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shadow_archmagi
2008-01-21, 06:48 AM
It occurs to me that this is potentially even more disastrous than create food and water.

Just think about it... a single item of "detect evil" and suddenly trials amount to "Is he evil?"
"NNnnnnnope."
"Free to go."

Heck, you could just stand large amounts of populace in a room and snipe off the evil ones. What effects would this have on a society?

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-01-21, 06:55 AM
That is why we ignore alignments in my campaigns.

I'll leave it to everyone else to tell him the problems with convicting people on the basis of good/evil, I'm too tired. Although I would love to have one of those for the primaries.

Charles Phipps
2008-01-21, 07:01 AM
It occurs to me that this is potentially even more disastrous than create food and water.

Just think about it... a single item of "detect evil" and suddenly trials amount to "Is he evil?"
"NNnnnnnope."
"Free to go."

Heck, you could just stand large amounts of populace in a room and snipe off the evil ones. What effects would this have on a society?

Well, it sorta boils down to the fact that Good and Evil are not something you actually judge ethically in society. Seriously, in your average D&D society, you have the Priests of Set in the middle of the place with their Towers of Darkness. Everyone knows they're evil. They practice human sacrifice and god knows what else.

You could kill them but then the town will be visited with Boils, Plagues, Locusts, and Snake Attacks by one very ****ed off Set.

In your D&D world, Evil is a lifestyle choice. There's no moral judgment from the majority of the world because "Might makes Right" in the standard D&D village. Sure, you might have your clerics of Lawful Goodness run cities but these are rare.

And even then, there's lots of "sinful" people that they would prefer to convert than kill.

Khanderas
2008-01-21, 07:02 AM
It occurs to me that this is potentially even more disastrous than create food and water.

Just think about it... a single item of "detect evil" and suddenly trials amount to "Is he evil?"
"NNnnnnnope."
"Free to go."

Heck, you could just stand large amounts of populace in a room and snipe off the evil ones. What effects would this have on a society?
Love the part with putting people in a room and snipe off the evil people. Seems kinda evil :smallamused:

Also, you may be evil and still follow the law. You can break the law and still be good. You may be evil and, but innocent of the crime you are on trial for. You might have done it, but dont know it (magically tricked, programmed amnesia). You might have done it to prevent something even worse from happening.


Now Zone of truth or such things...
BUT, Isn't that really possible today though polygraph tests ? And justice today make more an effort then strapping someone to a machine and ask them if they did it.

kamikasei
2008-01-21, 07:07 AM
Just think about it... a single item of "detect evil" and suddenly trials amount to "Is he evil?"
"NNnnnnnope."
"Free to go."

Good-aligned people are entirely capable of committing crimes.

Charles Phipps
2008-01-21, 07:09 AM
Good-aligned people are entirely capable of committing crimes.

Plus, let's face it, the Evil People are as likely to be the guys in charge. The guy who has the army and forces all the Peasants to pay their taxes is likely to be Neutral as anything.

Why does he care if you're evil? Hell, he might give you a job since you'll make those Gods Damned Peasants finally pay their taxes!

WillWolf
2008-01-21, 07:09 AM
Let's take Eberron for an example and see how they work with this one. In Eberron if something performs "the greater good" that being they do something good without intention, isn't that good in a sense? Is the man who enterigrates people and gains great joy in doing so might be evil, but he gets information necessary for a government to defend itself.

Now if that is the case, it would be a double standard to kill the people who do good works with evil intentions, and evil works with evil intentions on the basis of detect good or evil. Also that being said evil could just as easily be someone who waters down their ail in order to make more money off of their customers as Evil McEvil, the eater of children's hearts. =P.

Jack_Simth
2008-01-21, 07:13 AM
BUT, Isn't that really possible today though polygraph tests ? And justice today make more an effort then strapping someone to a machine and ask them if they did it.
Polygraph test are inadmissible in court - it was discovered that roughly 90% of polygraph tests came out in favor of the person who was paying the person doing the interpretation of the squiggly lines and associated tape recording of the question/answer session (as in, both the prosecution and defense pay someone to interpret the same test, and the prosecution's guy says "he's lying when he says he didn't do it" while the defense's guy says "he's telling the truth when he says he didn't do it").


Just think about it... a single item of "detect evil" and suddenly trials amount to "Is he evil?"
"NNnnnnnope."
"Free to go."

"Man, I love this Ring of Mind Shielding. Best 8,000 gp I ever spent... gets all my clients off, now that they've stopped doing any actual investigative work."

Khanderas
2008-01-21, 07:21 AM
Originally Posted by Khanderas
BUT, Isn't that really possible today though polygraph tests ? And justice today make more an effort then strapping someone to a machine and ask them if they did itPolygraph test are inadmissible in court - it was discovered that roughly 90% of polygraph tests came out in favor of the person who was paying the person doing the interpretation of the squiggly lines and associated tape recording of the question/answer session (as in, both the prosecution and defense pay someone to interpret the same test, and the prosecution's guy says "he's lying when he says he didn't do it" while the defense's guy says "he's telling the truth when he says he didn't do it").

Exactly :)
Though I do hope that they can't really say he lies / he tells the truth on the same test. If it is open to interpretation they best say so. Most of the times the line spikes quite alot when they lie, but still, you might have done it and believe you didnt and it would not (physically) be a lie. Or you can just not care and know you did it and the machine would still not react.

Drascin
2008-01-21, 08:23 AM
"Man, I love this Ring of Mind Shielding. Best 8,000 gp I ever spent... gets all my clients off, now that they've stopped doing any actual investigative work."

Yeah, 8000 gp is a crapload of money, but I could see a lawyer getting a loan and buying one, and paying it with the money from winning every single case :smallamused: . Hell, if he's willing to indebt himself more for even better verdicts, an item of Misdirection would be even better. What better way to disprove accusattions of evilness than showing up Lawful Good? :smallamused:

But, to the OP: generally, there's something to take into account, that is, a single evil act rarely is enough to turn you evil enough to show in the evildar. A man who commits manslaughter in a stress situation, or under emotional duress, or as a passion crime or somesuch, is most likely not going to show in the evildar if he's been neutral for the most part during his life.

And, on the other hand, a man can be solidly evil - a con artist, willing to separate defenseless little old women from their lifelong savings and enslave orphans to exploitation contracts and somesuch - and yet be innocent of the particular charge he's being tried for, if it is, say, first degree murder, since he'd never actually hurt anyone because he finds violence squicky and lacking in style.

Mr. Friendly
2008-01-21, 08:47 AM
It really depends.

You could have an evil police state with checkpoints all over the city, each stationed with someone casting detect good.

In general though, as others have pointed out, the spell is too easily defeated to be a practical basis for any sort of legal system.

Although in most good societies, the Paladins are going to running the legal system and if Sir Heroicus the Champion of Tyr tells the Judge Sir Honoracus the Mighty that the defendant is a scum sucking liar and is EVIL, well... I don't think his court-appointed attorney is going to be able to help him much.

sikyon
2008-01-21, 09:31 AM
There's lots of way to get around it, ie. misdirection. You can bribe the caster, etc.

Furthermore good people go to jail if they violate the law.

For example, suppose that you are a good person, and you are attacked by another person for money. He does not have a weapon, but you kill him. It was unreasonable to do so, but you thought it was reasonable based on your own system. So you did what you thought was right, but to the general public it was excessive. You will still retain a good alignment, but you will also be convicted of manslaughter.

Good =/= innocent.

Riffington
2008-01-21, 09:39 AM
If it's reasonably cheap, Detect alignment has a tremendous impact on hiring for organizations.
Want to hire a secretary? Make sure he's lawful - you want someone organized and detail-oriented. Picking a teacher? Make sure he isn't lawful - the lawful ones miss the big picture in favor of the stupid rules.
Thinking of promoting someone to management? Make sure he isn't evil - he won't treat subordinates well, and it'll hurt morale. Besides, you can hire all the most talented people in the land if you can guarantee they'll get to work for a Chaotic Good boss...

hewhosaysfish
2008-01-21, 10:13 AM
Don't give Detect Evil to the cops. Like people, it determines guilt and innocence unreliably and inaccurately. Don't use Detect Evil to detect crime; use it to detect evil.

Have your gate/border guards use it: "Sorry, we don't want your sort around here." Of course, this assumes that "Evil" is actually Evil, not just bad. If you get an Evil alignment for not leaving the toilet seat down or littlering, then perhaps this should just be a warning sign that you need to look deeper. In any case, it shouldn't be the only check.

Alignment screens could be an addition to the various background checks they do for government jobs, teachers, etc.

Would anyone call me fascist if I suggest using it to put an Alignment section on school report cards? "Could do better." Call little Joshua's parents into the school to discuss the fact that he's Chaotic Evil (all children are, but that's beside the point) and maybe suggest a good therapist? Or Good therapist, pardon the pun.
If, as I mentioned above, you become Evil through not holding the door for people or parking on double-yellows then that low level of Evil may be acceptable. Just check that they're not Evil "BabyEater" McStabInFace, tick the "Registered Evil" box on their passport (so they can get back in the country without any hassle, see above) and let them go about their lives.

Annual Alignment check-ups? People go to see their local cleric, he checks their reflexes (FIRESTORM! No, not that sort of reflexes...) and their pulse and stuff and while they're there, he gives their soul a once-over too. Slightly evil people see a counselor, BabyEater gets sectioned.

Jaltum
2008-01-21, 10:30 AM
Well, keep in mind, we're not talking about applying detect evil to a modern day court-room setting. Given D&D's hemidemisemiquasimedievalesque-flavored setting, I wouldn't expect the justice system to be any great shakes, anyway. Defense attorneys don't really enter into it.

Detect evil means that at least if someone is punished based on hearsay, gossip, or popular prejudice, they were probably guilty of SOMETHING.

Crimson Avenger
2008-01-21, 11:06 AM
Detect Alignment only gives you a starting point. You'll still need strip searches, to find that ring shoved up McStabby's a**. And then there will have to be a Greater Dispel or better, followed by a Zone of Truth or better. Using magical means to determine guilt or innocense is a hassle at best, and at worst, you always wonder wether he rolled a 20 on the saving throw.

HidaTsuzua
2008-01-21, 11:21 AM
It really depends on how you view alignments in your game and what determines them. It could have no effect, make for an ironically evil government, or make the society a better place. Remember even if some evil gets though (thanks to their 8000gp rings or whatever) you'll cut down a good number of evil. This in turn effect alignment of the population (either though incentives or selection) and will likely decrease the evil even more.

Always you don't make your legal system just Detect Evil. Speak with Dead and Zone of Truth ruin the vast majority of mystery cases. Make a Zone of Truth trap and a Husk Ball from Liber Mortis and things get a lot easier. You won't solve everything, but it makes legal work a lot easier (especially compared to how legal charges worked until fairly recently).

RS14
2008-01-21, 11:22 AM
The problem with spells or rings being used to circumvent interrogation magic is that the suspect will probably get swept with Detect Magic as well as being stripped of magic items and watched for several hours to ensure that spells expire. Unless the suspect happens to have a Magic-Aura'd Suppository of Mind Shielding or are a sorcerer or bard with still and silent spell, I can't see the interrogation being circumvented.

Prophaniti
2008-01-21, 12:02 PM
This is why, in my campaigns, alignment is not a solid thing for mortals. It's more like a general indication of how they behave, and spells like 'detect alignment' or 'protection from alignment' will not work on normal people. They still have a place in the world, since they do work on outsiders, undead and other manner of supernatural beings.

Chronos
2008-01-21, 01:38 PM
Unless the suspect happens to have a Magic-Aura'd Suppository of Mind Shielding or are a sorcerer or bard with still and silent spell, I can't see the interrogation being circumvented.Don't forget the high-level rogue who uses Sleight of Hand to palm his ring in a lead carrying case while being searched. And you'd need to wait two days to rule out an Extended Mindblank, which might be longer than the police care to keep the fellow in custody.

hewhosaysfish
2008-01-21, 01:59 PM
Don't forget the high-level rogue who uses Sleight of Hand to palm his ring in a lead carrying case while being searched. And you'd need to wait two days to rule out an Extended Mindblank, which might be longer than the police care to keep the fellow in custody.

If a 17th level wizard (or someone who can hire him) is robbing banks, then they can afford to keep him in the clink for 2 days.
If a 17th level wizard is shoplifting... let him, who cares...

