocking another was here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0453.html), where Tiger prevents Thor and Odin from taking action in the Southern Lands. But that dispute was about the sphere of influence of the "foreign" pantheon, not one god attempting to influence the followers of another.

If I was an evil god, I certainly would work around that pact all the time. And the IFCC and fiends of their ilk would have a vested interest in messing with the heads of the followers of the gods, if only to get them to question their faith and purpose. But again, why do you believe that they have a "no touchee my toy" contract?

Querzis

2009-03-20, 07:26 PM

...Look benj I'm not even sure of what your point is anymore (if you ever had any) but I'm absolutely sure this as nothing to do with the original topic. And by the way, answering people with a dozen questions is really annoying, cut the question marks ok.

BenjCano

2009-03-20, 07:28 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_question

Trixie

2009-03-20, 08:27 PM

Ahh, I see. So does that mean that it isn't a meaningful statement to say that a given god, Thor, let's say, is good? Is it an equally meaningless statement to say that another god, the Dark One, for instance, is evil, since the gods circumvent normal morality?

Does it then follow that a "good" god can command anything whatsoever of his or her paladin followers, and the paladin follower has but to obey and not worry about the moral ramifications of his or her action, since, after all, it is a "good" god commanding it?

I would be very careful of that line of reasoning, for it is the "left hand horn" or the Euthyphro dilemma. Carry that through, and you imply that what is good is arbitrary, based merely upon the whims of the gods. If Thor (not a disguised Loki, but actually Thor) commands his followers to wantonly rape and murder, and that it was evil to show charity and mercy, then it is so. You know, since the gods are "outside conventional morality."

It also goes back to what I said: calling a god good makes no non-tautological sense.

You're missing the point. He is good on average, he can make evil deeds if necessary, and vice versa. If god changes his tenets, he changes his alignment, and that is that.

That would in effect create two systems of standards for paladins, wouldn't it? The first standard is that which applies to paladins other than those that follow the 12 Southern Gods...they lose their status for committing evil acts, just like the Player's Handbook suggests. OK, that's fine by me.

But the other standard, the "double standard," if you will, applies to paladins of the 12 Southern Gods, and paladins in that standard can fall not for committing evil acts, but from committing evil acts against the express wishes of their deities.

No, that would create different standards for each order of the paladins dedicated to a particular god, just as these gods have different standards. If deity commands them to jump, they are supposed to ask 'how high', not to discuss, unless something is really wrong, and even then their god probably knows better.

What makes you believe so? The only time I can distinctly remember one god blocking another was here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0453.html), where Tiger prevents Thor and Odin from taking action in the Southern Lands. But that dispute was about the sphere of influence of the "foreign" pantheon, not one god attempting to influence the followers of another.

The only times we see two major clerics interacting, are:

1) Durkon & Hilga. Loki, despite being evil, trickster god, is disgusted, he doesn't command Hilga to draw Durkon to the other side using sex, nor contacts Durkon pretending to be Thor, to make him fall for her;

2) Redcloak & Bluerobe, during their duel in Azure City. Dark One, despite being evil, doesn't do anything here either.

If I was an evil god, I certainly would work around that pact all the time. And the IFCC and fiends of their ilk would have a vested interest in messing with the heads of the followers of the gods, if only to get them to question their faith and purpose. But again, why do you believe that they have a "no touchee my toy" contract?

When you have four sides, each made up from literal walking chunks of evil, and they respect the pacts (IFCC and evil gods with their 'noncompetitive' clauses), then why they wouldn't respect all other pacts?

Devoid

2009-03-20, 08:47 PM

The dragon surrendered. Thus, wiping out it's family was evil. V had already won. I don't think anyone else pointed that out yet.

...Personally I think V was justified to do as he/she did, given how mother dragon threatened him and what she was in the middle of doing. *shrug*

Porthos

2009-03-20, 08:50 PM

In OotSworld, entire races and monstrous species were created to generate exp for heroes.

Facts not in evidence, Kreistor. :smallsmile:

The goblins claim that entire races were created for the purposes of XP. We have NO independant cooberating evedince that they are right.

As for your other comments, INTENT MATTERS. If a evil being kills another evil being, it's still an evil act, if the purposes of doing so were for evil.

Again: Blood War.

Or Orcs Killing Goblins.

Or Mind Flayers killing Drow.

Or...

Well, you get the idea.

V killed all of the Black Dragons because he wanted the ABD to suffer. Look at all of the commentary before he cast the spell. Look at how he is rejoicing in the spell when it is cast. Dude is getting off on all of the slaughter.

That. Is. Evil. :smallsmile:

Soniku

2009-03-20, 09:16 PM

As Porthos said, intent matters. However, who says that doing it for the dragons suffering was V's intent, or that you can only have one intent?

Obviously V did get quite a bit of pleasure out of the act, it would be hard for V not to, after all getting revenge on one who was planning to kill your family like that has to be a good feeling unless you're the most stoic of individuals. However, was that the only intent, revenge? Obviously there is the other stated reason of not wanting such a situation to happen again, supposedly one of the black dragons relations finding out what happened and pulling another stunt like that putting V or V's family in danger again. Still a bit of a small reason for killing so many beings that could be good but people do tend to have a bit of a bias when it comes to family, and if V seriously suspected the situation could arise again I would think that would draw the alignment of the act from outright evil to 'end justifies the means' evil or a dark grey, neutral characters would do bad things to protect their loved ones after all.

Of course, there is the possibility that while V is acting in this way the intent is actually good, V has always been a bit of a statistical thinker and even if only 90% of the dragons are evil, that's a lot of powerful evil beings taken out of action at what V even pre-superpowers would call a regrettable but necessary cost. Not to mention, think of the XP :smalltongue:

Of course, we will have to wait and see what happens in the upcoming comics to see exactly what the alignment of V's actions were. There's every chance that the voices in V's head are more than just voices too, maybe V will snap out of it and have an 'Oh god what have I done?' moment, probably with some tragedy from family included for karmariffic value.

That... ended up a lot longer and more wordy than I had planned, oh well, hope it was coherent enough to be understood :smallbiggrin:

yanmaodao

2009-03-20, 10:01 PM

I frankly find it hard to believe that anyone could read OOTS and come up with the notion that those of Evil races automatically deserve to die. Or that "pre-emptively" killing sentient Evil beings for the sake of it is Good. By that reasoning, Belkar is the most Good of the PCs, because he's the one who most vocally advocates pre-emptively killing Evil creatures.

Yes, I'm aware that Belkar advocates pre-emptively killing Good and Neutral beings as well, and you could argue that that and only that is what makes him Evil. But consider all those times when Belkar wanted to kill (say) the members of the Linear Guild while Roy, Haley, Elan, and Durkon wanted to take them prisoner. I view this as Rich trying to represent an Evil mindset in Belkar, and the others as representing the Good mindset. Is it your - everyone who's arguing otherwise - contention that Belkar's viewpoint was meant to be portrayed as Good? Perhaps even a greater, more intelligent Good than that of Roy or Haley? Is it just an astonishing coincidence, then, that the author chose to use the most obviously Evil member of the Order to voice the opinion of the greater Good? The Linear Guild did, after all, escape, and ended up causing more harm, and pre-emptively killing them would have prevented this. Yet despite this, I think the continued insistence of the Order - with the noted exception of Belkar, and in the last LG arc, Vaarsuvius - to take the LG prisoner rather than executing them is meant to represent Good. Do you disagree?

Yes, the Linear Guild are not goblins or dragons or any of those other creatures this thread has been talking about. But that only reinforces my point - if it's Evil (or at least not Good) to kill beings who have willfully harmed others and obviously plan to do so again in the future, how much more so to kill dragon babies who you don't even know? Much less whole scale genocide, which I don't think #639 represented, but nonetheless many here are trying to justify.

So does that mean that it isn't a meaningful statement to say that a given god, Thor, let's say, is good? Is it an equally meaningless statement to say that another god, the Dark One, for instance, is evil, since the gods circumvent normal morality?

See above, "more Good on the average than Neutral or Evil characters or deities". Frankly, this is a ridiculous false dichotomy.

If a story chooses to portray a Good god giving Evil orders, then all this means is that in the story universe, Good and Evil are ultimate concepts that are greater than any one god, who may in fact be fallible. It doesn't mean that "Good and Evil are meaningless".

The Minx

2009-03-20, 10:06 PM

[START OF DARKNESS SPOILER]
I'm actually slightly less interested in the D&D moral system than I am the moral framework on which the Order of the Stick is based. The goblin and kobolds races, not to mention every other monster race on the planet, were created by the gods (presumably including the good ones) themselves to be XP fodder for PC races.

So I wonder about that. Does that make the wholesale slaughter of the monster races OK because that is their designated purpose? If so, then why is it bad that V took that act to a logical conclusion, and began murdering dragons? Is it because V did so not to fulfill the black dragons' purpose in the cosmos, but for the heady rush of using his/her new power? If it is not OK to commit the wholesale slaughter of monster races, then by what standard do you arrive at that conclusion? What does it mean to say that a god is good if he or she endorses such wanton slaughter, or would approve the creation of monster races in the first place?

Wholesale slaughter is only "technically acceptable", but it is not truly moral. The "paladin" in OTOOPCs clearly demonstrated a character who was "technically" right, and yet morally in the wrong. Miko was another such example, as seen when Roy chewed her out about not being the kind of Lawful Good he identified with. Much of this seems to be a deconstruction of how moral issues are dealt with in the game mechanics.

After having read and considered both sides of this debate, I finally reached a decision on how I would handle V if I were running V in a 3.x game.

I'd ask for his character sheet, scratch out whatever alignment was there, and then write CG in permanent marker, because I don't see V doing anything that could possibly top the "goodness" of his act.

Then I regret to inform you that you don't know good from evil. :smallsmile:

Before deciding if it is a good or evil act: please check your standards. Are you choosing our world's standards, or OotSworld?

In our world, it si murder by any nations' laws. Killing in case someone might decide to avenge your justifiable killing of a threat is unacceptable.

In OotSworld, entire races and monstrous species were created to generate exp for heroes. Paladins can and do kill children of those races and retain their paladinhood. Under that standard, V does not need a good reason to kill the black dragons: they are all just chunks of exp anyway, so killing them is acceptable and not evil.

My impression was that the whole point of the episode in SoD is that This Is Not Right. The gods may have created the "evil" races as XP fodder, and may claim that there is such a thing as an "absolute morality", and that killing someone based on which race he belongs to can be "good", but that need not be the true reality.

kivzirrum

2009-03-20, 10:28 PM

Yeah, I don't think that even the gods in the OotS-verse, despite being nearly omnipotent, are necessarily always right. The slaughter in SoD is still, no matter what, evil.

At least in my opinion.

Jayngfet

2009-03-20, 10:44 PM

Geez, I'm amazed how many people can read oots, SOD, and OOTPCs and completley miss the point. I do however find it hilarious how many people post here once or twice and don't respond after people actually call them on what they're saying.

Seraph

2009-03-20, 10:44 PM

And yet these paladins, who committed an evil act by this definition, did not fall as Miko did when she killed Lord Shojo. How do you explain that?

Because the laws by which they are bound were created by the gods. the important thing you have to understand here, is, the gods are selfish arrogant *****, and what they have set down as moral and immoral doesn't necessarily line up with the reality of such ideas. remember, the gods are only defined as good by a system they themselves created.

Porthos

2009-03-20, 10:51 PM

Geez, I'm amazed how many people can read oots, SOD, and OOTPCs and completley miss the point.

Interestingly enuf, I was thinking the exact same thing. :smallbiggrin:

GoC

2009-03-21, 12:50 AM

Is it just me or does it looks like the OP is trolling for an alignment debate?:smallconfused:

David Argall

2009-03-21, 01:07 AM

V’s action is not nearly as evil as some would have it.

For starters, V is not Xykon evil. The lich kills for the fun of it. V at least offers us a reason. It is a grossly inadequate one that greatly exaggerates the apparent threat, and the defense is likely to increase the danger, but there is a danger and the effort is at least connected to that danger. [The idea that V is doing this for revenge is a fantasy that seems fueled by a desire to see the worst of V. V is distinctly honest, and if his intent was revenge, she would have told the dragon that. That would have increased the measure of revenge by showing the dragon the death of her kin was entirely her fault, and not partly due to their own nature.]

We can also consider the nature of the victims. They were heavily evil, and their demise is arguably a benefit to the rest of the world. Now we can see that there is a definite chance of some innocents being killed in this operation, but recall our mantra “Better that 10 guilty go free than 1 innocent be punished.” What are the chances that 6 of the victims are innocent?
On the face of it, not high. “Always chaotic evil” does not mean always evil, but our figure is above 95%. 97% might be a reasonable figure. That’s a lot of evil eliminated.
Now we need to deduct from that futile evil. The dragon who would love virgin for breakfast is pretty much harmless if it never sees humans or other such races. [Of course that dragon is still doing harm if people are afraid to go to an area they want to because of the dragon, but at least that is a lesser damage.]
We can only guess what the figure is here, but we should presume there are some “innocent” dragons in our group.
Still, from a pragmatic view, we can still conclude the spell was beneficial to the world. It is conceivable that a good aligned mage might cast this spell. We have some steps to go to qualify it, such as the possibility of less violent methods doing as well, but we can put it in as possibly a valid action for a good caster.

But we do have to go back to motive. V was not concerned with the possibility she was saving hundreds of lives with the spell. He was only worried about 3 or 4. Killing 60 to save 4 is not good math. Now it is not entirely that bad. The fact is that there is a good chance that lives will be saved and V has to get some credit for that, just as she would get blame for incidental deaths. But most of this credit requires intending to save those lives, even if the intentions were indirect. [It matters little whether the doctor who discovers a cure for a disease is motivated by saving lives or by the money he gets for saving lives. We benefit from the doctor either way, and when we are cheapskates and try to insist the doctor should do it out of the goodness of his heart, we end up without the cure.] V doesn’t seem to have much or any interest in these additional lives directly or indirectly, and so we come down to deeming this evil.

Not evil by Xykon standards, and not even by Redcloak standards, but still evil.

rastilin

2009-03-21, 01:15 AM

In my case I would say this is evil with a capital E, taking massive vengeance of someone's family after slaying them is just as evil as when the dragon wanted to take vengeance on V's family.

But I won't be throwing any stones...

In my mind there is a big difference between V's willfully hunting down her son and then the rest of her relatives as opposed to what actually happened. Her son attacked V and was defeated; in taking revenge, the mother attempted to slay V's family AND permanently bind their souls into eternal suffering, the only way for V to escape that was to sign a deal with his insanity as a side effect; during this insanity, he committed unspeakable evil.

Well I'm feeling surprisingly little pity for the Dragons here, V was pushed into a corner and pretty much went insane, which was part of the dragon's plan to begin with, she just didn't expect that he/she could do anything about it.

Jayngfet

2009-03-21, 01:54 AM

Um, have we even seen black dragons do anything? All of the black dragons we've seen were either inside their own homes or going about normal buisness.

Its one thing to say dragons are always alignment X, but back it up first.

Greep

2009-03-21, 02:26 AM

Hey, this situation is pretty analogous to "death note". I think the general concensus was that Kira was evil, even though killing all those criminals randomly prevented more murders than the murders themselves, as was brought up. I disagree with that, though.

In any case, this whole thing is pretty much moot. Consenting to the soul splice was evil, but now V is no longer V, due to the other souls. In this case, V's actions are no different from the insane paladins. It's not really evil, it's not really good, it's not even neutral. It just kind of is.

quick_comment

2009-03-21, 05:23 AM

But nobody cares that he saved the fish?

Hannibal

2009-03-21, 05:46 AM

If I were Rich Burlew, and I saw the mountains of discussion surrounding this story arch, I would consider it a towering success.

Just a thought.

Belkster11

2009-03-21, 05:59 AM

Because bunnies are cuter than fishes?

I'm sure some of them are Elan/Haley die-hard fans who would just MELT if the pictured one or both of them in little bunny suits.

MickJay

2009-03-21, 07:53 AM

Either that, or he's getting immensely frustrated by how some readers are bent on misinterpreting what he presented :smallbiggrin:

Or both.

The Minx

2009-03-21, 08:21 AM

This is not less than Redcloak evil. Redcloak too commits evil "for a reason", and always with a clear objective in mind. In other words, never gratuitously (as far as is known). For instance, when he invaded Azure City, he did so to get at the gate, and even when he was interrogating O-Chul, he did so to buy time for his goblin nation.

