Spot Poll Of Opinions Now - Inhumanly Good?

[willpell]

SPOON might become a regular feature here on the Pelljammer station, but for now I just have this one random question. For your campaign (there's no possible right answer for campaigns in general, feel free to include a little context with your specific answer), do you consider it reasonable to define Good from an absolutely inhuman perspective? In other words, must Good acknowledge human lives as important, or can it look down upon people as being like ants by comparison, as long as it isn't actively malicious and wicked? If they're trying to do what they consider a beneficial thing for humanity, but do so in an utterly draconian and machiavellian way, though never out of selfishness or spite?

An example of what I'm thinking of is the Borg from Star Trek...certainly they're horrific, and claiming they're Evil isn't a stretch, but given that they legitimately believe networking people into a collective is to those people's benefit, I don't think it's completely unreasonable to call them at least Lawful Neutral. The fact that they don't care about obtaining permission or avoiding terrorizing their victims, nor are they shy about blowing anyone who resists into their component particles, makes it very hard to justify calling them Good. But I think it's worth considering the arguable possibility that they could count, if you look at it from a completely non-anthropocentric perspective. If the Borg were shiny and pretty, but behaved exactly the same way, might Zaphkiel the Watcher decide that in the grand scheme of things, they compare pretty favorably to Asmodeus or Primus or even Morwen?

(Note of course that the portrayal of the Borg varied wildly over the course of Paramount's 15 years or so of making episodes and one movie devoted to them. Their first appearance, their penultimate version in First Contact, and various points between all leaned heavily on the menacing merciless nature of them, and so better inform an Evil portrayal, while the Voyager versions that postdate the introduction of 7/9 are a little too saccharine to take entirely seriously, but somewhere in the middle we see them presented as hostile but in a completely dispassionate and, by their alien standard, beneficially-intended way. Locutus of Borg may or may not be the example I'm thinking of; it's been too long to be sure, but I think their most sympathetic and believable portrayal came a few years later.)

[limejuicepowder]

Hmm not sure if I quite understand you're question...but I will say this:

Any good-aligned person (force, thing, etc) must take in to account the suffering of others, and it is not unreasonable to take extra consideration when dealing with autonomous, thinking individuals. This doesn't mean suffering or death can't be caused, but it has to be weighed carefully and not done without justification (and the extinction of a cultured race would take a whole lot of justification).

Also, the borg are objectively minimizing suffering.....but at the cost of freedom (or autonomy). I feel safe saying any non-hived creature would not feel that it's a good trade. This shows that suffering is not the be-all measure of goodness.

[NecroRebel]

There's another question here - does "inhuman" Good imply inelven, inorcish, or indragon Good as well? That is, is the initial question "Is it reasonable to define Good in a way that doesn't favor a human perspective?" or "Is it reasonable to define Good in a way that doesn't favor the perspective of intelligent mortal races?" The former, I feel, is an unambiguous no; it implies that a person who wants to genocide all nonhuman intelligences can be Good so long as they want to help humans. The latter, though, is more complicated.

The Borg are probably non-Good in every appearance due to their unwillingness to not assimilate the unwilling. This implies unconcern for the dignity of sentient beings, while Good explicitly means concern for said dignity. However, if they weren't so overt and pushy about it, they could be Machiavellian about it and be Good. For instance, if instead of invading unassimilated space with military force they made economic links with that space and encouraged citizens to willingly join the collective until the whole alien society was part of them, they might be Good, even if they weren't entirely honest about the benefits the aliens would get from it.

I think my point is that individual lives must be respected and sentient beings' dignity attended to as long as they exist, and cannot be intentionally destroyed, but a Good entity may suborn those individuals so long as it allows them some choice in the matter. Not necessarily an entirely free one, but not totally forced, either.

[hamishspence]

"Neutral has compunctions about harming the innocent" (but lacks the dedication to make sacrifices to help others)- PHB.

Borg seem to lack those compunctions.

[Seharvepernfan]

They're basically forcing their beliefs on others, willing or not, because that's what they think they should do. They're pretty clearly LE. A lot of tyrants think they are making the world a better place. It's not what you think you're doing that counts, it's what you do, and how.

[Khedrac]

Also remember that what a given entity thinks is good is not necessarily good. The point about forcing one's interpretation on others is particularly well made - something doing this probably thinks it is good, but is it really?

This is, of course, a problem with entities that have to be good - what mistakes can they make while still actually being good? To a major extent this comes down to "what is really meant by 'free will'?"

[Hand_of_Vecna]

I would say that the borg have to evil because of the suffering they cause. Those who have been freed of the borg collective remember the day to day existence in the collective negatively. If only the actual process of being assimilated was traumatic and being a borg was a neutral or positive stimulus, then yes the borg could be percieved as good despite violating the autonomy of others, which is really more extreme law rather than evil.

A similar group that I'd argue is very good is the machines from the matrix.

If you look at the history given in Animatrix, the machines were kept as a slave race even as they approached sentience and eventually staged a successful rebellion.

Humans=Neutral/Ignorant>Lawful Evil
Machines=Neutral-Chaotic Good

After the rebellion they left human society and formed their own country in an uninhabited desert. Which in a few decades became the richest country on earth invoking jealousy in human nations who declared War on the Robot Utopia.

Humans=Chaotic Evil
Machines=Lawful Neutral>Lawful Good

Machines win the war and create the matrix.

Humans=Doesn't Matter Neutral>Full Range of Alignments
Machines=LX

If you accept the physics behind the Matrix as Morpheus explains them then the Machines are Lawful Neutral. However if you throw that explanation which basically says "living being create rather than consume energy", then the machines are preserving human life because they value it and they are an inhuman Lawful Good.

As an aside, I feel the need to point out that Agent Smith is malicious and he rebels against the machines.

Humans=Full Range
Human Protagonists=Chaotic Good
Agents=Lawful Neutral
The Machines=Lawful Good
Agent Smith=Chaotic Evil

[navar100]

Basically you're arguing for moral equivalence. Everyone is Good because they believe their philosophy is the One True Way and only want to bring Enlightenment to all.

Doesn't work that way. Good is an absolute ideal. Right and Wrong are distinct. Moral equivalence is a weapon of Evil. Once you accept everything as Good, Evil has won because you accept Evil. You rationalize it. You give it credence. You give it legitimacy. You become Borg, Darth Vader, Dolores Umbridge.

[Tanuki Tales]

Basically you're arguing for moral equivalence. Everyone is Good because they believe their philosophy is the One True Way and only want to bring Enlightenment to all.

Doesn't work that way. Good is an absolute ideal. Right and Wrong are distinct. Moral equivalence is a weapon of Evil. Once you accept everything as Good, Evil has won because you accept Evil. You rationalize it. You give it credence. You give it legitimacy. You become Borg, Darth Vader, Dolores Umbridge.

Good and evil and right and wrong are completely relative based on your culture, species, belief system, etc.

But Good with a capital G and Evil with a capital E as they are in the cosmology of most settings is pretty much set in stone as a universal constant and is by definition black and white.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

They're basically forcing their beliefs on others, willing or not, because that's what they think they should do. They're pretty clearly LE.


The point about forcing one's interpretation on others is particularly well made - something doing this probably thinks it is good, but is it really?

This is, of course, a problem with entities that have to be good - what mistakes can they make while still actually being good? To a major extent this comes down to "what is really meant by 'free will'?"

Under the D&D two axis alignment system, is "freewill" and respect for it actually a "Good" trait and not a "Chaotic" one? Some value for Freewill is certainly a human trait and human LG societies place some value on personal freedom even if it is a tertiary concern after the happiness and safety of the majority.

Numerous instances of suggested uses of the Helm of Opposite Alignment, both on forums and official publications, either in combat or as a tool for rehabilitation come to mind as gross violations of freewill to advance the cause of "Good".

[Deepbluediver]

Within the context of a single game, the DM can define good and evil any way that they choose. Again, WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF A GAME, good and evil are a set of rules that can be adjusted as needed, just like fire or gravity or HP. Of course, if you make the changes too radical all at once, your players may decide that the rules are a load of manure and not want to play the game.

Generally, humanity is NOT a hive mind, so any definition of "good" made by a human would probably include respect for individuality.
This by itself does not make hive-mind entities evil. The morality comes into play when one group tries to forcefully change the actions or personality of another group to be more like itself. You could probably make the argument that a group of humans attempting to divide a hive-mind would inflict terrible pain and trauma on the combined pysche, and therefore those actions are evil, even if the goal is something humans normally consider to be "good".

In these cases, you might be better off NOT attempting to fit every race into the same definition of "good vs. evil" and just accept that some races are so different as to generate conflict from the inability to understand each other. TV Tropes terms this sort of thing "blue and orange morality" to illustrate that it just can't be meshed or judgedd on the same basis as our black/white/grey system.

[willpell]

Also, the borg are objectively minimizing suffering.....but at the cost of freedom (or autonomy). I feel safe saying any non-hived creature would not feel that it's a good trade. This shows that suffering is not the be-all measure of goodness.

The relevant question is whether freedom and autonomy are actually desireable if they require the inevitable consequence of potential misery. I personally think that Chaotic Good would say it's not worth the trade but that Lawful Good would say it is, at least if it came in a more palatable form like "eternal bliss". My recollection of Brave New World is vague, but I thought it seemed like the kind of dystopia that a Lawful Good individual might create, considering the ethical questionableness of breeding people into mobility-less social castes, their members programmed to lack ambition and remain content with their social class, to all be acceptible prices for harmony, and the complaints of marginalized individuals like the hero to be small-minded and selfish, Sexual promiscuity might nauseate some people, but it's a plus in my opinion, and the soma drug is explicitly harmless and not any more addictive than happiness in general. The only part of BNW's setup that I remember considering significantly "wrong", as opposed to "doubtful" or less, was the part where they prohibit reading books unless you're the Controller or whatever his name was.

My point is, if a dystopia as comfortable and pleasant to live in as BNW must be condemned as Evil, what are you supposed to say about 1984, which is clearly so much more awful on every level? I like being able to say "this might not be great, but it's not THAT bad" in a meaningful way; the Book of Vile Darkness sort of adds another row to the alignment table, but I don't think this is sufficient, and still prefer to say that these two settings should not fall within the same category (other than Lawful, obviously).


