Is this evil?

[SangoProduction]

Red Fel
Red Fel
Red Fel

Or something like that.

I was watching Nino Kuni playthrough recently, and it features a "give heart" spell, which basically is giving an NPC an abundance of a character trait that they were lacking, such as faith, kindness, courage, enthusiasm, restraint, confidence etc, etc.
Never do we see any long term repressions of this spell, and the character clearly doesn't have anything but the best intentions. However, there's always a massive swing in character attitude and personality, and being given the heart is not voluntary.

So, taking this to a D&D game, if I made a mind-manipulator mage of some sort, and basically rewrote bad guys so that they'd be not-bad guys (ignoring any potential trivialization of game play), would that be evil? Better than killing them, right?
What about giving a worried husband the faith that the suspicious wife isn't doing anything weird? It's making them feel better, even though it solves none of the questions.
What about a town guard being scared of the coming orc attack? Is it fine to grant him confidence and courage, even though that does little to ensure his actual ability in the town's defense?
What about for a shop keeper who's stingy and rude to be made more kind and giving?

[Evil DM Mark3]

So, taking this to a D&D game, if I made a mind-manipulator mage of some sort, and basically rewrote bad guys so that they'd be not-bad guys (ignoring any potential trivialization of game play), would that be evil? Better than killing them, right?Well it ain't Good. I would say that, beyond that, you are looking at a case by case situation, certainly its better than killing someone, but then again depending on how much you alter them then it more or less IS killing them.
What about giving a worried husband the faith that the suspicious wife isn't doing anything weird? It's making them feel better, even though it solves none of the questions.Probably evil and certainly deeply unhelpful. You have the magic to re-write people but can't find out the truth to give this guy an answer?

What about a town guard being scared of the coming orc attack? Is it fine to grant him confidence and courage, even though that does little to ensure his actual ability in the town's defense?Well considering that the spell Heroism doesn't have the [Evil] tag in 3.5 I am going to assume not. But personally I would ask first, you know?

What about for a shop keeper who's stingy and rude to be made more kind and giving?Yeah, I think the line for mind alteration was passed a while ago if you are using it to get better Customer Service.

[False God]

So, taking this to a D&D game, if I made a mind-manipulator mage of some sort, and basically rewrote bad guys so that they'd be not-bad guys (ignoring any potential trivialization of game play), would that be evil?
That depends on where free will sits on your game's cosmic scale of good and evil. Since most good gods like freedom, I'd argue that taking away freedom, especially free will, is bad. I've had characters do this. I have never considered it to be a good deed.

Making someone realize the error of their ways and choosing to repent via some kind of mental magic where they see all the horrors their evil deeds have wrought is one thing, and I'd probably consider that good. Simply erasing all their bad thoughts and replacing them with bunnies and sunflowers is generally portrayed as a cruelty, not a benefit.


Better than killing them, right?
Says who?


What about giving a worried husband the faith that the suspicious wife isn't doing anything weird? It's making them feel better, even though it solves none of the questions.
What if the wife is doing something weird? (having an affair, summoning old gods, having an affair with old gods, etc...) What you have here is "false hope", which is generally regarded as a bad thing. It's probably worse the way you go about it by actually changing their brain.


What about a town guard being scared of the coming orc attack? Is it fine to grant him confidence and courage, even though that does little to ensure his actual ability in the town's defense?
While D&D does a poor job of modeling it, courage and confidence can go a long way to improve a person's ability to do pretty much anything. The power if belief is a very strong thing, but not something that D&D models well. Yes, D&D has morale bonuses which can be used to model this, but there's no real good hard-fast application.


What about for a shop keeper who's stingy and rude to be made more kind and giving?
Again, it's completely his right to be stingy and rude, you're not Scrooge-ing him by showing him how his stingyness has harmed others, pushed people away, or how people actually think of him. You're just re-writing his mind. Mr Scrooge here hasn't changed, now he's just Mr Marley. A completely different person with a different set of morals and values.

Going back to
Better than killing them, right? You've basically killed them. You killed who they were, what their life and their choices and their actions and their experiences had made them and replaced them with a new person. But you've done it in a way that is arguably crueler than just death.

[Inevitability]

If we're talking 'evil' in terms of actual real-life morals: probably yes. Humans tend to value free will quite a bit.

If we're talking 'evil' in D&D terms... Definitely not. D&D alignment is so out of phase with our intuitions for what is and is not evil that something that is Obviously Not Okay in real life is completely compatible with a good alignment in-game. You can literally tear out someone's soul, imprison it in a gem for months, brainwash it into changing alignment, and not only is the entire process compatible with a Good character, being Good is actually a requirement.