V's excuse that he's doing it to prevent further retribution against his family is highly suspect IMHO, given how dismissive he is of the childrens' suffering only now. Not to mention that killing so many black dragons is likely to draw the ire of many powerful entities (not least of which isTiamat), and alliances can serve as motivation for vengeance no less than familial bonds. To me, he came off as doing this out of spite and malice and because he felt like it; of this being a personal affront to him (at least now, after the splice). As such, the motive was Xykon-level, except only that Xykon doesn't bother with finding pretexts for what he does.

As for those who claim that these are "always evil" creatures, did any of you notice the eggs that were destroyed? What crimes had they committed, exactly? This struck down adult, hatchling and unhatched alike.

MickJay

2009-03-21, 09:21 AM

They didn't have to commit any crimes to be evil, they were evil because of what they were. Evil (and good) are objective in D&D. That's why making fun of D&D alignment rules is so popular :smalltongue:

hamishspence

2009-03-21, 09:34 AM

But several books have pointed out that a creature can be "objectively evil" and not deserving of death- BoED, Heroes of Horror, Champions of Valor.

Both Forgotten Realms and Eberron show the distinction between "It is evil" and "You can kill it with no alignment repercussions."

Jayngfet

2009-03-21, 09:36 AM

Wait, so a dragon could sit around on a couch doing nothing but watching tv and eating chips and be considered completely evil for doing so?

hamishspence

2009-03-21, 09:41 AM

Don't know about dragons, but Fiendish Codex 2 has "creatures" which may include dragons, having to commit evil acts to get into Nine hells after death.

So, an LE dragon, even if its personality traits strongly suggested Evil, if it was merely obnoxious and never actually did anything, shouldn't qualify: "Merely thinking bad thoughts does not incur eternal damnation"

(however, its not clear whether Tiamat has a claim on all Evil dragons, Lawful and Chaotic, or not)

By strict reading, acts are important.

Charles Phipps

2009-03-21, 09:48 AM

Personally, it's a very interesting to note that Rich has created a world where the question of killing sentient beings because their evil is not nearly as black and white as it is in other settings. In, Goblins, the inherent racism towards killing this is clearly spelled out as wrong. Order of the Stick neatly points out that it's wrong to simply change the rules. Goblins REALLY ARE evil for the most part and thus the question becomes much more ambiguous.

But what keeps the fact from being justifiable that "Goblins are purely evil and deserve what's coming to them" is the question of free will. Elves, Halflings, and Dwarves are "Good Races" and we've seen all of them produce evil members of their society. Belkar is the ultimate example that halflings can and do produce truly murderous psychopaths.

What does that mean for Orcs and Goblins? For me, I like to think that free will isn't totally invalidated. That it is possible for folk like Right Eye and his family to be Neutral or even Good without there being something incredibly egrevious about it. In other words, the blanket persecution of them with the assumption they're going to kill you is wrong.

Simultaneously, there's also something noteworthy about the fact that even when races ARE evil that they are not entirely stereotypical monsters either. The Black Dragon loves her hatchling and Therkala still capable of falling in love. It questions the audience's need to destroy these beings just because they're potentially a threat. Do their lives have some value, even though they're inclined to do humans and other species harm by nature?

Personally, don't YOU want Thog to put his rusty Orc ax into a certain talky Slyph's soft Sylvan flesh? I know I do!

The MunchKING

2009-03-21, 09:48 AM

Wait, so a dragon could sit around on a couch doing nothing but watching tv and eating chips and be considered completely evil for doing so?

Dude! That's two of the 7 deadly sins right there! Sloth and Gluttony. Pride too if he's thinking about how much better he is than all those "evil" Black Dragons. :smallamused:

Heck, jerk probably watches Survivor or something. PURE EVIL!!:smallwink:

hamishspence

2009-03-21, 09:59 AM

You can find plenty of support for this in D&D sourcebooks- Champions of Ruin, Heroes of Horror, BoED, etc.

And said talky sylph was the first to say "you didn't need to kill them" in the case of hobgoblins- the idea that unnecessary violence, even toward the currently Evil, is dubious.

Which has support, unless you are just using core 3 books with no references from other D&D sources.

Magothys

2009-03-21, 10:07 AM

hamishspence

2009-03-21, 10:11 AM

Not good enough excuse to claim "self defense". Family feud generally does not justify massacre of every family member, young and old.

Inter-house fighting in Drizzt books sometimes involves this- and thats a good showcase as to how "massacring your enemy's whole family is evil" Zaknefein, Drizzt's mentor, says he's never killed a drow child, and the knowledge that this sort of thing keeps happening haunts him.

and dragons do sit around doing nothing for huge periods- "dragon asleep for 100 years on its hoard" is a classic trope.

Jayngfet

2009-03-21, 10:15 AM

"This leaves me with the task of ensuring that today's events will never rise again to harm them." -V

Self-defense kill. There's no guarantee that none of the other dragons have a grudge for killing the mother and would attempt the same thing as her, or that they would announce it to V ahead of time. Since they can find V's family as easily as the mother (the Oracle), V had to do this. Although he is enjoying it... but the dragon had it coming by turning the grudge into a family war.

"Wait, so a dragon could sit around on a couch doing nothing but watching tv and eating chips and be considered completely evil for doing so?"

Then it wouldn't be a black dragon. Because it is a black dragon, it wouldn't sit on a couch and eat chips. That would be Belkar's job, who kills people while eating chips.

...Wow, just wow. You didn't just miss the subtext there, you missed most of the actual text, that has to be a new record or something. Can't you see those voices from what now makes up three quarters of V's mind enjoying it? Or hell, that fanged smile on hir face?

Also, what have we even seen black dragons do in this comic? The first one was minding it's buisness when it was killed, the second was it's mother using perfectly reasonable logic every Player ever has used at some point(some of race X killed my family, now I must kill them all!), only with adventurers being hated instead of race X. The other five dozen were going about the same type of daily routine as every other sentient creature goes through: Hunt nonsentient life for food, reproduce, defend your home from attack.

Morty

2009-03-21, 10:20 AM

But what keeps the fact from being justifiable that "Goblins are purely evil and deserve what's coming to them" is the question of free will. Elves, Halflings, and Dwarves are "Good Races" and we've seen all of them produce evil members of their society. Belkar is the ultimate example that halflings can and do produce truly murderous psychopaths.

What does that mean for Orcs and Goblins? For me, I like to think that free will isn't totally invalidated. That it is possible for folk like Right Eye and his family to be Neutral or even Good without there being something incredibly egrevious about it. In other words, the blanket persecution of them with the assumption they're going to kill you is wrong.

By the rules, there is absolutely no difference between a good orc or goblin and an evil dwarf or elf. Orcs are "Often Chaotic Evil" and elves are "Usually Chaotic Good", so you're in fact much more likely to run into a good orc than into an evil elf. And one of the things I like about this comic is that it mocks the genre's chiches, certain races being cannon fodder for Good & Noble Heroes among them. And while I don't know Rich's thoughts on the subject, dragons being "always" evil and "always" good is completely moronic. They're beings with free will and high intelligence, what stops a gold dragon from being evil or a red one from being good? They're not made from essence of the evil or good planes like fiends and celestials are.
And on a side note, Therkla was a half-orc, not a pure orc.

Jason

2009-03-21, 10:21 AM

I think it's fairly obvious that V is using an excuse to hurt the ABD even more - by slaughtering hordes of sentient beings that never did anything to V.
By my book that's evil.

Vox

2009-03-21, 10:23 AM

I'm a bit surprised this debate has gone on so long without this coming up, but here it goes:

I present to you two scenarios roughly analagous to this one. Nazis break into a man's home, beat him nearly to death, and as they leave, taking his family with them, the leading Nazi officer informs him that his wife and children will be tortured to death. Let's further say that the man is somehow able to make a deal with a demon, of the temporary nature that we've seen V making. Thus empowered, he cuts his way through the Nazi forces surrounding his family, executes the officer and frees them. Let's further say that all this takes place in, say, a frontier area in Russia rather than Germany proper, so the man *can* simply leave and attempt to hide somewhere, though the Nazis may come after him anyway.

But he doesn't like that option. In a manner similar to V's, he decides that as long as *anyone* in the Nazi Party is still alive, his family is in danger. He casts a spell and (assuming Nazi membership at the end of WWII), 8.5 million people die instantly.

Step back for a moment. I don't need to tell you how big a favor he's done the world by eradicating that organization. The top leadership and many of the lower levels as well were some of the most evil human beings ever to commit atrocities, and their deaths will save countless human lives. At the same time, even Nazi party members may have been capable of redemption. It was after all the only legal party, and many people may simply have had no choice, and may have tried to do as much good as they were able to within the structure of a party they knew to be evil. There are arguments to be made for both sides, whether wiping out everyone in the Nazi Party is justified or wanton overkill.

I'm not here to make those arguments. I present two dialogues with, I argue, two very different moral standings.

I: [man standing over the Nazi officer's dying body] "But it's not over, is it? I sold my *soul* to get them back but you're right. Your people will just keep coming. My family will never be safe...as long as *any* of you are alive. Maybe some of you aren't like that. Maybe some of you could be saved. For what it's worth, I'm sorry for what's about to happen to them. But I'm not sorry for what's I'm about to do to you."

[Death of the Nazi Party]

II: [same scenario] "Damn straight it's not over! You think you, you think *anyone* does this to me and walks? You tried to take my family, you tried to hurt *me*! And so now I'm going to show the world what happens when it tries to f*** with me. You think you know what pain is? I'll show you what it really feels like. I will make you suffer more than you ever tried to hurt me."

The contrast is hopefully obvious. One version kills millions of people, some of whom he knows are evil, some of whom he knows are not, because he sees no other way to protect his family. A good action? Perhaps not, but one that can be argued with and defended to a certain extent. The other man considers three things: how much he hates Nazis, how much his pride is offended that they would do this to him, and the object lesson he wants to give, that messing with him is a Very Bad Idea. This, I would argue, is still evil, despite the good consequences that come from it, *because* none of the beneficial results are intended. One man seeks a good result and accepts, reluctantly, that evil will also occur. The other seeks personal satisfaction, ignoring and apparently not caring about any good results that occur. The intention makes all the difference.

And if I haven't said it already: my apologies for being the guy who brings up the Nazis in a debate.

Jason

2009-03-21, 10:28 AM

hamishspence

2009-03-21, 10:29 AM

But, in this case, its not a coherent organization- its a bunch of individuals with minimal connection to each other- and independant goals.

Estrosiath

2009-03-21, 10:49 AM

harami2000

2009-03-21, 10:53 AM

Elves, Halflings, and Dwarves are "Good Races" and we've seen all of them produce evil members of their society. Belkar is the ultimate example that halflings can and do produce truly murderous psychopaths.
Hey, it happens...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3571/3373125188_4342cd7c9d_o.gif

What does that mean for Orcs and Goblins? For me, I like to think that free will isn't totally invalidated. That it is possible for folk like Right Eye and his family to be Neutral or even Good without there being something incredibly egrevious about it. In other words, the blanket persecution of them with the assumption they're going to kill you is wrong.
Sorry, Tolkienesque bipolar species' alignments wins despite D&D not being based on Tolkien in the first place. *jk* :smallwink:

How much credit is given to "color-coded for your convenience" (throwaway joke or otherwise) depends on worldview but whether any of us actually knows the rules for OotS regardless of thinking they know those and/or xD&D is still up for grabs in my book.

hamishspence

2009-03-21, 10:55 AM

CE white dragons are sometimes raised by crystal dragons, according to MM2. Raising the "always CE" creature can change it. Killing it at birth is at least dubious.

Heroes of Horror gave the example of Unholy Scion as one of the few cases where killing the baby creature wouldn't be evil- and these are Outsiders, with Evil subtype, and Always Evil alignment, and can control parent even before birth.

Charles Phipps

2009-03-21, 11:02 AM

In a dungeons sense, if you are CE, then you simply are not innocent. Even if you have committed no crimes.

Maybe, maybe not.

It's an interesting notation that it may be an Evil Act to go forth and kill Evil Beings for no other reason than being evil, even if killing Evil Beings is not normally an evil act. Hence, a Paladin will lose his Paladin status for slaughtering a NE Merchant for no other reason than his Alignment.

This keeps the importance of alignment in determining actions while not making evil creatures any less evil.

Good characters can't kill Evil Creatures for just their alignment without ceasing to be good.

Sorry, Tolkienesque bipolar species' alignments wins despite D&D not being based on Tolkien in the first place. *jk*

Bizarrely, Tolkien was intending to change the "Orcs can be nothing but bad." Of course, when an Orc ceases to be bad, doesn't it become an Elf?

Morty

2009-03-21, 11:05 AM

Bizarrely, Tolkien was intending to change the "Orcs can be nothing but bad." Of course, when an Orc ceases to be bad, doesn't it become an Elf?

No, he becomes an orc who isn't bad. There were plenty of bad elves in Silmarillion who nevertheless didn't become orcs.

hamishspence

2009-03-21, 11:06 AM

Heroes of Horror, and Eberron, seem to go with this. "Can the paladin just go out smiting everyone who detects as evil? It is unlikely the city watch would take kindly to this."- as does BoED:

"Violence in the name of good must have just cause- the mere existance of evil orcs is not just cause for war against them."

Given the choice, I prefer the expansions, to the "its a monster=it must die" perspective.

LuisDantas

2009-03-21, 11:17 AM

Strip 639. Is V killing a family of dragons really supposed to illustrate heirm having gone evil?

Why, of course it is. And it does, quite perfectly.

There is simply no excuse for V's actions.

Rotipher

2009-03-21, 11:23 AM

FWIW, one of the 3E novellas about the iconic characters (Lidda, Mialee, etc) featured a scene where this very issue came up. Krusk had been captured by villagers, who suspected (wrongly) that the half-orc was one of the orc raiders who'd recently attacked them. Alhandra was passing through town, and was asked to judge Krusk's guilt or innocence. She hadn't met Krusk until then and didn't know his history, but she talked to witnesses who'd seen him, proving that he'd arrived in the area from a different direction than the raiders. After Krusk had been exonerated, another character asked her why she hadn't simply used Detect Evil on him, and the paladin replied that it wouldn't have made any difference: even if he had been Evil, it would have been an injustice to execute him for something he hadn't done.

Seems to me that WotC was making its own position on this "Is being Evil a capital offense?" issue clear in that novella: a book intended to be read by newbie gamers, and introduce them to concepts like in-game morality. I'd think that WotC's depiction of proper Lawful Good behavior is more definitive than Rich's deliberate parodies of LG excesses (i.e. Miko and the goblin village massacre).

hamishspence

2009-03-21, 11:23 AM

Plenty of excuses- question is, are they valid ones? I tend to say no.

They include-

"killing Always evil creatures is good- 60 Good acts + 3 evil act, = 1 Good act"
(BoED contradicts this one)

"preemptive strikes are not murder"
(only valid under certain circumstances- when you have very good evidence)

And many more.

hamishspence

2009-03-21, 11:30 AM

yes- other WOTC sources say similar things.

Third party sources on paladin, like Quintessenial Paladin 2, also explore the ramifications of Detect Evil and alignment.

To given an example, the only "alignments setting" where you can Smite on Sight and not fall, in that book, is the one where a normal serial killer will not detect as evil, but a serial killer doing it on command of a demon will- "Supernatural Evil"

which does not appear to be the default in normal D&D setting.

Jason

2009-03-21, 11:36 AM

But the good alignments include a respect for life. Doesn't a respect for life include not killing anything when it's not necessary to kill?
Roy showed his respect for life in Origins when he refused to kill orcs who weren't doing anything wrong at the time, even though the paladin he was with made the argument of "They're listed as Chaotic Evil, too, so we could kill them without alignment problems."

And there is no such thing as unborn demon eggs. Demons are always chaotic evil because they are derived from people who lived chaotic evil lives before they died and became demons. Being evil in a previous life is a requirement to become a demon. Unborn dragons don't have the same problem.

hamishspence

2009-03-21, 11:41 AM

there are fiends that were never mortal (obyrith demons) or reproduce the old fashioned way (erinyes devils mate and produce baby erinyes) but these are rare.

EDIT: Not everyone has Origin. In-strip the closest thing to "killing evil beings unneccessarily is wrong" comes from Celia when Belkar kills the hobgoblin.

Chirios

2009-03-21, 11:45 AM

I'm sorry, I've never seen one thing in the comic that suggests that the rules shouldn't simply be changed.

