Good vs. Evil (SoD)

[Rhuna_Coppermane]

In my worldview:

Riding into an unsuspecting village and slaughtering all the inhabitants down to the smallest child is Evil.

Trying to defend said village is Good.

Attacking the people who destroyed your village is Not-evil.

Attacking the allies of the people who destroyed your village is Not-evil.

Creating sentient beings solely so that they can be killed for experience is Evil.

Sentient beings who die for no other reason than to give experience to ostensibly Good clerics ought to be considered holy martyrs and get a really nice place in the afterlife.

Not wanting to be a martyr is Not-evil.

Defending yourself from being martyred is Not-evil.

Defending your people from being martyred is Good.

Considering yourself at war with people who have attacked you is Not-evil.

[Porthos]

That presumes, of course, that the whole Secret History of the Crimson Mantle isn't a load of propaganda, now doesn't it? :smalltongue:

Remember, there wasn't exactly any Omniscient Third Person Narration going on here.

Also, I'm quite curious. How does murdering your own brother in cold blood fit into the whole "Good/Evil" axis? :smallwink:

Finally, just because people have visited Evil upon you, doesn't mean you are justified to visit Evil upon them. If that was the case, then all of the children that witnessed their parents being slaughtered in Azure City are justified in slaughtering any hobgoblion they see in the future.

Or, if you prefer, all of the family members of the people that Redcloak has turned into zombies (be it hobgoblin or otherwise) are entilted to do whatever act they want on Redcloak. After all, defending your families is Not-Evil, right?

[TreesOfDeath]

I haven't read SOD, but I think I can judge whats going on here. What AC did was probably wrong (and I think what Rich is saying transecdns DND aligment, GENNOCIDE IS WRONG PERIOD, WETHER OR NOT THE SYSTEM REFLECTS THAT). But burning a town and kill the inhabitiants because they did it to you is almost definately evil. Redcloak openly admits to being specist and has no qualms killing humans or sending Hobgolbins to die for this "noble" cause (even when he stops treating them like cannon fodder0. Redcloak is unquestionably evil, even if he is somewhat sympathetic

[Rhuna_Coppermane]

That presumes, of course, that the whole Secret History of the Crimson Mantle isn't a load of propaganda, now doesn't it? :smalltongue:

Remember, there wasn't exactly any Omniscient Third Person Narration going on here.

Also, I'm quite curious. How does murdering your own brother in cold blood fit into the whole "Good/Evil" axis? :smallwink:

Finally, just because people have visited Evil upon you, doesn't mean you are justified to visit Evil upon them. If that was the case, then all of the children that witnessed their parents being slaughtered in Azure City are justified in slaughtering any hobgoblin they see in the future.

Or, if you prefer, all of the family members of the people that Redcloak has turned into zombies (be it hobgoblin or otherwise) are entilted to do whatever act they want on Redcloak. After all, defending your families is Not-Evil, right?

Oh, killing your own brother and zombifying him is definitely evil. And slaughtering entire towns is evil, no matter who's doing it. And I'd call killing Redcloak to keep him from killing your family is decidedly Not-evil. Killing him because he killed your family is dodgy in my book, but potentially Not-evil.

And note I didn't say that slaughtering the entire population of Azure City in revenge was OK. But then, Redcloak's forces haven't done that.

I would argue, though, that the act of conquering Azure City is not in and of itself evil. The paladins are Azure City's army, or at least a subset of it. They can be safely considered to be at war with goblinkind (well, maybe that can be argued, but it looks like war to me). If you are at war with someone, then they are justified in considering themselves at war with you as well, and if someone is at war with you, gathering an army and storming your city is one of the acts that might be expected. Killing the city's defenders in that case isn't called "evil," it's called "winning."

Turning the defenders into undead after you've won, though, that's evil.

I will grant you that Redcloak's history of the world is possibly slanted, but he believes it to be true.

[Morty]

Wait, the gods made goblins just so good clerics can earn XP? How can they still be good?

[Rhuna_Coppermane]

Wait, the gods made goblins just so good clerics can earn XP? How can they still be good?

Because they say so? I can't come up with a better answer than that.

