PDA

View Full Version : Alignment debates, in-character



Wardog
2014-01-03, 07:11 AM
There have been quite a lot of threads recently about verious alignment issues. Interesting discusions (and heated arguments) about what Law and Chaos actually mean, whether a particular act is Good or Evil, or even whether [Good] is always good.

Now, something I've been wondering is: how common would these discussions be in an actual D&D world? (By which I mean a non-gamist D&D setting rather than an OOTS/Goblins-style world where everyone knows their level and hit points).

Would you have commoners sitting in a tavern having the same sorts of discussions as we do, or would that be reserved for elite philosophers and theologans?

Is the distinction between the Good/Evil and Law/Chaos axis common knowledge, or would most people think that "good" just meant "the way I think people ought to behave"?

Would an Evil-aligned person with a well-worked-out justification for their beliefs and acts know they are Evil (and think that Evil is a "better" alignment), or would they think that they are actually "Good"? (E.g. if they were planning to use a Familicide-like spell to wipe out Chromatic Dragons would they be thinking "They are Evil, so wiping them out must be Good - I don't care what anyone else says!" or would they be thinking "I know its Evil, but that just goes to show that Evil is superior to Good, because I'm the one saving us all from man-eating monsters, while Good is sitting around hoping we could all just be friends".)

Would the odder quirks of Alignment - like Deathwatch (or Succubus Paladins) being Evil, or Always NG Pseudodragons having an (Evil!) poison attack - be known, and would True Neutrals use that as an argument for why "a balance between Good and Evil" can actually make sense?

hymer
2014-01-03, 07:33 AM
Speaking of D&D before good and evil come into it, the three alignments have each their own language, which everyone of that alignment is supposed to know. It is indicated that asking for someone's alignment is rude, and that chaotics would probably claim to lawful anyway.
In this sort of environment, it's obviously a widely known phenomenon, even if not everybody understands the intricacies of it. I'd imagine most discussions would be between alignments, arguing the merits of their own particular one.

Necroticplague
2014-01-03, 08:57 AM
Actually, it would seem they would have more reason to question the morality of an action than we do. For us, the morality of our action's relevance extends only in our lifetime, so we have at most 100 years we have to live with bad decisions on our concience. However, the dndverse, life after death as a soul is a pretty provable fact, since spells can manipulate the soul (mostly in unpleasent ways), and some outsiders (many of whom were once mortals) have Plane Shift as an SLA. So an average person in DnD can know with fair certainty that if they're their good, they get the easy life in heaven, and if their bad, their most pleasent option is being tortured for years until they eventually graduate into lemurism.The less pleasant involves being used for food by a demon.

123456789blaaa
2014-01-03, 10:23 AM
Actually, it would seem they would have more reason to question the morality of an action than we do. For us, the morality of our action's relevance extends only in our lifetime, so we have at most 100 years we have to live with bad decisions on our concience. However, the dndverse, life after death as a soul is a pretty provable fact, since spells can manipulate the soul (mostly in unpleasent ways), and some outsiders (many of whom were once mortals) have Plane Shift as an SLA. So an average person in DnD can know with fair certainty that if they're their good, they get the easy life in heaven, and if their bad, their most pleasent option is being tortured for years until they eventually graduate into lemurism.The less pleasant involves being used for food by a demon.

If they worship a god, they go to that gods divine realm as petitioners though. This may or may not be as bad as just generally being in the Lower Planes.

mucat
2014-01-03, 10:26 AM
In most campaigns I've run or played in, alignment is not an in-game concept, any more than armor class is. In low-magic campaigns, it's pretty much like in the real world. People have strong beliefs on what is right and wrong, but there is no empirical proof, and two people or nations can clash violently while both believing that their own actions are good and the other guy's are evil.

When divine magic and planar cosmology get involved, then it becomes a little more objective: Detect Evil picks up that demon in disguise, and when two priests have a serious moral dispute, the one who is right (in their goddess's eyes) is the one who didn't just lose their spellcasting ability. :smallwink:

Even then, though, my preferred style is that what the fiend from the lower planes radiates is Abyssal or Infernal energy (which for convenience, someone might lump together and call "Evil".) It explains why that famous Succubus Paladin still radiates Evil (and can be hurt by Holy Word, etc...) She's not a bad person -- quite the opposite, in fact -- but her whole metabolism runs on Abyssal energy, which is what these spells and effects actually trigger on.