Where have you seen this?

hamishspence

2009-03-21, 11:47 AM

In Origin, Roy's disapproval of killing orcs unnecessarily, in War & XPs commentary, the description of the paladins' behaviour in SoD as "damning"

Rotipher

2009-03-21, 11:58 AM

the important thing you have to understand here, is, the gods are selfish arrogant *****, and what they have set down as moral and immoral doesn't necessarily line up with the reality of such ideas. remember, the gods are only defined as good by a system they themselves created.

Selfish and arrogant, and negligent as well. Remember when Thor -- supposedly one of the good guys -- disregarded that village's dire need for protection just to answer a freakin' spell request of Durkon's? Not the sort of thing one would expect from a deity who lived up to the Good alignment he professes to advocate. Heck, the Snarl was created in the first place because the gods were too caught up in their petty competition, bickering, and vanity to notice what they'd inadvertently generated. In a sense, the ultimate threat of the series is an embodiment of the gods' own blunders and moral lapses.

evileeyore

2009-03-21, 12:00 PM

And while I don't know Rich's thoughts on the subject, dragons being "always" evil and "always" good is completely moronic.

And that is part of the joke... but is also taken seriosuly within the context of the story.

They're beings with free will and high intelligence, what stops a gold dragon from being evil or a red one from being good? They're not made from essence of the evil or good planes like fiends and celestials are.

We don't know any of that. Dragons may have born for the very stuff of magic, thus as incapable of "True Free Will" as constructs, just really smart constructs that can fool a Turing test.

Maybe the Evil is Nature and not Nurture. :smallwink:

Morty

2009-03-21, 12:11 PM

And that is part of the joke... but is also taken seriosuly within the context of the story.

I suppose so, but I try not to jump to conclusions.

We don't know any of that. Dragons may have born for the very stuff of magic, thus as incapable of "True Free Will" as constructs, just really smart constructs that can fool a Turing test.

Maybe the Evil is Nature and not Nurture. :smallwink:

Maybe. But it'd be making stuff up to justify ridiculous rules.

hamishspence

2009-03-21, 12:21 PM

Going by the numerous non evil members of "always evil" races, including dragons, in various D&D sources, I'd say its a bit of both. And a certain amount of nurture will, according to BoED, overcome nature.

The only creatures that can't be turned into good creatures, by non-magical diplomacy, no less, are creatures with the Evil subtype.

(thats ignoring fact that creature may undergo experiences, that lead to change)

Jayngfet

2009-03-21, 12:31 PM

We don't know any of that. Dragons may have born for the very stuff of magic, thus as incapable of "True Free Will" as constructs, just really smart constructs that can fool a Turing test.

Maybe the Evil is Nature and not Nurture. :smallwink:

You mean like dwarves were made by the dwarf god, and elves by the elf god, and orcs by the orc god? The only way that becomes significant is if we assume everything else was made via evolution.

LuisDantas

2009-03-21, 12:31 PM

The "color-coded for your convenience" joke from so long ago and the inherent absurdity of an intelligent and adaptable (*) race being always evil both lead me to believe that the Giant does not think of good and evil in such simplistic terms.

Besides, he IS the creator of Belkar, Miko and Celia, not to mention V hirself. And he created wonderful nuances of character even for the villains, Redcloak being the prime example.

His work never subscribed to black-and-white fascist ideology. Fortunately. :)

---------
(*) - I won't talk about free will because I find the concept way too vague and misleading to be useful.

Silverraptor

2009-03-21, 12:56 PM

I was going to send my raptor "silver" to eat the bunny, but he's on a strict mineral only diet. Biological material doesn't settle well in his stomach.

Haggis

2009-03-21, 01:12 PM

Simple. He didn't save the fish. It wasn't prey it's a pet. A pet who has no survival skills and depended on it's dragon owner. He's doomed it!

Why must the innocent suffer?

Rotipher

2009-03-21, 01:36 PM

How do we know V did save the bunny? That young black dragon was pursuing it so closely, the bolt-slain corpse might've landed on its intended prey and squashed it!

Spiryt

2009-03-21, 01:52 PM

You did love it so, it was a lovely little fish.

evileeyore

2009-03-21, 02:10 PM

Maybe. But it'd be making stuff up to justify ridiculous rules.

Just like those rules were made up... Hmmm.

Look, I didn't make up the rules. I just argue about them.

The "color-coded for your convenience" joke from so long ago and the inherent absurdity of an intelligent and adaptable (*) race being always evil both lead me to believe that the Giant does not think of good and evil in such simplistic terms.

Oh course not. That doesn't change the fact that Dragons are always color coded and aligned accordingly.

Besides, he IS the creator of Belkar, Miko and Celia, not to mention V hirself. And he created wonderful nuances of character even for the villains, Redcloak being the prime example.

Whom are all A) all primary characters, and B) not straight-jacket into one alignment. They can all change.

His work never subscribed to black-and-white fascist ideology. Fortunately. :)

Until now. :smallwink:

Donald

2009-03-21, 02:15 PM

Not to mention ruining the Adventurers XP. The hoard will probably just cover what they spend on Acid resists and anti dragon equipment.

Morty

2009-03-21, 02:33 PM

Just like those rules were made up... Hmmm.

Look, I didn't make up the rules. I just argue about them.

I'm fully aware of that. And while those justifications are more or less logical, they are still justifications for badly thought-out rules.

LuisDantas

2009-03-21, 02:43 PM

Oh course not. That doesn't change the fact that Dragons are always color coded and aligned accordingly.

Except that there is no such fact, as already noted. Not in the core material, even, and I will be very surprised indeed if it turns out that somehow it is miraculously true in the OOtSverse.

LuisDantas

2009-03-21, 03:08 PM

Prak

2009-03-21, 03:11 PM

you're assuming the dragon was going to eat the fish in the first place... which I kinda doubt... no pursuit obvious and.. it's a little tiny fish, and that's a big black dragon...

Mad Mask

2009-03-21, 03:28 PM

Simple. He didn't save the fish. It wasn't prey it's a pet. A pet who has no survival skills and depended on it's dragon owner. He's doomed it!

Why must the innocent suffer?

Nonsense, the dragon was the pet, and the fish the owner. How else would you explain that the dragon was following the fish ?

ocdscale

2009-03-21, 03:49 PM

The act is not good. It doesn't matter that the dragons were almost assuredly chaotic evil (leaving the question of the half-dragons in the air). Killing evil beings does not, by itself, make an act good.
Shifting the balance of the world towards good (by removing evil agents) does not, by itself, make an act good.

Consider. A Paladin walks through town with Detect Evil. He smites everyone that registers as Evil (including greedy scheming merchants) Does he fall?
Consider. Are devils good for waging unending war against chaotic evil demons? Are the demons good for waging unending war against the lawful evil devils?

I personally this is somewhere between Lawful Neutral (as a coldy calculated act of self-preservation and defense of others against a group of dangerous and vengeful predators) and Lawful Evil (as overkill with collateral damage).

Callista

2009-03-21, 03:52 PM

No, at least as of 3.5 the dragons are marked "Always" (alignment X). That means that one that isn't is extremely unlikely, probably created by magic or converted/tempted by a strongly-aligned opposing creature, and probably only one step off their Always alignment at that.

Now, the fact that we know the black dragon's family was all evil doesn't mean we know they all deserved to die.

Not all Evil creatures do deserve to die, at least not if they were judged in most courts. Real-world, the deadbeat dad who leaves his kids and spends his time drinking and trying to avoid work is probably Evil-aligned, if weakly so; but he doesn't deserve death (even if he does deserve a good butt-kicking).

V's action was evil not because s/he killed multiple black dragons, but because s/he did it with no regard as to whether they deserved it, and partly for the purpose of further torturing the dragon.

The Minx

2009-03-21, 04:16 PM

I think you are confusing innocent in a legal sense with innocent in a dungeons sense.

In a legal sense, if you have committed no crime, then you are innocent (of a crime).
In a dungeons sense, if you are CE, then you simply are not innocent. Even if you have committed no crimes.

That is pretty much meaningless. If we are using differing meanings for the same word there is not much to discuss. :smallsmile:

It is evil to kill the innocent. Someone who hasn't done anything wrong is innocent even if they are "evil". I haven't seen any definition of "innocence" in a game mechanics context that equates to evil alignment.

[EDIT: obviously, I meant that I had not seen any definition of innocence in a game mechanics context that equates to LACK of evil alignment.]

Ok, what if the eggs had been unborn demons (which have the same alignment, "always CE", as black dragons do). Would you have said they were innocent?

When you have always CE as alignment, it means you evil is genetic, and that only the exceedingly rare individual can overcome the natural tendencies.

Let me refresh your memory on CE:

Chaotic Evil, "Destroyer"

A chaotic evil character does whatever his greed, hatred, and lust for destruction drive him to do. He is hot-tempered, vicious, arbitrarily violent, and unpredictable. If he is simply out for whatever he can get, he is ruthless and brutal. If he is committed to the spread of evil and chaos, he is even worse. Thankfully, his plans are haphazard, and any groups he joins or forms are poorly organized. Typically, chaotic evil people can be made to work together only by force, and their leader lasts only as long as he can thwart attempts to topple or assassinate him.

Are you really going to pretend the fact it's a small dragon, or an egg, if it's going to produce someone who will be 99.99% of the time CE, it's somehow evil to stop the threat before it evolves 30 HDs, SR, a breath weapon, and sorcerer caster levels?

You should also take a look at the description for "evil":

"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. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.

There are degrees for such things. And funnily enough "always" does not mean what it says.

evileeyore

2009-03-21, 04:24 PM

Except that there is no such fact, as already noted. Not in the core material, even, and I will be very surprised indeed if it turns out that somehow it is miraculously true in the OOtSverse.

Have you read the core material?

"Always Chaotic Evil (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htm)" means ... well, always Chaotic Evil.

I'm not sure what more I can say, accept your very wrong.

Kyouhen

2009-03-21, 04:36 PM

Nonsense, the dragon was the pet, and the fish the owner. How else would you explain that the dragon was following the fish ?

Of course! It's so obvious now! Shame that fish is clearly a Dire Minnow. Looks like V's little plan of fixing the whole family risk thing just fell through.

The Minx

2009-03-21, 04:42 PM

Have you read the core material?

"Always Chaotic Evil (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htm)" means ... well, always Chaotic Evil.

I'm not sure what more I can say, accept your very wrong.

You're using the wrong "you're". :smalltongue:

Always <alignment> does not mean Always, there can be very rare exceptions.

However, more importantly, being evil does not mean one deserves death, since one can be evil without being strongly evil.

Jayngfet

2009-03-21, 04:50 PM

Morty

2009-03-21, 05:25 PM

I remember hearing that dragons in 4e aren't alignment restricted.

I don't know about metallic dragons - I don't think they've been statted out anyway - but the chromatic ones are listed in Monster Manual as "evil". And the ruling about the listed alignment is that there are exceptions, but they're well, exceptions. So pretty much same ol'.

Snowgods

2009-03-21, 05:36 PM

I don't think anyone's really considering V to be good at the moment, maybe he is in charge of the 'gestalt entity' but he's certainlyinfluenced by 3 extremly powerful EVIL! guys (OK 2 and a gal).

As for the Eggs Draconomicon (3.5) specifies that a parent is around to look afer the wyrmlings (and presumably the eggs) for a few decades.
Now at least one of the parents must have been kin to the ancient matriarch, so that leaves a 50% chance that the eggs would get predates, so you might almost call it a mercy killing. More to the point with alignment issues are the half-dragons, they do not have to be CE. the centaur half dragon (or is it a horse) gould well be good!

Saying that not allcampaign setting follow the MMs alignments anyway (Eberron for a start)
But since V is currently not Good (and never was, Think he was neutral) it's much of a muchness anyway

Ridureyu

2009-03-21, 06:03 PM

You know, using demons and devils as a comparison point really doesn't work. D&D source material clearly states that fiends are literally made of evil - they're basically "Evil Elementals." That's different from an evil orc or a goblin.

Warren Dew

2009-03-21, 06:39 PM

Strip 639. Is V killing a family of dragons really supposed to illustrate heirm having gone evil?

I'm not sure. It's hard to see how one could consider this evil if disintegrating Kubota was not evil, and plenty of forum goers didn't think killing Kubota was evil. Me, I think killing Kubota was an evil act; I think there's a small possibility this one might only be neutral, depending on information about the specific victims that we don't have, though I think it's certainly not good.

Mainly, though, I think it's another illustration of the comic's theme that "what goes around comes around": the mother dragon tried to kill someone else's family, and the result is that her family gets killed.

and the baby dragon and dragon eggs where evil too?

Possibly. As pointed out in another thread, there are sharks that eat smaller siblings while still in the womb. That might happen in dragon eggs, too.

The argument that "this is an evil act because some of the victims might not have been evil" is a cop out. If one thinks the evilness of the act depends on the alignment of the victims, then the correct thing to say is, "this might or might not have been an evil act, depending on whether any of the victims were nonevil."

I think that kind of misses the real question, though - which is, if we presume that all of the victims were evil, was Vaarsuvius's act still evil? If so, what differentiates it from killing just one evil victim - does evilness depend on numbers? Or is killing a single evil victim also evil?

The question is-Is killing an evil person/monster evil? In this case it depends on the motives, and V's only motive was revenge, no matter what he said.

No. Vaarsuvius's motive was making sure the threat to the elf children would never happen again. It has been demonstrated that the dragons will try to avenge their relatives by trying to kill Vaarsuvius's family. The next one might not be so stupid as to tell Vaarsuvius all about its plans first. The logical solution is to make sure the dragon has no relatives to threaten vengeance.

I don't think that that more logical motive makes the act nonevil if it was otherwise evil. That just shows that "it" doesn't actually depend on the motives, after all.

The EXCUSE he gave to his spouse was that it was for their protection, but that isn't at all what he was thinking when he rez'd her...

How can you know what Vaarsuvius was thinking? There aren't any thought bubbles in this strip that I can see.

Evil killing Evil isn't Good. Nor even Neutral.

If so, then every being that takes part of the Blood War would find themselves sliding toward neutral alignments.

Not necessarily. Perhaps only good and evil acts move one on that axis, and neutral acts are alignment neutral.

Indeed, this almost has to be the case, as most of the acts one does in one's life are neutral.

"they are capable of redemption"

You hold that the neutral alignment has to favor redemption? I guess I disagree.

And yeah, so the half-centaur might have been good. One good half-centaur dies compared to countless always evil black dragons? That is still such an overwhelmingly good act that it can't be tainted in my eyes.

It strikes me that if the dragon centaur were good, killing it would be still be an evil act, even if killing the 61 full dragons were nonevil. I grant that under the interpretation that killing evil is good, which I obviously don't agree with, the overall effect would still be to move Vaarsuvius's alignment toward good.

We can all say that what V did was, indeed, Evil, from our modern moral point of view. I mean, killing 62 dragons(I counted them) that had NOTHING to do with her in one shot? Definitley Evil to me.

Was wiping out smallpox evil? Few of the people in the campaign to wipe it out had actually been victims.

In our world, it si murder by any nations' laws. Killing in case someone might decide to avenge your justifiable killing of a threat is unacceptable.

Given it's a worldwide thing rather than within a nation, I think preemptive warfare is a better, albeit still imperfect, parallel. It seems to be an open question whether and when preemptive warfare is considered acceptable.

The dragon surrendered. Thus, wiping out it's family was evil.

Wiping out the family would have been okay if the dragon hadn't surrendered?

As for your other comments, INTENT MATTERS.

So wiping out smallpox was an evil act if the person who started that campaign was secretly enjoying wiping out those nasty evil viruses?

Miko was another such example, as seen when Roy chewed her out about not being the kind of Lawful Good he identified with.

That depends on whether you agree with Roy's concept of lawful good - you know, the one where you kill young black dragons without thinking about it, and make up excuses afterwards.

But we do have to go back to motive. V was not concerned with the possibility she was saving hundreds of lives with the spell. He was only worried about 3 or 4. Killing 60 to save 4 is not good math.

How is this argument valid? Certainly if all 62 had been directly attacking the family, Vaarsuvius would have been justified in killing them all, despite the fact that it would still have been "killing 60 to save 4".

The Minx

2009-03-21, 06:46 PM

That depends on whether you agree with Roy's concept of lawful good - you know, the one where you kill young black dragons without thinking about it, and make up excuses afterwards.

No it does not, for even though Roy is not perfect, that does not mean that his criticism of Miko isn't accurate and that she isn't less perfect.

Besides, it was V who killed that dragon.

David Argall

2009-03-21, 06:50 PM

If we are using differing meanings for the same word there is not much to discuss.
Well that very difference is very much something needs discussing.