That is, is the initial question "Is it reasonable to define Good in a way that doesn't favor a human perspective?" or "Is it reasonable to define Good in a way that doesn't favor the perspective of intelligent mortal races?" The former, I feel, is an unambiguous no; it implies that a person who wants to genocide all nonhuman intelligences can be Good so long as they want to help humans. The latter, though, is more complicated.

Right, I'm with you so far. I was not intending to exclude orcs and dwarves and such from the "human" category for this purpose (dragons might be another story and elves are a tiny bit on the fence as well, but it's likely both would be included after all). "Mortal" is indeed a better word, Elans notwithstanding.


The Borg are probably non-Good in every appearance due to their unwillingness to not assimilate the unwilling.

Again, I think they can legitimately claim (if they had anyone to say it to, natch) that this doesn't matter. I mean, are you unwilling to bathe your dog because he doesn't understand the concept of cleanliness? The Borg seem to think we're animals by comparison to them, and want to put us into the Unimatrix because we'll benefit from that experience in a way we're not capable of recognizing until after it happens. Whether it's true in Strek is not the point here; I'm saying if it was true, would it make a difference, and I think it's possible to say it would. There are other things the Borg do which secure them pretty well in villain territory, but this part I think can be considered consistent with a "they don't know any better so naturally we won't ask them what they think" attitude which, if it were the only part in question, wouldn't suggest non-Goodness in and of itself.


if they made economic links with that space and encouraged citizens to willingly join the collective until the whole alien society was part of them, they might be Good, even if they weren't entirely honest about the benefits the aliens would get from it.

IIRC this is pretty much exactly the shtick of the Abeils in one of the later Monster Manuals, and they're regarded as LN. As are the Formians, who are much more militantly jack-booted (sans actual boots), and it's far from clear what makes them not Evil exactly, other than that they originated on Arcadia which is one plane south of Heaven itself.


I think my point is that individual lives must be respected and sentient beings' dignity attended to as long as they exist, and cannot be intentionally destroyed,

The Borg as I'm suggesting them might argue whether an individual's identity is "destroyed" if he's assimilated; they'd probably claim he's being preserved and multiplied ad infinitum by distributing his sentience across the entire collective to be intermingled with all the others. And they'd probably dismiss "dignity" as a meaningless conceit, which I could definitely see their point on. (Note that I don't want to sound like I'm completely rah-rah in favor of the Borg way of life or anything, I'm just playing devil's advocate and continuing to argue my chosen position, to make sure it's thoroughly explored.)


This is, of course, a problem with entities that have to be good - what mistakes can they make while still actually being good? To a major extent this comes down to "what is really meant by 'free will'?"

Precisely. If you have enough power, especially with things like divinations, is anyone ever free? Do you control your destiny if forces a thousand times larger are ultimately behind everything that happens to you? What obligation does a being have, if they can see you screwing up (say by rushing to catch a plane and getting in a fatal accident, or some similar blameless misfortune, which is actually not the work of fortune at all thanks to our omnipotent meddler letting it happen), to try to keep you from doing so, or to not so interfere? Should you be allowed to learn the lessons of your mistakes, even if those mistakes don't necessarily have a lesson to teach? What value does a Good alignment hold if it isn't a charge to protect those incapable of protecting themselves? All very good ?s I think.


A similar group that I'd argue is very good is the machines from the matrix.

Er, I really can't agree with you there. The machines intentionally make the Matrix miserable to keep humans from thinking it's too good to be true, and they're not at all hesitant about slaughtering humans who unplug. There's really nothing to suggest that they care about the humans in the slightest, other than needing them to continue functioning as long as they're useful for energy.


If you look at the history given in Animatrix, the machines were kept as a slave race even as they approached sentience and eventually staged a successful rebellion.

Er, we may be talking about different versions of the machine race. The Animatrix ones were pretty much entirely oppressed victims, and thus Good or at least Neutral up until they started lashing out. But by the actual movies, they'd clearly become the abusers, and so I say they're Neutral at best.


Agent Smith=Chaotic Evil

Yep, and one of the more interesting portrayals of it that I can think of. I should remember to do a homage in one of my games (sans the business suit, obviously; perhaps I'll use Elrond for his face to preserve the homage roundaboutly), someone who is determined to prove their independence by defying the assumption that the external world is worth anything, and essentially going mad with power like a video gamer...gah I'm explaining this awfully, but hopefully the point makes itself better than my sleep-deprived self can make it.


Doesn't work that way. Good is an absolute ideal. Right and Wrong are distinct. Moral equivalence is a weapon of Evil. Once you accept everything as Good, Evil has won because you accept Evil. You rationalize it. You give it credence. You give it legitimacy. You become Borg, Darth Vader, Dolores Umbridge.

This has extremely frightening and creepy implications. It's basically Good entitling itself to say "Anyone who disagrees with us is wrong, and not only that, they deserve to die; why, because we say so?" I see that this is in fact an attitude well supported in the rules, and can, quasi-legitimately in an Orcs-Are-Always-CE-and-Exist-To-Be-Killed-For-XP kind of way, be called fitting for D&D, but I still don't like the idea that it deserves the name "Good". It's definitely not the definition I use in my games.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

The machines intentionally make the Matrix miserable to keep humans from thinking it's too good to be true, and they're not at all hesitant about slaughtering humans who unplug. There's really nothing to suggest that they care about the humans in the slightest, other than needing them to continue functioning as long as they're useful for energy.

You say miserable, I say with enough pain and sadness to be accepted as reality and thus preserve the lives of it's inhabitants. They tried to give humans a paradise (assuming Smith was telling the truth) that shows "Goodness" benevolent intent.

Machines only need humans for power if you accept that Morpheus is right in blatant opposition to basic physics. This is a perfectly acceptable choice for you to make, but it means accepting that the writers created a universe with different basic physical laws rather than one that operates on similar laws.

Alternatively, you can accept that Morpheus and the Zionites have flawed views of science, due to being dozens of generations removed survivors of an apocalyptic war. They already admit to not knowing important historical facts like who struck first (it was humans) and they think they're a few generations descended from pre war humans when, which is wildly inaccurate if the Architect was telling even half-truths.

On another subject, I've also always seen both Formians and Abeils as interesting cases. Formians use of slave labor and placing slaves on the front lines has always felt like it could paint them a darker shade of grey. Abeils on the other hand seem like a perfect example of a LN society. They out compete other races until they are eventually attacked for "stealing recsources" at which point a large hive will steamroll most cultures unless they have lots of high level adventurer type. Abeils could easily be percieved as "dickish", but aren't evil.

Also, you have no idea how many times I've said "You must bring the one ring to Mount Doom and get me the codes to Zion's mainframe."

[NecroRebel]

Again, I think they can legitimately claim (if they had anyone to say it to, natch) that this doesn't matter. I mean, are you unwilling to bathe your dog because he doesn't understand the concept of cleanliness? The Borg seem to think we're animals by comparison to them, and want to put us into the Unimatrix because we'll benefit from that experience in a way we're not capable of recognizing until after it happens. Whether it's true in Strek is not the point here; I'm saying if it was true, would it make a difference, and I think it's possible to say it would. There are other things the Borg do which secure them pretty well in villain territory, but this part I think can be considered consistent with a "they don't know any better so naturally we won't ask them what they think" attitude which, if it were the only part in question, wouldn't suggest non-Goodness in and of itself.

If it was true that the various creatures the Borg try to assimilate were animals rather than sapient entities and if it was true that being assimilated into the collective would benefit them in a way they are not capable of recognizing prior to assimilation, then it would be possible for them to be non-Evil. However, they consistently try to assimilate sapient entities, said sapient entities are capable of making informed decisions for themselves, the Borg do not allow them to make said decisions, and not allowing them to make said decisions shows a disregard for the dignity of those entities, thus they are non-Good. Nonsapient animals generally cannot understand the concepts, so asking them is pointless, but for a sapient being, not making any attempt to allow understanding is always non-Good, and the Borg do not make such attempts.


IIRC this is pretty much exactly the shtick of the Abeils in one of the later Monster Manuals, and they're regarded as LN. As are the Formians, who are much more militantly jack-booted (sans actual boots), and it's far from clear what makes them not Evil exactly, other than that they originated on Arcadia which is one plane south of Heaven itself.

The key word in my statement "they might be Good" is 'might' :smalltongue:

[navar100]

This has extremely frightening and creepy implications. It's basically Good entitling itself to say "Anyone who disagrees with us is wrong, and not only that, they deserve to die; why, because we say so?" I see that this is in fact an attitude well supported in the rules, and can, quasi-legitimately in an Orcs-Are-Always-CE-and-Exist-To-Be-Killed-For-XP kind of way, be called fitting for D&D, but I still don't like the idea that it deserves the name "Good". It's definitely not the definition I use in my games.

Your error is not realizing that Good accepts disagreement. Given a problem, two individuals can come up with conflicting solutions with both solutions being Good. They could debate each other, highlighting the flaws of the others' idea, but they inherently accept the other is still Good despite being wrong in their view. Evil is also an absolute ideal which Good cannot rationalize, but to equate disagreement as automatically evil is not Good.

[NichG]

Honestly I think the Borg is a misleading example, because they come from a setting where something like the D&D versions of Good and Evil make no sense. Good and Evil don't describe the way the Star Trek setting breaks down into ideological camps, so when you try to set up such a view you get inconsistencies, grey areas, etc. Sort of like trying to argue the alignment of, well, any complex character (e.g. the Batman alignment chart...)

I'd say that in my campaigns in general there are 'the big ideologies'. These are the major directions upon which the most active elements of the setting divide themselves, and it sets up the major conflict. I tend to use somewhat inhuman axes here, because it means there isn't an obvious 'right' or 'wrong' side that the players will immediately jump to, so the questions set up by the choice can be explored through play. On the other hand, going too inhuman just makes it incomprehensible.

Example axes:
- Perfection versus the 'right to fail and strive'. If you could create an objectively perfect universe where the sum total hapiness of all creatures capable of experiencing hapiness is maximized (not individually, just total) and force everyone to live in it, do you do so? Is it desirable to attain this, or better to always fall short but know that you can improve? And what about the view that, if all of these universes exist, you can do whatever you want because that perfect universe is out there somewhere in the mess, and you're not harming it any since you don't live in it.