(I also tend to say that most mortals are neutral from the point of view of magic spells, regardless of their actual alignment. That sweatshop boss is lawful evil, sure, but unless he has been dabbling in the dark arts, he does not actually radiate Infernal energy, and a Paladin's Detect Evil will not ping on him. To me, it's boring to let PCs walk into a room and instantly know who all the good and bad people are!)

Red Fel
2014-01-03, 11:48 AM
In a D&D-type setting, where Detect Alignment spells exist, Outsiders walk the world as living embodiments of an alignment, and the existence of afterlives is explicitly known, yes, I think people can discuss and are well aware of alignments. But it's like being aware of the weather - are you really going to discourse for hours on whether it's raining out? No. You'll stick your hand out of the window and pull it in. If it's wet, it's raining. So people could discuss alignment, there's just not much point to it.

In fact, alignment is oddly nuanced in D&D in a way it isn't in real life. In real life, we can debate whether something is good, or evil, or orderly or whatnot. In D&D, that is all made explicit. You can wear a Phylactery of Faithfulness and instantly know if your actions comport with your desired alignment.

Instead, it's about - as Hymer mentions - the "language" of alignment. In real life, evil is bad, and to be avoided. But in D&D, Evil isn't Bad, anymore than Good is Nice. Instead, they represent ideals. Good is supposed to be compassion, warmth, generosity; evil is selfishness and strength. Law is loyalty, honor and obedience; chaos is freedom, expression and art. What gets debated by characters in D&D isn't so much "good" versus "evil," as everyone is usually fairly confident in their alignment choices, but ideals. The NG character will debate with the LE character about how the latter, a tyrant, has an obligation to care for his peons. The CG character will bicker with the LG character over whether following the rules of honor permits the bad guys to get away unpunished. The CE and LE characters will dispute whether whipping the slaves makes them work harder, or is simply more fun. And so forth.

Rarely do characters say, "I'm Good, that's the best alignment." Instead, it will be more along the lines of "What you did offends my sensibilities." And an Evil character could just as easily say this to a Good character as vice-versa. An Evil character who sees a Good character buying a poor child a loaf of bread may well be shocked. "Why would you do that? Could you not have spent your money on yourself? Improve your equipment or skills? Build a temple or library? Do something that benefits you? Think of what that money could have accomplished for you!" And the Good character simply smiles.

The Fury
2014-01-05, 01:31 PM
One player in my group once told me that spells like Detect Good/Evil/Law/Chaos prove that alignments are objectively real things in the game world that can be discerned and discussed.

My counter argument was that my character, if she's aware of aligment at all, probably has a dim idea of what it actually means because she can't cast spells at all.

So I guess this means that you can justify having these discussions in character if you really, really want to. For my part, my character parses alignment discussions as, "Blah blah blah blah blah Lawful. Blah blah blah."



Rarely do characters say, "I'm Good, that's the best alignment." Instead, it will be more along the lines of "What you did offends my sensibilities." And an Evil character could just as easily say this to a Good character as vice-versa. An Evil character who sees a Good character buying a poor child a loaf of bread may well be shocked. "Why would you do that? Could you not have spent your money on yourself? Improve your equipment or skills? Build a temple or library? Do something that benefits you? Think of what that money could have accomplished for you!" And the Good character simply smiles.

Build a temple or library? That must have been some darn expensive bread!

AMFV
2014-01-05, 01:41 PM
Build a temple or library? That must have been some darn expensive bread!

Well there are moral arguments against charity, and philosophical arguments to that effect in the real world. You could argue that you're enabling the peasant beggar, that he (or she) will become dependent on you. So there are arguments present against that, which would likely be taken as the perspective of an Evil person, it would be interesting to come up with exactly what philosophy embodies Evil in the D&D sense, alas that would sadly probably skirt the real-world limits of the forum.