This pattern extends to Charm spells, Dominate spells, Programmed Amnesia, Modify Memory, the Hat of Opposite Alignment and a bunch of other morality-altering effects (cheating at games of chance, on the other hand, nets you a one-way trip to the lower planes).

[JeenLeen]

I think, in most D&D contexts, these actions would be Neutral or Good. Granting courage to the guard being almost certainly non-evil, as that provides a practical use even if it doesn't change overall odds.
I think D&D generally doesn't care as much about the will behind things or free will in general as it does the action. Mind alteration spells are generally neutral, tagged neither [Good] nor [Evil]. The exceptions being Sanctify the Wicked (generally do derided in moral discussion that we're probably best ignoring it to keep conversation civil) and Mindrape (which seems evil more due to fluff than effect as it's little different from Programmed Amnesia, if I recall correctly (which I may not)).

However, I get why some would feel inclined to make it considered evil or categorize it as Evil. It boils down to if forcibly changing a personality is inherently a bad thing, if making someone better (more Good?) and still showing an appreciation for life.

[Faily]

In the context of Ni No Kuni, from what I can recall of what I played of it, Give Heart is supposed to be a good thing.


“ This spell allows you to give the virtues shared using Take Heart to people who are in need of them. In that it offers a means to save the brokenhearted, this is one of the most important spells a wizard can learn. Needless to say, its use necessitates the utmost care and forethought. ”
—Wizard's Companion

Give Heart is an important everyday spell that allows the caster to give a piece of heart kept inside the locket to someone who has a broken heart. It is one of two spells Oliver gets after defeating the Guardian of the Woods, the other spell being Take Heart.



“ As previously explained, the heart if made up of virtues, emotions, and various other elements. This spell allows you to take some virtue from a person who has it an abundance, and store it in the Locket. Just be sure to ask for permission before you proceed. Remember: a heart belongs to one person, and one person alone. ”
—Wizard's Companion

Take Heart is an everyday spell that allows the caster to take a piece of someone's heart and to be kept in the locket for later use. It is one of two spells Oliver gets after defeating the Guardian of the Woods, the other spell being Give Heart.

Ni No Kuni has a very innocent and childish view on its world most of the time, and that is the case of Give Heart/Take Heart. The belief that some people are just blessed with an abundance of virtues and can share it with those who are lacking, and that way everyone is happy.

Take Heart says "ask for permission", and Give heart says "its use necessitates the utmost care and forethought", to remind the player/protagonist that feelings and heart is important, as well as consent and being empathic of the actual needs of those in need of Heart.


From what I recall of the game's setting and the intentions, it's not evil.

[Malphegor]

Depends on how you consider good and evil. Most heroes in fantasy fiction of a certain age tend to be ‘ends justify the means’ types. Altering a person’s mind is just in such a scenario.

However, it is robbing someone of their mind, the very construct that allows them to know who and what they are, and replacing it with one of your design, without consent.

Death at least sends them to the afterlife they would best befit. Killing who they are and letting some monstrously good facsimile of your design smile and wave and act in their body... Why, I’d argue that’s downright evil, is it not? After all, what has happened to the soul in this situation? Some schools of thought would suggest that the soul is still innately tainted by their evil deeds, and even in their altered state they can never truly atone for they did not do it of their own merit. Again, evil, for you have denied them the ability to redeem themselves by their own bootstraps.

Other schools of thought would suggest that by altering a mind you have also killed their old soul and used its remmants to construct a new one. Killing souls is evil by RAW, but using the bits... I don’t know, recycling maybe.

[Katie Boundary]

If you are violating the rights of someone who has done no wrong, then you're being evil regardless of what you THINK the consequences would be.

If someone is being evil and violating the rights of others, then they have forfeited their own rights, and you have carte blanche to brainwash them, kill them, whatever.

[Remuko]

In the context of D&D creating more Good, is a good thing. If you force demons and devils to Good, thats a good thing in the objective morality of the D&Dverse. I wont speak to any real world stuff, cuz rules.

[Malroth]

In our world it would be decried as irredeemably evil. In Dnd land its merely Lawful.

[Kelb_Panthera]

From a philosophical angle it's an interesting question.

From a game rules perspective, it's pretty straight-forward. Freedom vs its absence is on the law-chaos scale, not the good-evil scale. So the answer to your titular question is "no, and it's not inherently good either."

Of note, however, is the fact that there is exactly -one- spell that lets you rewrite someone's mind completely and involuntarily in a way that is largely irreversible; mindrape. That spell carries the [Evil] tag and casting it is an undeniably evil act no matter what use you put it to. Everything else is one or another degree of inherently temporary.