VanBuren
2008-01-21, 02:00 PM
If a 17th level wizard (or someone who can hire him) is robbing banks, then they can afford to keep him in the clink for 2 days.
If a 17th level wizard is shoplifting... let him, who cares...

The owner, for starters. If you give a wizard a muffin...

...he'll want your Kingdom's treasury to go with it.

ashmanonar
2008-01-21, 02:02 PM
They'd have trouble keeping lawyers in this kind of justice system.

*Detect Evil*
"He's evil!" *whack*

"...That was the defendant's lawyer."

Prometheus
2008-01-21, 07:10 PM
I can't imagine that anyone who was evil, especially Lawful and organized evil, would let society as a whole paint them as inferior, undesirable. Instead they might call themselves the "strong", the "deterring", the "powerful", the "divine". Therefore, Evil and Good would be another way human identify themselves, but not necessarily in the ways we usually associate the terms.

Charles Phipps
2008-01-21, 07:37 PM
Although in most good societies, the Paladins are going to running the legal system and if Sir Heroicus the Champion of Tyr tells the Judge Sir Honoracus the Mighty that the defendant is a scum sucking liar and is EVIL, well... I don't think his court-appointed attorney is going to be able to help him much.

I dunno, you know Flanders is LG.

Do YOU want him as the arbitrator of your behavior?

Seriously, most people in the world are Neutral. Doesn't that mean that the Good will be dismissed as fanatics and bleeding hearts? If I were ruler, I'd have all of the Lawful Good people rounded up and executed....because frankly, I don't need the hassle.

Icewalker
2008-01-21, 07:40 PM
Another important note that I feel is worth mentioning is that one can be Chaotic and not break the law, and one can be Lawful and break the law.

Chaotic and Lawful are not inherently based in any way on the law of the land. Chaotic is somewhat carefree, somebody who will do something for the hell of it, is usually chaotic. Somebody who follows a strict code, be it moral, legal, arboreal, whatever, is lawful.

This is just my idea of that aspect of alignment at least.

Also, as mentioned in Cliffport and this thread, it is too easy to screw up those spells, so I'm going to take a step up from theirs and just make it so in my world, court buildings are set up with permanent anti-magic wards.

Voyager_I
2008-01-21, 08:22 PM
Evil =/= Villainy

Evil people can be functional members of society for any number of reasons, and simply pinging up on a Paladin's E-dar isn't a capital crime. Yeah, maybe they don't pick up hitchhikers or donate to the local orphanage, but at the same time it doesn't mean they're abducting those orphans to sew their skin into decorative wallets.

13_CBS
2008-01-21, 09:13 PM
I SERIOUSLY hope this topic isn't violating the "no politics" rule :smalleek:

John Campbell
2008-01-22, 03:09 AM
Many of you seem to be still thinking in terms of a criminal justice system developed by a world that doesn't have magic, or alignment, and certainly not magic that detects alignment. In a world that does... why even bother with a complicated legal system based on mere fallible mortals' attempts to weigh the good of society and morality and aggravating and mitigating factors to achieve a clumsy approximation of true justice? You can just bust out a first level spell, or an at-will ability, and appeal the whole thing to the ultimate authority, higher than the gods themselves... the DM.

You'll still need civil law, but on the criminal side, all you need is one crime... Being Evil. Make the sentence anything you feel appropriate, up to and including summary execution. (D&D was basically designed around Good adventurers breaking into Evil creatures' homes and killing them out of hand just for being Evil. Even paladins can do this without so much as bending their Code.) No more worrying about whether someone did or did not commit any particular crime, or whether they might have had a moral justification for their acts. No more trying to prove things with all that messy evidence and detective work and unreliable - or just plain dishonest - witnesses. You can just directly consult the ultimate moral scoreboard and hand down the fate they deserve.

That guy whose aura stunned the paladin that checked him? Maybe he hasn't done anything yet, but that doesn't mean he's innocent. He's Evil. Kill him now and it'll save all his potential victims down the road. That other guy with the stolen loaf of bread? He detects as Good, so he must've had a morally justified reason for taking it... or at least it's such a minor act and he does it so infrequently that it's not enough to shift his alignment. He's free to go, maybe with a warning.

(Hate alignment soooo much....)

Talic
2008-01-22, 03:35 AM
Many of you seem to be still thinking in terms of a criminal justice system developed by a world that doesn't have magic, or alignment, and certainly not magic that detects alignment. In a world that does... why even bother with a complicated legal system based on mere fallible mortals' attempts to weigh the good of society and morality and aggravating and mitigating factors to achieve a clumsy approximation of true justice? You can just bust out a first level spell, or an at-will ability, and appeal the whole thing to the ultimate authority, higher than the gods themselves... the DM.

You'll still need civil law, but on the criminal side, all you need is one crime... Being Evil. Make the sentence anything you feel appropriate, up to and including summary execution. (D&D was basically designed around Good adventurers breaking into Evil creatures' homes and killing them out of hand just for being Evil. Even paladins can do this without so much as bending their Code.) No more worrying about whether someone did or did not commit any particular crime, or whether they might have had a moral justification for their acts. No more trying to prove things with all that messy evidence and detective work and unreliable - or just plain dishonest - witnesses. You can just directly consult the ultimate moral scoreboard and hand down the fate they deserve.

That guy whose aura stunned the paladin that checked him? Maybe he hasn't done anything yet, but that doesn't mean he's innocent. He's Evil. Kill him now and it'll save all his potential victims down the road. That other guy with the stolen loaf of bread? He detects as Good, so he must've had a morally justified reason for taking it... or at least it's such a minor act and he does it so infrequently that it's not enough to shift his alignment. He's free to go, maybe with a warning.

(Hate alignment soooo much....)

Paladins don't see auras of alignment. They see either an evil aura, or they see nothing. That's all Detect Evil does.

Duke Malagigi
2008-01-22, 03:38 AM
I have a simple idea, use Detect Evil as a crime-investigating tool, not as a replacement for police work. Detect Evil would then be used to form a list of usual suspects for inquiry. This wouldn't work for crimes such as shoplifting or petty theft, but would work wonders for investigating crimes ranging from fraud and embezzlement to kidnapping and murder.

Charles Phipps
2008-01-22, 03:59 AM
That guy whose aura stunned the paladin that checked him? Maybe he hasn't done anything yet, but that doesn't mean he's innocent. He's Evil. Kill him now and it'll save all his potential victims down the road. That other guy with the stolen loaf of bread? He detects as Good, so he must've had a morally justified reason for taking it... or at least it's such a minor act and he does it so infrequently that it's not enough to shift his alignment. He's free to go, maybe with a warning.

That's the problem though. If you kill George the Random Guy because he's LE then YOU'RE EVIL. You deserve to die because you're killing someone because he's predisposed to evil. In this world, that's effectively like saying we should hunt down and kill all the racists and bigots in the world before shooting them.

And what about one time crimes?

My favorite Murder Mystery had a Paladin in it. They found out that the LE Groundskeeper was the only one who was evil yet he had an airtight allibi. What the players were shocked to discover was that the LG Butler killed his master because he had a temper and stabbed him. He was wracked with guilt and had never done anything like that in his life.

Yet, it didn't cause an alignment shift.

kamikasei
2008-01-22, 05:32 AM
You'll still need civil law, but on the criminal side, all you need is one crime... Being Evil.

You'll just end up with an institutionally evil society wracked with crimes committed by non-evil people.


I SERIOUSLY hope this topic isn't violating the "no politics" rule :smalleek:

Why would it be? The idea that you can't justly kill people simply for pinging on a Detect Evil has been discussed many, many times before.

Quincunx
2008-01-22, 11:43 AM
If you want a facsimile of our relative-morality world, just have every person's Detect Alignment keyed to the deity they worship. Scan a street mugger. He'll ping Evil to St. Cuthbert, since the mugger's victims feel that retribution would be good. He won't ping Evil to Grummush, he who is strong must be in the right. What would Kord do?

In the world of absolute morality, what would ordinary people do if they are pinged as Evil, but reviewed their consciences and found nothing wrong? Not change their current behavior, most likely--although they might perform a few more acts of deliberate Good. The scan was simply. . .wrong. NEVER underestimate people's capacity for self-delusion*. On the individual level, society would continue much as it did before. On the institutional level, it would regress to a pre-Enlightenment society, with no idea of individual worth, and most of us unique little flowers would be pre-emptively slain in order to safeguard the whole. Evil's capacity to pre-emptively slay without fearing alignment shift would counterbalance the far smaller numbers of Evil people willing to risk a painful afterlife, versus the eternity guaranteed to the Good; a body would have to expend effort to be Evil without fearing the future.

In my mind, Detect Good would be more destabilizing than Detect Evil. Imagine pointing that at your local tactless yokel, your personal nuisance, and reading Good. Why him? Am I going to have to share my afterlife with him?! It's bad enough having him around now! Et cetera. Imagine your reaction to the crushing 50% flat tax being labeled Good for all the social services those tax gp support. Imagine being on the opposite side of an argument with a Good person. What does that make you? . . .Willing to risk a bit more evil in order to regain the upper hand?

*This is the Internet; cast about, you'll find it.

John Campbell
2008-01-22, 04:30 PM
Paladins don't see auras of alignment. They see either an evil aura, or they see nothing. That's all Detect Evil does.
Uh, yeah, so?

There is also detect good. And detect law and detect chaos, for that matter. Paladins only get detect evil, but any random 1st level cleric gets the lot of them. And the only time I specifically mentioned a paladin detecting anything, it was evil. And what difference does it make, anyway?


That's the problem though. If you kill George the Random Guy because he's LE then YOU'RE EVIL.
No. You're not. Killing Evil beings is not an Evil act, not in D&D. Recall, if you will, that D&D's alignment system is designed to allow paladins, who may not commit even a single Evil act, however minor, to go crawling through a dungeon whacking orcs without risking their class features.


You deserve to die because you're killing someone because he's predisposed to evil.
No. He's not "predisposed to evil". Alignment is not just something that happens to you against your will, and you can overcome if you're a strong enough person. It's a descriptor that describes what you are and what you do, your actions and your thoughts, and your basic moral compass. He is Evil. He is, fundamentally, intrinsically, and provably a bad person. This is not the real world, where you have to guess at what someone's moral compass is like from what you can observe about their actions. You can just cast a first level spell or two and know, direct from the ultimate infallible source of all moral judgement.

And killing Evil beings is a completely accepted means of dealing with them in D&D. It is, as I said before, what the game is basically all about, once you peel away all the layers of complication it's built up over the decades and strip it down to its fundamental core. I mean, there's a reason that the system is so heavily oriented towards combat that you can't learn more about history or get better at playing a frickin' lute without "overcoming challenges", which almost always translates to "killin' some stuff"... and even if you somehow manage to gain enough XP to level up without killing things, it's utterly impossible to improve non-combat skills without a corresponding improvement in combat skills.


In this world, that's effectively like saying we should hunt down and kill all the racists and bigots in the world before shooting them.
We're not talking about this world. We're talking about one in which Good and Evil are real, detectable things, and killing Evil beings is defined as not intrinsically Evil.


And what about one time crimes?

My favorite Murder Mystery had a Paladin in it. They found out that the LE Groundskeeper was the only one who was evil yet he had an airtight allibi. What the players were shocked to discover was that the LG Butler killed his master because he had a temper and stabbed him. He was wracked with guilt and had never done anything like that in his life.

Yet, it didn't cause an alignment shift.
Hey, how about that? Instant, accurate, and verifiable evaluation of all of those mitigating factors against an absolute and infallible moral scale. Real world law has a lot of complications designed to evaluate things like that, to make it so that "law" has some general resemblance to "justice". In D&D, we can skip all that. He killed somebody, yet he's still Good? Well, the killing must have been, to a considerable degree, justifiable, or his alignment would've changed.

On our metalevel, we can argue about whether or not killing his master under those circumstances should have caused his alignment to change, but at the gameworld's level, if you, as DM, have ruled that it didn't, then it's a simple matter of observation. The butler's Good; therefore he can't have done anything significantly Evil enough to deserve punishment.

Now, the groundskeeper... I don't know what he's been up to, but you don't become Evil just by harboring, deep in your most secret heart, a desire to jaywalk. Best to bust out the smightings and let the gods sort him out.