Red Fel
2014-01-05, 03:08 PM
Well there are moral arguments against charity, and philosophical arguments to that effect in the real world. You could argue that you're enabling the peasant beggar, that he (or she) will become dependent on you. So there are arguments present against that, which would likely be taken as the perspective of an Evil person, it would be interesting to come up with exactly what philosophy embodies Evil in the D&D sense, alas that would sadly probably skirt the real-world limits of the forum.

But I think you've hit the nail precisely on the head. Not every Evil character has to be "for the evulz" or "card-carrying villain." Some simply pursue a different ideal. A person who believes in personal strength, who believes that suffering either builds character or cleanses the world of the weak, would probably be D&D Evil. They don't go around wearing black and a goatee and cackling maniacally; they don't even think what they're doing is bad. They might even be willing to compare their philosophy on life, to discuss it with others. But they probably wouldn't explicitly call it "Evil," they'd simply say something like "A measure of a man's worth is his ability to overcome adversity. Those who cannot deserve to be crushed under the heels of those who can."

That's just one possible philosophy, but there could easily be others. The character who believes that glorious bloodshed is the only way to feel alive. The character who sees human suffering as the easiest course for advancement. The character who sees brutality as the only means to effectively impose order. (Examples of CE, NE and LE, respectively.) These are Evil concepts more nuanced than simply using the E-word, and they're sufficiently complex that characters could easily debate them.

Think of Durkon and Malack. They wouldn't so much debate theology, as both of their deities demonstrably exist. They wouldn't debate good and evil, since these are simply words. But they might well debate (in a civil manner, of course) the merits to their different perspectives on things like strength, honor, loyalty, service - concepts meaningful to both of them, but interpreted in different ways.

CombatOwl
2014-01-05, 03:10 PM
There have been quite a lot of threads recently about verious alignment issues. Interesting discusions (and heated arguments) about what Law and Chaos actually mean, whether a particular act is Good or Evil, or even whether [Good] is always good.

Now, something I've been wondering is: how common would these discussions be in an actual D&D world? (By which I mean a non-gamist D&D setting rather than an OOTS/Goblins-style world where everyone knows their level and hit points).

Given that law and chaos, good and evil, are explicitly defined as being objective forces, detectable by class features and spells alike... I'd say it probably ought to be a thing discussed.


Would you have commoners sitting in a tavern having the same sorts of discussions as we do, or would that be reserved for elite philosophers and theologans?

"You don't discuss alignment at the dinner table!"

Pex
2014-01-05, 04:07 PM
In one of my group's campaigns there's a CN half-elf fighter and a LG dwarf inquisitor. During the game we're focused on the play, but out of game on our gaming forum they bicker constantly about philosophy. I called them on it and told them they're an old married couple. The debates go on and on. It's beautiful. They're the best of friends but were only able to admit it in character when the fighter player had to move away due to airforce reassignment. He still keeps in touch and will be able to visit occasionally soon. Yay! They bicker so much precisely because they're bros. It fuels their passion.

The paladin in the group is the quietest among us. He just does his job, smites evil to oblivion, and moves on to the next smiting. He seeks no glory or recognition. He's a half-orc who's ashamed of his birth (a rape) and determined to live a virtuous life. He's the most humble paladin I've ever seen played.

Slipperychicken
2014-01-05, 07:00 PM
People speak reasonably for a few minutes, reach an impasse, shout at each other without changing anyone's mind (about some topic only tangentially-related to the original discussion), then give up with bitterness and hard feelings.

Sith_Happens
2014-01-05, 08:53 PM
I think Red Fel is right on the money. Alignment and the effects and metaphysical aspects thereof are observable, so most educated persons would likely be aware of it (though that may be a relatively small portion of the world population), and most reasoned discussion would focus on the interpretation thereof.

One thing I'd like to add is that you'd probably see different sorts of people focus on different aspects of alignment. Religious types and especially divine casters would be more likely to place emphasis on alignment as it relates to morality and ethics, while academics and arcanists might be more interested in its cosmological facets.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-01-05, 09:05 PM
Most people's discussions of morality in a D&D setting would look very much indistinguishable from the same discussions IRL.

The idea that there are immortal outsiders, afterlives that mortals can visit, that the gods exist, and that the existence of a soul can not only be proved but measured are true and provable things in those worlds but there's one -enormous- impediment to them becoming widely known; only spell casters can interact with these things directly and they make up only a tiny and factionalist percent of the population.