[Fighteer]

Let us not forget that the bearer of the Crimson Mantle is automatically presumed to be sympathetic to, if not actively engaged in, The Plan, which seeks to unleash the power of the Snarl against the gods themselves to ransom a supposed equality for the goblinoid races. Whether or not the other goblins in Redcloak's village were classically Evil or deserved their fates, Redcloak's predecessor most assuredly did.

That said, it's also worth noting that the Sapphire Guard were responding to a prophecy that one of the goblins in the village would drastically threaten the fabric of the universe in the future. Of course, as with most such attempts to circumvent prophecy, their actions actually created the motivation for Redcloak to take up the Crimson Mantle and embark on the Plan, thus leading in direct sequence to the destruction of three gates and the sack of Azure City.

Nevertheless, all participants in the above drama were acting of their own free will. Defending your people from being slaughtered may not be Evil, but defending someone engaged in a plan to blackmail the gods with the unraveling of all Creation is Evil by direct association.

(a) Committing genocide in response to a prophecy is wrong, even if it isn't technically Evil enough to lose one's paladinhood.
(b) Committing genocide in response to someone else's act of genocide is wrong, period.

As for the motivations of the gods themselves, we have only Redcloak's warped version of events to go by. If The Dark One were really such a sympathetic god, he'd be Good (or at least Neutral), not Evil. They don't sell alignments at the dollar store - they do have a meaning, especially for deities.

Besides, let's get our concepts straight here. The notion that the gods created the goblinoid races solely for the purpose of being slaughtered for XP is ludicrous when taken in the context of an actual world. But this comic is a parody. What Rich is talking about is the motivation of the designers of the D&D game itself. You might as well call Gary Gygax evil, or J.R.R. Tolkien. If you're unable to distinguish these motivations from the motivations of your characters in the game itself, you really don't understand roleplaying.

[Morty]

Besides, let's get our concepts straight here. The notion that the gods created the goblinoid races solely for the purpose of being slaughtered for XP is ludicrous when taken in the context of an actual world. But this comic is a parody. What Rich is talking about is the motivation of the designers of the D&D game itself. You might as well call Gary Gygax evil, or J.R.R. Tolkien. If you're unable to distinguish these motivations from the motivations of your characters in the game itself, you really don't understand roleplaying.

Yeah, I know that Giant is making fun of designers creating a race in a setting with sole purpose of being low-level, easily justifable cannon fodder. It's just that alignments in that comic were already treated serious, so I didn't think it shouldn't be the case here. And you can't really compare gods in fictional universe to real people writing books or designing fictional settings- as much as I hate introducing races that are green/yellow/orange/whatever cannon fodder.
But yeah, I guess I'm taking it a bit too seriously.

[Porthos]

What prophecy??? I certainly don't recall any prophecy about that.

My attuitude toward all of this is rather simple. What the Azure City Strike Force did was wrong (should have only attacked the Bearer of the Crimson Mantle, and at a pinch all of the soldiers in the village). What Redcloak is doing is also wrong. For many, self-evident reasons.

Or to put it another way, two wrongs don't make a right (or even a Not-Evil). :smallsmile:

On the topic of The Dark God and his motivations, what I would really like to see is a 3rd Person Omniscient look at The Dark One before I pass any real judgement on his actions (though I tend to be sympathetic to Right-Eye's view on the matter).

So while Redcloak might have internal justifications for what he is doing, that doesn't mean he is actually justified in the way he is doing it. A subtle, but important difference, in my eyes. :smallsmile:

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Until Redcloak can overcome his justifiabile hatred of humans (or at least lessen it), he will always act in an evil manner. We've seen time and time again in both the main comic and in SoD. At the very least he will have to come to terms with the attack on his village, and, it is quite obvious to me that he hasn't. The decision to stop throwing hobgoblin lives away in an attempt to kill as many humans as possible is a good first step in this direction. But Redcloak has a long, long way to go, IMO.

Right-Eye was able to learn to deal with that day, and move on. Can Redcloak? As a lover of good drama, I actually hope so. But Redcloak is going to have to put a lot more effort into the equation. :smallsmile:

[Fighteer]

What prophecy??? I certainly don't recall any prophecy about that.

My attuitude toward all of this is rather simple. What the Azure City Strike Force did was wrong (should have only attacked the Bearer of the Crimson Mantle, and at a pinch all of the soldiers in the village). What Redcloak is doing is also wrong. For many, self-evident reasons.