- 'Truth' versus 'Convenience' (in Planescape): If the laws of reality hold together because of belief and continuity of expectation (if gravity worked yesterday you expect it to work today) then is it more important to preserve that, or is it worth risking it in order to find out what is actually objectively true indepedent of belief, even if that may strip away the existing laws (for sake of argument in this case, strip away those laws in a way that still allows existence, but a fundamentally different and unknowable one).

And in my current campaign:

- 'Mythic' versus 'Concrete': Is it better to live in a world of myths, full of willful spirits and animistic forces that can be coerced or convinced to aid you but which are fundamentally unpredictable; or is it better to live in a world that obeys hard and fast rules that are always the same, but which may make certain things difficult or impossible?

[Phelix-Mu]

Basically you're arguing for moral equivalence. Everyone is Good because they believe their philosophy is the One True Way and only want to bring Enlightenment to all.

Doesn't work that way. Good is an absolute ideal. Right and Wrong are distinct. Moral equivalence is a weapon of Evil. Once you accept everything as Good, Evil has won because you accept Evil. You rationalize it. You give it credence. You give it legitimacy. You become Borg, Darth Vader, Dolores Umbridge.

Very apt and well-said.


Good and evil and right and wrong are completely relative based on your culture, species, belief system, etc.

But Good with a capital G and Evil with a capital E as they are in the cosmology of most settings is pretty much set in stone as a universal constant and is by definition black and white.

Alright, a little late to start this, but a debate after my own heart. Only fate has kept me from posting more on willpell's alignment q+a thread. So I shall take a stab.

Good and Evil are pretty black-and-white in-game. But I feel mostly that a person can't actually be Good or Evil, but is rather the sum of the various actions that they take. Actions can be Good or Evil. Only a creature incapable of changing alignment (certainly anything mindless, but possibly including those with alignment subtypes...in my campaign I allow the rare creatures to betray their subtypes, usually at great risk to themselves) can be said to be Good or Evil, and even then a world with magic might want to allow some leeway for growth or evolution. Certainly, many mindless or very stupid critters are neutral for this very reason.

So, as a good person or force in the universe, I am bound to oppose evil generally, but specifically, Evil actions, things that, unlike creatures, you don't have to think too hard about. However, of greater import than just opposing evil, as a good force I must not do Evil or contribute to forces that would do Evil. In this manner, we can generally say that, if by opposing some evil force, I indirectly cause suffering, then I must weigh carefully the Evil I prevent against the Evil I will likely give rise to, since anyone who suffers is going to be inclined to a whole series of emotions that are like ambrosia to evil forces. In some degree, this can be a reason why many wise celestials don't constantly muck about in mortal affairs.

Ergo, we assume that the borg are good. Yet they, without exception, believe that they are justified in acting to take away the individual will of others and turn them into something they are not. At best, we see that the borg suck at being good. Failure to care about the ramifications of what one does is a hallmark of evil: me first, self above others, ends over means. This pretty much curb stomps the borg down to LN, and a very sketchy LN at that.

So, can some "alien" force act against what is "good" in the human/sentient mortal realm and yet still be a good force? The terms "alien" and "human/sentient" set up a false dual aspect to this analogy. By establishing that anything can truthfully be Evil or Good (i.e., adopting the objective absolutes aspect of alignment in-game), we establish a universal guideline. Something can't be either morally acceptable or unacceptable in the human/mortal sphere, and then be judged differently in some other, alien sphere. That would be the very definition of subjective morality, which the 3.x game can allow for by flavor, but has little regard for by RAW.

Now, to veer slightly off track, the existence of a grey area, or neutrality, is established in-game to exist side-by-side with the existence of absolute Good and absolute Evil. Black-and-white with grey in the middle isn't black-and-white. Enter paradox. There are a number of solutions to resolving this paradox--at least two pop immediately to mind--but they exist beyond the scope of this thread.

[ArcturusV]

Now... it's interesting to think of. As "GOOD" is described in the game, it's often painted through the color of our modern morality as players, rather than the realities of a setting. The often cited in just about every book example being:

The local kingdom uses slave labor. If you are Lawful Good, you must end all slavery in that kingdom and are not bound to uphold the Kingdoms unjust slavery laws.

Nevermind that ending slavery in a typical fantasy world would in fact be detrimental to society as a whole. The reason great works get done, why desolate areas are irrigated, clean water brought in, civilization and education flourishes in these societies is BY Slave Labor, because they lack the technology to make anything else practical.

Unless your setting operates on a "Magic is Technology" aspect. Which really is a very minor subset. Even DnD, the setting most prone to that ideal, most settings I've played in or written (Or were written by first party publishers) do not operate on that ideal and most technology and locations run on purely mundane, archaic methods that demand slave labor to be able to function on any level. I never cared for the "Magic is Technology" feeling. It makes me feel like I'm playing Star Trek or Star Wars (Or Star Something) rather than a fantasy game. So it doesn't happen in my settings.

The point being, there is the precedence written into the game that Good supersedes that which is right for the society in question, or what they might desire. Good, as a force, does apply arbitrary ideals, usually based on thought and concept rather than realities.

So it seems a short jump to me that an Inhuman Good status could exist. I know I asked you earlier in your Alignment Topic about use of Mind Altering, Will Robbing spells and effects that crush Free Will, Charm spells, Dominate, Suggestion, Geas, etc. None of these abilities are "EVIL". And the line that Good tends to draw is that if something is not itself explicitly evil (e.g.: Killing by itself isn't evil. Ritual Killing Sacrifices to Asmodeus is), then it's a perfectly legit weapon in the Arsenal of Good.

So combined we have the knowledge that GOOD is not really interested in the welfare of Humans (Or other sentients) as they are. And this isn't even picking up on relatively prick like Gods of "Good", like Correllion in the book standard settings (Curse dark elves because they fought back against a group that tried to genocide them, and they look different so they must be evil?). And we know that they aren't against means that to our current ideals might be considered wholly evil (I think basically magically lobotomizing someone so they have no self determination would be considered Evil by most people. But they don't consider that Evil).

The question becomes if there is a balancing point in this. Oddly enough I can't imagine a pure subjugation like the Borg Scenario. They do after all have a "Queen". And thus that would be seen as Slavery to the Queen, and would trip the Evil Sensors.

But if there was a group that say, was going to use some ungodly arcane ritual to lobotomize all "Evil" impulses (And higher thoughts) out of sentient creatures, reducing all denizens of the plane to animal intelligence... the forces of Good probably would be for it. As written. At the very least they wouldn't actively oppose it.

Which seems odd to say... but it seems to fit. Least based on the metrics of Good that often get used by DMs, Players, and Authors...

[hamishspence]

Nevermind that ending slavery in a typical fantasy world would in fact be detrimental to society as a whole. The reason great works get done, why desolate areas are irrigated, clean water brought in, civilization and education flourishes in these societies is BY Slave Labor, because they lack the technology to make anything else practical.

Hiring people and paying them makes more moral sense.

Very few "typical fantasy worlds" of the modern era portray slavery as anything but bad. Inefficiency being one of its flaws.

And even in the distant past, there were people objecting to it.

[Valdis]

"Neutral has compunctions about harming the innocent" (but lacks the dedication to make sacrifices to help others)- PHB.

Borg seem to lack those compunctions.

The definition of innocent: "free from guilt or sin especially through lack of knowledge of evil"

By definition, Nobody here is "innocent".. only children fit that definition.

No idea what Borg everyone is talking about.

[willpell]

However, they consistently try to assimilate sapient entities, said sapient entities are capable of making informed decisions for themselves

The Borg might question how "informed" you can possibly be, if you only have one brain to think with.


and not allowing them to make said decisions shows a disregard for the dignity of those entities

Again, dignity is a humanoid conceit which can sensibly be called irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. (After all, Pride is regarded as a moral failing, and where exactly is the dividing line betwee one form of feeling all awesome about yourself and the other? Pride is such a concept, and so is dignity.) The PHB definitions of Good are hardcoded to care about dignity, yes - but then, they were written by humans. And while an angel may be shaped like a human, what real reason is there to assume that it's perspective on the world doesn't more nearly resemble that of a Unimatrix?


(e.g. the Batman alignment chart...)

I don't find that chart to be terribly compelling evidence myself. You might be able to find evidence that suggests in favor of Batman being CE, but I think you should require a stronger example than "kicked a guy who was eating ice cream". And even if Batman has occasional moments of CE behavior, it doesn't make him a CE person (though it might prevent him from being an LG person even if 80% of his moments are LG-consistent).


Example axes:
- Perfection versus the 'right to fail and strive'.
- 'Truth' versus 'Convenience'
- 'Mythic' versus 'Concrete'

Interesting, but all of them strike me as aspects of Law vs. Chaos (or Chaos vs. Law in the last case). They're not exactly the same, but they're distinctions finer than a full alignment. More like "themes" - the game could stand to have a list of codified themes, but I'd want a lot more than 9, or even 25 or 27.


Hiring people and paying them makes more moral sense.

Very few "typical fantasy worlds" of the modern era portray slavery as anything but bad. Inefficiency being one of its flaws.

The question becomes, how big is the difference between wage-slavery and actual slavery? If your owner gives you a place to sleep and food to eat, because you can't work without those things, how is it different from your employer giving you just enough money to afford room and board? Sure, the slave is prevented physically from leaving, but the wage-slave would die if he left, so that's not a huge distinction.

The ultimate architects of the commerce system are responsible for deciding the value of money and labor, so it's possible for them to decide that your life is worth less than you think it is.


By definition, Nobody here is "innocent".. only children fit that definition.

You maybe don't know very many children if you think that. A baby would happily kill someone who takes their binky or whatever away, just to get it back, if it were capable of doing so. Failing that, they cry to their mommy instead, probably hoping in their dimly-sentient way that mommy will kill the binky-taker for them. The idea that doing so is "wrong" has not even begun to coalesce into being within their developing mind. And a few years don't always make that much of a difference. Some children develop into what might be termed innocence, but others are vicious or venal all through elementary school, without anyone having ever told them to be so, simply because nobody told them not to, at least not in sufficiently persuasive language. I strongly question whether "innocence" is even a valid concept; there's substantial scientific basis for the idea that we're all hardcoded to varying extents to be brutal Darwinian survivalists, and that those who come closest to being "innocent" are also the least likely to survive long enough to pass on their genes, at least if they don't have a social support network to use as a crutch. (You could then get into various forces in the land arguing about whether the existence of those crutches is actually beneficial, or is keeping people from being strong enough to be capable of surviving if their cruch is removed.)