I should probably add, if I haven't made it clear already, that I think this is all a terrible idea, from both a moral and ethical standpoint and a "makes for good roleplaying" standpoint. But it's also the logical consequence of D&D's alignment system as presented. This is a large part of the reason that I say that alignment is the single worst concept ever to be introduced to role-playing.

kamikasei
2008-01-22, 04:53 PM
No. You're not. Killing Evil beings is not an Evil act, not in D&D.
...
And killing Evil beings is a completely accepted means of dealing with them in D&D.
...
We're not talking about this world. We're talking about one in which Good and Evil are real, detectable things, and killing Evil beings is defined as not intrinsically Evil.

You can play that way, but it's not explicitly so in the rules, there are statements in the books that contradict it, and it's not how a great many other people play. Sure, you have fun killing orcs without much thought as to whether there may be the odd Neutral one mixed in, because you're playing a straight-up hack-and-slash game and no one's paying much attention to alignment anyway. If alignment is actually being taken seriously in a game, then no, merely being Evil is not enough to warrant your execution. Unless you're playing with a pretty high bar of evil where to register on a detect spell you have to have committed some quite vile acts - but that's not a given by any stretch.


Hey, how about that? Instant, accurate, and verifiable evaluation of all of those mitigating factors against an absolute and infallible moral scale. Real world law has a lot of complications designed to evaluate things like that, to make it so that "law" has some general resemblance to "justice".

Consider the possibility that killing people for no reason beyond their aura in a divination spell is in fact an Evil act. If you take the evidence of this spell and what it says about a person so very seriously, wouldn't the fact that people who do this sort of thing end up pinging Evil themselves mean it would very quickly be recognized as a bad idea by Good people and organizations?


In D&D, we can skip all that. He killed somebody, yet he's still Good? Well, the killing must have been, to a considerable degree, justifiable, or his alignment would've changed.
...
The butler's Good; therefore he can't have done anything significantly Evil enough to deserve punishment.

Now, the groundskeeper... I don't know what he's been up to, but you don't become Evil just by harboring, deep in your most secret heart, a desire to jaywalk. Best to bust out the smightings and let the gods sort him out.

Or perhaps: the butler is a good man who committed one rash and wrong action in the heat of the moment. That doesn't make him Evil. It does make him guilty and deserving of punishment - though perhaps a lighter punishment than a premeditative murderer.

Perhaps the groundskeeper is a horrible person who takes pleasure in causing trouble and pain for others. That doesn't require him to be an idiot or a psychopath such that he has actually committed any crime.

Sure, if you equate "crime" and "being Evil" then you can make your position hold, but either you've set the threshold for Evil so far into nastiness that all manner of undesirable things can be done by Neutral characters without pushing them over, or it takes less to register as Evil in which case it'd be Evil to be so smite-happy. Either way the simplistic idea of "he's evil and that's all that matters, this will solve all crime forever!" doesn't work.

Charles Phipps
2008-01-22, 07:41 PM
Yes, killing evil I've always defined as not being evil only when it's in the pursuit of protecting individuals from further crimes. Furthermore, being evil doesn't mean that you're going to be a criminal. It just means you're a bad person. Everyone knows Mister Potter is evil in It's a Wonderful Life and the same for Scrooge but neither are murderers.

As I indicated with the Lawful Good Butler, alignment tells you what sort of person they are. It doesn't tell you what your kharma is. It's possible for a good person to perform an act against their alignment. In the case of the Butler, he performed one rash act that was horrible but it doesn't change his general worldview.

Likewise, Lawful Evil Groundskeeper is a bigot and a thug who only cares for himself but he's only a bully rather than an outright murderer.

Edit:

kamikasei reflects a lot of my opinions.

Overall, I tend to think Alignment is less important in D&D than people think. In a world where magic can detect immediately whether a person is good or evil, a lot of the world's stigmas are going to go away. Orcs are going to view their entire culture as a philosophy equally valid as anything preached by the followers of Tyr.

Likewise, Lawful Good Priests and Chaotic Good Priests are going to recognize that they're going to disagree on everything but aren't necessarilly going to keep from fighting because of it.

Iudex Fatarum
2008-01-22, 08:21 PM
Personally I like an idea proposed in BoED and BoVD that there be 5 alignments on the good-evil scale. There is your normal good and evil, the caretaker of an orphanage who makes barely enough to survive is going to be good and Scrooge is going to be evil, but there is also exalted good, these are the saints of good deities, they go out and destroy evil, the mayor who outlaws slavery and then dies in his pursuit of those goals, the person who trains himself so that he can defend those who are defenseless, these are the superheroes. and then you have vile evil, these are the BBEG's these are the creatures who eat each other for the fun of it and these are the humans who eat orphans and save their skins to sell for profit as leather.

That way being good or evil isn't a crime, but being exalted good in an evil civilization is going to be against the law and being vile evil even in a neutral city is going to be a crime, after all these are the depraved trying to destroy the world.

My 2 cp. what do people think?
also mechanically if your exalted good you show up with a big star over your head on detect good and if your vile evil you show up with a big star over your head with detect evil. that way it is a crime to have a certain alignment but its hard to get that alignment unless trying for it.

Stephen_E
2008-01-22, 08:31 PM
No. You're not. Killing Evil beings is not an Evil act, not in D&D. Recall, if you will, that D&D's alignment system is designed to allow paladins, who may not commit even a single Evil act, however minor, to go crawling through a dungeon whacking orcs without risking their class features.

You're thinking 1st Ed DnD. DnD morality has advanced some since then. It's the rare DM that agrees killing of evil people for been evil is ok. It simply isn't an attitude supported by the rules. Where does respect for life = wholesale killing of people simply for detecting as evil.




No. He's not "predisposed to evil". Alignment is not just something that happens to you against your will, and you can overcome if you're a strong enough person. It's a descriptor that describes what you are and what you do, your actions and your thoughts, and your basic moral compass. He is Evil. He is, fundamentally, intrinsically, and provably a bad person. This is not the real world, where you have to guess at what someone's moral compass is like from what you can observe about their actions. You can just cast a first level spell or two and know, direct from the ultimate infallible source of all moral judgement.

This shows a lack of 3.5 rules knowledge on a couple of counts.
1) Detect Evil doesn't tell you someone is evil. There are 5 states that trigger detect evil, only one of which requires you to have an evil alignment, and that one detects as evil the weakest. Yes John, been of Evil alignment causes the smallest reaction from the detect evil spell.

2) Evil alignment indicates your basic approach to life. Essentailly a "me 1st, and with the possible exception of a few others, the rest can go to hell". This doesn't tell you what their actions will be.. It can be just someone who goes through life contemputous of most others, knowing his own superiority. Someone who'll cheat at games if he's doing badly and backstab (figurativekly) at work to advance himself, and is a bit of a Sh*t in personal relationships. Do you really consider this an executable offense?



And killing Evil beings is a completely accepted means of dealing with them in D&D. It is, as I said before, what the game is basically all about, once you peel away all the layers of complication it's built up over the decades and strip it down to its fundamental core. I mean, there's a reason that the system is so heavily oriented towards combat that you can't learn more about history or get better at playing a frickin' lute without "overcoming challenges", which almost always translates to "killin' some stuff"... and even if you somehow manage to gain enough XP to level up without killing things, it's utterly impossible to improve non-combat skills without a corresponding improvement in combat skills.

Again, you're talking 1st Ed. 3.5 you merely have to "defeat a challenge". Yes, combat stats go up with everything else. Combat is a core part of the game, but your view that simply detecting as evil is enough to warrant killing as a good act is as silly as those who think killing per se is evil in DnD.




We're not talking about this world. We're talking about one in which Good and Evil are real, detectable things, and killing Evil beings is defined as not intrinsically Evil.

Care to show the RAW to back that assertion up. It's not a definition I can recall coming across in 3.5.


H

ey, how about that? Instant, accurate, and verifiable evaluation of all of those mitigating factors against an absolute and infallible moral scale. Real world law has a lot of complications designed to evaluate things like that, to make it so that "law" has some general resemblance to "justice". In D&D, we can skip all that. He killed somebody, yet he's still Good? Well, the killing must have been, to a considerable degree, justifiable, or his alignment would've changed.

And again you show your lack of 3.5 rules knowledge. A good person can do a single evil act without changing alignment. Just because the killer didn't change to evil doesn't mean the act wasn't evil. It just means his actions on whole are either Neutral or Good.



Now, the groundskeeper... I don't know what he's been up to, but you don't become Evil just by harboring, deep in your most secret heart, a desire to jaywalk. Best to bust out the smightings and let the gods sort him out.

Have you read the alignment section in the rules at all? If not, go and read it. If you have, go back and read it again, you failed your reading comprehension. If you had you'd be aware of just how wrong your statement is.




This is a large part of the reason that I say that alignment is the single worst concept ever to be introduced to role-playing.

Alignment has it's problems, but outside of alignment/class restrictions it works ok if you actually read and apply the rules.

Stephen

Stephen_E
2008-01-22, 08:43 PM
Exactly :)
Though I do hope that they can't really say he lies / he tells the truth on the same test. If it is open to interpretation they best say so. Most of the times the line spikes quite alot when they lie, but still, you might have done it and believe you didnt and it would not (physically) be a lie. Or you can just not care and know you did it and the machine would still not react.

The problem is that Polygraph tests don't actually detect lying. They detect stress. People tend to stress when lying under questioning. Of course they can also stress for a number of reasons. Been questioned for a start is pretty stressful. Thus while it may be quite hard for a person to fake a "clear" test, "posistives" are quite open to interpretation as to whether the stress spikes were lies or something else. And even if they were lies, it doesn't indicate what the truth is. For example if asked whether you killed someone that you didn't actually kill, but you feel responsible for their death, or you're hiding that you think you know who did the killing, you may well test as "lying" when you say "no" but you didn't actually kill them.

Stephen

Gralamin
2008-01-22, 08:44 PM
Killing people simply because they are evil is stupid. Evil can mean a variety of things, and deciding to simple kill means your ignoring a fundamental principle of justice: The punishment should fit the crime.
Plus, it just makes you evil. See Deathnote.

Riffington
2008-01-22, 08:58 PM
It's easy to dismiss the importance of alignment when you're looking at crime and punishment (where it's important to let the innocent go). But you can't discount it so easily when talking about dating, hiring, and other areas where it's fine to turn away dozens of sketchy characters to make sure you get the perfect Chaotic Good person...

You can talk all you want about people "redefining evil to make it cool", but that doesn't change the fact that businesses that hire Good employees don't have the same kinds of theft or morale problems, and do far better as a result.

Just because its judicial applicability is limited doesn't mean it doesn't completely transform society.

Charles Phipps
2008-01-22, 09:54 PM
You can talk all you want about people "redefining evil to make it cool", but that doesn't change the fact that businesses that hire Good employees don't have the same kinds of theft or morale problems, and do far better as a result.

Yes it does and it's the equivalent of a background check (and this is ignoring the expense). The fact remains that the idiot who hires a Chaotic Good person is just as easilly likely to have office supplies stolen but the Lawful Evil guy might be good at motivating the employees.

Seriously, Good People tend to be moralistic and preachy. There's no guarantee that they're better workers either. Do you want that in your office space?

Plus, really, what happens when you're NOT a good person? Do you change? Or do you say 'Good isn't all it's cracked up to be?'

I've always felt it's much more radical that there's Evil Deities. Seriously, imagine if there were religions that offered a guarantee of paradise for the most heinously evil things imaginable?

JaxGaret
2008-01-22, 10:52 PM
I've always felt it's much more radical that there's Evil Deities. Seriously, imagine if there were religions that offered a guarantee of paradise for the most heinously evil things imaginable?

Pretty sure those exist IRL.

Not gonna mention which one(s).

Charles Phipps
2008-01-22, 11:28 PM
Pretty sure those exist IRL.

Not gonna mention which one(s).

Seriously, alignment is like a Verifiable Afterlife and Gods.

It sorta alters society but not so much its unrecognizable.

Voyager_I
2008-01-23, 12:14 AM
[long-ish rant about alignments]

Like many people, you revile that which you apparently do not understand. Most people will tell you quite confidently that alignment doesn't work like that. The specific arguments have already been posted nearly a half-dozen times in this thread alone, so I won't repeat them here, except to say that

Evil =/= Villainy

Stephen_E
2008-01-23, 12:40 AM
Did some reading on Polygraph machines.

Wow! They are on par with Detect Evil as a anti-crime tool... Crap!