Or to put it another way, two wrongs don't make a right (or even a Not-Evil). :smallsmile:
The Sapphire Guard mentions a prophesy on the very first page of their raid on the goblin village in SoD. But Rich as much as said that their genocidal rampage was wrong in his introduction. Nobody is disputing this.

If you accept the basic premise that the gods are "wrong" by creating the goblinoid races as cannon fodder, then you might as well say that the Good deities are in fact Evil. At that point, the alignment system loses all meaning and purpose and we might as well just identify everyone's motives as purely selfish unless a higher power shows up that really does hold everyone's best interests in mind.

But again, you are making the fundamental mistake of confusing the real (metagame) reasons for the existence of goblinoids with the story (in-game) reasons in the majority of fantasy worlds. Yes, you and I know that goblins (and all other evil creatures) exist solely so we can have the satisfaction of playing a noble warrior who cleaves them in twain, and that Good and Evil are arbitrary game mechanics allowing us to feel good about it. If you're the kind of roleplayer who prefers everything in shades of grey, with lots of complex character motivations and no real "good" or "bad" guy, then D&D is really not an ideal system to work with.

The ultimate answer still stands: these guys over here are good and those guys over there are evil because we say so. Now deal with it.

[Morty]

The Sapphire Guard mentions a prophesy on the very first page of their raid on the goblin village in SoD. But Rich as much as said that their genocidal rampage was wrong in his introduction. Nobody is disputing this.

If you accept the basic premise that the gods are "wrong" by creating the goblinoid races as cannon fodder, then you might as well say that the Good deities are in fact Evil. At that point, the alignment system loses all meaning and purpose and we might as well just identify everyone's motives as purely selfish unless a higher power shows up that really does hold everyone's best interests in mind.

But again, you are making the fundamental mistake of confusing the real (metagame) reasons for the existence of goblinoids with the story (in-game) reasons in the majority of fantasy worlds. Yes, you and I know that goblins (and all other evil creatures) exist solely so we can have the satisfaction of playing a noble warrior who cleaves them in twain, and that Good and Evil are arbitrary game mechanics allowing us to feel good about it. If you're the kind of roleplayer who prefers everything in shades of grey, with lots of complex character motivations and no real "good" or "bad" guy, then D&D is really not an ideal system to work with.

The ultimate answer still stands: these guys over here are good and those guys over there are evil because we say so. Now deal with it.

I wasn't aware that D&D alignment system ever had any merit or purpose. Deleting alignment will only make the game better, unfortunaetly few classes and many spells work by alignments. Dang.
I know what you're trying to say and I mostly agree, except of the part that there are no shades of gray in D&D. There are. It's just that there're much less of them than in other systems. But alignment system is just one part of the system, and fairly easy to get rid of.
But there's one thing- did the gods explictly said that "Ok, these greenies will be here so that our clerics can get XP" or rather "Let's create some insignificant, evil race to provide easy XP"? I know that I'm asking for telling the script of the book, but I'll never get the chance to read it, and that's one thing I really want to know.

[LordVader]

I haven't read SOD, but I think I can judge whats going on here. What AC did was probably wrong (and I think what Rich is saying transecdns DND aligment, GENNOCIDE IS WRONG PERIOD, WETHER OR NOT THE SYSTEM REFLECTS THAT). But burning a town and kill the inhabitiants because they did it to you is almost definately evil. Redcloak openly admits to being specist and has no qualms killing humans or sending Hobgolbins to die for this "noble" cause (even when he stops treating them like cannon fodder0. Redcloak is unquestionably evil, even if he is somewhat sympathetic
At least in OotS, I don't remember any humans having qualms about killing gobbos either. As shown in the webcomic Goblins, it all depends on your point of view.

[Porthos]

The Sapphire Guard mentions a prophesy on the very first page of their raid on the goblin village in SoD.

Errr.... No he doesn't. :smallsmile:

"Wretched goblins of these forsaken wastelands: The Twelve Gods have judged your hearts and found them to be Evil.

Further, one among you threatens the very foundations of creation itself."

No prophesy that I can see. Just a bunch of Paladins acting really badly. :smallsmile:


If you're the kind of roleplayer who prefers everything in shades of grey, with lots of complex character motivations and no real "good" or "bad" guy, then D&D is really not an ideal system to work with.