[NichG]

I don't find that chart to be terribly compelling evidence myself. You might be able to find evidence that suggests in favor of Batman being CE, but I think you should require a stronger example than "kicked a guy who was eating ice cream". And even if Batman has occasional moments of CE behavior, it doesn't make him a CE person (though it might prevent him from being an LG person even if 80% of his moments are LG-consistent).

Well okay, the CE one is ridiculous. But the point is more, I can make a character that is internally self-consistent psychologically but doesn't easily fall into an alignment. And thats because alignment is an artificial construct designed for a game system that is at some level about a great conflict between fixed sides. I don't even need a very complex character for this, but complex characters are easier to do it with.

There's one system where you list your character's top ten priorities in life in order. I think that's a lot closer to modelling a realistic psychology than affiliation with a particular pair of absolute moral/ethical axes. Thats why D&D runs a lot more smoothly if alignment is descriptive not prescriptive - its basically the universe's tally with regards to the character, who may do aught he pleases.



Interesting, but all of them strike me as aspects of Law vs. Chaos (or Chaos vs. Law in the last case). They're not exactly the same, but they're distinctions finer than a full alignment. More like "themes" - the game could stand to have a list of codified themes, but I'd want a lot more than 9, or even 25 or 27.


Its very important for these to be both campaign specific and sparse. If you present players with a list 'here's 27 themes!' then you lose the advantage of things being themes (namely that they're prominent in the story and tend to recur). At any given time, I will only have one or at most two of these going on in a story arc. When the game is about 'magic' versus 'technology', I throw out D&D alignments because they distract from what I'm trying to have the game focus on.

There is no prescriptive element to these, but generally I'll tie them to physical manifestations of power in the setting. So which side of the line you fall on tends to determine what cosmic powers come your way, but you can just as well attempt to straddle the line philosophically or even jump the rails and say 'this conflict is pointless!'. Its more like Magic vs Tech in Arcanum (where they physically interfere with eachother, but that doesn't stop people from trying to use both or neither, or even just not caring about the duality). Or the poorly named 'sub-quantum' versus 'quantum' dichotomy in Trinity. Or Technocracy ideology versus traditional magic in Mage.

Anyhow, taking it back to the original point, if the ideological divides in my setting are closer to 'good' versus 'evil' then I can do either inhuman versus or very human versions. I think some inhuman philosophy helps separate the players from their personal moralities though. Renaming them also helps achieve this goal. An example of something I might do (though haven't done yet) would be:

- Pax (the 'good' equivalent I suppose): Peace should be the ultimate goal of every conflict - that is, all conflicts should exist only to end themselves and other conflicts. Absent other conflicts that could be resolved, a conflict should never be initiated. The ideal world where Pax is concerned is one where everyone has what they need to live peaceful lives without suffering or strife. However at the same time overly ambitious people pose a risk to Pax: they create meaningless conflicts by trying to be the best at something, at trying to change things that are otherwise stable, etc (you could say this has traces of Law to it if you were to place Pax in D&D alignments).

- Strive (the 'evil' equivalent, such as it is): The point of life is to separate the strong from the weak. The strong should rise, and should challenge those to come and make them even stronger. Only through conflict is strength tested, and only through peril is that test given the ability to strengthen the world as a whole (by culling the weak). This need not mean that every moment of life should be chaos, or that societies with protective rules should fall, but it does mean that everything should have a rival. If you have a society where the weak are protected, then there should be a country that wars with it so that the ideologies can be tested and refined. The ultimate goal of life in the universe is to produce the most powerful entities possible, and any sacrifice that must happen along the way is acceptable. If this happens through order, through individuality, through any other ideology, thats fine: the only constant is that the victor was right.

[TuggyNE]

An example of something I might do (though haven't done yet) would be:

- Pax (the 'good' equivalent I suppose): Peace should be the ultimate goal of every conflict - that is, all conflicts should exist only to end themselves and other conflicts. Absent other conflicts that could be resolved, a conflict should never be initiated. The ideal world where Pax is concerned is one where everyone has what they need to live peaceful lives without suffering or strife. However at the same time overly ambitious people pose a risk to Pax: they create meaningless conflicts by trying to be the best at something, at trying to change things that are otherwise stable, etc (you could say this has traces of Law to it if you were to place Pax in D&D alignments).

- Strive (the 'evil' equivalent, such as it is): The point of life is to separate the strong from the weak. The strong should rise, and should challenge those to come and make them even stronger. Only through conflict is strength tested, and only through peril is that test given the ability to strengthen the world as a whole (by culling the weak). This need not mean that every moment of life should be chaos, or that societies with protective rules should fall, but it does mean that everything should have a rival. If you have a society where the weak are protected, then there should be a country that wars with it so that the ideologies can be tested and refined. The ultimate goal of life in the universe is to produce the most powerful entities possible, and any sacrifice that must happen along the way is acceptable. If this happens through order, through individuality, through any other ideology, thats fine: the only constant is that the victor was right.

Somehow, this set off a creative spark, and I decided to start a collection of these. :smallwink:

[Phelix-Mu]

Courtesy of Willpell:

Again, dignity is a humanoid conceit which can sensibly be called irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. (After all, Pride is regarded as a moral failing, and where exactly is the dividing line betwee one form of feeling all awesome about yourself and the other? Pride is such a concept, and so is dignity.) The PHB definitions of Good are hardcoded to care about dignity, yes - but then, they were written by humans. And while an angel may be shaped like a human, what real reason is there to assume that it's perspective on the world doesn't more nearly resemble that of a Unimatrix?


Stating that there are things like Good and Evil as absolutes is by definition saying that, just because the borg don't care about dignity and other rights, doesn't mean that those rights don't objectively exist. Allowing a creature to define it's own moral axis as it wishes or by its particular circumstance is subjectivism, and you can't have a world that both judges things as Good/Evil and then allows creatures to play by a separate set of rules just to fit their MO and mindset, cultural upbringing, flavor of the day.

So, if we want to boil this down to a definition of objective, absolute morality, we can start with a fairly simple premise. A good creature does good things. That's what we mean by "good creature."

Let's assume the borg are good in their previously discussed set of behaviors. If it is acceptable for the borg to assimilate people, then you must be able to generalize the principle, allow anyone to change other creatures into a form that more ideally fit their desires or belief. Now, by the borg's definition, becoming borg = good. But when the wizard uses the same principle ("it is right to transform creatures into a desired form because of my belief that it is right") to turn the borg into an elf, it must therefor also be good for the borg to become an elf. But borg must be in the collective to support their ideal of good, and the elf isn't anymore. It is false that the wizard and the borg can both be correct in their view.

Trying to think of a simple example. Given: "Johnny wants the ball the belongs to Susie."

Premise: "It is acceptable for Johnny to take the ball from Susie."

If it is acceptable for Johnny to take the ball, then it must be acceptable for anyone in any circumstance to take something just because they want it. Any concept of possession in society obviates this conclusion, and moreover, things that can be taken but not given back (like taking a life) exist even in a non-materialistic society.

Conclusion: "It is not acceptable for someone to take something from someone else because they want it." From the general we can return to the specific; Johnny is wrong.

That example seems self-evident, but the idea is that you can narrow the test for more controversial issues. I think if you wiki Kant then you can get a good explanation of his morality test by generalizing a principle. Basically, "If it's good for me to do it, it has to be good for anyone/everyone to do it."

[Slipperychicken]

If you're going to start calling the Borg Good, just throw out the alignment system altogether. If you really need one, put in some other metric like a sliding scale of humanity vs. inhumanity.

Or do something like Pendragon. Just have a bunch of opposed character traits (just/arbitrary, temperate/gluttonous, chaste/lustful, generous/greedy, prudent/reckless, and so on) which each have a numerical spectrum between them, and let people figure out right and wrong for themselves. Also helps you avoid sweeping moral generalizations.

[willpell]

Well okay, the CE one is ridiculous.

Most of them were IIRC. I think there were about four that weren't a stretch, though they might not have been neatly lined up. IMO it's totally reasonable to say that a character can be LE, LN, TN and NG for instance; his personal karma meter will wobble him up and down that spectrum, but a different person taking the same actions might end up moving through the same alignments in a different order due to differing priorities and intentions.


Thats why D&D runs a lot more smoothly if alignment is descriptive not prescriptive - its basically the universe's tally with regards to the character, who may do aught he pleases.

May do aught that he pleases and get slapped with a label for it, you mean. If archons and angels and silver dragons only wreak destruction against the Evil, while devils and demons and red dragons are equally dangerous to you whether you're Evil or Good, then you're well advised to avoid performing acts that might "contaminate" your Goodness and leave you with twice as many creatures willing to kill you.


Its very important for these to be both campaign specific and sparse. If you present players with a list 'here's 27 themes!' then you lose the advantage of things being themes (namely that they're prominent in the story and tend to recur).

See, I want a story that has 27 recurring themes. If it only has 5, then it's going to seem rather one-note (well, 5-note). This impairs my suspension of disbelief, because life isn't saturated with a small handful of recurring subtexts that everything has to play into. It either has huge numbers of them or none at all, and both of those possibilities look similar enough for us to be not sure, whereas a small handful of themes is unmistakeable.


- Pax vs. Stryfe

I actually did several like this myself once. The one that stuck was "altru" vs. "opportu", but there was also one that I was personally very fond of, given my preferences in real life, was "Silence vs. Noise". Where Silence was ostensibly the Evil equivalent because it favors keeping the population down and separating people, but with the intention of avoiding conflict, and Noise was the idea that people are wonderful so you should have billions of them crowd into tiny cities constantly shouting and struggling like a mass of squirming maggots, making the Silence people so disgusted that they might kill a few in order to get some peace and quiet. I was firmly on the latter side, and the majority of people would consider me Evil because of that, but that's because the whole point of Noise was that it likes majorities, and so Silence naturally doesn't accept that majority rule is a valid basis for decision making. I had others besides these two but I don't recall them.