You can nudge someone's mind in a direction you think it ought to go but unless you're going to stick around and nurse it until they genuinely lock into what you believe under their own volition, you have to accept that whatever you did is either going to wear off and they'll go back to wherever their own inclinations take them or that what you've done can be undone with a simple dispelling effect.

More deeply, the alignment system is concerned with both the consequences and the motivations of your actions. When you mean well and you cause them no harm you're probably in the clear on the moral axis. Imposing your will without regard to what your targets think will probably start to push you either toward chaos if your motivation is "I know what they need better than they do" or law if it's more "this is what my religion/ society says is how people should be." In all likelihood, such a character will eventually end up at LE; a tyrant drunk on their own power and hubris.

[Vaern]

As far as I'm aware, manipulating people's free will isn't evil according to D&D's standards. In fact, there's a couple of enchantments within the Book of Exalted Deeds that force evil creatures to grow a conscience and feel guilt for their evil deeds which may make them more susceptible to being converted to good.

[Red Fel]

Red Fel
Red Fel
Red Fel

Yo!


So, taking this to a D&D game, if I made a mind-manipulator mage of some sort, and basically rewrote bad guys so that they'd be not-bad guys (ignoring any potential trivialization of game play), would that be evil? Better than killing them, right?
What about giving a worried husband the faith that the suspicious wife isn't doing anything weird? It's making them feel better, even though it solves none of the questions.
What about a town guard being scared of the coming orc attack? Is it fine to grant him confidence and courage, even though that does little to ensure his actual ability in the town's defense?
What about for a shop keeper who's stingy and rude to be made more kind and giving?

Well, let's start with the BoED's answer to this:


As far as I'm aware, manipulating people's free will isn't evil according to D&D's standards. In fact, there's a couple of enchantments within the Book of Exalted Deeds that force evil creatures to grow a conscience and feel guilt for their evil deeds which may make them more susceptible to being converted to good.

There's also Sanctify the Wicked, which forcibly converts an Evil creature to a being of Good. So, by BoED's standards, this sort of thing is not just Good, but objectively Exalted. Moving on, several other responses:


If we're talking 'evil' in terms of actual real-life morals: probably yes. Humans tend to value free will quite a bit.

If we're talking 'evil' in D&D terms... Definitely not. D&D alignment is so out of phase with our intuitions for what is and is not evil that something that is Obviously Not Okay in real life is completely compatible with a good alignment in-game. You can literally tear out someone's soul, imprison it in a gem for months, brainwash it into changing alignment, and not only is the entire process compatible with a Good character, being Good is actually a requirement.

This pattern extends to Charm spells, Dominate spells, Programmed Amnesia, Modify Memory, the Hat of Opposite Alignment and a bunch of other morality-altering effects (cheating at games of chance, on the other hand, nets you a one-way trip to the lower planes).


I think, in most D&D contexts, these actions would be Neutral or Good. Granting courage to the guard being almost certainly non-evil, as that provides a practical use even if it doesn't change overall odds.
I think D&D generally doesn't care as much about the will behind things or free will in general as it does the action. Mind alteration spells are generally neutral, tagged neither [Good] nor [Evil]. The exceptions being Sanctify the Wicked (generally do derided in moral discussion that we're probably best ignoring it to keep conversation civil) and Mindrape (which seems evil more due to fluff than effect as it's little different from Programmed Amnesia, if I recall correctly (which I may not)).

These. Generally speaking, violating a person's free will is not automatically Good or Evil, depending on context. And because of the objective morality system, generally speaking, creating more Good in the world through non-Evil means is pretty much exclusively Good, full stop. That's what you're doing here - using non-Evil means (read: brainwashing) to create more Good in the world (read: more positive personality traits).

[Psyren]

Well, let's start with the BoED's answer to this:



There's also Sanctify the Wicked, which forcibly converts an Evil creature to a being of Good. So, by BoED's standards, this sort of thing is not just Good, but objectively Exalted.

That's because in BoED's view, you're not converting them so much as restoring them. BoED follows a view of morality (I won't name the prominent philosopher whose work this view is based on) whereby sapient beings are fundamentally good and that evil is an unnatural corruption of that brought on by complex societal (and supernatural in D&D's case) forces. BoED believes that in the absence of this corruption, everyone would choose to be good.

I won't speak to how valid this view is in the absence of Sanctified Magic (and definitely won't speak to its real world validity), but purely in the D&D context, the fact that the spell works the way it does suggests there's at least some truth to it.

[hamishspence]

4e's BoVD had something similar - with evil : "Vile Darkness" as being an unnatural corruption of the universe, with the universe in its natural state, not containing it.