Outside of ideal lab conditions you're looking at around 61% accuracy for picking liars (In ideal conditions you can get better, but not hugely so). That is on average for every 100 it says are lying only 61 will be lying, and the other 39 will be telling the truth. And then you have the "not sures" + the "telling the truths" and it's been shown that people can lie but get cleared as telling the truth. One Soviet spy went through a couple of tests without a problem. His instructions - the night before have a nice meal, relax and get a good nights sleep. At the test be friendly and helpful and build a rapport with the polygraph operator. That's all it took.

Stephen

Tobrian
2008-01-23, 08:40 AM
Many of you seem to be still thinking in terms of a criminal justice system developed by a world that doesn't have magic, or alignment, and certainly not magic that detects alignment. In a world that does... why even bother with a complicated legal system based on mere fallible mortals' attempts to weigh the good of society and morality and aggravating and mitigating factors to achieve a clumsy approximation of true justice? You can just bust out a first level spell, or an at-will ability, and appeal the whole thing to the ultimate authority, higher than the gods themselves... the DM.

That's my greatest problem with it, this whole "D&D morality is objective" puts the strain of decision squarely on the shoulders of the DM. And different DMs (not to mention players) will define differnet things as evil. Murder? Torture? Many societies and religions instill their insidious propaganda in people at an early age and call it "morals" or "patriotism". It boilds down too "it's RIGHT when WE do it / it's WRONG if the other side does it" and "the end justifies the means". Basic Inquisition logic: All suspects are guilty. Otherwise they wouldn't be suspects. Or retroactive justification: If that guy was killed by our troups, he must have been an insurgent.

Unfortunately, some D&D writers seem to ascribe to this worldview, and thus we get abominations like the Gray Guard paladin PrC in Complete Scoundrel. (I've ranted extensively about that prestice class last year, search for the thread in the archives.)


You'll still need civil law, but on the criminal side, all you need is one crime... Being Evil. Make the sentence anything you feel appropriate, up to and including summary execution. (D&D was basically designed around Good adventurers breaking into Evil creatures' homes and killing them out of hand just for being Evil. Even paladins can do this without so much as bending their Code.) No more worrying about whether someone did or did not commit any particular crime, or whether they might have had a moral justification for their acts. No more trying to prove things with all that messy evidence and detective work and unreliable - or just plain dishonest - witnesses. You can just directly consult the ultimate moral scoreboard and hand down the fate they deserve.

That guy whose aura stunned the paladin that checked him? Maybe he hasn't done anything yet, but that doesn't mean he's innocent. He's Evil. Kill him now and it'll save all his potential victims down the road. That other guy with the stolen loaf of bread? He detects as Good, so he must've had a morally justified reason for taking it... or at least it's such a minor act and he does it so infrequently that it's not enough to shift his alignment. He's free to go, maybe with a warning.


You took the words out of my mouth. When does "detecting as evil" become in itself a crime? I my campaign I run into this problem again and again... explain to the paladin why he can't kill anyone who detects as evil. The player has grudgingly accepted that especially in cities there may be people who technically are evil, but have never committed a legal crime and follow the rules of society, and he has to obey the same rules and cannot simply do self-justice. However, paladins are allowed to ignore secular laws when they decide these conflict with their "higher" divinely inspired codex.

When my current campaign ends and I start a new one, I'll switch to "taint" from Heroes of Horror, and try to cut alignment out completely. Any paladins will then get a psychic ability to sense guilt similar to the protagonist (played by Bruce Willis) in the movie "Unbreakable", instead of Detect Evil at will.

Personally, I always thought that personality, intentions and actions should define alignment, not the other way around. But far too often I see the other way, and it's subtly encouraged by the rulebooks: Too many players select an alignment at character creation, and then all actions the character takes are judged not by their own merit, but against that alignment on top of the character sheet.

If a PC or NPC is stuck with the label "chaotic neutral" or "neutral evil", anything he does will be viewed in a negative light. Conversely, someone labeled "lawful good" may commit a comparable act, but everyone will judge in his favour and assume that... well, he must have had a noble reason. With enough logical and moral contortions, anything can be explained as fitting any alignment code, to the extreme that some people seem to think that a paladin cannot ever commit an evil act, because anything he does is automatically lawful and good merely on the merit of him doing it. I'm not kidding. It's a moral double standard.

<OT rant> It reminds me of a similar double standard pervasive in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series: If a "good" protagonist did something wrong or went off the deep end, their friends were always ready to forgive, because, you know, we know you're a nice person deep down. And the script supported this vision. Whereas if Spike, the vampire who had joined the hero side, tried to "do good" to become accepted, instead of helping him on the path to redemption, they rebuffed him. Instead of wondering how remarkable it was that a vampire without a soul wuld honestly try to change, even if he didn't always knew how (on account of lacking a moral compass), they accused him of only doing good acts for selfish purposes... such as "getting into Buffy's pants". They told him, no matter how many lives you save now or in the future, we will never forgive you your sins. So basically, they put higher standards on him than on any random human. Is the wish to be accepted and loved now a selfish act? Isn't that how little children learn to develop their consciousness? By absorbing society's rules for moral and immoral behaviour, and learning empathy? Even religious people doing "good" do so basically because they believe they will be rewarded by a higher divine being. Yes, both in humans and animals (and lately, in robots, too) you will find a few rare individuums who act truly selfless, sacrificing themselves in the service of others, even if the others are not related to them. But it's rare. Psychopaths are not even able to feel empathy for others living being. </OT>


Kevin Pettway, the artist and author of the webcomic "Heroes of Lesser Earth" (http://www.holecomic.com/comic.php) has written on this topic in his blog.
From "What Makes a Bad Guy Bad" (http://www.holecomic.com/blog.php?b=23)

Now in a game, such distinctions are usually swept by the wayside. A blackhearted scoundrel is a rotter through and through, and if you are Good and Pure of mind and deed, you are (frequently) perfectly justified in running the miscreant through for no better reason than the "LE" printed on the top of his character sheet. (Lawful Evil for the uninitiated.) Now to an outsider, this looks like a random, and rather horrible homicide, but inside the logic of the game, it makes complete sense. Dude was evil. I just saved all those babies he was on his way to throttle. I'm a freak-in' hero, man.

The perfect example of what I mean about "labeling" a character occurred here:
"The Experient" (http://www.holecomic.com/blog.php?b=3)

At the start of this D&D game, I had decided to do something a little different for me. I like to play the heroic style characters: save the baby and no reward please mam. So I picked a character who grew up in a loving, and loyal family, but who had suffered repeated and horrendous cruelties at the hands of strangers. The result was an evil character, who valued family and friends above all else, and heaven help any who would threaten them. My idea was to have a tiny, microcosmic experiment. I wanted to see how "good" characters would respond to a "coming out" within a game. Race and sexual orientation are largely invisible in D&D. They can be present, but they're very hard to see. But everyone sees alignment eventually.

For seven levels the game rollicked along just fine. Loque (my evil alter-ego) constantly put himself at the forefront of danger, risking his neck again and again to save his pals, dealing with utmost harshness against those who crossed their paths. He was generous and open, forgoing magic and money, to keep his compatriots well and happy. The subject of his alignment almost never even came up, except on the rare occasion when someone questioned the way he dealt with a stranger, and generally a quick change of subject was sufficient to steer the conversation away.

This came crashing to a halt when the DM introduced a paladin NPC into the game. Now there are various ways to play a paladin. You can be cool, accepting and protective, as long as it doesn't require a compromise of your holy purpose. Or you can be a Lawful Prick who assumes righteousness equals authority and everyone better dance to your tune or you'll stick 'em with a hunk o' razor edged steel. Our new friend was the latter.

Of course he very soon began threatening Loque and referring to him as evil, which of course pushed my little experiment to it's conclusion. Half the party had already figured it out and didn't care anyway, (I had dropped many hints over our months of play, some subtle, some not) and half the party was suddenly "Oh he's evil? Well f*ck him anyway. We'll just kill him."

I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but I don't think that was it. I have actually grown fond of poor, damaged Loque, and I hope I won't have to get rid of him in favor of a more socially acceptably aligned character. (If I do he'll be a real mean good guy!) I pretty much have one chance at making it work out with the other members who have decided to hate him. But no matter what happens, should they drive him off or learn to embrace acceptance?that paladin is friggin' toast.

I'm not sure if this example from an actual game should make me angry or cry. The first question that popped into my mind was: Wait, why is that character considered evil in alignment?? Why not neutral? Has he ever attacked someone without provocation, or killed a peaceful NPC, or killed for greed? He selflessly risks his life for his friends, he is generous and friendly, he only kills those who threaten to harm him and his friends. Honestly, if Loque was a paladin, his behaviour would probably have been viewed as LG, especially if he expanded his definition of "worthy friends" to everyone who treated him well. Doesn't the PHB itself claim that paladins should deal "mercilessly" with evil? Would a paladin be considered out of bounds if he dealt "harshly" with a band of hobgoblins who threatened his village? Not that's I'm happy with the PHB's definition (is mercy no longer a virtue?), but that's what the WotC authors have written and what most players go by.

Instead Loque's friends suddenly desert him just because some passing paladin pointed at him and yelled, 'He's Evil!' But he is still the same person. They never found his behaviour objectionable enough to consider him evil before. But suddenly, he's been labeled evil and all his actions are seen in a new light. Apparently being of evil alignment is a crime punishable by death. What hypocrisy.



That's the problem though. If you kill George the Random Guy because he's LE then YOU'RE EVIL. You deserve to die because you're killing someone because he's predisposed to evil.

I would love to agree with you, but the above is not supposed by the Rules as Written. They constrantly dodge this moral minefield when it comes to human and other core race characters. But killing a random hobgoblin or random drow is expressly encouraged.

Worse, I've met players who seemed to define their own characters' alignment not by their own intentions and actions, but in contrast to their opponents: Killing "bad guys" makes you good. The idea that an evil person can run around killing other evil people because he likes to kill and restricting it to "evil" people gives him a perfect opportunity to indulge in a little light genocide and still be considered a hero didn't fit into their worldview.

Tobrian
2008-01-23, 09:10 AM
Killing people simply because they are evil is stupid. Evil can mean a variety of things, and deciding to simple kill means your ignoring a fundamental principle of justice: The punishment should fit the crime.

Um, no. It didn't in medieval justice systems, and it doesn't everywhere today (including the USA... especially the USA). I grant you that the Magna Charta in 13th century England did among other things specify that the king is not above the law, demand the right to a fair trial and the requirement that the punishment fit the crime. But that's the reason the Magna Charta was seen as a groundbreaking document back then all over Europe, and the justice system of the UK is still based on its ideas.

Still, ever read a book about medieval crime and punishment? People are so fond of claiming D&D is either an iron-age or a quasi-medieval society (personally, I'd go for Renaissance culturally, but iron-age in regard to adventurers). Depending on country and century, thieves could be hanged, or mutilated, or branded in the face. Doesn't matter what they had stolen. Priests on the other hand often got off lightly with a brand on their hand, if they could prove that they were literate and thus an "asset to society", by writing down a sentence from the bible. Of course, depending on your social station and the social station of the victim, you might get away with just a fine. A criminal, even a murderer (male or female), could be saved from the gallows if someone in the crowd was willing to marry them on the spot; because a crime was judged not so much by the actual deed but it was seen as a danger to society; to break the social RULES meant, in the medieval mindset, to go against the god-given order of the world, which was a heineous act. If the criminal got married, one hoped he or she would become part of society again.

Even being poor could in itself made you a criminal. Why do you think Elizabethan work houses for the poor were so well-filled. Forced work. But of course if wasn't slavery, because these people had brought it on themselves by being... well, poor. Which meant they must be lazy, and out of God's favour, because God rewarded those he loved, and thus it stood to reason that if you were poor it was really your own fault for being so irresponsible.

OF course I could point out that morale in D&D is based on modern sensibilities... except when it comes to the adventerers' right to kill goblins and similar critters. That's the inherent insanity of the setting.

John Campbell
2008-01-23, 01:03 PM
You can play that way, but it's not explicitly so in the rules, there are statements in the books that contradict it, and it's not how a great many other people play. Sure, you have fun killing orcs without much thought as to whether there may be the odd Neutral one mixed in, because you're playing a straight-up hack-and-slash game and no one's paying much attention to alignment anyway.