The ultimate answer still stands: these guys over here are good and those guys over there are evil because we say so. Now deal with it.

Well, I've played DnD for over 25 years, and all I'll say is that my experience is a bit different. :smallsmile: I've played plenty of games where there was (as the famous song goes) ".... no good guy, ain't no bad guy. Only you and me and we just disagree." Those were actually some of the best games I was a part of. :smallsmile:

As for the Good/Evil because we say so.... Nahhh, I've also been part of plenty of games where it was quite obvious to just about any random passerby that the things that we were fighting were Evil with a capital "E". As always, it comes down to the DM, the world they create and what type of adventures they want to run. If a DM wants to create a morally ambigious world rich on culture and light on "correct" answers and dogma, then it can work. Likewise, if a DM wants to create a world where the Evil Races act uniformaly Evil... well, that works just as well. It usually comes down to the question: Do monsterous races act like monsters or do they act like people with different motivations. :smallsmile:

Finally, and this is just me talking here, I think I broadly agree with the Good/Evil definitions laid out in the Players Handbook, Book of Vile Darkness, and Book of Exalted Deeds, and so forth. So their definitions don't bother me when it comes right down to it. :smallsmile:

[Porthos]

At least in OotS, I don't remember any humans having qualms about killing gobbos either. As shown in the webcomic Goblins, it all depends on your point of view.

In On the Origins of PCs:
Roy refuses to kill some random orcs just because it would be moderately easier to kill then than just talking to them.

So there's your main example right there. :smallsmile:

I'd get into the whole "point of view" argument.... But that whole debate borders on "moral relativism". And I really, really, really dislike "moral relativism" (or even arguing about it), so I think I'll have to let that one go.:smallsmile:

Put simply (and again this is just me and the games that I run/am a part of): If a person acts in an evil manner, then they are evil. If the person acts in a good manner then they are good. Despite whatever a Splatbook might say to the contrary. So if I am running a game where there are a bunch of Goblins running around just trying to build their own society, then they ain't evil. Likewise if there is an order of humans exterminating goblins just because they think they can get away with it, then they are not good.

Real Simple. :smallsmile:
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Whoops... Looks like I got sucked into the Point of View Argument after all. Oh well, can't win them all. :smalltongue:

[Fighteer]

Errr.... No he doesn't. :smallsmile:

"Wretched goblins of these forsaken wastelands: The Twelve Gods have judged your hearts and found them to be Evil.

Further, one among you threatens the very foundations of creation itself."

No prophesy that I can see. Just a bunch of Paladins acting really badly. :smallsmile:
Hmm... I'll have to agree with you more or less, although how would they know that "one among you threatens the foundations of creation" without divination of some sort?


Well, I've played DnD for over 25 years, and all I'll say is that my experience is a bit different. :smallsmile: I've played plenty of games where there was (as the famous song goes) ".... no good guy, ain't no bad guy. Only you and me and we just disagree." Those were actually some of the best games I was a part of. :smallsmile:

As for the Good/Evil because we say so.... Nahhh, I've also been part of plenty of games where it was quite obvious to just about any random passerby that the things that we were fighting were Evil with a capital "E". As always, it comes down to the DM, the world they create and what type of adventures they want to run. If a DM wants to create a morally ambigious world rich on culture and light on "correct" answers and dogma, then it can work. Likewise, if a DM wants to create a world where the Evil Races act uniformaly Evil... well, that works just as well. It usually comes down to the question: Do monsterous races act like monsters or do they act like people with different motivations. :smallsmile:

Finally, and this is just me talking here, I think I broadly agree with the Good/Evil definitions laid out in the Players Handbook, Book of Vile Darkness, and Book of Exalted Deeds, and so forth. So their definitions don't bother me when it comes right down to it. :smallsmile:
I'm not arguing that D&D doesn't allow shades of grey. Of course it does. My point is that you shouldn't arbitrarily redefine the roles of the deities of the universe for metagaming reasons. If you want to play in a "shades of grey" universe, that's great, but the internal logic of your gameworld has to support it or you end up with serious interplayer and player vs. DM conflicts. For a game to be fun, everyone has to agree on the rules.