It is evil to kill the innocent. Someone who hasn't done anything wrong is innocent even if they are "evil".
But the person who is about to attack you may have not done anything wrong..yet. By your definition, they are still innocent. But we do not say it is wrong for you to kill this "innocent".

But when we say one is not innocent if one intends harm, our child loses innocence quite fast. Even our dragon egg can not be given a pass.

Porthos

2009-03-21, 06:54 PM

So wiping out smallpox was an evil act if the person who started that campaign was secretly enjoying wiping out those nasty evil viruses?

There's an ever so slight difference between a mindless speck of biology and a Black Dragon.

Ever so slight. :smalltongue:

BTW, just so we're clear, I tend to think that intent and actions matter when it comes to DnD. But it's just that so many people are focused on Actions Only that I like to remind them that intent matters as well.

As for which matters more, in short, as all my answers on these silly debates usually wind up: It depends.

As for your smallpox query, no it wouldn't matter worth a darn if a scientist got off on killing all those bugs. Heck, if that's what is required to rid the world of diseases, then I darn well hope more people get their jollies that way. :smallamused:
EDIT::::

Wanted to respond to this bit:

That depends on whether you agree with Roy's concept of lawful good - you know, the one where you kill young black dragons without thinking about it, and make up excuses afterwards.

Wow. Unfair a bit much when it comes to Roy, eh? :smallsmile:

Let's look at the situation and the joke.

Roy and company are exploring a deep dark cave when they are suddenly attacked by a Dragon. Without getting into particulars, a fight breaks out. At the end of the fight, the Black Dragon is dead. Yes, they could have let the Black Dragon live. Heck ANY time someone goes into a fight, they can let their opponent live (Subdual Damage... It's not just for Monks anymore :smalltongue:).

So whatever argument that one makes for killing the YBD at the end of the Suggestion spell could be made for the fight itself. Heck it could be made for any fight where there is some sort of expectation that if people are left alone they won't harm them again.

Yet for some reason we really don't hear these complaints in the comic. IN fact, when a character actually dares to try to "fix" the problem of people getting killed (Celia and the theives guild deaths), the forum rises up in anger.

Funny that. :smallamused:

Anyway, the question is: Is it permissable to kill someone in a fight if it is mutually agreed upon to the death. Now I don't know about you, but I don't know anything about the LG alignment that states that you can't kill someone if they are actively trying to kill you. Yes, the LG alignment says you can show mercy. And the LG alignment says that you can look to leave the situation (though in this case there are certainly a lot of extenuating circumstances that would preclude the party from leaving the cave).

But nothing in the LG alignment says that you MUST do those things in all cases.

Again: It depends. :smallwink: And in this case I don't see anything morally reprehensible about the party "finishing off" the YBG the next day.

Sorry, but I just don't. :smallsmile:

As for the joke, don't forget that Roy suddenly got a face full of fury from someone who can be best described as slightly unbalanced at the best of times. So he quickly said something to calm said person down. And it worked.

So if you want to argue with anyone's defintion of LG, it's Miko's not Roy's. And we all know how strong Miko's grasp was on proper LG behavior. :smalltongue:

The Minx

2009-03-21, 07:02 PM

But the person who is about to attack you may have not done anything wrong..yet.

Attacking someone is a hostile act. It's incorrect to say he hasn't done anything wrong.

By your definition, they are still innocent. But we do not say it is wrong for you to kill this "innocent".

But when we say one is not innocent if one intends harm, our child loses innocence quite fast. Even our dragon egg can not be given a pass.

However, a child is immature and lacking in moral maturity and so cannot be judged by the same standards as an adult. Just as importantly, it is less dangerous than an adult; the reaction must be in proportion to the action and circumstance which precipitated it.

Besides, an egg hasn't done anything except sit there. I'm not sure how comparing it to a hostile child is even relevant. :smallconfused:

waynethegame

2009-03-21, 07:12 PM

DISCLAIMER: I am "Lawful Evil" in real life and think it should be perfectly acceptable to kill entire families based on the perception of "Someday they will seek revenge" (a la The Godfather Part II or ancient China).

The act was evil, but NOT because he killed dozens (hundreds?) of Black dragons, since black dragons are evil. It was evil because it was to add insult to injury, and for personal pleasure.

The Minx

2009-03-21, 07:15 PM

DISCLAIMER: I am "Lawful Evil" in real life and think it should be perfectly acceptable to kill entire families based on the perception of "Someday they will seek revenge" (a la The Godfather Part II or ancient China).

Oh-kay... thanks for the headsup. :smallconfused:

The act was evil, but NOT because he killed dozens (hundreds?) of Black dragons, since black dragons are evil. It was evil because it was to add insult to injury, and for personal pleasure.

Hmmm. Does that mean that it would be a non-evil act to kill you? Personally, I don't think so, but then I keep getting "Chaotic Good" on every test I take, so what do I know? :smalltongue:

The MunchKING

2009-03-21, 07:23 PM

Oh-kay... thanks for the headsup. :smallconfused: Hmmm. Does that mean that it would be a non-evil act to kill you?

He just stated he's willing to preemptivly nuke you if he thinks you might THINK about it, so yeah, you might need to get some aggressive "self-defense" on...

TheBST

2009-03-21, 07:26 PM

Question from a non-player: why are certain species classed as being 'always evil'? Surely it'd make more sense if the majority of creatures were neutral, as in real life. I mean, you could still get use of smite evil and other such spells- because it's going to mostly be evil creatures that attack the party anyway. It just sounds like an unnecessary limitation on gameplay.

charl

2009-03-21, 07:42 PM

Hmmm. Does that mean that it would be a non-evil act to kill you? Personally, I don't think so, but then I keep getting "Chaotic Good" on every test I take, so what do I know?

So do I.

Look, as the OP I think I maybe should clarify some stuff. First, I don't think that using a spell to kill a whole bloodline of sentient beings is anything else than pure evil.

BUT, V lives in a world were DnD rules apply. They are basically science there, and while the alignment rules are fairly vague, it would seem to me at least that killing a whole lot of evil creatures isn't actually an evil act in DnD. Now, this isn't how I want to play DnD, or how DnD is probably meant to be played, but that's how it seems to me the rules work (that was a weird sentence, and probably not proper English, but I hope you get my meaning. Translation isn't always that easy).

If I was the DM I would shoot V down into the deeeeeeeeep evils for doing that. "You are going to wipe out a whole family of sentient creatures (dragons or not) because you want revenge for something you just stopped from happening? Yeah... change alignment to LE for now, and we'll have a talk next paus."

But, V is a dungeon crawl-style adventurer (or a parody of one more precisely). The very job is to find a dungeon full of non-human "monsters", then kill them and take their stuff. Judging V by these standards, familicide isn't actually that bad a thing to do against a "monster" that is supposedly "always evil".

The Minx

2009-03-21, 08:03 PM

So do I.

Look, as the OP I think I maybe should clarify some stuff. First, I don't think that using a spell to kill a whole bloodline of sentient beings is anything else than pure evil.

BUT, V lives in a world were DnD rules apply. They are basically science there, and while the alignment rules are fairly vague, it would seem to me at least that killing a whole lot of evil creatures isn't actually an evil act in DnD. Now, this isn't how I want to play DnD, or how DnD is probably meant to be played, but that's how it seems to me the rules work (that was a weird sentence, and probably not proper English, but I hope you get my meaning. Translation isn't always that easy).

If I was the DM I would shoot V down into the deeeeeeeeep evils for doing that. "You are going to wipe out a whole family of sentient creatures (dragons or not) because you want revenge for something you just stopped from happening? Yeah... change alignment to LE for now, and we'll have a talk next paus."

But, V is a dungeon crawl-style adventurer (or a parody of one more precisely). The very job is to find a dungeon full of non-human "monsters", then kill them and take their stuff. Judging V by these standards, familicide isn't actually that bad a thing to do against a "monster" that is supposedly "always evil".

Yes, though I think that as OOTS is a parody of D&D, the author is poking fun at the absurdity of the alignment rules and the interpretation of them that is often used. We've seen such treatment of the D&D "physics", this is the same deal, but with D&D "morality", IMHO.

Phoenixus

2009-03-21, 08:18 PM

After listening to the discussion,

I cannot see how you can in the terms of D&D consider this a purely evil act. I see it as a purely neutral one. Removing emotion and "awe" from size of the equasion... at the end, V killed a large number of Evil dragons.

This is no different than your standard adventuring party wandering into a Dragon's Lair and killing a Black Dragon and looting it's treasure even though it's done nothing wrong. While there are some potentially non-evil creatures killed, in reality V did little more than go on a large scale Dragon slaying hunt.

This is a standard D&D thing on a larger scale.

Was that a very awesome display of power?
Yes...

Are the ramifications of just how large scale it was, chilling?
Yes...

Was it overkill?
Possibly, but from V's perspective it was more akin to self defense.

This is a neutral act, not an evil one, not in the terms of D&D.

Dr. Cthulwho

2009-03-21, 08:33 PM

Sure, it's a horrible act to commit against a sentient being, and if it was a core-PC race shhe targeted with the spell then sure it would be evil. But a dragon? Dragons are monsters. This is an evil dragon. Evil monsters are slaughtered by the bulk by adventurers. Killing off a whole kobold clan or a a drow family during a dungeon crawl is standard, and certainly not evil. Black dragons are just as evil as those creatures, and at least as sentient. Killing a family of black dragons would by DnD logic probably not be evil.

I'd say in the examples given are somewhat different though. A bunch of adventures fighting their way through a dungeon, perhaps to meet some threat or perhaps just for the XP and loot, will still have some reason to be fighting and killing those "evil" examples (primarily to stop themselves getting killed or to remove them as obstacles to a greater goal).

However with V's spell he's killing an entire family scattered around the globe who show no sign of working together, regardless of what they have or haven't done, or whether they are threats to anyone (dragon eggs). And who V will almost certainly never meet. Because they aren't likely to go swearing vengance for V killing the ABD, because she was different, having a VERY personal reason for wanting revenge. Some distant half dragon cousin on a whole other continant would not. Nor would an unhatched dragon egg.

And V is not getting anything out of it (other then the satisfaction of hurting the ABD some more). No XP/loot, not stopping any particular threat or removing an obstacle, and his reasons aren't noble enough to be able to claim he is doing good for the world. So really it is different from an adventuring party slaying Kobolds or Drow on a dungeon crawl.

faith

2009-03-21, 08:42 PM

No no no! you all have it wrong! the dragon was playing tag with the bunny and V just kiled the poor bunnys only friend! :smallsmile:

Nezmith

2009-03-21, 08:46 PM

D&D always took Morality and stuffed into a nice little Black and white book that said, "Its okay to kill someone because it is."

In that way, you were never supposed to feel sorry for anything you killed, because going out and slaying other creatures/people was the main objective of the game.

Belkar said it best when the Redcloak's army surrendered after Xykon was thrown into the gate and appeared to be destroyed. The Goblins surrendered, but Belkar started killing them anyway, saying "Run my pretty little chunks of XP! Run!"

As for the "Moral Event Horizon" of killing something before it is even born because it is the child of an evil parent, and therefor likely to grow up to be evil itself, according to D&D stabbing pregnant women is A-OK.

You're not supposed to feel bad for the child that never could be. You're supposed to say "Whew, at least now her [offspring] will never trouble the world again! Hurray for good!"

Awful ain't it?

The Minx

2009-03-21, 08:53 PM

This is no different than your standard adventuring party wandering into a Dragon's Lair and killing a Black Dragon and looting it's treasure even though it's done nothing wrong. While there are some potentially non-evil creatures killed, in reality V did little more than go on a large scale Dragon slaying hunt.

D&D does not imply that it is OK to go around killing things because they are evil even if they have done nothing wrong. That is why there is usually a back-story to every adventure which justifies the campaigning.

Neither does the OOTS: Link (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0013.html)

Charles Phipps

2009-03-21, 08:54 PM

I cannot see how you can in the terms of D&D consider this a purely evil act. I see it as a purely neutral one. Removing emotion and "awe" from size of the equasion... at the end, V killed a large number of Evil dragons.

One thing is that Good/Evil doesn't balance out. If you sacrifice a little girl to kill 200 Goblins with a supercharged spell, it's still an evil act.

Flickerdart

2009-03-21, 08:54 PM

No no no! you all have it wrong! the dragon was playing tag with the bunny and V just kiled the poor bunnys only friend! :smallsmile:
The Dragon was a druid, and it and its faithful Animal Companion were about to vanquish a fearsome foe before it was slain, leaving its companion surely doomed.

KingMerv00

2009-03-21, 08:59 PM

Being evil is not in and of itself deserving of a death penalty. There is an odd assumption here that evil is always grand and murderous.

Some of those dragons may have been 1000s of years old and done nothing but lie and manipulate people. Do they deserve to die?

Flickerdart

2009-03-21, 09:02 PM

Phoenixus

2009-03-21, 09:07 PM

And V is not getting anything out of it (other then the satisfaction of hurting the ABD some more). No XP/loot, not stopping any particular threat or removing an obstacle, and his reasons aren't noble enough to be able to claim he is doing good for the world. So really it is different from an adventuring party slaying Kobolds or Drow on a dungeon crawl.

No it's really not.

Because the truth is, neutrals are not focused on the means, they are focused on the end result.

Neutrals are bound neither by good, nor evil. Nor are they specifically focused on one or another. They will use both to accomplish their goals so long as they end goal is met.

And in this case the act brings both good and evil results which do not discriminate between either alignment really. And in fact, it leans more towards killing a large number of evil dragons. V isn't doing this to sow evil purposely, nor is V particularly focused on "ridding the world of dragons".

V is focused on one goal, kill those who are trying to kill his/her family, and protect them from all potential threats in the future.

It is still a neutral act in the end. Though at time leans towards intentionally malicious (which is evil) specifically towards the Ancient Dragon.

There are more than just two alignments, there's good and evil, and then there's what's in between.

And in the context of D&D this is only a neutral act because of who it got targeted at.

The Minx

2009-03-21, 09:12 PM

You don't get to Ancient Black by manipulating people. You get there by eating them and taking their stuff.

Uncertain. Besides, hatchlings were killed too.

Phoenixus

2009-03-21, 09:13 PM

One thing is that Good/Evil doesn't balance out. If you sacrifice a little girl to kill 200 Goblins with a supercharged spell, it's still an evil act.

No... it's a Neutral one...

There are 3 parts of the morality alignment... it's not only good vs evil. Neutrality is the one in the middle.

Harry Joy

2009-03-21, 09:13 PM

BUNNY! :smalleek:

The Minx

2009-03-21, 09:14 PM

No... it's a Neutral one...

There are 3 parts of the morality alignment... it's not only good vs evil. Neutrality is the one in the middle.

Neutrality exists, but this was not it.

KingMerv00

2009-03-21, 09:17 PM

You don't get to Ancient Black by manipulating people. You get there by eating them and taking their stuff.

Says who? Boring DMs? Stereotypes are not good enough for me.

Phoenixus

2009-03-21, 09:19 PM

Neutrality exists, but this was not it.

Oh no, it quite frankly did exist and V exhibited it.

V's intention was not to stamp out an entire dragon line simply to be vicious.

V's goal was to prevent any possible danger from threatening his/her family again in the maner that the Ancient Black Dragon attempted (which was pretty vicious when you consider it).

Mr. Scaly

2009-03-21, 09:19 PM

Dude! That's two of the 7 deadly sins right there! Sloth and Gluttony. Pride too if he's thinking about how much better he is than all those "evil" Black Dragons. :smallamused:

Heck, jerk probably watches Survivor or something. PURE EVIL!!:smallwink:

...You have cheered me up. :smallbiggrin: A little anyway. I'm still a little disturbed by how many people seem to think V isn't evil though. Rich should have made him murder bunnies or something.

Nezmith

2009-03-21, 09:23 PM

Says who? Boring DMs?

I'll say. I doubt every Black Dragon out there has burned down a town in it's long age. Because if they had, there wouldn't be any towns left!

The Minx

2009-03-21, 09:30 PM

Oh no, it quite frankly did exist

:smallconfused:

and V exhibited it.

V's intention was not to stamp out an entire dragon line simply to be vicious.

V's goal was to prevent any possible danger from threatening his/her family again in the maner that the Ancient Black Dragon attempted (which was pretty vicious when you consider it).

It has already been pointed out in this thread and in others that his motivations were anything but that noble.

And regardless, committing mass murder just because someone amongst those killed MIGHT do something ones is NOT neutral. It is EVIL.