Yeah, see how you had to throw in the possibility that some of the orcs are Neutral to make it not okay to just kill them? Q.E.D.


So, you guys - all of you who are saying that killing Evil beings is itself Evil under D&D's alignment system - consider this hypothetical scenario:

A PC paladin is riding down the road. He comes across a group of orc warriors rather below his CR, all armed and ready to fight, though they're only watching him warily, not actually attacking. He assenses them all, and they all detect as Evil. He draws his sword and charges, and after a fight, kills them all.

Do you, as DM, immediately tell the paladin's player that he's fallen, and loses all of his class features until he atones for this action?

If your answer to that is "Yes," then I'll admit you might have a valid point. I'll also say that the game you're playing is nothing like any game of D&D I've played in or even witnessed in 25+ years of gaming.

kamikasei
2008-01-23, 01:38 PM
Yeah, see how you had to throw in the possibility that some of the orcs are Neutral to make it not okay to just kill them? Q.E.D.

All right. "You have fun killing the orcs without giving much thought as to whether some of them may be Evil, but not guilty of any wrong you're there to right, or posing any threat you're there to eliminate." I stand by that substitution, so quad erat no est demonstrandum.


So, you guys - all of you who are saying that killing Evil beings is itself Evil under D&D's alignment system - consider this hypothetical scenario:

A PC paladin is riding down the road. He comes across a group of orc warriors rather below his CR, all armed and ready to fight, though they're only watching him warily, not actually attacking. He assenses them all, and they all detect as Evil. He draws his sword and charges, and after a fight, kills them all.

Do you, as DM, immediately tell the paladin's player that he's fallen, and loses all of his class features until he atones for this action?

If your answer to that is "Yes," then I'll admit you might have a valid point. I'll also say that the game you're playing is nothing like any game of D&D I've played in or even witnessed in 25+ years of gaming.

Yes. If he has no reason to think the orcs are going to attack him, or are waiting to attack someone else, and makes no attempt to determine either of those or indeed even speak to the orcs, yeah, that's an evil act. Is it something you've seen come up in your 25+ years of gaming? Do orcs often stand around doing nothing but looking ready for a fight, eyeballing paladins, neither saying a word?

edit: I should also point out that what people handwave or overlook in their actual tabletop games in terms of players' actions - yeah, we won't worry too much about the ethics of this action, we're heroes on a quest to kill some monsters, the monsters will all be evil bastards who will in fact either try to kill us on sight or be clear and present dangers to someone nearby and won't be under any legal jurisdiction, who really cares we're just having a laugh - has little bearing on Good and Evil at the level of society, crime and punishment and verisimilitude, etc.

hamishspence
2008-01-23, 04:59 PM
Thats why I like Exalted Deeds, cos it stresses that you need a better justification than "its evil" for killing anything short of a fiend or a chromatic dragon. It says "killing orcs just for profit is not a good act" and "placing fireballs where they will hit orc women and children is an evil act" and suchlike.

Its like Roy in OoPCs: "i refuse to kill someone just cos its more convenient than talking to them"

Exalted deeds is one such source, but more than a few D&D novels tend to take this attitude, that its not OK just to slaughter everything that pings Evil.

4th ed will set the bars for Evil, and Good, much higher. Nasty NPCs will usually be unaligned rather than evil. Warlocks, necromancers, etc, if they use their dark powers to serve good, will probably be unaligned. Races and Classes calls these sort of characters "Evil-curious" and says one can be underhanded or bloodthirsty (as in Really Likes Fighting) without crossing the line into Evil. Plus, no more detect alignment spells

So 4th ed will really be a Post-detect alignment world!

Citizen Joe
2008-01-23, 07:44 PM
By far, most people are neutral. So get detect neutral and anyone that doesn't ping is a troublemaker... Anyone so good as to not register as neutral is likely to be an activist... likewise anyone so evil as not to register as neutral is likely to do something bad... likewise for law and chaos. That lawful guy is gonna be reporting on his neighbor's lawn being half an inch too high and stuff like that.

Stephen_E
2008-01-23, 08:16 PM
So, you guys - all of you who are saying that killing Evil beings is itself Evil under D&D's alignment system - consider this hypothetical scenario:

A PC paladin is riding down the road. He comes across a group of orc warriors rather below his CR, all armed and ready to fight, though they're only watching him warily, not actually attacking. He assenses them all, and they all detect as Evil. He draws his sword and charges, and after a fight, kills them all.

Do you, as DM, immediately tell the paladin's player that he's fallen, and loses all of his class features until he atones for this action?

If your answer to that is "Yes," then I'll admit you might have a valid point. I'll also say that the game you're playing is nothing like any game of D&D I've played in or even witnessed in 25+ years of gaming.

If the Paladin had no reason to think the Orcs had done or were about to do evil acts, then yes, he should fall. Some DMs I know would play it that way, some wouldn't. A lot depends on the personnal ethics and morality of the DM.

Killing evil isn't evil. It's kill evil without reason, beyond the fact they're evil, is evil. If they have a reason you then have to evaluate the worth of the reason.

Your statement regarding your playing experiance supports my view that your beliefs on this are based on the 1st Ed/2nd End you started with, and even in 1st Ed I recall playing with a Paladin who stopped us attacking an Orc village because so far as we knew they'd done nothing wrong. To be fair, even in the more advanced alignment considerations of 3.5 we still have writers who adhere to the worst of 1st Ed alignment (and even then, as I've mentioned your POV was only one possible reasonable interpretation/style) giving us stuff like the Grey Guard.

Stephen

Riffington
2008-01-23, 08:29 PM
The fact remains that the idiot who hires a Chaotic Good person is just as easilly likely to have office supplies stolen but the Lawful Evil guy might be good at motivating the employees.

Good people do not steal office supplies from their employers. Only Neutral and Evil people do. A Lawful Evil guy *might* be good at motivating the employees, but they're *more likely* to make life hell for them.



Seriously, Good People tend to be moralistic and preachy. There's no guarantee that they're better workers either. Do you want that in your office space?

Why would Good people be any more likely to be moralistic and/or preachy? You're thinking of Lawful people.
Now, Good people are as likely/unlikely to be skilled as anyone else, but they pick up others' slack and are randomly helpful around your organization (and are thus statistically speaking better employees.) No guarantee, of course.

So yeah, it's better and worse than a background check. More accurate, less precise. But if you can do a background check on potential employees, of course you should. You want to hire the guy who sued his last boss or the Eagle Scout for your company? You can always be wrong in individual cases, but you'll do much better looking before you hire...

VanBuren
2008-01-23, 08:39 PM
Good people do not steal office supplies from their employers. Only Neutral and Evil people do.

That's if we consider stealing Evil or Neutral as opposed to merely Chaotic.

Either way, a CG might not be as hard of a worker. I wouldn't be surprised to find him playing good-natured pranks around the office. Like encasing someone's stapler in jello.


Why would Good people be any more likely to be moralistic and/or preachy? You're thinking of Lawful people.
Now, Good people are as likely/unlikely to be skilled as anyone else, but they pick up others' slack and are randomly helpful around your organization (and are thus statistically speaking better employees.)

Still, a Lawful person would tend to be a better asset than a Chaotic person. However there are quite a few exceptions, but even so. The fact is that I can depend on a Lawful person to meet deadlines with a bit more consistency.

Stephen_E
2008-01-23, 08:44 PM
Good people do not steal office supplies from their employers. Only Neutral and Evil people do. A Lawful Evil guy *might* be good at motivating the employees, but they're *more likely* to make life hell for them.


Yes they can. Good people are probably less likely to steal office supplys, and a definitely less likely to steal them in bulk, but yes, good people can steal. Stealing isn't automatically an evil action, and even if it is an evil action, that doesn't mean a good person won't do it. Good people can do evil acts with evil intent on occasion.

I'd also note that a good person is more likely to be a whistleblower. Not an attribute many companies are enamoured off.

Stephen

Riffington
2008-01-23, 08:51 PM
Still, a Lawful person would tend to be a better asset than a Chaotic person. However there are quite a few exceptions, but even so. The fact is that I can depend on a Lawful person to meet deadlines with a bit more consistency.

It's not an issue of "exceptions" (though those do exist), but rather an issue of "for what purpose".
If consistency and dependability are big parts of the job (say, if meeting deadlines is crucial), you should absolutely go for the Lawful person for that job.
If adaptability, initiative, or creativity are bigger deals, you should go for the Chaotic person.

So yeah, you want a Lawful lawyer or secretary - they have a lot of paperwork that has to be filed at precise times. If it's tutoring the prince or designing the perfect lock, you'd prefer someone Chaotic.

Not that there aren't creative Lawful people or dependable Chaotic people - it's just a question of statistically your chances of getting what you want.

Stephen_E
2008-01-23, 08:55 PM
If I was running a business and had access to alignment detection spells, hell yes I'd use them, but with the possible exception of CE I wouldn't consider them a tool for deciding on general hiring. They would be something to go on their personal file. along with infomation like skills, hobbies ecetre. They help tell you where the person will fit best. Putting a CG person under the management of a LE person is just asking for trouble. If I have a project which requires more lateral thinking and freeflowing management links I'm more likely to give it the Chaotic employees, and visa versa when I've got a project that I fell would benifit from a more by-the-book approach. But hiring/firing on these grounds is as silly as doing so purely based on those various personality tests.

Stephen

Riffington
2008-01-23, 08:56 PM
Yes they can. Good people are probably less likely to steal office supplys, and a definitely less likely to steal them in bulk, but yes, good people can steal. Stealing isn't automatically an evil action, and even if it is an evil action, that doesn't mean a good person won't do it. Good people can do evil acts with evil intent on occasion.

I'd also note that a good person is more likely to be a whistleblower. Not an attribute many companies are enamoured off.

Stephen

So, good clarification: Good people are just much less likely to steal, and also more likely to be careful not to cause harm when they steal, not totally incapable of stealing.

Re: whistleblowing, in it's proper place it actually benefits the company. It may harm the Evil bosses involved in skullduggery, but replacing them with Good bosses tends to benefits the company. Unless your company is based around some immoral action, in which case you'd probably want to avoid hiring Good people. So yeah, if you're operating a company of scam artists, probably best to screen out the Good employees.

Charles Phipps
2008-01-23, 11:05 PM
I would love to agree with you, but the above is not supposed by the Rules as Written. They constrantly dodge this moral minefield when it comes to human and other core race characters. But killing a random hobgoblin or random drow is expressly encouraged.

Keep on the Borderlands is one of the classic D&D modules of all time. It's also one of the oldest. One of the facts that Gary Gygax's Think Tank put together even during this early period of D&D history was the moral dilemna of what to do about finding all the Orc Cubs and so on in the place.

It was deliberately placed there to make the player characters feel uncomfortable with their mission of "Sally Forth and Slaughter."


Good people do not steal office supplies from their employers. Only Neutral and Evil people do. A Lawful Evil guy *might* be good at motivating the employees, but they're *more likely* to make life hell for them.

Chaotic Good people steal stuff all the time. You can have Chaotic Good Thieves stealing from the Rich all the time. There's Haley the Chaotic Good Thief, Robin Hood, and Conan the Barbarian (depending on what time you're in). Hell, the guys from Office Space.


So, good clarification: Good people are just much less likely to steal, and also more likely to be careful not to cause harm when they steal, not totally incapable of stealing.

Yes, this is the fact. But let's also note that Good people are not necessarilly good at their jobs or aware of matters anyway. Good is a description of their general ethics, not their personalities or what they do.

John may be a Chaotic Evil Serial Killer but MAN can that guy Program C+++. Plus, he may have no respect for Law or God or Man but the guy might be a perfectly content office drone. Patrick Bateman is Chaotic Evil but he (somehow) managed to be a successful executive...

Actually, his being so might have helped.

Stephen_E
2008-01-23, 11:14 PM
John may be a Chaotic Evil Serial Killer but MAN can that guy Program C+++. Plus, he may have no respect for Law or God or Man but the guy might be a perfectly content office drone. Patrick Bateman is Chaotic Evil but he (somehow) managed to be a successful executive...

Actually, his being so might have helped.

That CE serial killer may also be a real team guy, but god help you if he decides you're not part of the team.

Stephen

Yahzi
2008-01-23, 11:17 PM
Zone of Truth
This spell changes society way more than Detect Alignment. Keep in mind that it's backed up by Divination, Commune, and Contact Other Planes.