For every good cleric that tells you that the evil clerics are lying and every lawful cleric that says the same about clerics of chaos there is his opposite number making the same accusations about him and for every 10 of each there are 8 each of sorcerers and wizards that don't care what the masses think but only want them to stay ignorant of their own arcane secrets. Combine this unending war of information and disinformation with the fact that -all- of these people make up less than 5 percent of the total population (-if- you include -all- of the full casters WotC printed at the same rate as the four in the PHB) and the common man has no idea what to think.

As for the existence of celestials and fiends, sure, they can be shown to exist by being conjured up but the common folk only have the word of those same, constantly arguing people that these creatures are any different from the masses of perfectly mortal monstrous humanoids and generally human-shaped magical beasts.

You can visit the outer planes..... if you are a powerful caster (at least 9th level*) or have one as a buddy unless of course you're willing to brave one of the extraordinarily dangerous locations in which a natural planar rift exists. Even then the odds of you finding any of the souls of those of your deceased loved ones is utterly tiny and there's a -very- good chance they'll have no idea who you are if you do manage to find one.

It's just not reasonable to assume that any of the common folk, who have third hand knowledge at absolute best and usually only hear accounts much further removed from the source, have any reliable or accurate knowledge of what's really going on.

Alignment is just one more of these things. Between having no first-hand knowledge and hearing conflicting information, if any at all, from different sources it basically becomes a guessing game as to who is aligned which way.

Craft (Cheese)
2014-01-06, 05:57 PM
Well there are moral arguments against charity, and philosophical arguments to that effect in the real world. You could argue that you're enabling the peasant beggar, that he (or she) will become dependent on you. So there are arguments present against that, which would likely be taken as the perspective of an Evil person, it would be interesting to come up with exactly what philosophy embodies Evil in the D&D sense, alas that would sadly probably skirt the real-world limits of the forum.

I used to like this interpretation, but the problem is you're immediately taking sides when you describe one philosophy as "Good" and the other philosophy as "Evil." Those words are simply far, far too loaded.

CombatOwl
2014-01-06, 06:21 PM
Most people's discussions of morality in a D&D setting would look very much indistinguishable from the same discussions IRL.

How do you figure? Know Alignment discerns the true moral alignment of its subject. In D&D, your character can determine objectively whether they are Evil or not--and by extension determine which sorts of lifestyles and philosophies are good or evil. Moral relativisim would not be a thing for characters in D&D. There would be no "I think I'm doing right because..." only "I know I am doing Good because my alignment detects as such."


The idea that there are immortal outsiders, afterlives that mortals can visit, that the gods exist, and that the existence of a soul can not only be proved but measured are true and provable things in those worlds but there's one -enormous- impediment to them becoming widely known; only spell casters can interact with these things directly and they make up only a tiny and factionalist percent of the population.

"Oh, you don't think the Wall of the Faithless exists? Well, let us go talk to Brother Farts-Like-Thunder and he can take you there to visit and ask Kelemvor about it..."


For every good cleric that tells you that the evil clerics are lying and every lawful cleric that says the same about clerics of chaos there is his opposite number making the same accusations about him and for every 10 of each there are 8 each of sorcerers and wizards that don't care what the masses think but only want them to stay ignorant of their own arcane secrets.

And one side can prove objectively that it is Good, because one side will get hurt badly by Holy weapons and the other won't. Even if the evil folks try to lie about it, the objective morality of D&D gets in the way.


Combine this unending war of information and disinformation with the fact that -all- of these people make up less than 5 percent of the total population (-if- you include -all- of the full casters WotC printed at the same rate as the four in the PHB) and the common man has no idea what to think.

"Hmm, well, this church heals the sick, revives the dead, and quests against the people who would oppress me out of nothing but the goodness of their own hearts. This other church demands complete obedience and all of my money, else it will crush this city under the black-mailed fist of Bane. Hmm... I wonder which of them is Good? Such a tough decision..."


As for the existence of celestials and fiends, sure, they can be shown to exist by being conjured up but the common folk only have the word of those same, constantly arguing people that these creatures are any different from the masses of perfectly mortal monstrous humanoids and generally human-shaped magical beasts.