Saying "the goblin races were created for cheap XP, therefore they are the oppressed victims of deific persecution and anyone who slaughters them is doing Evil" is putting the cart before the horse. It's faulty logic. It's only applicable to a metagame mindset where you're battling the game itself, not the world your characters are supposed to be immersed in.

[Morty]

Saying "the goblin races were created for cheap XP, therefore they are the oppressed victims of deific persecution and anyone who slaughters them is doing Evil" is putting the cart before the horse. It's faulty logic. It's only applicable to a metagame mindset where you're battling the game itself, not the world your characters are supposed to be immersed in.

Difference is, in "normal" gameworld, while we know that goblins, orcs etc. exist only to provide low-level enemies, it's metagaming. From the perspective of inhabitants of the world, they're just agressive but relatively easy to kill. In SoD however, I understand it was explictly said that gods created goblins for easy XP, which is different from just making them aggresive but easy to kill. Of course, I haven't read the book, so I may be wrong.

[Porthos]

Hmm... I'll have to agree with you more or less, although how would they know that "one among you threatens the foundations of creation" without divination of some sort?


Presumably Soon, when fighting/searching for The Original Bearer of the Crimson Mantle, did a little studing about the cult in question. So, I figure he told all of his Paladins to be on the lookout for whenever The Cult of the Crimson Mantle resurfaces.

Hopefully we'll get a Order of the Rift prequel book, so we can get some better answers. :smallsmile:

As for everything else in your post (which I more or less agree with), I personally think what Redcloak was saying to Xykon about the gods was a load of BS. Or at least very self-serving and leaving out a lot of important details. :smalltongue: And since I think that, I really don't want to get into a long debate about it. :smallsmile:

I figure it was either Rich poking fun at Game Desgin (remember, he's also a Game Designer) or Rich setting something up for the future. If it was Rich poking fun at Game Design, well, it's a joke and it probably shouldn't be really scrutinized that closely (ruining the joke and all that). If it was setting something up for the future? Well, it should be interesting to see how that plays out, if it does. :smallsmile:


Difference is, in "normal" gameworld, while we know that goblins, orcs etc. exist only to provide low-level enemies, it's metagaming. From the perspective of inhabitants of the world, they're just agressive but relatively easy to kill. In SoD however, I understand it was explictly said that gods created goblins for easy XP, which is different from just making them aggresive but easy to kill. Of course, I haven't read the book, so I may be wrong.

Since you're asking about this particular point, allow me to address it. :smallsmile:

Redcloak claims (via crayon narration) that the gods created low-level enemies to be cannon fodder for good aligned clerics. Whether this is actualy the case or not is unknown. We simply have no independent confirmation of this fact, one way or the other. Hence my labeling it earlier as (possible) propaganda. :smallsmile:

[Fighteer]

Difference is, in "normal" gameworld, while we know that goblins, orcs etc. exist only to provide low-level enemies, it's metagaming. From the perspective of inhabitants of the world, they're just agressive but relatively easy to kill. In SoD however, I understand it was explictly said that gods created goblins for easy XP, which is different from just making them aggresive but easy to kill. Of course, I haven't read the book, so I may be wrong.
Yes, that's true. However, we have to remember that it's Redcloak's version of events as related to him by his [evil] deity, retold to Xykon in an attempt to recruit him to Redcloak's side. It's not exactly a situation ripe for an impartial discussion of the facts.

Also, let us remember that metagame concepts like XP and levels are not supposed to be discussed or even understood by the characters in the game itself. The fact that they are in OotS automatically divorces the comic from being a serious treatment of its subject matter. We should not accept any conclusions drawn by characters in the story at face value that are derived from metagaming logic. It creates a circular problem that can't be analyzed rationally. You can argue from a metagame perspective that the gods are wrong to create a race that's so obviously designed as cannon fodder, or you can argue from the characters' perspective that the goblins are brutally persecuted by the humans, but you shouldn't mix the two together.

In conclusion: OotS is a parody and I can't see how we are intended to treat metagame logic expressed by its characters seriously.


Presumably Soon, when fighting/searching for The Original Bearer of the Crimson Mantle, did a little studing about the cult in question. So, I figure he told all of his Paladins to be on the lookout for whenever The Cult of the Crimson Mantle resurfaces.