Pax vs. Strife also makes me think of the Vorlons and Shadows from Babylon 5, a dynamic I've always loved.


just because the borg don't care about dignity and other rights, doesn't mean that those rights don't objectively exist.

My question though remains: do they? Are they actually part of objective Good, or do being less enlightened than Zaphkiel just assume so, for their own selfish reasons? "I am an individual, I think I'm important, therefore individuality must be important." Completely circular logic which makes it impossible to ever know what is really absolutely true, because you have no truly objective parties to ask - anything that's truly objective can't *be* asked (hence I mention Zaphkiel, who nobody can talk to because you cease to exist independently the moment you step into his presence, and I for one think that makes him sound a little Borg-like).

To quote George Carlin: "Dead people give less than a **** about the sanctity of life. Only living people care about it, so the whole thing comes out of a completely biased point of view. It's a self-serving man-made bull**** story. It's one of those things we tell ourselves so we'll feel noble: 'Life is sacred', makes you feel noble. Well lemme ask you this: if everything that ever lived is dead, and everything alive is gonna die, where does the sacred part come in?" Note to the mods: "sacred" is being used in a very general context here and is not specific to any religion, just to the general human capacity to invest spiritual meaning into things which we feel have such meaning.


and you can't have a world that both judges things as Good/Evil and then allows creatures to play by a separate set of rules just to fit their MO and mindset, cultural upbringing, flavor of the day.

I don't see why those two can't coexist. Whether Smite Evil works on you depends on whether you're Evil, but you might be among the judges which arbitrate whether you're Evil or not; it might be a collective-subconscious consensus among all people as to what counts as Good, or it might be the character's on conscience imagining what he'd feel like as one of his victims. It strikes me as potentially reasonable to judge that one culture can have, say, a cannibalistic ritual which they believe perpetuates the life of the consumed through the tribemates who ate them, and their faith in that ritual's moral rightness makes it morally right for them, while the exact same action would be Evil if performed by someone who didn't have a deeply-ingrained certainty as to its rightness. (There are some wickety implications, I'll admit, so I'm not sure I'd actually advocate this outside the sake of argument.)

This works even more sensibly if it varies between species (let alone genera or phylums; a dragon is at least in a different Class from any of us mammals, assuming it even still counts as part of the animal kingdom when it defies 13 laws of nature every time it flies); what's moral for a human and what's moral for a mind flayer might be very different things, just because mind flayers live in a different reality due to their more powerful brains and different sensory equipment. Certainly the mind flayer is horrific to any creature whose brain it might eat, but if it does ping Evil, that might only prove that the arbiters of Good share a humanistic bias. The canonical fact that MFs are evil could be overturned in any given campaign without requiring much or any change to their actual attitudes or methods; they could be ruthless and draconian, but still have the capacity to decide between selfish cruelty versus necessary behaviors to benefit their own society.


Trying to think of a simple example. Given: "Johnny wants the ball the belongs to Susie."

Premise: "It is acceptable for Johnny to take the ball from Susie."

If it is acceptable for Johnny to take the ball, then it must be acceptable for anyone in any circumstance to take something just because they want it.

I think you overvalue the importance of consistency. Things don't always have to follow the same set of cosmological constants; those "rules" and "laws" which govern reality might change periodically for unclear reasons, and it could take centuries to notice. Perhaps there was a time when space really was full of luminiferous aether and fire burned because the air contained phlogiston rather than oxygen, and those rules changed by the time we had the science to test them. Hard to believe, but impossible to disprove, and entirely possible to establish as canonical fact in a fiction.


If you're going to start calling the Borg Good

For the record, I'm not actually saying that, just arguing for the possibility. I find the argument interesting, that doesn't mean I actually believe it. I might create something Good which was similar to the Borg in certain ways, but not others. This argument would help inform my decision of what to change (and whether to bother).


Or do something like Pendragon. Just have a bunch of opposed character traits (just/arbitrary, temperate/gluttonous, chaste/lustful, generous/greedy, prudent/reckless, and so on) which each have a numerical spectrum between them, and let people figure out right and wrong for themselves.

I'm not clear what the point of this would be. What's cool about Good and Evil in D&D to me is the way they're deeply interwoven with the system; they have Planes, exemplary Outsiders, special magic items and spells, sites with inherently aligned qualities...it's a really integral part of the setting and that makes it feel significant, which is empowering. I like to play Good characters because it feels like having half the world backing me up; I like to play Chaotic characters because it means I'm free to be arbitrary because nothing really matters, and claim that the existence of Slaads proves me right about that. If I try playing the occasional Evil character, he might observe social Darwinism in the world around him and conclude that Evil is a fundamental cosmic principle he can draw strength from, or he might be just out to kill people he dislikes because self-evidently death is the ultimate answer. If you can just make up your own ethical compass, what good is it, with no more power than you yourself already had, which you had to invest in creating it?

[Phelix-Mu]

What's cool about Good and Evil in D&D to me is the way they're deeply interwoven with the system; they have Planes, exemplary Outsiders, special magic items and spells, sites with inherently aligned qualities...it's a really integral part of the setting and that makes it feel significant, which is empowering. I like to play Good characters because it feels like having half the world backing me up; I like to play Chaotic characters because it means I'm free to be arbitrary because nothing really matters, and claim that the existence of Slaads proves me right about that. If I try playing the occasional Evil character, he might observe social Darwinism in the world around him and conclude that Evil is a fundamental cosmic principle he can draw strength from, or he might be just out to kill people he dislikes because self-evidently death is the ultimate answer. If you can just make up your own ethical compass, what good is it, with no more power than you yourself already had, which you had to invest in creating it?

Alright, well said, I think you pretty much described why D&D made objective Good/Evil part of the flavor of the game. Zaphkiel is a poor example, because he's LG, but let's take Talisid. He's a good-aligned being. Now, if the borg and him are by some measure both good, then we clearly have a dispute over what "good" means.

Now, if you want a subjective morality system in a game that allows what is currently an evil creature to be good just because it's certain that it is good, then that is fine, but the evil creatures will all mindrape each other into this certain belief, and next thing we know, smite evil works on no one.

Talisid won't be half as cool, because worshiping or following a certain cause contains no inherent value, since there is no inherent value in a particular morality in a subjective system. Thus, when you die, as Carlin so aptly put it, you're dead. Talisid may not even exist, and arguably neither do gods, since how can the Outer Planes with their alignment traits exist when any soul of any alignment can just wander around and do whatever it pleases, since I am whatever alignment my personal compass indicates. Gods have no sway, since how can their judgement of what I've done in my life be relevant when I was certain that I was doing it for the right reasons.

In short, the standard setting of D&D, and indeed, many of the powers and abilities described in game, rely on there being an objectively true alignment entry associated with a specific creature. If there is a meritorious dispute between the alignment entry the DM has and the creature's own views, well, there goes objectivism. Enter subjectivism, and exit many features of the game.

Now, many DMs have and many in the future will remove alignment from the game. No one perishes due to this change, the world doesn't explode. But serious changes need to be made to functionality of certain aspects of the game. Smite evil/good changes to smite non-believer or some such. Detect alignment spells are gone. Gods may exist, but stand to be much less relevant. The servants of gods, demons and celestial and clerics, are more mission oriented, and less about general do-gooding or evil-sowing. Religion begins to mimic much more real life religion. The gods are ultimate arbiters of the morality of their own views, and pass on this certainty to their followers, who are empowered to act however their god wishes. Gods probably move toward being less like exemplars of a certain ethos, and more like Greek gods, all-powerful humans on a power trip.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Just a couple quick notes

Only children are innocent: Borg assimilate children.

Batman alignment chart: Does not represent an internally consistent character, draws from examples from different writers and continuities. Some Batman incarnations might stradle two alignments and be hard to pin between the two, but none fits all or nearly all of them.

I always thought Vorlons/Shadows was a near perfect example of Law/Chaos where Vorlons had of course worked very hard in the early seasons to frame the conflict as Good/Evil.

I think the following passage illustrates this well, spoilered for length and spoilers.

"You see, John," Justin explains, as he pours tea, "back, a million years ago, there were forces prowling around the galaxy beyond anything that we could understand. And, like anything else, most of them outgrew this little corner of the universe, and headed off toward greener pastures. Now, two of them stayed behind, shepherds, you might call them. They wanted to look after the younger races, bring them around, help them evolve into something better."

"One of these was the Vorlons," Morden tells Sheridan. "The other was what you call the Shadows."

"The Vorlons are like your parents, I suppose," Justin continues. "They want you to play nice, clean your room, do it by the rules. I guess you could call them lords of order."

"The others," Anna says, "the ones who live here, believe that strength only comes from conflict. They want to release our potential, not bottle it up."

"It's really simple," Justin explains. "You bring two sides together, they fight, a lot of them die. But those who survive are stronger, smarter, and better."

"It's like knocking over an anthill," Morden says. "Every new generation gets stronger. The anthill gets redesigned, made better."

"So that's what the Shadows do," Sheridan says. "Come out every few thousand years, and kick over all the anthills, start wars, destroy entire races."

"A few get lost along the way, yes," Justin admits, "and that's unfortunate. I don't think it was ever easy, but you can't let that get in the way of the dream."
On Babylon 5, Corwin reports to Ivanova that he is picking up a disturbance coming from all around them. Many Shadow ships are appearing outside, encircling the entire station. Ivanova orders a red alert, and all the fighters are scrambled. None of the Shadow vessels are attacking, but Ivanova still orders the fighters to launch, but not to approach until she authorizes it.

"Think about it, Captain," Morden says. "Look at the long history of human struggle. Six thousand years of recorded wars, bloodshed, atrocities beyond all description. But look at what came out of all of that! We've gone to the stars, split the atom, written sonnets... We never would have come this far, if we hadn't been at each others' throats evolving our way up, inch by inch."

"It was supposed to be an equal balance between our side and the Vorlons," Anna says. "But the Vorlons decided that their way was the right way. They enlisted the support of the other worlds, like the Minbari. They even started interfering with the development of younger races."

"When you look at a Vorlon," Morden says, "you see what they want you to see. They've manipulated us so we respond favorably to them. They've even at a genetic level, taking humans and adjusting them. Why do you think certifiable telepaths came out of nowhere a hundred years ago?"