In the D&D world, everybody knows who shot JFK. Of course, in the D&D world, the people who shot JFK are bragging about it, so it's not really a secret anyway. :smallbiggrin:

Charles Phipps
2008-01-23, 11:19 PM
That CE serial killer may also be a real team guy, but god help you if he decides you're not part of the team.

Stephen

Yeah, also remember that Medieval Environments, most LE/NE/CE people aren't going to be especially violent. They might have no ethical conjunctions against killing you but a lot of them are going to be too cowardly to break the law and will settle on just being ****y people.

Most of the Evil People Adventurers meet are exceptional like they are.

Mewtarthio
2008-01-23, 11:40 PM
This spell changes society way more than Detect Alignment. Keep in mind that it's backed up by Divination, Commune, and Contact Other Planes.

In the D&D world, everybody knows who shot JFK. Of course, in the D&D world, the people who shot JFK are bragging about it, so it's not really a secret anyway. :smallbiggrin:

In the D&D world, there never was a JFK to begin with. Roosevelt became a Lich and transformed the United States into an evil empire of the undead. Because in all forms of Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Alt-History, democratically-elected rulers who stay in power longer than they're supposed to are invariably Evil Emperors in disguise.

...:smallfrown: That would've been so much cooler... I could've been a Necropolitan, or maybe even a Vampire... Curse you, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and your crippling fear of the Dark Arts!

VanBuren
2008-01-24, 12:53 AM
In the D&D world, there never was a JFK to begin with. Roosevelt became a Lich and transformed the United States into an evil empire of the undead. Because in all forms of Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Alt-History, democratically-elected rulers who stay in power longer than they're supposed to are invariably Evil Emperors in disguise.

...:smallfrown: That would've been so much cooler... I could've been a Necropolitan, or maybe even a Vampire... Curse you, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and your crippling fear of the Dark Arts!

Actually, there was nothing he did that he wasn't supposed to. Sure no president before him had served more than two terms, but that was an unofficial emulation of George Washington who chose not to run a third time.

The amendment was created after, and perhaps because of FDR.

Thoughtbot360
2008-01-24, 09:12 AM
Well, in response to all these people making "Maybe the establishment is evil" argument; one of the things you have to keep in mind is that every government, even third-world dictatorships with death squads, has to maintain its "legitimacy."

Thats why those death squads attack in the dead of night, under cover of darkness, so that they have deniability. So that those who sent them can simply deny they exist or that they weren't just some random gang of conscienceless killers. That is also why the Nazis sent the Jews to *secret* death camps, as opposed to why they didn't just kill their victims in their beds. Those cattle cars cost money, you know.

Legitimacy, in its literal form, is the ordinary citizen getting it into his head that the people that enjoy vast amounts of social power somehow are deserving of it. And very many of those people spend vast amounts of time, money, and energy "helping" him get that idea into his head. But the important thing is, legitimacy exists entirely between the ears of the governed. If they decide that they aren't going to acknowledge their government, thats it, poof! "The Powers That Be" are no more.

The transformation into a revolutionary is simply to come to the understanding that the current system isn't just. That those who have privilege do not deserve it. That the guy with his finger on the button is a madman! A Madman! To discover that when they say they're sending the Jews "East", "East" translates to "Auschwitz." The Revolution itself is primarily spreading the word and creating the system that will replace the old, corrupt order.

As Machiavelli said "It is best to be feared an loved. Given a choice between the two, it is better to be feared. But it is poisonous to be hated." I don't agree with much that Machiavelli said, but that last sentence is very true.

Now, what does this have to do with Detect Alignment? Well, if you are trying to do anything in polite society -such as say, rule it- I'd imagine it would be a very devastating thing to be proven literally, certifiably, and undeniably evil. Now, even if they can't find out what it is you've done, even if you escape imprisonment, you will likely be the object of suspicion. Its bad when you are assulated by maniacs with ridiculous accusations and conspiracy theory when you're a normal person-its worse when you are having heart failure thinking about how very, very, close those accusations are to what you've really been doing. Above all, it would be the end of this person's aspirations of gaining a position of respect or to be put in responsibility of anything.

In RL history, it generally takes quite awhile for people to find the spine to deal with abusive authority figures and start a revolution. I mean, the Roman Emperor Caligula was bat$#!^ crazy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligula), going so far as to rape a Senator's wife in front of him on one dinner party, wasting vast amounts of the Roman treasury, and killed people on a whim. When someone finally had the sense to assassinate him, the common people were outraged. Outraged! And they demanded the "murderers" be brought to justice. Because they had drunk in generations of Imperial propaganda, and believed in the right of even Caligula to rule.

However, if you could magical measure how good or evil someone is, how difficult could it be to argue that Caligula was dangerous? How will it reflect on your character as a ruler if you purposefully start hiring, say, evil tax collectors? Can people really be lead to accept that evil aligned people have their place in any society they would want to be a part of, let alone controlling the society in question? Doesn't being "evil" mean that you are willfully deceitful, bloodthirsty, and unjust? Don't we hate evil? Revolution might very well be one very well timed Detect Evil spell.

It is poisonous to be hated.

Thoughtbot360
2008-01-24, 09:32 AM
...:smallfrown: That would've been so much cooler... I could've been a Necropolitan, or maybe even a Vampire... Curse you, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and your crippling fear of the Dark Arts!

Dude, thats exactly what I've been saying with my last post! You get it!


And for those of you who are all "That doesn't even make sense!" you won't get it. None of them will. They're all programmed by the man.

Riffington
2008-01-24, 09:45 AM
[b]Chaotic Good people steal stuff all the time. You can have Chaotic Good Thieves stealing from the Rich all the time. There's Haley the Chaotic Good Thief, Robin Hood, and Conan the Barbarian (depending on what time you're in). Hell, the guys from Office Space.


Stealing from a thief is different than stealing from the person you work for. Robin Hood only stole from Prince John's tax collectors (ie thieves). He wouldn't steal from King Richard.
The guys from Office Space are (mostly) True Neutral.

Stephen_E
2008-01-24, 07:29 PM
However, if you could magical measure how good or evil someone is, how difficult could it be to argue that Caligula was dangerous? How will it reflect on your character as a ruler if you purposefully start hiring, say, evil tax collectors? Can people really be lead to accept that evil aligned people have their place in any society they would want to be a part of, let alone controlling the society in question? Doesn't being "evil" mean that you are willfully deceitful, bloodthirsty, and unjust? Don't we hate evil? Revolution might very well be one very well timed Detect Evil spell.


I have friends that I beleive to be evil by DnD alignment standards. I'd prefer it if they weren't but that's life. They're ok people, I'm just aware that they consider certain approaches to situations ethical/acceptable that I don't.

So I guess by your definition, for me your argument fails. Been "Evil" doesn't bloodthristy and unjust, and even the willful deceit is on all the time, and frankly good people are on occasion capable of wilful deceit.

Stephen

Charles Phipps
2008-01-24, 08:39 PM
However, if you could magical measure how good or evil someone is, how difficult could it be to argue that Caligula was dangerous? How will it reflect on your character as a ruler if you purposefully start hiring, say, evil tax collectors? Can people really be lead to accept that evil aligned people have their place in any society they would want to be a part of, let alone controlling the society in question? Doesn't being "evil" mean that you are willfully deceitful, bloodthirsty, and unjust? Don't we hate evil? Revolution might very well be one very well timed Detect Evil spell.

Except, D&D doesn't work like that. Orcs, Hobgoblins, Goblins, Bugbears, and goodness knows how many other races believe "evil" is the righteous and glorious path. They willingly follow the Darth Vaders in Skull masks into battle because they Detect as Evil and believe very strongly in the ways of that.

Furthermore, Sir Paladin & Stuff will point to the Dread Overlord and say "He's evil" while the Common People will state that he's the Chosen of Bane and more or less that if they don't serve him then Bane will burn the entire village down with hellfire from the sky because he's a powerful God.

Modern Societies have reprisals to deal with but in D&D, you have societies built on "Might makes Right." When Lord Overlord comes to your village, he's got a massive band of mercenaries that will kill you because they want your stuff.

You serve him, not because he's legitimate, but because he's stronger. In a couple of generations, you'll do it because you worship Bane and he's Bane's Chosen...in which case Paladins are the enemy.

Charles Phipps
2008-01-24, 08:41 PM
Stealing from a thief is different than stealing from the person you work for. Robin Hood only stole from Prince John's tax collectors (ie thieves). He wouldn't steal from King Richard.
The guys from Office Space are (mostly) True Neutral.

Yeah, yeah he would. If King Richard was a tyrant then he would. John was King Richard's lawful regent anyway but that may be getting too much history into our mythology anyway. But, honestly, I believe you can have thieves of anyone who has an abundance of wealth.

So long as they're generally okay guys otherwise.

GoC
2008-01-24, 09:15 PM
Using detect good and detect neutral instead of detect evil drasticly reduces the number of ways to circumvent it.

Thoughtbot360
2008-01-26, 08:09 AM
Except, D&D doesn't work like that. Orcs, Hobgoblins, Goblins, Bugbears, and goodness knows how many other races believe "evil" is the righteous and glorious path. They willingly follow the Darth Vaders in Skull masks into battle because they Detect as Evil and believe very strongly in the ways of that.

Furthermore, Sir Paladin & Stuff will point to the Dread Overlord and say "He's evil" while the Common People will state that he's the Chosen of Bane and more or less that if they don't serve him then Bane will burn the entire village down with hellfire from the sky because he's a powerful God.

Modern Societies have reprisals to deal with but in D&D, you have societies built on "Might makes Right." When Lord Overlord comes to your village, he's got a massive band of mercenaries that will kill you because they want your stuff.

You serve him, not because he's legitimate, but because he's stronger. In a couple of generations, you'll do it because you worship Bane and he's Bane's Chosen...in which case Paladins are the enemy.

Except there's always someone who is stronger than you and even the Strongest might fall prey to someone who is Smarter, Faster, Braver, Sharper, a better leader, Trickier, or even just Luckier.


Modern Societies have reprisals to deal with but in D&D, you have societies built on "Might makes Right." When Lord Overlord comes to your village, he's got a massive band of mercenaries that will kill you because they want your stuff.

And if the villages band together? And if they were lying in wait for Lord Overlord, trap set in place? And if Lord Overlord has been too obvious about how much of an illegitimate hoodlum he really is? What if the villagers simply flee and set fire to everything they didn't take with them so that Overlord gets NOTHING! Throughout the history of the word they *have* been rulers who blatantly steal from their people and do other injustices. But they always, always, always have to justify it. I don't know what "Lord Overlord" is lord of, but if he is nothing more than a thug, he stands the threat of people getting wise to the fact that he wants it all. If he is an outside threat, Lord Overlord's mercenaries will one day feel the righteous fury of soldiers who actually believe in something and are a heck of a lot more motivated than they are. If he is an inside threat, then he is stealing from his peasants over time, and he has to slow down the public realization that he is really an overaged bully, and that he will never be appeased until he has it all. What slows down this realization is a little thing in between the citizen's ears called "legitimacy."

Revolution is all about attacking this legitimacy by letting the air out of the ideology. Lord Overlord heard from a friend: "I fought the law, and the law won." So he hopes to use the law to win a few fights for him. To do that, he needs to rewrite any troublesome laws and exploit loopholes, and he can't do that for very long without appearing to have "legitimate" reasons for the things he does.

You're right, a people might simply nominate who is best to lead based on nothing holier than the levels on his character sheet or the muscles in his body. They might decide that they like that system, in which case, the ruler is both Mighty and legitimate-because the people say you have to be strong to be legitimate. If you preferred he had to be just or rational to be legitimate, he better be just or rational, or he better step down. For instance, the primary reason they would want a strong leader is so that he can defeat their enemies. A much more important criteria than not being weak; not being an enemy yourself. Call me one dimensional, but I would figure that by the time a ruler registered as evil, he would likely abusing his power in such a way that he is a threat to at least a few members of the society he's representing who didn't necessarily do very much to deserve such treatment.

Even a roving band of murderous thieves (who would most likely be more accepting of an evil leader, since they probably have come to terms with being evil themselves) demands a certain quality of job performance. Pirate captains were chosen by the crew, and only the captains that delivered the goods. Of course, pirate ships are not a self-sustaining community. They are parasitic-they steal what they need, they don't produce it. For communities that actually produce stuff and where people just try to get by, people tend to mellow out, and become neutral, if not good. And neutral people might very well correlate evil with dangerous.