That, and you know, the actions of those same beings--who are compelled by their objective alignment to behave in certain ways.


You can visit the outer planes..... if you are a powerful caster (at least 9th level*) or have one as a buddy unless of course you're willing to brave one of the extraordinarily dangerous locations in which a natural planar rift exists.

So, in other words, they have to make a pilgrimage to a major temple. Hell, people do that in real life with far less in the way of certainty to expect at the other end.


It's just not reasonable to assume that any of the common folk, who have third hand knowledge at absolute best and usually only hear accounts much further removed from the source, have any reliable or accurate knowledge of what's really going on.

Actual behavior of the commoners: should almost certainly be to believe the Good churches who continually do noble quests and help people (as required by their objective alignment), giving some passing thought to the neutral churches, and reviling the evil ones. Why? Because the evil folks keep kicking the in the teeth and the good people keep reattaching them. It's not like the two are on some ethical neutral ground. Good clerics literally have to keep doing good actions, and evil clerics literally have to keep doing evil actions. It's pretty much impossible to envision a society that operates on D&D's terms that didn't have an implicit trust for good churches as one of the bedrock beliefs of the common citizenry.

AMFV
2014-01-06, 06:21 PM
I used to like this interpretation, but the problem is you're immediately taking sides when you describe one philosophy as "Good" and the other philosophy as "Evil." Those words are simply far, far too loaded.

I agree, the problem is that some of the things and concepts do match up to real world philosophy, which could create problems.

mucat
2014-01-06, 08:08 PM
I used to like this interpretation, but the problem is you're immediately taking sides when you describe one philosophy as "Good" and the other philosophy as "Evil." Those words are simply far, far too loaded.
When GMing, I tend to use "Celestial", "Infernal", "Abyssal", and so on as in-world terms for the energies associated with the Outer Planes. A caster who cares about using jargon correctly would speak of an artifact radiating Infernal energy, not "Law" or "Evil".

Words like "good" and "evil", on the other hand, are subjective; they depend on a person's values. A paladin and his fellow believers might argue that "Celestial" and "good" are interchangeable terms, but a secular wizard can still say, "No, in this case what the Celestials want to do is evil." You could agree with her or disagree, but her sentence is not a contradiction in terms.

Red Fel
2014-01-06, 09:32 PM
Actual behavior of the commoners: should almost certainly be to believe the Good churches who continually do noble quests and help people (as required by their objective alignment), giving some passing thought to the neutral churches, and reviling the evil ones. Why? Because the evil folks keep kicking the in the teeth and the good people keep reattaching them. It's not like the two are on some ethical neutral ground. Good clerics literally have to keep doing good actions, and evil clerics literally have to keep doing evil actions. It's pretty much impossible to envision a society that operates on D&D's terms that didn't have an implicit trust for good churches as one of the bedrock beliefs of the common citizenry.

I agree with (and enjoyed) everything except for this part. Here's why.

Evil is not Mean, just as Good is not Nice.

Take Raziel. A person who is a follower of Raziel is more likely to be the "If you are not Good, you are going to burn, and I'm going to be the one holding the torch" guy, than the "Welcome, my son, let us see to your wounds and feed you" guy.

And let's not forget the Chaotic Good Corellon Larethian, that charmer. The one who gouged out Gruumsh's eye. The one who shot one of his most devout followers through the heart and banished her soul because she was too proud. The one who turned Araushnee into the hideous Lolth. Great guy.

Contrast that with, say, Surtr, who is Lawful Evil, requires no sacrifices, and elevates to his priesthood architects, smiths, and storytellers. He encourages his followers to be strong, and reminds them that fire is nourishing, as well as destructive, and should be tended with care.

Or look at Luthic, bride of Gruumsh. She's the Neutral Evil Orcish goddess of fertility, medicines, and orc-women. She heals the sick and protects the home while the men are at war. Yes, her role is subservient, which is not a wonderful image, but she remains strong, devoted, and protective. And Evil.