Phoenixus

2009-03-21, 10:24 PM

:smallconfused:

It has already been pointed out in this thread and in others that his motivations were anything but that noble.

Nope,

V's motivations are layed down directly in his/her own words at the moment he/she does it. So whoever said that was adding something that wasn't there. While it's possible there were other motives prior, V's current motives are very clear.

They are based on the protection of his/her family.

And regardless, committing mass murder just because someone amongst those killed MIGHT do something ones is NOT neutral. It is EVIL.

No... it's not...

Not in the context of a D&D world. In the context of a D&D world it only depends on who the target was intended to be.

Under your definition, all D&D adventurers would be evil. Simply because they are dungeon crawlers and kill evil monsters all the time without good cause and loot their treasure (which is stealing).

This is literally no different than going into a Black Dragon's lair and killing it and looting its treasure when it's done nothing wrong. This would have made the entire OOTS team evil.

D&D is literally defined in terms of good/neutral/evil beings.

The Minx

2009-03-21, 10:42 PM

Nope,

V's motivations are layed down directly in his/her own words at the moment he/she does it. So whoever said that was adding something that wasn't there. While it's possible there were other motives prior, V's current motives are very clear.

They are based on the protection of his/her family.

You are ignoring the inner discussion of the gestalt entity when V comes to the decision to do what he does.

No... it's not...

Not in the context of a D&D world. In the context of a D&D world it only depends on who the target was intended to be.

Under your definition, all D&D adventurers would be evil. Simply because they are dungeon crawlers and kill evil monsters all the time without good cause and loot their treasure (which is stealing).

As stated elsewhere, adventures usually have back-stories to justify the campaigning precisely because it is reprehensible to kill things just because.

This is literally no different than going into a Black Dragon's lair and killing it and looting its treasure when it's done nothing wrong. This would have made the entire OOTS team evil.

D&D is literally defined in terms of good/neutral/evil beings.

V killed the dragon, when arguably he did not need to do so. And there we were even talking about a dragon that had fought them previously. There is no basis for this comparison.

Eleutherius

2009-03-21, 11:08 PM

Familicide is an evil spell so casting it - no matter the target - is an evil act.

Acording to the Book of Vile Darkness as spell is evil if it's only possible use is to cause pain, to kill somthin or diestry thier sole. Familicide killes all the relitives of the target (I'm assuming) and probably can't be used for anything else. Therefore casting it no matter the reason is an evil act in the whight amd balack morality of D&D.

Needle

2009-03-21, 11:50 PM

So, if a Good Wizard casts Fireball (it's designed to cause pain... or to light trunks to cook LOL) against an Evil Target... it's an evil act because Fireball is an "evil" spell? O.o

The Minx

2009-03-21, 11:51 PM

Dr. Cthulwho

2009-03-22, 12:43 AM

No it's really not.

Because the truth is, neutrals are not focused on the means, they are focused on the end result.

I wasn't referring to alignment in my post. The thread starter seemed to be saying that while V is likely doing evil, and is meant to be seen as such, what he is actually killing isn't a good example as chopping up a family of evil creatures is likely all in a days work for an average group of dungeon crawling adventures.

I was just saying the seem examples are a bit different from V situation. Those adventures wouldn't likely say "A kobold guarding a chest! I bet it is somehow related to that one that attacked us six rooms ago. We should kill it to ensure this entire Kobold family is wiped out for good."

More likely they'd say "A Kobold guarding a chest. Lets kill it and open the chest."

While V on the other hand, neutral or not, is rather different from those enterprising dungeon crawlers. While they might kill a family of evil creatures in the course of their adventures it is usually an effect of their pursuit of other things (XP/loot, the downfall of some evil warlord, stopping a Kobold invasion etc).

V is focused on one goal, kill those who are trying to kill his/her family, and protect them from all potential threats in the future.

I guess the next logical step for him would be to shrink them down, freeze them in time, and keep them safe in an indestructable bottle of some sort.

Because, really, just killing an entire family of black dragons isn't going to protect them from all potential threats in the future. What with things like the Snarl and all threatening the fabric of existance.

GenocideAlive

2009-03-22, 01:42 AM

So, if a Good Wizard casts Fireball (it's designed to cause pain... or to light trunks to cook LOL) against an Evil Target... it's an evil act because Fireball is an "evil" spell? O.o
Gods! There is a giant wooden door in the way! How will we remove it?

You're being obtuse, of course, when you mention lighting wood to cook but you are essentially hitting upon the quintessence of the spell. Fireball can be aimed at anything, for any reason. Swords can be used to chop wood. Neither are evil, though they have salient evil uses. "Familicide" is discriminate murder based upon an association rather than any act. It can only target a person with a family, and will be used to kill them. You might as well compare a syringe to a medieval torture device.

Evil acts are broken down into two things: effect and intent. Ends, and means. Anybody who tells you that the effect is all that matters is lying, and anybody that tells you the intent is all that matters is doing the same. "The ends don't justify the means", and "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" are sayings generated to express exactly that.

Varsuvius killed something threatening her, e.g. the black dragon. Threat ended. She then chose to raise it from the dead and slaughter its family. The family had done nothing to Varsuvius, and many didn't even know who Varsuvius is. She killed things that quite literally had no means of harming her, then or in the forseeable future. This is unquestionably evil. I highly doubt anyone could convincingly detail how an unhatched Black Dragon would be able to hatch and grow to maturity before Varsuvius died of old age. She was obviously making a very flimsy excuse for her behavior.

Saying that they're Evil makes it a Good or Neutral act is patently false. Evil beings can be redeemed and they can as a functional part in a good whole (Belkar). Killing Evil sentient creatures because of their alignment is Evil itself--bigotry and murder refined. Claiming potential threats to safety is a Slippery Slope; anyone with the power to do harm is thereby a threat and fair game for instant murder.

evileeyore

2009-03-22, 02:01 AM

Varsuvius killed something threatening her, e.g. the black dragon.

Okay so far...

Threat ended.

Ooops! False. This family had proven it was a threat. Note I said Family. Vaarsuvius did nothing to the Black Dragon Momma personally, Vaarsuvius had killed a Young Black Dragon, yet a Family member came for revenge. As well said faimly member chose not to just kill the threat to her family, but up the anti and go after Vaarsuvius' Family. While this is not proof that the whole family would act this way, it sets a very dangerous precident.

So one must consider the whole family a threat now. After all if Vaarsuvius just killed the damn Mother, whose to say Grandma wouldn't come gunning for Vaarsuvius' kids next?

No, the whole damn family was made a threat when the Momma did what it did. It clearly become a "Hatfield v McCoy" thing.

She killed things that quite literally had no means of harming her.

False. Any single one of them could have come to visit their relative and found them gone, presumed dead, and then gone hunting for revenge. The Mother clearly proved them capable of this.

This is unquestionably evil.

No, it's clearly questionable.

I'll not for a moment argue it was Good (other than as an excersize in hyperbole :smallwink:), but it could be in a moralistically simple world (which is kinda how D&D operates... kinda).

factotum

2009-03-22, 02:10 AM

You don't get to Ancient Black by manipulating people. You get there by eating them and taking their stuff.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you get to be an Ancient Black Dragon just by living for a certain period of time, and I don't quite see the requirement to eat people and take their stuff to do that. Yes, Black Dragons need to eat, but a good horse or cow would be a much more satisfying meal than a bony ol' human being!

factotum

2009-03-22, 02:13 AM

I'll not for a moment argue it was Good (other than as an excersize in hyperbole :smallwink:), but it could be in a moralistically simple world (which is kinda how D&D operates... kinda).

Even if D&D operates that way (and there's nothing in the rules about that, because that's the whole "Role Playing" side of things--you know, the reason most people play the game in the first place?), OotS clearly doesn't. Roy's treatment of the orcs in "On the Origin of PCs", and the fact he was within inches of being booted from Lawful Good to Lawful Neutral just because he left Elan behind, shows much deeper graduations of morality than this simple idea provides.

GenocideAlive

2009-03-22, 02:27 AM

Ooops! False. This family had proven it was a threat. While this is not proof that the whole family would act this way, it sets a very dangerous precident. False. Any single one of them could have come to visit their relative and found them gone, presumed dead, and then gone hunting for revenge. The Mother clearly proved them capable of this.
You're so right. Slaughtering an entire black dragon bloodline was an effective way to avoid future reprisal.

Oh wait...mates.

No, it's clearly questionable.
Sophism does not supplant reality, it merely attempts to do so.

Warren Dew

2009-03-22, 02:38 AM

Wow. Unfair a bit much when it comes to Roy, eh? :smallsmile:

If you're talking about the rest of the forum, yes indeed. He seems to get off easy a lot just because he's likeable.

IN fact, when a character actually dares to try to "fix" the problem of people getting killed (Celia and the theives guild deaths), the forum rises up in anger.

This is the same forum on which we still see protestations that Belkar is not evil. The fact that most of the forum disagrees with Celia is, if anything, evidence in favor of Celia's position, not against it.

Anyway, the question is: Is it permissable to kill someone in a fight if it is mutually agreed upon to the death.

I don't really want to rehash the young dragon fight argument in a different thread. It's not clear how that fight started and who is at fault, if anyone.

I do agree it's permissible to kill someone in a mutually agreed combat to the death, though some disagreed in that other thread. That might describe the situation with the young black dragon, but it was not the justification Roy used.

Roy suddenly got a face full of fury

Roy reveals his attitude well before that. "Nothing but a little classic I like to call 'dragon-slaying'." "Vaarsuvius here killed an evil dragon back in the forest."

Roy clearly believes it's fine to kill things just because they are black dragons, and that it's fine to keep their belongings for oneself afterwards.

So if you want to argue with anyone's defintion of LG, it's Miko's not Roy's.

Miko was the one that said, "What proof do you have that you did not vanquish a stalward defender of the weak in your mad lust for treasure?" That Roy had to weasel out of that question pretty much proves that he just took "always evil" in the black dragon descriptor to mean, well, always evil, and didn't think any further about it.

In other words, Roy is, as I said, the one who kills young black dragons without thinking about it, and makes up excuses afterwards.

And we all know how strong Miko's grasp was on proper LG behavior.

Considerably better than the forum's, or Roy's, yes - unless perhaps Roy has learned something from Miko in the meantime.

Lord Zentei

2009-03-22, 02:53 AM

[DELURK]

I was on a self-imposed hiatus, but after a bit of indecision, I feel I must chime in here:

This thead cracks me up.

It's amazing how people can justify the most despicable of acts when it is "monsters" who are on the receiving end. Never mind that V only justified the act based on the claim that he wanted his family safe, while based on his own inner dialogue with the three evil mages whose power he's using, he really was doing it to cause suffering. :smallamused:

I wonder whether the "must prevent potential future reprisals" gimmick that was used to justify the slaughter of wyrmlings and eggs could also have been used by the Ancient Black Dragon to justify the killing of V's family. After all, those pesky kids and baker could pick up some class levels later, right? LOL!

Oh, wait: she's a monster and they're cute little elves. What. Ever. At least she was more honest about her motives than V.

That's all for now.

[/RELURK]

Phoenixus

2009-03-22, 02:58 AM

You are ignoring the inner discussion of the gestalt entity when V comes to the decision to do what he does.

Irrelevent,
it does not go to the direct statement V made while doing it.

As stated elsewhere, adventures usually have back-stories to justify the campaigning precisely because it is reprehensible to kill things just because.

Irrelvenet,
this is D&D the world and mechanics work in an entirely different way.

V killed the dragon, when arguably he did not need to do so. And there we were even talking about a dragon that had fought them previously. There is no basis for this comparison.

No he needed to do so to ensure that his offspring lived this was self defense outright. The thing we are speaking of afterwards, killing the Dragon's offspring so they wouldn't attempt to do what the ancient dragon just did out of revenge is the gray area.

This is the relevence of what happened. You would have a point if V just went out and killed a load of Black Dragons under the assumption one just might come back to kill his children one day... minus the fact that one just actually did.

But in this case, an Ancient Black Dragon did just that. V did not take the chance that would happen again.

That is the action of a Neutral person, not an evil one.

Ridureyu

2009-03-22, 03:11 AM

Wasn't there a world war about this? I mean, roughly half of it?

I mean, this is really no different from the "Belkar isn't evil, I can justify all of his actions," and "Miko shouldn't have fallen, I can justify all of her actions" threads/arguments/fights we've had on this forum.

Roninlemur

2009-03-22, 03:32 AM

Ya know, a whole other facet of this dilemna is alternatives. When you talk about "just wars" one thing required is "last resort." In this case, V probably could of done any number of things to cover his tracks or dissuade/incapicitate the dragons..but he didn't. Someone would have to establish in good faith he/she had no other choice.

In DnD games whenever I knock enemies into negative hitpoints, my good and even neutral characters try to stablize them after the fight's over because if they can spare them, they should.

So...it's an evil act if it's deliberately unneccesary...or at least cold-blooded.

And to kill non-combatants placed in a situation not of their choosing (ie babies and eggs) just complicates this even more.

Phoenixus

2009-03-22, 04:52 AM

In DnD games whenever I knock enemies into negative hitpoints, my good and even neutral characters try to stablize them after the fight's over because if they can spare them, they should.

No, that right there is NOT the mark of a neutral character. That is the mark of a good character.

A neutral character wouldn't care one way or another if they died or not if they had the balls to attack him. He would put them down in the most efficient manner required to end the situation and isn't going to care how they did so as long as it's ended.

An evil character would not only put them down, but because they loved killing would purposely enjoy the suffering and do everything they could to cause more of it in the most twisted way possible.

In the end, V is and always has been little more than a computer. A computer is not evil. Regardless of how ruthless it's intentions may seem on the surface. It isn't doing it because it loves your suffering. It's doing it because it is the most efficient means to a goal.

The only time I saw malicious intent were parts when V was fighting the Ancient Dragon. But not the after effects of "Familicide"... that was only the computer like efficiency of making sure the situation never happened again.

That's just looking at it by removing the emotional overrreaction.

And all of that ignored the fact that this is a D&D world where killing a large amount of Black Dragons is indeed removing a great deal of evil from the world and very well may be a good action, not an evil one. I classify it as neutral because it actually does both.

Many of the arguements made would have relevence if the character in question was a paladin, or even a strongly good aligned character. But V is not, V is neutral and very much like a computer. Lacking both good intent and evil intent as well.

KingMerv00

2009-03-22, 04:53 AM

Frankly, some of the posters here are rather crazy.

The act was evil with a capital E. What the hell is wrong with you people?

Phoenixus

2009-03-22, 05:07 AM

Frankly, some of the posters here are rather worrying.

The act was evil with a capital E. What the hell is wrong with you people?

Evil?

To kill 60 some Chaotic Evil Black Dragons?

Good?

To kill 60 some Chaotic Evil Black Dragons?

It is neither, in this case because of the targets and the way D&D world works, it's a gray area, While it's doubtful a Paladin would do it... V is not a Paladin

V is a neutrally aligned computational device intent on finding the most efficient way of ending the situation. There is no intent to either save the world, nor is there an intent for malice.

KingMerv00

2009-03-22, 05:18 AM

Evil?

To kill 60 some Chaotic Evil Black Dragons?

Good?

To kill 60 some Chaotic Evil Black Dragons?

It is neither, in this case because of the targets and the way D&D world works, it's a gray area, While it's doubtful a Paladin would do it... V is not a Paladin

V is a neutrally aligned computational device intent on finding the most efficient way of ending the situation. There is no intent to either save the world, nor is there an intent for malice.

Assuming that every dragon and dragonlike being that died was evil (not a safe bet) you are still wrong.

What kind of DM lets you think it is good to kill someone just because they are evil? What about creatures that are evil but do not deserve to die (that is to say MOST of them)?

Roupe

2009-03-22, 05:20 AM

Consider this, The gods desires to have the majority of the souls dedicated to their alignment & faith.

Both good and evil creatures can get "enlightened" and switch alignment. Thus its more desired to convert sentients, than eradicating them.

Thus Gods regardless of alignment wouldn't favor genocide, since in their big game -the dead generally don't switch sides.

CliveStaples

2009-03-22, 05:35 AM

Sounds like something Miko would do. Just goes to show: If a Good person does it, it's dumb; if a Neutral/Evil person does it, it's cool/clever/nuanced/justified/"I can see where he's coming from".

CliveStaples

2009-03-22, 05:43 AM

No it's really not.

Because the truth is, neutrals are not focused on the means, they are focused on the end result.