"They created telepaths on a hundred worlds to use as cannon fodder for the next war," Justin explains. "But fortunately, our friends got there first and with the help of the Psi Corps, made sure that they came out on our side. John, they think that the human race shows great potential. When all this is over, we can be riding high, the first to rebuild, making things our own way. But the only thing that's standing in our way now is you. So, we can either work together now, or we can remove your support mechanism."

The fighters begin to mobilize around the Shadow vessels, and Garibaldi is among them. Ivanova tries to get through to Draal, but communications are being jammed. Ivanova knows the ships' appearance has something to do with Sheridan, but has no idea what it is, or why they are waiting.

"Everything depends on getting the other races to fight each other," Anna says, "to create conflict in order to promote growth and evolution. By getting them to cooperate, you are working against that goal."

"Whenever this starts," Morden says, "there's always someone who tries to organize the other races. You've done it. That's a commendable achievement, but as far as our goals are concerned, unproductive."

"So why don't you just kill me?" Sheridan asks.

"It doesn't work," Justin says. "Somebody'd just come around and replace you. That's always been the trouble with creating martyrs. We brought you here hoping you'd understand us, work with us, not against us. You're important. You're what they call a nexus. You turn one way, and the whole world has a tendency to go the same way. Let go of those other races. You can't hold them together. Evolution will be served one way or another. You can work with us, or..."

[Frozen_Feet]

Is a good human a complete jerk towards ants?

No, he is not.

There are people who enjoy burning ants with a magnifying glass. They rarely are very good in other regards either.

An inhumanly GOOD being would like have some capacity to feel empathy towards humankind, and as such would not put us through needless suffering.

On the other hand, creatures that talk the talk but don't walk the walk, also known as "well-intetioned extremists", often aren't, and as often can't be good in D&D terms, because D&D definition of alignment precludes that. Net effect of their actions might be benevolent, but such characters can not be mechanically characterized as good, and often not even neutral - they will be Lawful Evil or the like, comparable to Aberrations, who are often described as being "outside framework of conventional morality" or "incomprehensible", but alignment-wise, count as evil.

[Valdis]

You maybe don't know very many children if you think that.

I have 2 children, how many do you have? At that age children are innocent, regardless of what you may believe or have been told by some quack.

A baby will kill over a pacifier?? They don't even know what that is... again innocent. At that age babies are looking for affection and protection, not revenge! I know you don't like to hear it, but you're incorrect, mistaken and wrong.

Granted, there are kids in the elementary/jr. high range that are anything but innocent. When a child understands right/wrong and still choses wrong knowing 100% that what they are choosing IS wrong, then they are no longer innocent.
The rest of your comment was about bad parenting, of course teaching, brainwashing or assimilating a child into a certain belief system or even worse.. lack of action or discipline when the child does wrong..will cause major issues when they get older. That's why as parents we need to support, praise, give attention and protection to our children. I'm not saying lock them in a box, I'm saying "be a parent" not a stepping stone.

[ArcturusV]

Usually takes about age 4-6 before life beats an alignment into a kid other than Good. Or at least Neutral. Up until that time they're just usually not all that horrible. Destructive maybe at some point. But even the "Terrible Twos" are often overplayed. Most kids at that age don't HAVE to be taught good habits. Someone smiles at them? They smile back. Wave? Wave? Share? No problem. It's when they get older that it tends to change.

Least in my experience.

[Valdis]

Usually takes about age 4-6 before life beats an alignment into a kid other than Good. Or at least Neutral. Up until that time they're just usually not all that horrible. Destructive maybe at some point. But even the "Terrible Twos" are often overplayed. Most kids at that age don't HAVE to be taught good habits. Someone smiles at them? They smile back. Wave? Wave? Share? No problem. It's when they get older that it tends to change.

Least in my experience.

I agree, that is my experience also... it just so happens that my kids are 4 and 6 :smallsmile:

[willpell]

Alright, well said, I think you pretty much described why D&D made objective Good/Evil part of the flavor of the game. Zaphkiel is a poor example, because he's LG, but let's take Talisid.

Talisid is Neutral Good, and Neutrality is a bias unto itself as much as Law is (hence Talisid is obsessed with nature). The closest thing to "untained" Good we seem to have is the solar and planetar angels (astral daevas are little more than errand-girls for the gods and thus are likely to share the biases of the gods themselves, at least partially, due to osmosis).


Now, if you want a subjective morality system in a game that allows what is currently an evil creature to be good just because it's certain that it is good, then that is fine, but the evil creatures will all mindrape each other into this certain belief, and next thing we know, smite evil works on no one.

I would say that this can't possibly work, no matter what the spell says. If alignment is to be an overwhelmingly important force, then it should be as difficult to muck around with as, say, quantum physics is in our reality. You might be able to build something equivalent to a cyclotron, if you were epic level or a deity, or just if your organization had the kind of manpower and funding that CERN or the like possesses. But it's not something that can ever be done with just one spell.


how can the Outer Planes with their alignment traits exist when any soul of any alignment can just wander around and do whatever it pleases

That was absolutely never what I was suggesting. It's not that I as a human being can randomly decide "oh playing marbles uplifts the souls of all mankind, therefore if I kill someone and carve marbles out of their bones, I'm Good". No. You have to try a little harder than that. It has to be a belief that rings true in the deepest recesses of your soul, and you probably have to be capable of instilling that belief in others through a lifetime of teaching and Socratic guiding and leading by example, and some of them will *still* feel differently no matter how hard you try to program them, because their own alignments are different and their soul is telling them something different than you.

Mostly you have to have at least an entire culture steeped in a belief system before generations before it might begin to take on the qualities of a cosmic force. And once it does, it probably germinates a miniscule Outer Plane devoted to it, which grows and grows as more and more-powerful beings come to align themselves to it, and eventually spawns Outsiders and turns objects left lying around in it into minor artifacts, and by then it's become a genuine alignment. But it takes a fair bit of doing; it has to have a certain amount of ideological "weight" before it can begin to exert measurable "gravity" over the souls of others. Prior to that it's just a kooky belief system that won't suffice to say "no" to the Powers That Be.


Gods may exist, but stand to be much less relevant.

I don't really think taking alignment out has much effect on gods. Erythnul can be a murderous psychopath without needing Chaos and Evil to help show him the way. Heironeous and Hextor, whether they're Lawful per se or not, will still engage in an eternal battle to prove that courage can defeat tyranny or vice versa, and whether courage can also be called Good or tyranny can also be called Evil, or whether steadfast devotion to either ideal can be called Law, is rather beside the point. And the advantage is that now the more Neutral gods who don't stand for much of anything (such as Hecate from the Greek pantheon, who is labeled Evil due to her contrast with Zeus's crew, but is hardly an exemplar of baby-eating wickedness) can now come out of the shadow of Alignments that don't describe them very well, and can preach a more complex ideology which is more likely to ring true to some people, without them being scared away by the implications of the god's official-but-barely-relevant alignment (worship of Dionysius is a Chaotic act, and so that means if you like to get druink a lot, you...spend your afterlife in Limbo trying not to get raped by a Slaad??? yeah, I'm thinking you wouldn't need Alcoholics Anonymous in a world where that was true).


The servants of gods, demons and celestial and clerics, are more mission oriented, and less about general do-gooding or evil-sowing.

This could very easily be an invisible change for many of the gods and demons in question. Pelor would remain a populist deity just because farmers credit the sun with keeping their crops growing so they don't starve; Nerull would still be feared as a bringer of annihilation even if he wasn't Evil per se.


Religion begins to mimic much more real life religion.

I...don't think I'd go that far, but I'd better not try to discuss the point.


Gods probably move toward being less like exemplars of a certain ethos, and more like Greek gods, all-powerful humans on a power trip.

It would depend on the gods in question; again, most of the Greyhawk pantheon don't seem like they would have such attitudes. Though it would be somewhat fitting for Zeus* to stop being explicitly Good, given what a general lout he tends to be. Of the eight PHB Good gods in Greyhawk, the only one I can see being that questionable is Kord, who according to the PHB once slaughtered a king's family for having "suffered an ignoble defeat". Though I'm more inclined to harshly judge the author of that parable than the deity it purports to describe.

* the Deities and Demigods version of him, that is; no offense intended to anyone who actually worships the "real" Zeus, as I'm sure a few of the neopagans out there do.


Alright, well said, I think you pretty much described why D&D made objective Good/Evil part of the flavor of the game. Zaphkiel is a poor example, because he's LG, but let's take Talisid.

Talisid is Neutral Good, and Neutrality is a bias unto itself as much as Law is (hence Talisid is obsessed with nature). The closest thing to "untained" Good we seem to have is the solar and planetar angels (astral daevas are little more than errand-girls for the gods and thus are likely to share the biases of the gods themselves, at least partially, due to osmosis).


Now, if you want a subjective morality system in a game that allows what is currently an evil creature to be good just because it's certain that it is good, then that is fine, but the evil creatures will all mindrape each other into this certain belief, and next thing we know, smite evil works on no one.

I would say that this can't possibly work, no matter what the spell says. If alignment is to be an overwhelmingly important force, then it should be as difficult to muck around with as, say, quantum physics is in our reality. You might be able to build something equivalent to a cyclotron, if you were epic level or a deity, or just if your organization had the kind of manpower and funding that CERN or the like possesses. But it's not something that can ever be done with just one spell.


how can the Outer Planes with their alignment traits exist when any soul of any alignment can just wander around and do whatever it pleases

That was absolutely never what I was suggesting. It's not that I as a human being can randomly decide "oh playing marbles uplifts the souls of all mankind, therefore if I kill someone and carve marbles out of their bones, I'm Good". No. You have to try a little harder than that. It has to be a belief that rings true in the deepest recesses of your soul, and you probably have to be capable of instilling that belief in others through a lifetime of teaching and Socratic guiding and leading by example, and some of them will *still* feel differently no matter how hard you try to program them, because their own alignments are different and their soul is telling them something different than you.

Mostly you have to have at least an entire culture steeped in a belief system before generations before it might begin to take on the qualities of a cosmic force. And once it does, it probably germinates a miniscule Outer Plane devoted to it, which grows and grows as more and more-powerful beings come to align themselves to it, and eventually spawns Outsiders and turns objects left lying around in it into minor artifacts, and by then it's become a genuine alignment. But it takes a fair bit of doing; it has to have a certain amount of ideological "weight" before it can begin to exert measurable "gravity" over the souls of others. Prior to that it's just a kooky belief system that won't suffice to say "no" to the Powers That Be.