I think it's rather harsh to assume that all of the commoners will go to Good churches because the Good ones are nicer than the Evil ones. I think that's really quite harsh indeed.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-01-06, 09:41 PM
How do you figure? Know Alignment discerns the true moral alignment of its subject. In D&D, your character can determine objectively whether they are Evil or not--and by extension determine which sorts of lifestyles and philosophies are good or evil. Moral relativisim would not be a thing for characters in D&D. There would be no "I think I'm doing right because..." only "I know I am doing Good because my alignment detects as such."

Over 95% of the populace has -no- access to the abilities that can actually determine his alignment. Your character emphatically -can't- determine their alignment with certainty unless a caster tells him what it is or if he can scry himself to use his own ability to cast detect X and look at himself.




"Oh, you don't think the Wall of the Faithless exists? Well, let us go talk to Brother Farts-Like-Thunder and he can take you there to visit and ask Kelemvor about it..."

As I noted, you'd have to actually have access to brother farts-like-thunder who, being a 9th level or higher caster, is representative of less than 1% of the population. This also assumes that Brother thunder-butt doesn't have anything better to do with his time and god-granted power than show some non-believer asshat the wall, which doesn't exist outside of FR btw.




And one side can prove objectively that it is Good, because one side will get hurt badly by Holy weapons and the other won't. Even if the evil folks try to lie about it, the objective morality of D&D gets in the way.

Those same people that may or may not be telling you the truth about alignment are the only ones who can make holy and unholy weapons and they're the ones who explain why it does more damage to some than to others. As a layperson there's nothing you can do to tell whether a sword is a holy weapon doing extra damage because the target is evil or an unholy weapon doing damage because the target is good. The same goes for anarchic and axiomatic weapons vs lawful and chaotic targets.


"Hmm, well, this church heals the sick, revives the dead, and quests against the people who would oppress me out of nothing but the goodness of their own hearts. This other church demands complete obedience and all of my money, else it will crush this city under the black-mailed fist of Bane. Hmm... I wonder which of them is Good? Such a tough decision..."

That you think the churches of darker gods are so overt in their evil is silly at best. You can't take over a city of people with such methods except by force and if you're one of the faithful such forceful conquest is a virtuous endeavor. For the more intelligent faithful that have to out-compete other faiths, they offer those same services and merely "suggest" things that those who benefit from such services might do to be seen by the church in a positive light. They don't become jack-booted thugs until after they've already taken over and even then they still look quite good to those on the beneficent side of the new theocracy.




That, and you know, the actions of those same beings--who are compelled by their objective alignment to behave in certain ways.

Alignment doesn't compel anyone to do anything. This is the single biggest mistake that is commonly made about how alignment works. Alignment is the result of behavior not its cause.




So, in other words, they have to make a pilgrimage to a major temple. Hell, people do that in real life with far less in the way of certainty to expect at the other end.

If you're referring to the high-level cleric, see my comment about better things to do with his time and power. If you're talking about natural planar rifts those almost universally reach to one of the transitive or inner planes. Not only is the location they occur in horrendously dangerous to reach but the plane on the other side is even more so. They only get you to the outer planes by finding portals of one kind or another in those realms.

Most pilgrimages don't come with a built in 90%+ chance of dying horribly.


Actual behavior of the commoners: should almost certainly be to believe the Good churches who continually do noble quests and help people (as required by their objective alignment), giving some passing thought to the neutral churches, and reviling the evil ones. Why? Because the evil folks keep kicking the in the teeth and the good people keep reattaching them. It's not like the two are on some ethical neutral ground. Good clerics literally have to keep doing good actions, and evil clerics literally have to keep doing evil actions. It's pretty much impossible to envision a society that operates on D&D's terms that didn't have an implicit trust for good churches as one of the bedrock beliefs of the common citizenry.

Ignoring the misconception about alignment compelling anyone to do anything this is still an absurdly simplistic view of how these organizations interact with the world around them. Simply offering worship to the dark gods is enough for most of their faithful to register as evil and dark deeds done in secret don't affect public opinion much, if at all, and can be covered up or explained away without arousing enough suspicion from the common folk to matter.

Let's take the church of Hextor for an example. Here we have a god of war and tyranny whose dogma is to throw down his brother's church in holy war and to expand their holdings.