You see, its much for likely that the people who worship evil gods don't take an "Evil is Holy" look at things. Its much more likely that the Dark Priests respond to a Paladin's accusation of "he's evil" with a simple "He's lying. And also, he's not a Paladin. Because after all-Paladin's don't lie." Unless the common people can understand magic and alignments and confirm for themselves who is lying (Zone of Truth, anyone?), then Evil Religions will assume that they can't win with a "Bad is Good" idealogy, and instead project a "Good is Bad" accusation against the Good religions, and any neutral ones that don't keep their mouths shut.

One thing always bothered me about the way that alignment and Gods are presented in the average D&D world is how come you never get into a situation where you basically have someone held up and threatened by two deities:

Guard: STOP! THIEF!
Theif: Help me out here, Olidamara!
*Olidamara manifests beside the guard*
Olidamara: Okay, this theif is under my protection, let him go or I'll smite you.
Guard: But...but...I made a vow to St. Cuthbert that I'd never let a criminal get away for as long as I live!
*Saint Cuthbert manifests on the other side of the guard*
Cuthbert: Thats right, and you better keep your promise-I'm lawful so I'm verrrrrry particular about promises!
Thief: Running away now.
*Nerull manifests so as to get in the way of the Thief's get away*
Nerull: NO! You're not going anywhere! I know for a fact that Thievery is punishable by death in this town, and since I despise all life, even my own clerics-but I let them live as long as they keep killing people. By the way-CLERICS! ARE YOU STILL SACRIFICING ORPHANS IN MY NAME!?
Clerics in the distance: *sob* Yes, lord Nerull, please don't kill us!
Nerull: So anyway, If you run away, I'll smite you!
Theif: But if I don't run away, I'll die anyway!
Nerull: I know. I like see mortals squirm in hopelessness. AIN'T THAT RIGHT CLERICS!?
Clerics: S-sir, yes sir, thats quite right! *cries* H-here comes another sacrifice, sir!
Moradin: OI! That Orphan's a Dwarf! Hands off him, you fruity cultists!
Corelian: Stupid Moradin, always trying to one-up me... Alright, St. Cuthbert, lay off the guard, he's a half-elf.
Cuthbert: Oh, you never cared about that before, you just want don't want Moradin showing you off. You only really care about pure-blood elves.
Garl Glittergold: What a second, that thief is a gnome!
Fharlangh: HEY! You're all crowding up the roads! Move it!
Pelor: Is that Sun Screen? HOW DARE YOU!
Mayor: HELP US, ADVENTURERS! Our town is overrun by Gods that we can't all please them all!
Player Character:......... I'm not sure if I should say "Gods dammit!" or "Dammit, gods!"

My point is: if there really ever was a threat of Bane burning the village, then why isn't it a threat that a Good god wouldn't be similarly ticked off? I mean, isn't giving into Hextor, defying Hieroneous?

Clearly, every time Dwarves and Orcs fight, Moradin and Grummush don't make an appearance. And the polar nature of the gods means that you can't do the bidding of one without angering another. I mean, if every villain is some kind of dark messiah who has the full backing of Bane or whoever, than how will your PCs defeat him without dire consequences?

Also, if gods are really both active and omnipotent, than whats the point of fighting religious wars? Clearly, for your heroes' actions to mean anything their needs to be an inverse relationship between divine power and interference. The gods need to be either distant or weak. Their is a third option: they need to get along like two peas in a pod. None of this opposing alignment crap. Its unknown if your heroes actions will still mean anything in a world were the Gods are united, active, AND omnipotent; but at least it doesn't have quite the problem if mortals are nothing more than pawns intangled in the agendas of warring gods.

Yahzi
2008-01-26, 11:51 AM
Except there's always someone who is stronger than you and even the Strongest might fall prey to someone who is Smarter, Faster, Braver, Sharper, a better leader, Trickier, or even just Luckier.
And? How's that bad? Whoever was stronger has the legitimate right to rule. This is how evil governments have a change of administration. True, it's messier and more expensive than our method, but it doesn't have to happen as frequently, so it's not necessarily a deal-breaker.


And if the villages band together?
In all of history, they have failed to do this with remarkable consistency. And that was when the nobility merely had education, organization, and equipment. In D&D, the nobility also have Hit Dice.


What if the villagers simply flee
To where? If they leave the protection of their lord, they will be gnoll food within a few days. A lord would have to be really, really, really evil to make life as a dog-biscuit preferable. So what if the local lord eats an infant every single day? The gnolls will eat all of the infants in one day.

As long as the lord's depradations do not actually destroy the community, it will be preferable to instant death at the hands of inhuman monsters.


But they always, always, always have to justify it.
What you are missing is that "Because I can" is an adequate justification. Just not for you.

This is because you are the product of a long history of ethical thought and social development. You define your notion of self, of right and wrong, your expectations of what life is supposed to be about or can be about, from a huge cultural wellspring.

Not every culture has that; not even on Earth. While I agree with you that people living under tyranny are necessarily less happy than people living under justice, that doesn't mean the oppressed realize there's any other way to live, let alone realize they could do something to make that change happen.

In world full of horrible monsters like mind-flayers, the justification of Pure Strength works. The lord is entitled to take whatever he wants, because it means he has the strength to protect the community from worse. This justification has pretty much worked in our world - just look at our annual defense budget: in the D&D world, where Hitler and Stalin are choir-boys compared to actual demons like, say Asmodeus, or just compared to a mind-flayer that isn't even trying that hard, the justification of Strength is going to allow some pretty sick societies.

And the fact that the lord can put down a peasant revolution single-handedly will only make it worse.

A peasant whose sole goal in life is to bang his wife to make enough kids to feed him when he's too old to work is not really going to care that Lord Evil takes the firstborn of every woman and sacrifices it to demons. As long as it's only the firstborn, and as long as the peasant believes that Lord Evil is holding the mind-flayers at bay, it's going to look like a pretty good deal. Sure, Lord Paladin would be nicer; but the peasant may not believe that Lord Paladin has the necessary strength to do the job. In which case you could actually have peasants voting for demon-sacrifice.

Morty
2008-01-26, 11:55 AM
I'll also say that the game you're playing is nothing like any game of D&D I've played in or even witnessed in 25+ years of gaming.

I wasn't aware that D&D is defined by execution of such minor feature like alignment.

Charles Phipps
2008-01-26, 10:35 PM
deleted for brevity.

Thoughtbot360
2008-01-27, 05:33 PM
And? How's that bad? Whoever was stronger has the legitimate right to rule. This is how evil governments have a change of administration. True, it's messier and more expensive than our method, but it doesn't have to happen as frequently, so it's not necessarily a deal-breaker.

Its not bad. Its just that we were talking about "legitimacy" and the existence of Detect Evil. Exactly what will cause the people to give in to him or to rebel against him (in a smart, quick, tricky, or lucky way, hopefully) is if they think one of two things:

1) It could be worse
2) It could be better

Now, many of you present the average D&D world has a very scary place. Indeed it is, actually; its got magic, monsters, and active gods. In such a world, ordinary humans almost seem out place. Like rather than ruling the world (I'm assuming that humans have as much ability for magic, domesticating magical beasts, and appeasing the gods-hostile or otherwise- as any other humanoid race), humans would have to be either arbitrarily seperated from the rest of the violent sentient races, or subjugated by them. Naturally, human civilization thrives if for no other reason, than because its what the players can best relate too. However we survive past the stone age in these hostile worlds, I can understand why average Joe wouldn't be overly eager to challenge whatever system protects him.

However, if you can verify Person A is good, and Person B is evil, and most people define "good" as for your socio-economic interests and "evil" as against them (This is a inaccurate use of good and evil, but it's the way these terms were used to exhort children into that really pitiful "Children's Crusade" that ended with the kids sold into slavery, so it works just as well as any other. Besides, we might assume that the people who live in the average D&D world might very well be close enough in time to be using "Children's Crusade-era" logic to begin with...) than the revelation that Baron B is "evil" might infect the population with the idea that, yes, things could be better-we could depose Person B, and get Person A on the throne. It might not cause immediate results, but that idea being out there is a huge threat to the baron's rule.



In all of history, they have failed to do this with remarkable consistency. And that was when the nobility merely had education, organization, and equipment. In D&D, the nobility also have Hit Dice. ...[snip] ...
And the fact that the lord can put down a peasant revolution single-handedly will only make it worse.


You know its funny. A while back I was requesting how we measure how much experience points comes into NPC society, and what determines roughly how many high-level NPCs are able to protect the folks who don't really want to fight against the Dragons out there and how many magic items/permanent spells are really made. I was basically asking "what level is the best civilization can offer?" and I was implying the question "what happens when the PCs reach a level that they can conquer said civilization, or does the ?" The responses I got were things like "It depends on the plot" or "I don't see why it matters" or they would point out the arbitrary table listed in the DMG that awards X amounts of NPCs based on the population (Btw, swamp village people are TOUGH!)

My efforts to suggest that they might ever in a thousand years that it might be useful to calculate "the chances of a low-CR race like humanity becoming strong enough through character levels (which is the primary source of magic, by the way), technology, or organization to counter balance the Trolls, Owl bears, and Displacer beasts out there?" and "how quickly society can replace fallen high-levels" only seemed to cause the people posting on my thread to get more frustrated with me ask me why (oh why!?) I was "making problems for myself?" So I gave up on it.

What's funny and what does it have to do with the discussion you ask?

I now find myself tempted to ask "Why do you presume that every Noble and ever Monarch have the levels to single-handedly quell a peasant rebellion?" And "What keeps the average peasant from leveling up himself?" I mean, seriously, a few levels of any magic class alone might give the average person enough options to simply go over the head of Lord Evil, and accomplish most of what he wants to without ever confronting the tyrant in any noticeable way besides becoming less dependent on him. If learning magic is doable-and mind you, even cantips might be enough to cause an economy dynamic enough to allow ?

Elites actually have the hardest job of all, keeping society on the brink of starvation-without pushing it over that brink. Bad stuff happens once bread riots start. And they can't be too obvious about it. There's also the question of how strong are you, if you can not allow even one person the peace of mind that comes with knowing where his next meal is coming from?

Do 20th level characters really tangibly profit from running npc society? Wealth in reality does come from the laborer, but in D&D, there are so many other sources of it, its gets a little fuzzy....


What you are missing is that "Because I can" is an adequate justification. Just not for you.

This is because you are the product of a long history of ethical thought and social development. You define your notion of self, of right and wrong, your expectations of what life is supposed to be about or can be about, from a huge cultural wellspring.

Not every culture has that; not even on Earth. While I agree with you that people living under tyranny are necessarily less happy than people living under justice, that doesn't mean the oppressed realize there's any other way to live, let alone realize they could do something to make that change happen.

You seem to be implying that I am unaware of the plight of pre-industrial (and a good deal of Early-industrial) peoples. I can assure that I know very well that people throughout history have simply not had the ca hones to confront elites nor did they have the brain power to successfully let the air out of the ideology. In fact, an odd concept for western readers of Manga is the concept of "enthusiast peasants." Peasant from the Japanese feudal era displayed what might seem to some as abnormal gratitude and praise for the man who owned them when ruled by someone even moderately more civilized than the average feudal lord. This was because the Lord could easily, legally kill on a whim, and its nice to have someone who doesn't exercise that kind of power.



A peasant whose sole goal in life is to bang his wife to make enough kids to feed him when he's too old to work is not really going to care that Lord Evil takes the firstborn of every woman and sacrifices it to demons. As long as it's only the firstborn, and as long as the peasant believes that Lord Evil is holding the mind-flayers at bay, it's going to look like a pretty good deal.

Thats just it, that's legitimacy. The appearance of of a power elite as being a "good deal." If a super majority of the peasants decide "No! Its not a good deal!" that's 50% of the revolution right there. Their choice to create a society together and have a big, strong king and his army (in fact, its most likely the army does most of the work) protect them was really nothing more than a big, fat, "eff u" to the the Gnolls and other threats nature presented. Society was made for the people. Leaders are born from the needs of the people. They do not accept the authority of some Hoodlum without good reason. And "Because I can" only works for so long.