Gods may exist, but stand to be much less relevant.

I don't really think taking alignment out has much effect on gods. Erythnul can be a murderous psychopath without needing Chaos and Evil to help show him the way. Heironeous and Hextor, whether they're Lawful per se or not, will still engage in an eternal battle to prove that courage can defeat tyranny or vice versa, and whether courage can also be called Good or tyranny can also be called Evil, or whether steadfast devotion to either ideal can be called Law, is rather beside the point. And the advantage is that now the more Neutral gods who don't stand for much of anything (such as Hecate from the Greek pantheon, who is labeled Evil due to her contrast with Zeus's crew, but is hardly an exemplar of baby-eating wickedness) can now come out of the shadow of Alignments that don't describe them very well, and can preach a more complex ideology which is more likely to ring true to some people, without them being scared away by the implications of the god's official-but-barely-relevant alignment (worship of Dionysius is a Chaotic act, and so that means if you like to get druink a lot, you...spend your afterlife in Limbo trying not to get raped by a Slaad??? yeah, I'm thinking you wouldn't need Alcoholics Anonymous in a world where that was true).


The servants of gods, demons and celestial and clerics, are more mission oriented, and less about general do-gooding or evil-sowing.

This could very easily be an invisible change for many of the gods and demons in question. Pelor would remain a populist deity just because farmers credit the sun with keeping their crops growing so they don't starve; Nerull would still be feared as a bringer of annihilation even if he wasn't Evil per se.


Religion begins to mimic much more real life religion.

I...don't think I'd go that far, but I'd better not try to discuss the point.


Gods probably move toward being less like exemplars of a certain ethos, and more like Greek gods, all-powerful humans on a power trip.

It would depend on the gods in question; again, most of the Greyhawk pantheon don't seem like they would have such attitudes. Though it would be somewhat fitting for Zeus* to stop being explicitly Good, given what a general lout he tends to be. Of the eight PHB Good gods in Greyhawk, the only one I can see being that questionable is Kord, who according to the PHB once slaughtered a king's family for having "suffered an ignoble defeat". Though I'm more inclined to harshly judge the author of that parable than the deity it purports to describe.

* the Deities and Demigods version of him, that is; no offense intended to anyone who actually worships the "real" Zeus, as I'm sure a few of the neopagans out there do.


Batman alignment chart: Does not represent an internally consistent character, draws from examples from different writers and continuities.

This.


I always thought Vorlons/Shadows was a near perfect example of Law/Chaos where Vorlons had of course worked very hard in the early seasons to frame the conflict as Good/Evil.

Not that the Shadows made it hard or anything, of course....had the Vorlons not busted out the planet-killers, their masquerade would have remained intact. An interesting way to spin the same general dynamic would be to have the Vorlon-equivalent use a lot of disease metaphors, claiming that the Shadows-equivalent are a cancerous infection and that a planet where they gain too much power is a terminal patient...while the Shadows-equivalent roll back on the social-darwinism attitude a bit, and claim to be trying to protect individual rights which the Vorlon-equivalents dismiss by lumping people into categories. With these versions, siding with one or the other becomes less of a no-brainer in the early stage, and rejecting both sides is not necessary (because, realistically, it might not have been possible if the writer hadn't made it so).


Is a good human a complete jerk towards ants?

No, he is not.

Speak for yourself. I kill every ant I see in my house or my workplace, because where one ant goes and comes back alive, a millions ants will follow and strip it bare of anything they can use. I try to kill them with merciful quickness, but I don't try very hard because their weeny insect brains probably don't have even a faint ghost of a concept of suffering, so it'd be wasted effort. (That I bother at all just proves that humans are soft-headed sentimentalists, preoccupied with imagining themselves in the shoes of other beings, even if those beings can't possibly be as sophisticated as a human is, short of magic or something being involved.)


On the other hand, creatures that talk the talk but don't walk the walk, also known as "well-intetioned extremists", often aren't, and as often can't be good in D&D terms, because D&D definition of alignment precludes that. Net effect of their actions might be benevolent, but such characters can not be mechanically characterized as good, and often not even neutral - they will be Lawful Evil or the like

Some of them will be pursuing Chaotic goals toward a Good end. Even if they perform certain mildly Evil deeds, it should be possible for them to make those deeds sufficiently a minority among their actions that they can maintain a Good alignment. Only if they engage in truly heinous atrocities should they hit a "you can't possibly be Good after that, no matter what" saturation point. And I think True Neutral is a better alignment at that point, at least in some cases.


comparable to Aberrations, who are often described as being "outside framework of conventional morality" or "incomprehensible", but alignment-wise, count as evil.

Aberrations aren't Evil due to being incomprehensible in human terms. Lords of Madness describes the psychology of aboleths, beholders, mind flayers, neogi and grell in considerable detail, and they are very analogous to humanity's mental processes as dominated by Evil; they are unusual only in functionally lacking the capacity to have Good feelings, but they could still choose to "fake it" if they saw any reason to bother.


I have 2 children, how many do you have?

None, and for very good reason. I would say you are the one with a bias here.


At that age children are innocent, regardless of what you may believe or have been told by some quack.

I don't need "some quack"; I've interacted with children (not my own, for which I am immensely thankful) and I know from simple observation what they are like. Maybe not all the time, but too often to qualify as "innocent" even on an averages basis.


At that age babies are looking for affection and protection, not revenge!

Never said it was revenge - like I said, the baby wants his pacifier, and would kill to obtain it if he could. He wuold kill to obtain affection and protection too (though if he could kill, his need for protection would presumably be diminished somewhat). Until someone genetically engineers a little baby version of Jean "Phoenix" Gray (or Stephen King's "Carrie", for a less spectacular but better-known example), we'll never know for sure whether I'm right, but I firmly believe it on the basis of circumstantial evidence. Babies have no concept of right or wrong, which means they have no compulsion to do right or avoid wrong; they are creatures of pure id, concenred only with sating their short-term desires and unable to conceptualize any long-term consequences thereof. And how many years it takes to outgrow that attitude varies wildly by individual; some never do. We don't start out innocent and some of us learn to sin; we start out wicked and some of us learn morality.


When a child understands right/wrong and still choses wrong knowing 100% that what they are choosing IS wrong, then they are no longer innocent.

If a baby somehow gets an armed Nuclear Football and starts punching random launch buttons, he has no idea why his choices are wrong, but he still kills millions. I think you are placing too much of a premium on understanding. Acts can be Evil even if they're taken in complete ignorance, which is one more way I say that innocence is an irrelevant concept.


The rest of your comment was about bad parenting

Well yeah, and that's completely possible. If children are innocent when they're born, then after being badly parented, they are still innocent, even if they've been trained to ax-murder people for reasons they've been told are Good. The only countervailing force is our various hardcoded instincts and twitches; the kid might be nauseated by the sight and smell of blood midway through his first such assassination, and at that point he begins to understand why murder is wrong - because it makes him unhappy, not for any larger reason.

I'm tempted to argue with your last assertion but it would probably turn into flaming so I'll leave it alone.

[Slipperychicken]

I'm not clear what the point of this would be. [...]


To define personality and moral outlook in a more realistic manner. The universe does not impose childish generalizations (i.e. good, evil) for our convenience.



If you can just make up your own ethical compass, what good is it, with no more power than you yourself already had, which you had to invest in creating it?

Because that's what most of us (I hope) do in real life. Morality doesn't give us power, it gives us direction. And conflicting ideology can make a lot of tension and drama, where you get to seriously question your ideals and (gasp!) develop your character through reexamination without the Good/Evil axis rearing its ugly head and branding you as a demon.

[Valdis]

I'm tempted to argue with your last assertion but it would probably turn into flaming so I'll leave it alone.

You've already crashed and burned, no need to make it worse.

You might want to actually have kids before you presume to speak about them like you have ANY idea of what you're talking about.. LOL. All of what you said sounds very juvenile and reeks of inexperience.


If a baby somehow gets an armed Nuclear Football and starts punching random launch buttons, he has no idea why his choices are wrong, but he still kills millions. I think you are placing too much of a premium on understanding. Acts can be Evil even if they're taken in complete ignorance, which is one more way I say that innocence is an irrelevant concept.
Again, incorrect... If your imagined scenario were to ever take place, the fault would lie with the idiot who made the nuclear football and then gave it to a baby.... not the baby!
You did get something correct though... it IS all about understanding. Making conscience and informed decisions.

I'll leave you with that

[willpell]

You might want to actually have kids before you presume to speak about them like you have ANY idea of what you're talking about.. LOL. All of what you said sounds very juvenile and reeks of inexperience.

And all of what you say sounds like you are speaking from a biased perspective and cannot possibly judge children objectively, without irrational favoritism.


Again, incorrect... If your imagined scenario were to ever take place, the fault would lie with the idiot who made the nuclear football and then gave it to a baby.... not the baby!

I don't disagree that the person in question would be an idiot for letting the baby get at the football, but that doesn't change the fact that the deaths would occur as a direct consequence of the baby's inability to make a moral decision. This doesn't make babies evil, but if they're innocent, then so is a tiger innocent when it eats a person (which tigers very rarely do but that's because we don't usually hang out where extremely hungry tigers, unable to catch larger and more satisfying-to-chase prey, are to be found). European peasants in the medieval period thought that wolves were evil because they sometimes ate people, and frequently ate cattle that the people wanted to eat (no double standard there lol). But in truth the wolf was exactly as culpable in killing food as a baby would be if it somehow got its hands on a weapon it was capable of using on anyone who set it off somehow, assuming it were intelligent enough to figure out that the weapon could be used for such a purpose (which is admittedly a big stretch, but if it saw the weapon used and was capable of duplicating the firing action, it might monkey-see the act according to whatever dim concept of the effect its developing brain could produce, not especially certain what would happen and certainly not realistically conceiving of any larger meaning). A STNG phaser (which, apart from higher-yield rifles, is not even remotely gun-shaped, unlike the OS ones) would be absurdly dangerous in the hands of a baby, given that it requires only the press of a button to activate, and makes a pretty light show rather than a big scary boom. The baby might well vaporize half your house while giggling in delight, assuming it didn't hold the thing upside down and vaporize itself; either way a Darwin Award would definitely be forthcoming.