Hopefully we'll get a Order of the Rift prequel book, so we can get some better answers.
Given this premise and what we know about The Dark One's Plan, then the Sapphire Guard may reasonably assume that any bearer of the Crimson Mantle is actively in pursuit of that Plan and therefore a threat to all creation. Killing him, preemptively or not, is absolutely justified from their point of view. We can't assume that they know about the metagame reasoning behind the Plan.

[Morty]

Redcloak claims (via crayon narration) that the gods created low-level enemies to be cannon fodder for good aligned clerics. Whether this is actualy the case or not is unknown. We simply have no independent confirmation of this fact, one way or the other. Hence my labeling it earlier as (possible) propaganda.

Thanks for clearing that up.


Yes, that's true. However, we have to remember that it's Redcloak's version of events as related to him by his [evil] deity, retold to Xykon in an attempt to recruit him to Redcloak's side. It's not exactly a situation ripe for an impartial discussion of the facts.

Also, let us remember that metagame concepts like XP and levels are not supposed to be discussed or even understood by the characters in the game itself. The fact that they are in OotS automatically divorces the comic from being a serious treatment of its subject matter. We should not accept any conclusions drawn by characters in the story at face value that are derived from metagaming logic. It creates a circular problem that can't be analyzed rationally. You can argue from a metagame perspective that the gods are wrong to create a race that's so obviously designed as cannon fodder, or you can argue from the characters' perspective that the goblins are brutally persecuted by the humans, but you shouldn't mix the two together.

In conclusion: OotS is a parody and I can't see how we are intended to treat metagame logic expressed by its characters seriously.

Well, that's true. Yet I'm still rooting for Redcloak here, exactly because goblins always serve as cannon fodder and never get any spotlight. Who knows, maybe reding SoD would change that.

[Fighteer]

Well, that's true. Yet I'm still rooting for Redcloak here, exactly because goblins always serve as cannon fodder and never get any spotlight. Who knows, maybe reding SoD would change that.
That's fine. If you were to read SoD, you'd feel at once a lot more sympathy for Redcloak and a lot less. I don't want to give away the mega-spoiler, but there's a reason he's subservient to Xykon, and it's not because Xykon can blast him into ash. He put himself into the position he's in entirely through his own actions.

[Porthos]

Given this premise and what we know about The Dark One's Plan, then the Sapphire Guard may reasonably assume that any bearer of the Crimson Mantle is actively in pursuit of that Plan and therefore a threat to all creation. Killing him, preemptively or not, is absolutely justified from their point of view.

Absolutely and 100% agreeed. It's the systematic killing of all of the childern in the village (and other non-combatants I suppose) that I have a huge problem with. But that's a side issue to the whole Crimson Mantle/The Plan thing, I suppose. :smallsmile:

Oh well, I guess the Twelve Gods have decided to be a bit on the harsh side when it comes down to the classic "Orc Baby" debate. :smallbiggrin:

[Ampersand]

Oh well, I guess the Twelve Gods have decided to be a bit on the harsh side when it comes down to the classic "Orc Baby" debate. :smallbiggrin:

Is that any real surprise? They did give Miko a job, after all. :smallbiggrin:

"Let's see, Miss Miyazaki...says here you're bullheaded, quick to violence and single minded in your pursuit of the destruction of evil, to the point of neglecting all pretenses of sociability and basic human empathy."

"Umm..."

"You're perfect paladin material. Welcome aboard! Tiger will show you to your locker and the commissary, and show you how to fill out your time card."

[Fighteer]

Absolutely and 100% agreeed. It's the systematic killing of all of the childern in the village (and other non-combatants I suppose) that I have a huge problem with. But that's a side issue to the whole Crimson Mantle/The Plan thing, I suppose. :smallsmile:

Oh well, I guess the Twelve Gods have decided to be a bit on the harsh side when it comes down to the classic "Orc Baby" debate. :smallbiggrin:
We're supposed to have a problem with it. Rich made that plain in the foreword. But again, it's done to point out a gaping hole in the core D&D ruleset: how often do you see a "kill the evil orcs" adventure module that forces the PCs to deal with all the women and children left over when they're done? It's a mistake to discuss OotS as a whole without considering the context of what it's intended to parody.

[Castamir]

One word: Kore.

[Rhuna_Coppermane]

One word: Kore.