The laws that the people are under seem fair but are ruthlessly and brutally enforced. They're told that these laws exist to protect them from outsiders who threaten their way of life and that "You have nothing to fear as long as you're doing nothing wrong." Law breakers are painted as enemies of the people by the church, the only major religion in the area, and most of the people are actually, get this, kept safe and reasonably prosperous by their tyrannical government as long as they don't oppose their overlords. The government itself is as inherently corrupt as you'd expect but it works, even if "the little guy" tends to get trampled by more prominent competitors and -no one- can get anything out of the government without knowing somebody or having serious resources.

Sure, some people will think their government is horrible, others will think it's the greatest government there is, and there will be people from all across the moral spectrum on both sides of that scale. Humanoid sacrifices, if they're offered (Hextor prefers worship through successfully executing his dogma), needn't be public affairs and can be culled from the destitute and PoW's, giving the appearance of reducing the incidence of destitution in the former case (the people don't know why there are fewer homeless only that there are and that their government is responsible) and not only saving the government money but actually generating extra resources in the latter (sacrifice rules, BoVD).

Coidzor
2014-01-06, 10:07 PM
Typically they happen when clerics of rival gods get together and try to decide whether DMM beatstickery or just devoting themselves wholly to casting is a more effective anti-clerical tactic.

Occasionally adventurers are involved.

The cleaning staff are never paid well enough.

Kelb_Panthera: Really, Hextorian Theocracies are just like most Evil Empires. The Hextorites who *aren't* currently plotting to overthrow the civilization they're living in and have to refrain from getting into life-and-death struggles with the Church of Heironeous and living in a more pluralistic society that are the interesting ones.


Would you have commoners sitting in a tavern having the same sorts of discussions as we do, or would that be reserved for elite philosophers and theologans?

Generally it was only a small sub-set of people who were not themselves elite who have done similar things in the only model we have to go on, our own. Without a political component, I see it as unlikely to be very commonly talked about, and once politics gets involved, well, politics.


Is the distinction between the Good/Evil and Law/Chaos axis common knowledge, or would most people think that "good" just meant "the way I think people ought to behave"?

The nearest thing to a model for that I can recall being detailed is the one in Planescape where it's established that clueless Primes don't have an ounce of inkling about the afterlife beyond whatever their personal religious organization spoonfeeds to the uneducated masses, and that even trained, high-level clerics rarely know the dark of it.


Would an Evil-aligned person with a well-worked-out justification for their beliefs and acts know they are Evil (and think that Evil is a "better" alignment), or would they think that they are actually "Good"?

(E.g. if they were planning to use a Familicide-like spell to wipe out Chromatic Dragons would they be thinking "They are Evil, so wiping them out must be Good - I don't care what anyone else says!" or would they be thinking "I know its Evil, but that just goes to show that Evil is superior to Good, because I'm the one saving us all from man-eating monsters, while Good is sitting around hoping we could all just be friends".)

Well, that requires an Evil-aligned person with a well-worked-out justification for their beliefs and actions. They would be unlikely to use the terms good and evil, however, if for not other reason than to avoid semantic confusion unless such was their intent, which is not outside of the realm of possibility.

In your example, you'd have a number of people who were of that brand of evil which is deluded and believes that they're good who would be behaving similarly. If someone is self-avowedly of an Evil Alignment, then they would be unlikely to make the first statement you give in the example, at least not as an honest statement. They might say the second, but that's predicated upon them being a specific sort of evil and to be a bit of a ponce on top of all their other sins.

Your example is not an especially interesting or serviceable one for looking at the behaviors and beliefs of an internally consistent, non-deluded, philosophically inclined Evil individual, however, as there are a variety of reasons why individuals of all alignments could be driven to decide that Familicide was the best course of action.


Would the odder quirks of Alignment - like Deathwatch (or Succubus Paladins) being Evil, or Always NG Pseudodragons having an (Evil!) poison attack - be known, and would True Neutrals use that as an argument for why "a balance between Good and Evil" can actually make sense?

For consistency, the rules failures would need to be corrected one way or the other or ignored, as they're not really interesting ethical conundrums so much as design oversights. But, no, unless the setting hands the Balance is best argument on a Divinely-Mandated silver platter, it's generally nonsensical and quixotic.