Neutrals are bound neither by good, nor evil. Nor are they specifically focused on one or another. They will use both to accomplish their goals so long as they end goal is met.

And in this case the act brings both good and evil results which do not discriminate between either alignment really. And in fact, it leans more towards killing a large number of evil dragons. V isn't doing this to sow evil purposely, nor is V particularly focused on "ridding the world of dragons".

V is focused on one goal, kill those who are trying to kill his/her family, and protect them from all potential threats in the future.

It is still a neutral act in the end. Though at time leans towards intentionally malicious (which is evil) specifically towards the Ancient Dragon.

There are more than just two alignments, there's good and evil, and then there's what's in between.

And in the context of D&D this is only a neutral act because of who it got targeted at.

It is unquestionably an Evil act, I think. V had no actual evidence suggesting that these dragons would avenge the death of their parent. He killed them because they might. Killing someone for what they might do in the future is unjustified. For example: Killing the Lords of Waterdeep because they might abuse their power. Hell, they might come after V's family.

It was not self-defense, nor in defense of others, because there was no reasonable expectation that any of these people were attempting or planning to attempt revenge on V's family.

Just because you believe an act to be in your own self-interest does not make it "neutral". Look at the description of Evil in the PHB. Evil characters do what they believe is in their own best interests; simply because it serves V's interest is not dispositive of Evil. "He thought it would make his family safer" doesn't justify every possible act--genocide being among the worst acts possible, imo.

V is a Nazi. And apparently he has cheerleaders, too. After all, the Nazis were just acting in the best interests of the world--getting rid of the "disease".

Wikimaster

2009-03-22, 05:49 AM

Personally, it's a very interesting to note that Rich has created a world where the question of killing sentient beings because their evil is not nearly as black and white as it is in other settings. In, Goblins, the inherent racism towards killing this is clearly spelled out as wrong. Order of the Stick neatly points out that it's wrong to simply change the rules. Goblins REALLY ARE evil for the most part and thus the question becomes much more ambiguous.

But what keeps the fact from being justifiable that "Goblins are purely evil and deserve what's coming to them" is the question of free will. Elves, Halflings, and Dwarves are "Good Races" and we've seen all of them produce evil members of their society. Belkar is the ultimate example that halflings can and do produce truly murderous psychopaths.

What does that mean for Orcs and Goblins? For me, I like to think that free will isn't totally invalidated. That it is possible for folk like Right Eye and his family to be Neutral or even Good without there being something incredibly egrevious about it. In other words, the blanket persecution of them with the assumption they're going to kill you is wrong.

Simultaneously, there's also something noteworthy about the fact that even when races ARE evil that they are not entirely stereotypical monsters either. The Black Dragon loves her hatchling and Therkala still capable of falling in love. It questions the audience's need to destroy these beings just because they're potentially a threat. Do their lives have some value, even though they're inclined to do humans and other species harm by nature?

Personally, don't YOU want Thog to put his rusty Orc ax into a certain talky Slyph's soft Sylvan flesh? I know I do!

That Slyph has been replaced with an outwardly pacifistic but secretly evil duplicate made of spare body parts by a certain necrophiliac skank who intends to destroy Haley at all levels.

The Minx

2009-03-22, 06:06 AM

Irrelevent,
it does not go to the direct statement V made while doing it.

LOL!! :smallbiggrin:

Sorry, but this was funny:

-- I assert point A
-- I counter with B, which calls A into question.
-- Irrelevant!! Because I assert A!!

:smallwink:

Irrelvenet,
this is D&D the world and mechanics work in an entirely different way.

That's "irrelevant". :smallsmile:

I think you need to re-read what I was just saying: I was talking about D&D adventures. :smallwink:

No he needed to do so to ensure that his offspring lived this was self defense outright. The thing we are speaking of afterwards, killing the Dragon's offspring so they wouldn't attempt to do what the ancient dragon just did out of revenge is the gray area.

The pitch black area, you mean. :smallsmile:

This is the relevence of what happened. You would have a point if V just went out and killed a load of Black Dragons under the assumption one just might come back to kill his children one day... minus the fact that one just actually did.

But in this case, an Ancient Black Dragon did just that. V did not take the chance that would happen again.

That is the action of a Neutral person, not an evil one.

The ends do not justify the means, the means can be evil. Besides, he wasn't just killing ancient black dragons there.

The Minx

2009-03-22, 06:21 AM

Spoiler for space.

I don't really want to rehash the young dragon fight argument in a different thread. It's not clear how that fight started and who is at fault, if anyone.

I do agree it's permissible to kill someone in a mutually agreed combat to the death, though some disagreed in that other thread. That might describe the situation with the young black dragon, but it was not the justification Roy used.

Roy reveals his attitude well before that. "Nothing but a little classic I like to call 'dragon-slaying'." "Vaarsuvius here killed an evil dragon back in the forest."

Roy clearly believes it's fine to kill things just because they are black dragons, and that it's fine to keep their belongings for oneself afterwards.

Miko was the one that said, "What proof do you have that you did not vanquish a stalward defender of the weak in your mad lust for treasure?" That Roy had to weasel out of that question pretty much proves that he just took "always evil" in the black dragon descriptor to mean, well, always evil, and didn't think any further about it.

In other words, Roy is, as I said, the one who kills young black dragons without thinking about it, and makes up excuses afterwards.

OK, I can't fault your analysis of Roy's attitude, but that doesn't really undermine the original point: that it is possible to be "technically" right but still be wrong; and Miko remains an example of that, even though Roy may be imperfect in his own way. :smallsmile:

If you're talking about the rest of the forum, yes indeed. He seems to get off easy a lot just because he's likeable.

Considerably better than the forum's, or Roy's, yes - unless perhaps Roy has learned something from Miko in the meantime.

And this is where we disagree. Miko was very borderline Lawful Neutral from the start and Roy, while hardly perfect himself, was right to call her on that. His main flaw is a different kind of arrogance, but he can still be right when he's criticizing others despite that.

This is the same forum on which we still see protestations that Belkar is not evil. The fact that most of the forum disagrees with Celia is, if anything, evidence in favor of Celia's position, not against it.

I'm not sure about what Celia has to do with this, but I for one happen to like her. :smallsmile:

Wikimaster

2009-03-22, 06:22 AM

Don't forget, the Oots world has an economy, and the flood of gold, magic items, and high quality leather that will emerge will not be healthy for it. Inflation, anyone?

Ashen Lilies

2009-03-22, 06:30 AM

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you get to be an Ancient Black Dragon just by living for a certain period of time, and I don't quite see the requirement to eat people and take their stuff to do that. Yes, Black Dragons need to eat, but a good horse or cow would be a much more satisfying meal than a bony ol' human being!

You could also live to old age without eating a bar of chocolate. Sure, it's not very satisfying. A steak, or maybe a bowl of stew is much more filling than a bar of chocolate! But really, look, there's a whole big cupboard full of tasty, tasty chocolate. Can you resist? Really, it's pretty absurd to assume that the black dragon in front of you has lived it's entire life without eating and stealing from a bunch of people.

Black Dragons are not humans. They think completely differently. Dragons consider themselves the most superior beings around, outside of outsiders.* To them, people are no better than animals. Tasty animals. Tasty animals that make funny noises when you break their limbs and stake them to trees. See that first dragon? See its horde? Do you think it got all that gold from being an accountant? No, it probably ransacked a town. Several towns, in fact.

Now, I'm not saying V did a good thing by semi-discriminately murdering a bunch of sentient beings. It was most probably evil, maybe neutral-bordering-on-evil. ((Though I'd say a spell like Familicide is Evil by definition, no matter how it's used.))
What I'm saying is that it's pretty absurd to assume that any one of those dragons isn't, or won't be raised to be, evil. Please, don't use that argument to try and prove that what V did was evil. The dragons are unquestionably evil. ((The half-dragons perhaps not so.)) V's motives (torturing the inferior being that dared try to make him feel powerless**) are pretty evil in and of themselves.

*Disregard Metallic Dragons for the purposes of this. They are an entirely different breed, with different personalities encoded within their 'racial memory.' ((Man, it hurt just typing that phrase))
**Note, what V's motives are and what he says his motives are are very different things. He already said the only reason he accepted the soul splice/went after the ABD in the first place was to prove his magic, not to save his family.

@^: You sir, get my lulz. And some catnip.

Wisp Wings

2009-03-22, 06:46 AM

Even in just the core books you can find this:
"Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. Evil creatures debase or destroy innocent life. Good implies altruism, respect for life, and 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. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil diety or master."
"People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others."

I was thinking about a character that falls oddly under these guidelines- Redcloak. Yes he follows that major villian in this comic, but his main goals are to create a better life for his people. Wasn't his main justification for invading Azure City to deastroy the Sapphire Guard who persued the thoughtless destruction of his town just because they were goblins? Also, the Thing in the Dark seems to have respect for life. Just because they consort with evil they become evil? What about the OoTS having Mr Bitterleaf (a.k.a. Death's Lil' Helper) as a member?

evileeyore

2009-03-22, 07:41 AM

You're so right. Slaughtering an entire black dragon bloodline was an effective way to avoid future reprisal.

Oh wait...mates.

Sure it is. None of them are alive to take revenge on Vaarsuvius and family for the killing are they?

It also acts as a Deterrent. How many others who go through the trouble Momma Black went through and learn of this Epic Massacre are going to risk pissing off the one person responsible?

I wonder whether the "must prevent potential future reprisals" gimmick that was used to justify the slaughter of wyrmlings and eggs could also have been used by the Ancient Black Dragon to justify the killing of V's family. After all, those pesky kids and baker could pick up some class levels later, right? LOL!

Only if your willing to ignore the reason Momma Black gave for doing it.

LOL!

RMS Oceanic

2009-03-22, 08:34 AM

Here's what I wonder: if it was a human sorceror that kicked V's ass and threatened h** family, and then V protected h** family by using Familicide, would you say that was justified?

evileeyore

2009-03-22, 08:44 AM

Here's what I wonder: if it was a human sorceror that kicked V's ass and threatened h** family, and then V protected h** family by using Familicide, would you say that was justified?

No.

But then most Ancient humans do not have the same levels of power Ancient Black Dragons have simply for being Ancient, so the threat assessment is rather different.

snafu

2009-03-22, 09:20 AM

Here's what I wonder: if it was a human sorceror that kicked V's ass and threatened h** family, and then V protected h** family by using Familicide, would you say that was justified?

The distinction here is that black dragons (so we are told) have a natural tendency towards evil. An inborn criminality at the blood level, such that even a hatchling, which has done nothing whatever in its life, still carries this basic evil and shows up as such to a detect spell. They're born already in negative karma points, subject to some great overriding ancestral villainy. By fact of their being they are all in the wrong and deserving of ultimate punishment. I find the concept distasteful, but that's what 'always chaotic evil' means, and it's certainly conceivable that in some imaginary world there might be such a race.

The same is not true of humans, at least not in this setting. I don't think anybody outside of the most bitter misanthropes believes that anything like the above goes for humans. You'd need to devise some really cruel and twisted philosophy of vicious deeds and cruel gods, and you'd end up running your campaign in a godawful crapsack world. And if so, then I'm sure White Wolf will sell you the appropriate source books...

Ampersand

2009-03-22, 10:18 AM

[DELURK]

[ALSO DELURK]

It's amazing how people can justify the most despicable of acts when it is "monsters" who are on the receiving end. Never mind that V only justified the act based on the claim that he wanted his family safe, while based on his own inner dialogue with the three evil mages whose power he's using, he really was doing it to cause suffering. :smallamused:

I think the justification here is helped because it was one of the protagonists committing the genocide. One of the benefits of being a protagonist is hand waved morality...you're a main character, therefore everything you do is probably justified.

If it was Nale or Xykon or Miko or Monty Python Referencing Polearm Salesman or Ninja Waitress Girl who wiped out a good portion of a species with a flimsy premise after reanimating the head of his enemy for no purpose other than to torment her with the knowledge of the fact that he's doing it, I imagine you'd see a far more universal outcry.

Oh, wait: she's a monster and they're cute little elves. What. Ever. At least she was more honest about her motives than V.

That is also a factor, yes.

Silverraptor

2009-03-22, 10:22 AM

Has anyone else's brains leaked out of their ears because of the randomness of this thread?

Ampersand

2009-03-22, 10:27 AM

In any case, this whole thing is pretty much moot. Consenting to the soul splice was evil, but now V is no longer V, due to the other souls. In this case, V's actions are no different from the insane paladins. It's not really evil, it's not really good, it's not even neutral. It just kind of is.

Actually, take another look at 633 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0633.html).

V is 100%, completely, utterly in the driver's seat here. So the culpability for this genocide is likewise completely on her shoulders.

Mik Sneakyfeet

2009-03-22, 11:05 AM

Because bunnies taste good, and now there's a bunny for a hungry adventurer to eat.

Duh.

;)

hamishspence

2009-03-22, 12:11 PM

Closest thing to a look into the mind of an Ancient D&D dragon I've seen, so far, was Thauglor in Cormyr: A Novel. Thought of himself as ruler of the realm, a hunter, preyed on buffalo mostly, and head of the extended family.

It said "everything within the realm, from wyverns to other dragons, paid tribute in treasure to Thauglor and family"

When the elves invaded the Land of the Purple Dragon, the dragons warred with them- and eventually, the war was ended with a duel to the defeat (not the death) between Thauglor and the elven leader- so the elves go the forests, and the dragons the mountains and swamps.

The dragons came across as ruthless but reasonable- not all-devouring monsters of no redeeming features.

RMS Oceanic

2009-03-22, 12:47 PM

The distinction here is that black dragons (so we are told) have a natural tendency towards evil. An inborn criminality at the blood level, such that even a hatchling, which has done nothing whatever in its life, still carries this basic evil and shows up as such to a detect spell. They're born already in negative karma points, subject to some great overriding ancestral villainy.

At what point are we told that it's "in the blood"? It could be a cultural thing, where parents raise their hatchlings with these instincts to be cruel and dominate.

The way I see the issue, killing anything is something that requires well reasoned justification. The mass murder of a group of sentient beings, because they might do something to you in the future, is an evil act. Remember that Miko believed that evil creatures should be killed because they are evil, and it's clear to me that Rich does not intend us to believe this. Familicide is disproportionate retribution of the highest order, and I would say the same if it was an archfiend on the target of it.

Tilian

2009-03-22, 01:04 PM

My GM would never accept something like this as anything less than an evil act. I'm thankful for that, honestly.

The mass murder of a group of sentient beings, because they might do something to you in the future, is an evil act.

"No More Mutants!" am I right?

fruityjanitor

2009-03-22, 01:05 PM

To those who think V did this primarily is self-defense (and family defense), please read the comic again and use your head.

"The pain ended too soon"
"We have only begun to bring misery"
"There is still so much we can do"

And then what is V's response? "Yes, but more importantly, I must protect my family." No! It was "I concur"! V's primary objective when casting this spell was to continue causing suffering (regardless of anything shi said later). Killing just for the sake of causing suffering is evil no matter what you are killing.

Some people have mentioned that adventurers usually kill chromatic dragons indiscriminately. That's true. But they aren't doing it to cause suffering, they're doing it (at the very least) for personal gain (which can be an evil motivation too, but it can also be a neutral motivation). After the adventurers kill the dragon, they get experience and a bunch of the dragon's stuff - personal gain for the adventurers. When V killed these dragons, shi got no XP and no loot - no personal gain at all, only doing it to cause pain.

And even if Familicide kills mates (we don't exactly know how the mechanics work yet), killing 63 dragons is more likely to cause somebody to seek revenge on you than killing 1 dragon is. The odds are good that at least one of those dragons (and probably more than that) had friends who cared enough about them to seek out the Oracle to find out who did it. And then of course there is Tiamat who is going to be pissed. V can't hold onto the splice forever, all they have to do is wait and then shi'll be helpless against them. I'm not sure if this is the direction Rich is going to take the story, but it is still a logical way to think about the situation and shows that this preemptive strike was a very bad move on V's part.

Anyway, I'd better get away from the forums until the next comic. All these people trying to argue that senselessly killing dozens of dragons is not evil are really getting to me. lol

RMS Oceanic

2009-03-22, 01:12 PM

"No More Mutants!" am I right?

This is the most polite way I've found to express my concern with the "this race is inherantly bad and should be eliminated" argument. My first thoughts on that viewpoint would require the invocation of a great law of internet discussion. And the violation of this forum's "no real politics" rule.

Porthos

2009-03-22, 01:33 PM

Roy clearly believes it's fine to kill things just because they are black dragons, and that it's fine to keep their belongings for oneself afterwards.