[Valdis]

This doesn't make babies evil, but if they're innocent, then so is a tiger innocent when it eats a person

Humans and Tigers are very different, apples to oranges. Trying to make a comparison between the two based on values, morals, chemical makeup of the brain and thought process, it's a waste of time.
To answer the question.. Yes, the Tiger would be innocent. They are hunters, that is the way they were designed or evolved into, whatever you want. Unlike people, they can't swing by the nearest McDonalds drive-thru and grab a value meal. So they have to kill for food.
If you are stupid enough to be that close to a tiger in the first place, you deserve to be eaten. They are wild animals and should be treated as such, they are not domesticated house cats.

[Frozen_Feet]

To be frank, if you take D&D Alignment at face value, most large cats, tigers included, should be Chaotic Evil. They only are not because D&D rules don't consider animals with less than 3 Int to be morally accountable.

[Valdis]

To be frank, if you take D&D Alignment at face value, most large cats, tigers included, should be Chaotic Evil. They only are not because D&D rules don't consider animals with less than 3 Int to be morally accountable.

That sounds correct. They are natural predators. Though I don't think they kill just to kill, they kill for food. Being chaotic evil, it leads me to believe that not only would they kill for fun, but would know exactly what they are doing.

It's true that there ARE, man eating/ man hunting tigers. Some acquired the taste of human flesh due to unburied bodies in combat zones.
While some others have disabilities that will not allow them to hunt their normal prey... I would not consider that Evil.

[Frozen_Feet]

Most natural predators often just kill for the thrill of it. Felines, in particular, have a tendency to play with their prey and prolong killing, because they get kicks from making the little critter suffer. The thought that natural predators kill or hunt just for food is a myth.

[willpell]

That sounds correct. They are natural predators. Though I don't think they kill just to kill, they kill for food. Being chaotic evil, it leads me to believe that not only would they kill for fun, but would know exactly what they are doing.

I would disagree with that. I see insanity as very much an Evil-leaning Chaotic mindset, even though it often makes you incapable of making moral decisions rationally.


Most natural predators often just kill for the thrill of it. Felines, in particular, have a tendency to play with their prey and prolong killing, because they get kicks from making the little critter suffer. The thought that natural predators kill or hunt just for food is a myth.

Technically I believe they're practicing to keep their hunting skills honed razor-sharp...but it certainly comes across looking cruel from the victim's perspective. There's a lot of generally jerkish behavior inherent in nature, all of which presumably aids in survival. Tarsiers for instance will only ever eat live prey, as in it's still struggling when they start to bite. This behavior probably evolved due to diseases in carrion; tarsiers who ate dead prey were more likely to die, so the behavior was weeded out over centuries or millenia or more. It's not actually them being monstrous, it's just them doing what works and not caring (or knowing) about a sentimental interpretation that some completely-not-in-their-shoes creature might come up with. Which is generally the attitude I attach to Evil creatures in my setting, unless they're absurdly arch-evil beings such as fiends or chromatic dragons. An Evil person doesn't usually make you suffer because he wants you to suffer; he just doesn't especially mind if his goals inevitably inflict suffering on anyone he doesn't have a personal fondness for.

(I couple this with my extremely tight-fisted attitude about what sort of behavior passes muster as Good in my campworld, which I've been discussing all over several threads lately. I don't buy that pre-emptive strikes against possibly dangerous individuals ever qualify, and have had a great deal of difficulty with the idea that it's ever even remotely acceptible for anything Good to kill anything non-Evil, at least without trying extremely hard to resolve the matter peacefully. Particularly in the case of Neutral good without a Nature bias.)

[ArcturusV]

Well, except Sadists getting their rocks off just on the infliction of pain itself, rather than just seeing suffering as a means to an end. But I don't think most people would argue that Sadism isn't evil. Except maybe in the limited bonds of an agreed upon understanding between a Sadist and a Masochist I suppose. I wouldn't see that as "evil" really since they're both getting what they wanted out of it and not at the other person's expense.

I generally agree with your tight fisted nature on Good. I do tend to hold Good characters to higher ideals. This includes things like escalation. If someone goes "put up your dukes!" and tries to Fisticuffs you, the correct (Good) answer is not "Lightning Bolt him with my Arcane powers". As well I tend to hold them to higher standards of Mercy and Forgiveness. One of the more common reasons (Despite me warning them before hand) Paladins lost powers in my games? They'd have something like a thief who said, "Okay, you got me," threw away his knife and offered to surrender. And the Paladin goes, "You are guilty! There can be no Mercy!" and beheads him as Judge, Jury, and Executioner on the spot.

Far as animals? It seems... weird... to me that Animals are considered too dumb to have an Alignment, more or less. I know this is basically the hippie line in our world. That animals are always good, pure, etc, and never have wars or anything unless a human makes them.... except animals fight all the time over Territory, Women, Food, etc. There are those dogs who will share their food with an injured packmate, and there are those dogs that will taunt the injured guy and eat it all in front of him. There's the deer that will challenge someone over a mate and give up when it is obvious he can't win... and the one who will try to "sucker punch" the other guy in order to win. It all varies.

Just animals don't seem to exhibit the usual "Cackling Evil" and "Celestial Good" that DnD tends to sometimes think of in terms of Good and Evil. Honestly it's hard for me to even understand how a cult can exist to "Do evil for evil's sake". ... it just mystifies me that this is a thing in most DnD worlds, and a common thing. Psychology, if I remember my texts, basically says no one can ever willingly think of themselves as "evil". No matter how much evidence is pointed out to them, no matter how heinous their acts, etc, they will always consider themselves "good". Or at the very least "neutral". So I try to avoid the random "Evil for Evil's Sake" cults and villains in my settings. It just doesn't make sense. Now, "Evil because it's a sexy and seductive route to power"... sure. "Evil because I'm a sadist and a psychopath because hurting people gets me off"... yeah, I can see that. "Evil because I am dedicated to a God of evil for the sake of being evil"... huh...

[Malimar]

I'm not absolutely certain that I understand the question, either, but I'll take a stab at rambling something at least tangentially related to it:

I'm a big fan of celestial beings who are jerks. They may be embodiments of pure elemental Good, but good is not nice (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodIsNotNice).

They (especially Lawful Good) might see even the tiniest spot of moral ambiguity as enough to damn a person -- consider Melisandre's "an onion with a little bit of rot in it is just a rotten onion" metaphor -- so, because nothing other than celestials can actually live up to the celestial standard, puny human lives don't matter.

An example of this, and I think of your original point, could be the Protoss as portrayed in the early parts of the first Starcraft, before Tassadar started feeling bad about it: perfectly willing to wipe out entire planets of full of humans just to keep the zerg from getting a foothold.


(For probably the same reasons, I'm a big fan of Evil that isn't jerks. Like, my demons tend to be affable, fun-loving folks, who just happen to enjoy a little evisceration now and then. And my devils are scrupulously, compulsively Lawful -- you don't generally need to worry about them making creative interpretations of deals, they just always make sure they only make deals that benefit them in the first place.)

[Valdis]

Most natural predators often just kill for the thrill of it. Felines, in particular, have a tendency to play with their prey and prolong killing, because they get kicks from making the little critter suffer. The thought that natural predators kill or hunt just for food is a myth.

Tigers don't have time to "play" with their food. As mentioned above, it's either to hone their hunting skill or to teach their young how to hunt.
Most of the animals that a tiger hunts are faster then they are.. that is why they hide in bushes and pounce, they don't chase like a cheetah.
They don't have time to play with their food, if they let their "kill" get up just so they can play with it, they run a serious risk of losing their kill because their prey is faster than they are.

Often there is not enough to feed the entire pride, and the cubs will even starve to death. They may fight over food but they don't have the luxury of playing with their food.
It then goes on to say that there may even be hyenas or dholes around, and if that's the case, the tigers run a risk of their food being taken by the hyenas or dholes.
In short, they don't have the luxary of playing with their food.

[willpell]

Honestly it's hard for me to even understand how a cult can exist to "Do evil for evil's sake". ... it just mystifies me that this is a thing in most DnD worlds, and a common thing.

I can think of a number of valid reasons, many of which I make a point of exploring in my game. What I can't stand is when it's for no reason beyond wicked, exultant glee. Realistically that's all you really need, for however long you can get away with it, but from a drama perspective it gets boring fast.


Psychology, if I remember my texts, basically says no one can ever willingly think of themselves as "evil".

Said texts are overstating the point (many people are wracked with guilt complexes or the like wherein they define themselves as "evil" by their own standards), and anyway they don't belong to a world where Evil is an objective cosmic force that may reward you for allegiance to it.


I'm a big fan of celestial beings who are jerks. They may be embodiments of pure elemental Good, but good is not nice (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodIsNotNice).

True, but I think of not-niceness as more "insult you to your face" than "kill you for trespassing". The latter is pretty Evil, or at least a very harsh form of Neutral.


They (especially Lawful Good) might see even the tiniest spot of moral ambiguity as enough to damn a person

That's not Lawful Good, that's Stupid Good. You're a troper, you should know these things. :smallamused:


-- consider Melisandre's "an onion with a little bit of rot in it is just a rotten onion"

Who?


metaphor -- so, because nothing other than celestials can actually live up to the celestial standard, puny human lives don't matter.

That's pretty much exactly what I'm getting at with the Borg, but I think it's a bit more "arch" than Good can healthily be and remain Good from any human perspective. If it were really that unreasonable, people would flock to minimalistic Evil's banner in droves just to get access to Smite/ProtFrom/etc. Good powers, because siding with Good would clearly not be safe for the health of flawed and fallible humans. (Elves and dwarves would probably keep doing it, the arrogant jerks.)


For probably the same reasons, I'm a big fan of Evil that isn't jerks.

Agreed again, though I go beyond "affably evil" into "well-intentioned extremist" on a fairly regular basis. Even demons and devils IMC have a single consistent motivation each, which on the surface humans could be sympathetic to, if not for the fact that it routinely gives them justification for torturing and destroying humans in huge numbers. (And sometimes even then, hence the Disciple and Thrall classes from BOVD, which no longer require terribly severe vileness.)