Erm? I don't see how Persephone applies, or a small tribe in Kenya. I don't suppose you'd care to disambiguate that?

[Jefepato]

One word: Kore.

Kore is wacky. The author of Goblins freely admitted, both in-comic and on his forum, that Kore is really obviously not good-aligned and that there's a reason he gets away with it anyway.

He's a unique exception from another comic and has no real bearing on this discussion.

[Alex Knight]

Erm? I don't see how Persephone applies, or a small tribe in Kenya. I don't suppose you'd care to disambiguate that?

He is referring to the Dwarf Paladin (so-called), in the comic Goblins, who kills anyone who might even have non-violent contact with evil, no matter their age or the fashion of the contact.

[TheAlmightyOne]

I havent read SoD but my valuble contribution is, go team evil!

[Demented]

Reading this discussion (I probably shouldn't; haven't read SoD) leads me to believe that it would be interesting to make a campaign where the alignment system puts Human behavior under the "Evil" category, and only certain other races, like Elves, are "Good" and gain the benefits thereof.

An example perspective would be as follows:
(Not a spoiler, unless it inspires a future Homebrew thread.)
Human
As they are, humans are born evil. They are maliceful, spiteful, vengeful, jealous, and violent. They are often impartial to pain inflicted on others, intolerant to their own pain, are ever reliant on baleful concepts like "justice" and "revenge", filled with hubris and price, are prone to a path of theft, from eachother, from other races, even from the world around them, and above all they seek to dominate everything around them. Even the laws and concepts they hold dear are shackles on freedom, bare restrictions that must be imposed by threat and violence in order to hold their evil race in check.

Even their best traits are vague and scarce. They claim concepts such as mercy and forgiveness, but not such as we pure elves would know. Their mercy demands forgiveness, and in turn their forgiveness demands mercy, as one might strike a truce. Their love is an ill-defined thing, rarely occurring by any definition. While they claim great strides in building peaceful societies, the greater cooperation they arrive at only allows them to delve deeper into vice and excess. In all recorded history, only a handful of humans have ever been found with a zeal for Good that is as great as our own, and even these 'heroes', as some might call them, are cursed by the iniquity of their own blood.

In Elven opinion, and indeed by the definitions of Good and Evil handed down by our gods, it is clear that the best fate for this wretched race is destruction. Though our morality disallows such wide-spanning action, the favor of good still allows us recourse. It is our Elven duty, to the greater good, to all peaceful races, and to the world itself, to test all humans we encounter and put a blade through those who fail.

[Ampersand]

Reading this discussion (I probably shouldn't; haven't read SoD) leads me to believe that it would be interesting to make a campaign where the alignment system puts Human behavior under the "Evil" category, and only certain other races, like Elves, are "Good" and gain the benefits thereof.

The thing I find amusing about the alignment system is the fact that a lot of people like to claim that D&D has an absolute alignment system. However, under an absolute alignment system, nearly ever adventurer in existence would be Evil, since they routinely engage in B&E, theft, assault, assault with deadly weapons, premeditated murder, manslaughter, desecration of corpses, grave robbing, hypocrisy and vandalism. Any adventuring group would also have to be non-Lawful as well, as they pronounce judgment on fellow sentients (usually as an excuse to kill them, eg "These goblins are Evil, and thus must die!") arbitrarily and without any sort of due process and reject all outside authority, usually in a violent fashion.

[Demented]

I find that to be less something funny about the alignment system, and more as something funny about adventuring parties.

Oh, and they'd be Chaotic Evil as well, since nearly everything you listed is a broken law. (!)

[Jefepato]

The thing I find amusing about the alignment system is the fact that a lot of people like to claim that D&D has an absolute alignment system. However, under an absolute alignment system, nearly ever adventurer in existence would be Evil, since they routinely engage in B&E, theft, assault, assault with deadly weapons, premeditated murder, manslaughter, desecration of corpses, grave robbing, hypocrisy and vandalism. Any adventuring group would also have to be non-Lawful as well, as they pronounce judgment on fellow sentients (usually as an excuse to kill them, eg "These goblins are Evil, and thus must die!") arbitrarily and without any sort of due process and reject all outside authority, usually in a violent fashion.

I've never once heard anyone claim that D&D has an absolute alignment system (if they did, you would be more or less correct). It has an objective alignment system, which is very different.