Well, if your going to ignore the evidence about Roy's outlook toward evil critters from OtooPCs, be my guest. I suppose one could always accuse Rich of sloppy writing or character inconsistency...

... Or one could say that if one gets into a fight with a Black Dragon (for whatever reason) and brags about it later in a "locker room" situation, it isn't the biggest sin in the world. And that's it's a totally different situation than chasing some Orcs off of a terrirtory when they aren't acting hostile.

Me? Personally I seen nothing different in the whole Black Dragon Cave situation and going down into a dungeon and slaying the Kobold High Preist That is Guarding a Relic That One is Questing For.

But I'm funny that way. :smalltongue:

PS: BTW, isn't odd that NO ONE on the board criticized Roy's behavior in the Dragon Cave before Mama Dragon to cry a sad sad song showed up? Or if they did, I sure missed it. :smallwink:

PPS: At least in DnD, I see nothing wrong with killing things that attack me and keeping their stuff as well. It's all part of the fun.

Sure I've played the "Is this creature really deserving of death"/extreme-soul searching "all monsters are just like us" campaigns. And they can be a blast as well. Lots and lots of fun soul-searching RPing oppritunities there.

But I'm just saying that there's nothing wrong with the occasional Dungeon Crawl as well.

Variety being the spice of life and all that fun stuff. :smallamused:

hamishspence

2009-03-22, 01:35 PM

Maybe because some of us hadn't joined the site till long after, so the topic didn't come up much?

V's behaviour toward rest of party- using the dragon to threaten them, was being criticized well before Mama Dragon showed up though.

Porthos

2009-03-22, 01:48 PM

V's behaviour toward rest of party- using the dragon to threaten them, was being criticized well before Mama Dragon showed up though.

Just another sign that V isn't Good, I would think. :smallwink:

Look, all I am saying is that as many interesting debates come up about morality in the comic, let's not lose sight of the big picture here. In other words, while deconstructing something, make sure that you don't deconstruct it to such a degree that everything dissolves into fine mush. :smalltongue:

======

BTW: Hand dandy personal moarlity chart for yours truly:

OotS Killing the YBD: Not Evil
Mama Dragon Seeking Revenge on V: Not Evil
Mama Dragon Using V's Kids as Part of Revenge Plan: Evil
V Killing Mama Dragon for Going After His Kids: Not Evil
V Killing All of Mama Dragons Family Lineage In a Retalitory Act: Evil.

NOTE::: I never said any of these actions were particularly Good. :smallwink:

This is why I seem to be all over the map on some of these debates. I don't take a "PCs are always right and NPCs That Are Antagonists Are Always Wrong" side. I call my shots on a case by case basis.

Eloel

2009-03-22, 01:51 PM

Because bunnies are NOT stat'd out. Thus, it could well be the only rabbit in the whole world.

It's true, there's NO bunny stats in ANY D&D 3.5 books.

hamishspence

2009-03-22, 01:52 PM

Fairly similar to mine- though its V, rather than OOTS, that killed YBD- they didn't really participate.

on Revenge bit- Seeking revenge, according to BoED, is "not good" and according to BoVD "not always evil" so, in that sense, agree with that one as well.

KingMerv00

2009-03-22, 02:47 PM

By fact of their being they are all in the wrong and deserving of ultimate punishment.

For the nth time:

Evil != murdering psycho

Do you believe theft is an evil act? Do you believe it requires the death penalty?

hamishspence

2009-03-22, 02:53 PM

snafu

2009-03-22, 03:23 PM

For the nth time:

Evil != murdering psycho

I _did_ say I find the concept of an inherently evil species distasteful. But if one does exist, then it makes the mass extermination of members of that species less shocking than mass extermination of humans. So if V had familicided the relatives of some evil sorcerer instead of a black dragon, I'd be more inclined to condemn her actions. Personally I criticise V for recklessness and hubris in this case - I think this act is a spectacularly bad idea, since if it is not a complete genocide it leaves a great many dragons out for revenge, and if it is a complete genocide it leaves Tiamat out for revenge - but I don't criticise it for being a particularly evil act. Unjust, perhaps, since V has just killed dozens of dragons with whom she has no quarrel and of whose deeds for good or ill she has no knowledge - but not evil.

Now if there was some sense in which humans had inborn, natural evil inherent to every member of the species, then things would be different. I'd have to accept that the dragons' fallen nature was no different from our own, and I'd have to treat a massacre of dragons as equivalent to a massacre of humans. But humans are not inherently evil in this way.

hamishspence

2009-03-22, 03:29 PM

BoED: "Violence against evil must have just cause" so, an unjust killing is, arguably, an evil killing as well.

Mr. Scaly

2009-03-22, 03:45 PM

Irrelevent,
it does not go to the direct statement V made while doing it.

Wrong. It shows that his direct statement is a lie or at least not all there is to it. Words mean nothing, the intention behind them matters.

Irrelvenet,
this is D&D the world and mechanics work in an entirely different way.

This isn't DnD, this is a parody of DnD with more moral complexity than a simple alignment system can contain.

No he needed to do so to ensure that his offspring lived this was self defense outright. The thing we are speaking of afterwards, killing the Dragon's offspring so they wouldn't attempt to do what the ancient dragon just did out of revenge is the gray area.

Maybe it would have been necessary to protect its children if there was any indication at all that the other black dragons even knew that V existed or that YBD and MBD had been killed. There isn't though, and this was just unnecessary murder.

This is the relevence of what happened. You would have a point if V just went out and killed a load of Black Dragons under the assumption one just might come back to kill his children one day... minus the fact that one just actually did.

But in this case, an Ancient Black Dragon did just that. V did not take the chance that would happen again.

That is the action of a Neutral person, not an evil one.

That's the whole point though...V DID just kill a load of Black Dragons under
the assumption that one might come back to kill his children one day.

Either way though, there are much less deadly alternatives to mass murder.

LuisDantas

2009-03-22, 03:59 PM

Have you read the core material?

"Always Chaotic Evil (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htm)" means ... well, always Chaotic Evil.

I'm not sure what more I can say, accept your very wrong.

Nope. You are the one wrong, pal.

Plot logic and common sense trump core rules. Heck, core rules often enough trump themselves.

Even if "always chaotic evil" was uniformly an attribute of Black Dragons in all versions of the rules, it is still simply insane to take it literally. Far less moral and just as absurd than the joke about backstabbing with a siege weapon ("The Gamers" reference).

And, as others noted, EVEN IF all Black Dragons, including the unhatched eggs, were KNOWN FOR SURE to be Chaotic Evil, that simply does not at all justify slaying them.

I won't even enter into arguments about half-dragons because they simply distract from the main point to enter into disgusting and naive territory.

Vaarsuvius used to be my favorite character and I hope he recovers from this fall. But fall he did, and quite unequivocally and disgustingly so.

Even the attempt of justifying this act as some sort of oversized self-defense is quite clearly bogus. Either Vaarsuvius rolled 1 several times in a row in his Strategy roll or he realizes that one does NOT nurture a safer future for one's family by acquiring a justified reputation of genocide. Do you, does anyone REALLY think that Tiamat and the other chromatic dragons - or even other sorts of monsters - will not soon find out about this obscenity and decide that V is too dangerous to live?

No way it could protect his family. It just feeds his ego.

KingMerv00

2009-03-22, 04:59 PM

yes, but its context-sensitive, low-harm theft for really good reasons is less evil than high-harm theft for bad reasons.

Fiendish Codex 2: specific form of theft "Stealing from the needy for personal gain" is considered a Corrupt act- evil enough that if you do it multiple time, you risk changing your afterlife destination.

Its rare for an "always evil" creature to engage only in low-harm evil, but its certainly possible.

I didn't mean to imply all theft is equally bad. It certainly isn't. I'd even go so far as to argue that stealing bread to feed you starving baby could be a neutral act. It depends on a lot of variables.

My point was that one could be evil and not deserve to die.

hamishspence

2009-03-22, 05:07 PM

yes- only source that suggests theft is always bad is BoVD. the FC2 suggests How bad depends on context, so i'd say (if BoVD definition is insisted on) that in this case, its either Neutral, or so low on the Evil ranking list that it wouldn't matter unless done for a very, very long time:

say, 0.00000001 pt corrupt act, or some such.

Murder, unlike theft, betrayal, etc, doesn't have a context descriptor here: no "murder for personal gain"

there are aggravated versions though "Cold-blooded murder" (whatever that means) and "murder for pleasure"

Sources that stress "evil does not mean deserves to die" include Heroes of Horror, Champions of Ruin, and Eberron Campaign setting.

Warren Dew

2009-03-22, 05:10 PM

Personally, it's a very interesting to note that Rich has created a world where the question of killing sentient beings because their evil is not nearly as black and white as it is in other settings.

The more I think about it, the more I think the world described by the comic does actually follow the "killing evil is okay" interpretation. There are really no counterexamples.

There is certainly moral complexity in the comic, but it comes from the comic's portrayal of the world, not from events in the world itself. The very fact that much of the moral ambiguity comes from making fun of things that are taken for granted in the world implies that the moral ambiguity is absent from that world itself.

Roy showed his respect for life in Origins when he refused to kill orcs who weren't doing anything wrong at the time, even though the paladin he was with made the argument of "They're listed as Chaotic Evil, too, so we could kill them without alignment problems."

That was when he was still a newbie to adventuring. Later, he learned that it was perfectly fine to coup de grace goblins whose only sin was falling asleep from one of Vaarsuvius's speeches.

Also, a tangent, but the way this example has been used recently doesn't reflect the actual text.
OriginsThe orcs attacked first, so yes, they do seem to have been doing wrong things, contrary to what you say. Roy does manage to solve things peaceably, but it's quite clear that killing the orcs would not have involved any alignment problems either.

I haven't seen any definition of "innocence" in a game mechanics context that equates to evil alignment.

Why are you expecting innocence to equate to evil? And what would you expect to equate to good alignment, if "innocence" equated to evil alignment?

Question from a non-player: why are certain species classed as being 'always evil'? Surely it'd make more sense if the majority of creatures were neutral, as in real life.

The majority of creatures in the world are indeed neutral, as they are from species that are generally neutral.

The reason the evil ones are segregated into species of their own is to make them easy to identify. Most D&D players aren't playing because they enjoy moral ambiguity; they are playing because they enjoy hack'n'slash. I'd go so far as to say that if you want moral ambiguity, D&D is probably the wrong game to play.

V's goal was to prevent any possible danger from threatening his/her family again in the maner that the Ancient Black Dragon attempted (which was pretty vicious when you consider it).

There's no evidence that any of Vaarsuvius's victims would ever threaten the family the way the mother dragon did. If the act was evil, the goal did not vitiate it.

Varsuvius ... killed things that quite literally had no means of harming her, then or in the forseeable future.

Did you mean they had no motivation to do it? They likely had the means, as mother dragon demonstrated. Others could have done the same things she did, had they the motivation.

You're so right. Slaughtering an entire black dragon bloodline was an effective way to avoid future reprisal.

Oh wait...mates.

One frame shows two dragons together being killed, suggesting that the spell is not limited to the bloodline, but in fact includes mates as well.

I wonder whether the "must prevent potential future reprisals" gimmick that was used to justify the slaughter of wyrmlings and eggs could also have been used by the Ancient Black Dragon to justify the killing of V's family.

It could. What it could not justify is the torture of that family first.

Sounds like something Miko would do.

No; Miko was very careful about making sure her targets were actually evil before killing them. Vaarsuvius didn't check.

The distinction here is that black dragons (so we are told) have a natural tendency towards evil. An inborn criminality at the blood level, such that even a hatchling, which has done nothing whatever in its life, still carries this basic evil and shows up as such to a detect spell.

Most people who actually play by the "it's okay to kill them if they're evil" rules also have a gamesmaster that defines those evil beings as having already done evil acts by the time they are born. They aren't just evil in an abstract sense: they've already earned it by then.

hamishspence

2009-03-22, 05:13 PM

The two dragons could be siblings who happen to have teamed up (Faerun has example of a pair of black dragon brothers who work together) Or dragons may not worry much about cousin/cousin or closer pairings.

Warren Dew

2009-03-22, 05:51 PM

Well, if your going to ignore the evidence about Roy's outlook toward evil critters from OtooPCs, be my guest.

Actually, it seems that I'm the only one who has actually gone back and read that sequence. It doesn't read the way people are interpreting it.

Origins of PCsWhat one sees if one actually reads the sequence is that the first contact is when one of the orcs charge attacks Durkon in the penultimate frame of page 44. At that point, neither Roy nor Durkon even has their weapons out, and the rest of the party isn't even on screen yet.

It's only after the fight starts that Roy figures out he can make a deal with the orcs - and he does, stopping the fight. However, he would also have been perfectly justified in continuing to fight rather than making a deal.

The deal can be seen as good - in that it prevents needless bloodshed - but that's not the only way it can be seen. It could also be seen as evil in that it's making a deal with evil forces - similar to what Vaarsuvius does with the IFCC, albeit far smaller in scale.

While the rest of the party is nasty to Durkon, their fighting the orcs is a clear case of self defense and defense of others - in this case, defending Roy.

I suppose one could always accuse Rich of sloppy writing or character inconsistency...

You can chalk it up to poor writing if you want to. Me, I think it's a case of good writing: consistently portraying Roy's character as very close to the pragmatic true neutral corner of lawful good.

... Or one could say that if one gets into a fight with a Black Dragon (for whatever reason) and brags about it later in a "locker room" situation, it isn't the biggest sin in the world.

Who is saying it's a sin? I'm just pointing out that Roy's attitude is a simple black and white one that says it's okay to kill dragons based only on the color of their scales. I don't think it's a sin in the Ootsiverse, because I think there's ample evidence that Roy is correct about how good and evil work there.

Whether forumites consider it to be a sin in their own moral systems is a different issue.

PS: BTW, isn't odd that NO ONE on the board criticized Roy's behavior in the Dragon Cave before Mama Dragon to cry a sad sad song showed up?

It's not odd at all. Roy is personable and likeable, so forumites let him get away with all sorts of questionable behavior that they'll instantly criticize in less sympathetic characters like Vaarsuvius or Miko.

The Minx

2009-03-22, 05:52 PM

Why are you expecting innocence to equate to evil? And what would you expect to equate to good alignment, if "innocence" equated to evil alignment?

<sigh> Because it is a mistake, obviously. :smalltongue:

I meant that I had not seen any definition of innocence in a game mechanics context that equates to LACK of evil alignment.

David Argall

2009-03-22, 06:02 PM

Attacking someone is a hostile act. It's incorrect to say he hasn't done anything wrong.
He hasn't, as far as the current situation is concerned. He is about to shoot you, but you shoot first. He never did anything wrong [except draw slower than you did].
The past sins of the dragons are not the only consideration here. Their future ones are to be counted too.

However, a child is immature and lacking in moral maturity and so cannot be judged by the same standards as an adult. Just as importantly, it is less dangerous than an adult; the reaction must be in proportion to the action and circumstance which precipitated it.
Claiming one can't use the same standards, and then appealing to those standards, is rather dubious, particularly when one does not explain what the different standards are, and why they should be used. [The animal rights activists like to argue that an animal has more and higher mental activity than a baby and thus deserves more rights.]

Besides, an egg hasn't done anything except sit there. I'm not sure how comparing it to a hostile child is even relevant.
Termite eggs have done nothing either. You destroy them for what they will become. Our dragon eggs get the same treatment.

this is really no different from the "Belkar isn't evil, I can justify all of his actions," and "Miko shouldn't have fallen, I can justify all of her actions" threads/arguments/fights we've had on this forum.
Now there were few, if any, claims that Miko should not have fallen. There were quite a few that she didn't fall far enough, mostly from people who thought she should have fallen long before, and people reacted by pointing out that the closer we put her final alignment to LG, the better it fit the evidence. But claims she should not have fallen were rare indeed.
Here, we have a much more debatable situation. The victims are heavily evil and their demise a benefit. That is not an issue in these other cases.

To those who think V did this primarily is self-defense (and family defense), please read the comic again and use your head.

"The pain ended too soon"
"We have only begun to bring misery"
"There is still so much we can do"

And then what is V's response? "Yes, but more importantly, I must protect my family." No! It was "I concur"! V's primary objective when casting this spell was to continue causing suffering (regardless of anything shi said later). Killing just for the sake of causing suffering is evil no matter what you are killing.
Having complained about others not considering all the evidence, you should take pains to not do the same thing. Here we have no consideration of V's conversation with the dragon. That shows no desire to gain revenge. V passes up chances to exact greater revenge on the dragon by spells like Soul Bind, and makes no attempt to blame the dragon for V's spell.
Now when we look at the conversation with the souls, we see there is less there than meets the eye. "I concur" has a variety of possible meanings. A quite reasonable one is that V was only answering the final statement, not all three. V intended to do several additional deeds, starting with eliminating the dragon "danger" and likely continuing with getting the family some healing, raising of Roy, disposing of Xykon...

killing 63 dragons is more likely to cause somebody to seek revenge on you than killing 1 dragon is.
Maybe not. For one thing, mama dragon here is rather a special case. By the rules she was too old to have children, and the young adult dragon should have been out on his own already. So their relationship may be about unique, and few dragons interested in copying it. Dragons are loners and not particularly interested in what happens to other dragons. This can mean that none of the survivors have much real interest in tracking down what caused this. [Of course, this attacks the validity of self defense, but the fact there was no risk to defend against doesn't mean that was not the motive.]
We also have that V is not an immediate suspect. With the young dragon, Ma knew right away Junior had been killed, and to track down adventurers. Our survivors now largely each know of one death, which might be a heart attack or such. It can take a long time to realize something more widespread happened, not to mention doing something about it.

The Minx

2009-03-22, 06:15 PM

He hasn't, as far as the current situation is concerned. He is about to shoot you, but you shoot first. He never did anything wrong [except draw slower than you did].
The past sins of the dragons are not the only consideration here. Their future ones are to be counted too.

Oh, someone is attacking you but hasn't done anything yet. That makes sense... oh wait, no it doesn't.

Claiming one can't use the same standards, and then appealing to those standards, is rather dubious, particularly when one does not explain what the different standards are, and why they should be used. [The animal rights activists like to argue that an animal has more and higher mental activity than a baby and thus deserves more rights.]

The bolded bit makes no sense, where am I doing any such thing? :smallconfused: Hell, the entire post makes no sense.

Termite eggs have done nothing either. You destroy them for what they will become. Our dragon eggs get the same treatment.

Oh, brilliant. Except termites aren't SENTIENT.

hamishspence

2009-03-22, 06:23 PM

"by the rules she was too old to have children"- incorrect- should be "by the rules she was too old to have any more children" using Draconomicon-

Fertility ends at end of Very Old, she is Ancient, her offspring is Young Adult- that suggests she had him near end of Very Old age, and is now early Ancient (with levels in Sorcerer to boost her casting)

"should have been out on his own already" is more plausible though. However- the young adult dragon is portrayed as more like a human teenager than a dragon- standard D&D Young Adult dragons are not typically known for reading Playdrake. So, if dragons are "more human" that way, they might be "more human" in other personality traits.

Starwaster

2009-03-22, 06:43 PM

Strip 639. Is V killing a family of dragons really supposed to illustrate heirm having gone evil?

<snip!>

Killing a family of black dragons would by DnD logic probably not be evil.
<and snip!>

I'll see your question and raise you another question.

Do you think V's family will give a wererat's ass whether what he did was technically evil or not? Personally I don't give his relationship with them at this point an ice elemental's chance of surviving a blast from an ARD.

And even if this isn't enough to force alignment change NOW (arguable)... he's definitely started on a path that will forever dominate his destiny. His kilonazi quotient is rising at an exponential rate.

Finally I wouldn't be surprised if the soul splice lasts a lot longer than the fiend's implied it would. (always worry when evil contracts rely on the implicit)

Mr. Scaly

2009-03-22, 06:45 PM

It's not odd at all. Roy is personable and likeable, so forumites let him get away with all sorts of questionable behavior that they'll instantly criticize in less sympathetic characters like Vaarsuvius or Miko.

Are you kidding?! I've hated Roy for being a pompous jerk ever since strip one! I only started liking him when he told off Miko hard enough that I could feel the blow from my keyboard, and even now I think he's a story hog. However, Roy could just as easily have been bragging about slaying a dragon because it's a strong monster, not because it's evil. You know, like someone bragging that they beat Civilization 3 on Sid mode while starting in the middle of a desert.

The Minx

2009-03-22, 06:48 PM

Who is saying it's a sin? I'm just pointing out that Roy's attitude is a simple black and white one that says it's okay to kill dragons based only on the color of their scales. I don't think it's a sin in the Ootsiverse, because I think there's ample evidence that Roy is correct about how good and evil work there.

Interestingly enough, Roy was opposed to killing orcs only because they're orcs in OTOPCs. So it's not quite that simple. And we have evidence that calls such black/white interpretations into question from elsewhere.

hamishspence

2009-03-22, 06:48 PM

When Eugene started turning up (and after reading Origin) my sympathy for Roy went up a bit- he can be a little jerkish- but, as The Giant points out in Paladin Blues, thats mostly due to Eugene's influence, and he tries to overcome it.

B. Dandelion

2009-03-22, 06:54 PM

If you're talking about the rest of the forum, yes indeed. He seems to get off easy a lot just because he's likeable.

You know, personally I never really had that impression. I think it might depend who you're really paying attention to -- maybe I just zone out his legion of apologists, but I've always thought Roy's had his fair share of critics. They might be fairer to him than people are to other characters, though...

This is the same forum on which we still see protestations that Belkar is not evil. The fact that most of the forum disagrees with Celia is, if anything, evidence in favor of Celia's position, not against it.

I agree with the sentiment the first sentence is referring to, but I'm skeptical of the second. Like we were saying in the other thread, the "romantic" characters probably get off easier, but that just means there's a disconnect between who is well-liked and who is morally upstanding, not that there's a necessary inverse correlation. Some of the "unromantic" characters ARE amoral jerks, and some of the "sympathetic" villains DO have legitimate grievances.

Roy reveals his attitude well before that. "Nothing but a little classic I like to call 'dragon-slaying'." "Vaarsuvius here killed an evil dragon back in the forest."

Roy clearly believes it's fine to kill things just because they are black dragons, and that it's fine to keep their belongings for oneself afterwards.

Roy specifically tells Miko that "V killed an evil black dragon." Miko challenges the assumption of an evil alignment, and Roy's rebuttal is lame, but it doesn't indicate that he thinks it's okay to kill black dragons JUST because they are black dragons. I don't think it can be called an indication that he thinks it's okay to kill evil black dragons just because they are evil, since that would run directly counter to his actions in "Origin."

He may think that all black dragons are evil. But the leap from "they are evil" to "murder is a-okay no matter the circumstances" is MIKO's doing, and I wouldn't be surprised if SHE buys into that philosophy -- for example, it's said that most of the creatures she used detect evil (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0228.html) on are now dead, for no given reason other than a positive reading. When she first confronted the Order she allowed them all a chance to surrender, despite the fact that Roy tested positive as evil, but we're told that Shojo's orders included the specific provision that Miko should "try hard to bring them back alive." (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0290.html)

So I think ultimately that strip was more about Miko's warped philosophy than Roy's...

harami2000

2009-03-22, 07:00 PM

BoED: "Violence against evil must have just cause" so, an unjust killing is, arguably, an evil killing as well.
*nods* but personally the word "just" is tinged with alignment overtones, too.

An archdemon cannot "justly" familicide worshippers of competitors on the PMP and will stay anchored to CE no matter how much evil they have "removed from the world".
An archdevil who attempted the same without having any idea as to precisely whom they are taking out would additionally have to beware because there is no control whatsoever as to the indiscriminate net effect on "law and order" (evil or good) innate in the spell.

02c still, anyhow :smallsmile:

Slibs

2009-03-22, 07:02 PM

Golden-Esque

2009-03-22, 07:09 PM

Given that the Dragon went out of her way to do the most evil thing possible to V's children (soul binding for eternity), did V really have any choice but to cast Familicide?

V knew the dragon's family would come for revenge as she did, and that at some short period of time in the future V wouldn't have the power to defend the family against that sort of power. A True Neutral, acting out of self interest would do exactly as V did. Extreme power to neutralize the threat and send a warning to the survivors that the family is off limits.

Essentially, V is trying to make sure that its family is never put in danger because of the dragon incident ever again. The elf is "tying loose ends". That is relatively neutral, however, V killed at least 60 black dragons that have done nothing to its family or it, which is definitely evil.

V is borrowing the powers of epic-level Arcane casters. There are plenty of other options at its disposal. V could have used Permency along with several other defensive spells to make it impossible to Scry or locate V's family. V could have also placed Runes and Circles of Protection around the house, heck, V could have probably opened a Mansion, made it permanent, and had his family live there. You can do a lot with epic magic.

The fact that V chose to kill creatures that #1 - V does not know, #2 - Don't know of V, and #3 - Might not have even cared / tried to retaliate and are innocent of any crimes (dragon eggs) makes it evil.

faith

2009-03-22, 07:13 PM

But the fiends say anything cast within the length of the soul-splice dissipates after the soul gaze ends.

harami2000

2009-03-22, 07:17 PM

Given that the Dragon went out of her way to do the most evil thing possible to V's children (soul binding for eternity), did V really have any choice but to cast Familicide?
Yes.

And if there was "no choice but to do so", before V touched the orb shi would have had to have known that power would have become available to hir. No such "discussion" took place. And why only "family" as if a blood feud was the only possible reason for counteraction in response to V killing the ABD?

V knew the dragon's family would come for revenge as she did, and that at some short period of time in the future V wouldn't have the power to defend the family against that sort of power.
Weak to no excuse whatsoever. By that line of reasoning, whenever you kill a member of a potentially powerful species you must immediately kill its entire family (not species?) if you can, in case some relative extracts revenge in the future?

A True Neutral, acting out of self interest would do exactly as V did. Extreme power to neutralize the threat and send a warning to the survivors that the family is off limits.
A True Neutral defends the balance (or at least they used to...). I personally can't see any evidence of that in V's actions.

Volkov

2009-03-22, 07:27 PM

V has killed the equivalent of a new born and it's parents , unborn children without the mother's consent, a starving man, a fighter who may not even be evil, a half dragon centaur who is almost certainly not evil, A young mated pair, A Draconic Kobold sorcerer who has never done squat to V and probably doesn't even know that he's related to MBD, A pursuer of knowledge, an extremely miserly dragon, and so much more that any sane being would agree that this is totally unneeded, half of these people probably don't even know they're related to MBD.

keybounce

2009-03-22, 07:30 PM

Because bunnies are NOT stat'd out. Thus, it could well be the only rabbit in the whole world.

It's true, there's NO bunny stats in ANY D&D 3.5 books.

Look under "V", not "B" or "R".
Oh, wait -- "K" comes before the "V" :-)
===

OP: I didn't see the fish, that's why.

Silverraptor

2009-03-22, 07:46 PM

But the fiends say anything cast within the length of the soul-splice dissipates after the soul gaze ends.

Yes. But as they say, If you kill some one they stay dead. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0634.html) So those dragons will still be dead.

evileeyore

2009-03-22, 07:54 PM

Nope. You are the one wrong, pal.

No, I'm not.

Plot logic and common sense trumps core rules. Heck, core rules often enough trump themselves.

Sure, I'm willing to (in this case) agree to that. So, what is the plot logic?

(Note, I disagree to "common sense". That's just silly, since your common sense and mine clearly don't mesh. Don;t try to pretend your ideas of common sense extend beyond your frame of reference, that's hubris.)

Even if "always chaotic evil" was uniformly an attribute of Black Dragons in all versions of the rules, it is still simply insane to take it literally.

No it isn't. It's a game construct. You can ignore it if you wish, that doesn't mean it isn't a feature of the campaign world.

"Dragons: Color coded for your convenience (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0207.html)" springs to mind. You don't have to like it, or even agree with it, but it is clearly established within the comic.

And, as others noted, EVEN IF all Black Dragons, including the unhatched eggs, were KNOWN FOR SURE to be Chaotic Evil, that simply does not at all justify slaying them.

In your opinion. Here, agian, we differ. Chaotic Evil isn't "sitting at home minding one's own business". It is "the most dangerous alignment because it represents the destruction not only of beauty and life but also of the order on which beauty and life depend."

Anyone who is CE has either made the choice or is driven by "Original Sin" to be destructive and vile. There is not simpler way to express this.

I won't even enter into arguments about half-dragons because they simply distract from the main point to enter into disgusting and naive territory.

That's fine. I've been mostly ignoring that single data point as we can't be sure of it's moral alignment. But I'm fine it's death, gotta break a few eggs to make an omlet.

Even the attempt of justifying this act as some sort of oversized self-defense is quite clearly bogus.

So you say, agian, we disagree. I'm not inclined to suddenly start assuming the author is lying via character voice about the character's reasoning. Now... if we are shown at a later date Vaarsuvius was lying here, well that's a different kettle of fish.

Either Vaarsuvius rolled 1 several times in a row in his Strategy roll or he realizes that one does NOT nurture a safer future for one's family by acquiring a justified reputation of genocide.

Really? So you'd face off against a known genocidal agent to avenge the death of a friend? Are you really sure of your own sanity?

Do you, does anyone REALLY think that Tiamat and the other chromatic dragons - or even other sorts of monsters - will not soon find out about this obscenity and decide that V is too dangerous to live?

Only the stupid ones. The smart ones (whom aren't also filled with insane hubris) will realize that they face the risk of genocide and let trancing elves lie.

But your projecting the idea of "instant knowledge". Most of the rest of the world may wonder "Why in gods name are the Blacks all dead?", but I doubt they'll immediately get all the answers. More than likely, eventually, it will become known and the legend will spread. But by then Vaarsuvius will be ddead, and likely even Vaarsuvius' immediate children will ahve passed from old age.

Volkov

2009-03-22, 07:54 PM

No you fools, V will doom us all for that rabbit is clearly Monty Python's killer rabbit!!! WE'RE ALL DEAD!!! DEAD!!!! BE AFRAID!!!! BE VERY AFRAID!!!!!!

fruityjanitor

2009-03-22, 08:32 PM

In your opinion. Here, agian, we differ. Chaotic Evil isn't "sitting at home minding one's own business". It is "the most dangerous alignment because it represents the destruction not only of beauty and life but also of the order on which beauty and life depend."

Anyone who is CE has either made the choice or is driven by "Original Sin" to be destructive and vile. There is not simpler way to express this.

Not all Chaotic Evil creatures are equally evil. Some lean closely to Chaotic Neutral for example. It's not as if a Chaotic Neutral creature who commits one too many evil acts suddenly jumps from being Chaotic Neutral to being a homicidal maniac.

Note: I'm not arguing that any of the dragons here were close to Neutral alignment, I'm just saying that Chaotic Evil does not necessarily mean "psychotic mass murderer".

So you say, agian, we disagree. I'm not inclined to suddenly start assuming the author is lying via character voice about the character's reasoning. Now... if we are shown at a later date Vaarsuvius was lying here, well that's a different kettle of fish.

Shi's either lying in panel 6 when shi agrees with the voices (shi basically says "Let's cause some suffering"), or shi's lying in panel 8 when shi tells the mama dragon it is her fault for bringing family into this and shi's doing this to protect her family.

So which is more likely to be a lie? Panel 6, which is more or less an internal monologue? Or panel 8, where shi is talking to an enemy? There are a couple reasons I can think of off the top of my head to explain why shi says what shi says in panel 8: 1) Shi wants to make mama dragon think it's her fault and 2) The neutral part of hir that is still in there somewhere is trying to justify that using this spell is anything but pure evil. But why would shi lie during the internal monologue? It doesn't make sense.

Really? So you'd face off against a known genocidal agent to avenge the death of a friend? Are you really sure of your own sanity?

Yes, although if I knew they were this powerful, I probably wouldn't challenge them in direct combat.

Also, V is not going to have this power for ever. Casting Familicide when she knew her powers were temporary was a profoundly idiotic move.

Only the stupid ones. The smart ones (whom aren't also filled with insane hubris) will realize that they face the risk of genocide and let trancing elves lie.

Except shi isn't going to have these powers forever. By the time any dragons catch up to hir, I'm sure the soul splice would have ended long ago.

But your projecting the idea of "instant knowledge". Most of the rest of the world may wonder "Why in gods name are the Blacks all dead?", but I doubt they'll immediately get all the answers. More than likely, eventually, it will become known and the legend will spread. But by then Vaarsuvius will be ddead, and likely even Vaarsuvius' immediate children will ahve passed from old age.

I'm sure the Oracle is pretty well known among dragonkind. That's how mama dragon found V. There are also other ways to find out things like this in the DnD world. Some divination spells would probably work (but I'm not a DnD expert so I can't give exact spells names and whatnot).