You're right, no union of medieval villages against the aristocracy did consistently challenge the system. But you what what was consistent across history? The Monarchs and aristocrats threated divine punishment if went against them. Pharaohs, for instance, weren't people at all: they were Gods, if you recall. Alexander the Great was the son of Zeus, The Roman Emperor's styled themselves after gods, and Medieval "Absolute" Monarchs called that they were "Ordained by God" to rule. Its very likely that the person who keeps reminding the people about the Mindflayers and Gnolls out there IS Lord Evil, or his PR guy.

Notice, it gets slightly less insane over time; they are losing more and more of their godhood as time goes by. What happened? Simple, someone challenged them on their assertion they are Gods, and won. However, they still keep saying in some form or another "We rule because it was meant to be so. Its the natural order of things." They do plenty of bad stuff, but keep in mind that they are defending their "legitimacy" always.

"Legitimacy" doesn't mean their good people. "Legitimacy" means that it is acceptable in some form or another for them to do very bad things-because they have a "right" to do so. No matter how crazy the idea is, as long as it is largely believed, it is "legitimate."


Q: Why did the Athenian government make Socrates drink hemlock? And when questioned about this action did they say "Because we can"?

Charles Phipps
2008-01-27, 09:22 PM
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=70579

I actually made a new thread for my response because we're mostly off-topic now.

Yahzi
2008-01-28, 12:30 AM
This is a inaccurate use of good and evil,
Inaccurate isn't the issue. It's not how D&D define Good and Evil.

The "Detect Alignment" spell doesn't identify people whom it will be good to do business with. It identifies people who are Good (i.e., honest, trustworthy, kind, fair, generous) from people who are evil (the opposite of those things).

As a 0th level commoner in D&D, I want the King to be 9th level a lot more than I want him to be Good or Evil.


but that idea being out there is a huge threat to the baron's rule.
If you can convince people that Lord Paladin will not let his petty vanity prevent him from killing the bad guys, then ya, sure, they'd prefer him to Lord Evil.

However, what the people want is really irrelevant to the baron's rule. They don't have Hit Dice. They don't matter. It even says that, right in the rules.

:smallbiggrin:


You know its funny. A while back I was requesting how we measure how much experience points comes into NPC society
That sounds like a fun conversation to me. In fact, I've written an entire book that deals with those issues.

:smallsmile:



I now find myself tempted to ask "Why do you presume that every Noble and ever Monarch have the levels to single-handedly quell a peasant rebellion?"
Because if they don't, they're dead. Any Baron that can't put down a peasant revolution can't put down a gnoll incursion. Which means he's now a dog-biscuit, not a Baron.


And "What keeps the average peasant from leveling up himself?" I mean, seriously, a few levels of any magic class
If he's got levels in a magic class, he isn't an average peasant. Doh. :smallbiggrin:

Once a peasant does show enough pluck and determination to become a Player, guess what? He doesn't lead a peasant revolution. He joins the existing power structure. Lord Evil offers the guy a job.

As for why there aren't any 20th level Commoners, the answer to that is because a 20th level Commoner is, by the rules, a CR 17 encounter (-1 for being an NPC class, -2 for only being an individual instead of a group of 4). Yet a 20th level Commoner can't even hope to defeat a 9th level party.

Now how many 9th level parties do you know would like to fight a 17 CR fight with no chance of failure? That's right... all of them.

Every high-level commoner in the world has long since been devoured like a tasty XP snack.


Do 20th level characters really tangibly profit from running npc society?
What is the fundamental source of wealth in a society?

Hot chicks.

Seriously. Guys do a lot of stuff just to get hot chicks. Guys in D&D aren't any different.

Plus, there's entertainers: jugglers, clowns, all that stuff. Remember, D&D has no TV. What the heck are you gonna do to relax? And music - maybe you can produce it by magic, but you can't write new music by magic.

Not everybody has Fabricate:20+ ranks in Craft skill. Commoners can make nice boots, pretty clothes, tasty blueberry muffins, chess boards, decks of cards, toothpicks, and of course booze. And, from the Baron's point of view, they make this stuff for essentially free.


You seem to be implying that I am unaware of the plight of pre-industrial (and a good deal of Early-industrial) peoples.
North Korea is not, in any sense of the word, pre- or early-industrial. They make nuclear weapons. And yet it's a stinking hellhole of absolute misery, including a society that is actually starving to death.


I can assure that I know very well that people throughout history have simply not had the ca hones to confront elites nor did they have the brain power to successfully let the air out of the ideology.
You're missing the point.

This is like saying the Middle Ages lacked the compassion or common sense to stop the Black Death.

It's not cahones or brain power that people lacked. It is knowledge. They simply did not know that there was any other way to organize a society and not die. They did not live under tyranny because they were cowards or fools. They did it because, given the resources they had, there were no better options. Knowing that democracy is possible, that you can run a society where people are equal under the law, and it won't collapse into anarchy, disintegrate into economic depression, or fail to conscript enough soldiers to hold the gnolls at bay, is the whole battle.

Not only would you have to explain democracy to these people, you would have to convince it would actually work.


This was because the Lord could easily, legally kill on a whim, and its nice to have someone who doesn't exercise that kind of power.
It's also entirely possible that some of those peasants thought the system worked well enough to justify the Lord having that kind of power.


Thats just it, that's legitimacy.
Right. Strength is legitimacy (in the D&D world). A lord who is viewed as weak will suffer peasant revolutions. We totally agree.

However, strength is (in the D&D world) unrelated to Good and Evil.


And "Because I can" only works for so long.
Again, you're missing the point. That excuse works until something better is available. Peasants in the D&D world don't know what democracy is. They have no idea better is even possible.

And you can bet the aristocracy isn't going to teach them!


The Monarchs and aristocrats threated divine punishment if went against them.
That's because they couldn't inflict divine punishment themselves. The Pharaoh was, after all, merely mortal.

The Pharaoh in D&D is not mortal. The Pharaoh in D&D can totally turn into a snake and eat you. For realsies! He doesn't need to lie about his divine powers, because, chances are, he actually has divine powers.


Its very likely that the person who keeps reminding the people about the Mindflayers and Gnolls out there IS Lord Evil, or his PR guy.
Lord Paladin would harp about it just as much. "We've got to be prepared, people! Drill, drill, drill!"


"Legitimacy" doesn't mean their good people.
Oh.

I guess I don't know what we're arguing about then.


Q: Why did the Athenian government make Socrates drink hemlock? And when questioned about this action did they say "Because we can"?
First, Athens was a democracy.

Second, one factor people tend to overlook is that Socrates had been preaching against democracy for thirty or forty years. When the Athenians charged him with "corrupting the youth," they were specifically referring to his nephew, who had led a revolution to overthrow the democracy. Twice. And he succeeded both times!

So, really, cut the Athenians a little slack. :smallbiggrin: The defense of "Free Speech" was not invoked by Socrates, because he had been decrying the moral weakness of free speech for decades. Socrates was more Fascist than Democrat; he openly admired Sparta for her strength and power. Yes, Sparta, the state built on mass slavery.

Socrates probably would have detected as LE.

:smallbiggrin:

Zincorium
2008-01-28, 12:56 AM
While in general when I DM I either don't use alignment as an in-game thing or replace it with the allegiance system from D20 modern, as a player I tend to get stuck in games where it gets hammered on and occasionally changed arbitrarily by the DM.

So in the latter:

Depending on how lawful the society was, it could either be extremely effective at reducing the overall misery present (neutral and good people are less likely to intentionally cause harm, and it'll add up over time), or it could result in a revolution as people claim their views are being persecuted.

Accepting such a thing as necessary for the good/security of the kingdom would take a lot of authority-respecting people, so a generally lawful society. Your brother gets executed by the 'paladins' (they don't have to have class levels) and you weep a bit and tell yourself that your family is safer without such a dreadful fellow hiding amongst it's ranks.

Add in a detect chaos, and you can eliminate any of the common folk who'd protest the system. They might not like it, but they'd die if they tried to rebel, and they're not passionate enough about freedom (we killed off the chaotics) to die for the cause. So it's unlikely you'll get highly visible martyrs... until the adventurers come riding in.

Sounds like a fun campaign, honestly, trying to stop the homicidal machine composed of well-meaning but obedient folk.

Jakezor
2008-01-28, 01:07 AM
This is exactly why I use the 2nd ed "basic" alignment system: Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic.
all "Detect Good/Evil" is replaced with "Detect Lawfulness" aka, how trustworthy someone is.

Paladins, for example, are Lawful. "Evil" arch overlords can be Lawful (or chaotic, or even neutral, depending on that particular NPC's actions)

Charles Phipps
2008-01-28, 03:45 AM
Because if they don't, they're dead. Any Baron that can't put down a peasant revolution can't put down a gnoll incursion. Which means he's now a dog-biscuit, not a Baron.

Actually, I had a great deal of fun with Emperor of Faerun my own version of the War of the Lance. King Jonathan of Sembia was the leader of the armies of the Five Dragons and the ruler of the loosely scattered alliance of powerful armies spread throughout the Heartlands and beyond of Faerun.

You seem, King John was a 5th Level Expert.

The joke was that King John had no combat ability whatsoever but had managed to genuinely befriend Pyrothax the Red Dragon who drapped the man in magical items. Why did Tiamat support King John's ascendency even though most of the foot soldiers in her army could tear King John apart?

King John had a tremendously rare skill in an Evil Overlord, he could balance the books. He ran the logistics of the D&D world's armies with a maxed out Profession (Provisions) and Knowledge (Tactics).

No one liked John. John was King but all of the High Level Clerics, Wizards, and Fighters wanted to chop him up to pieces before casting him to the pits. They didn't like taking orders from a weakling.....but he had Pyrothax whom considered John something like his personal familiar.

Plus, John was good at his job. He had knowledge that most of them had a fairly decent understanding of but not nearly to the level he had (John's personality was also far less abbrasive than the CE Psychopaths that tended to litter the upper ranks----people preferred surrendering to him).


Not only would you have to explain democracy to these people, you would have to convince it would actually work.

There's also the fact that even in societies where there's an easy concept of Democracy, it's not exactly something that people will necessarilly jump onto. Certain economic factors have to exist for democracy.

After the fall of the Roman Empire in Western Europe, the Landowners became the De-facto rulers of Europe because they had the concentration of vital resources (land/food/money to purchase soldiers) necessary to purchase the soldiers to keep society functioning.

That's actually one of the biggest enemies of Democracy in the fact that Peasants don't necessarilly own the land they're farming to begin with. It wasn't terribly recently that Tenant Farming/Mining/Logging ceased.


It's also entirely possible that some of those peasants thought the system worked well enough to justify the Lord having that kind of power.

Lowered Expectations also have something to do with it. The ideal situation for a peasant is a Lord who rules least and keeps bandits away while not necessarilly conscripting your children for their armies (though plenty of peasants would consider this life imminently preferrable to their existing lot-which is why most nobles kept it within their ranks when they could).

In D&D, the Church can provide tangible benefits in addition to Spiritual Reassurance that they're not going to live in this Hellhole of a subsistance life forever. Even a 1st Level Adept can probably locate water and other fairly vital acts.

It's sadistically horrible but I imagine that in the Kingdom of Set, the people of the Farming Community actually might view the regular human sacrifice of members of their community as an okay price to pay in exchange for blessings on the crops (which benefit the Priesthood as well), fertility (again---more sacrifices for their Snake God), and the occasional indulgence of healing.

One of my favorite games was the Death of Zhengyi the Witch King in the Forgotten Realms by Gareth Dragonsbane who found that "his" kingdom was utterly unsustainable because it was collapsing to a frozen wasteland without the Lich King's magic to keep the weather warm and temperate.

Zhengyi was undoubtedly evil with his rotting hordes....but the man kept the Kingdom alive.

Thoughtbot360
2008-01-28, 08:44 AM
First, Athens was a democracy.
It used the word, but really it was more like a participatory oligarchy. Athens was criticized by many elites at the time for the power it gave ordinary people, but it was not like a modern democracy. For instance, they barred people from voting (and I'm not just talking about the typical women, children, and slaves-and I will point out here that Athens did have slaves. Sparta just had a system that was even more dependent on slavery than others.) by labeling them non-citizens.


Only adult male Athenians citizens who had completed their military training as ephebes – effectively eighteen years and over – had the right to vote in Athens. This excluded a majority of the population, namely slaves, children, women and resident foreigners (metics). Also disallowed were citizens whose rights were under suspension (typically for failure to pay a debt to the city: see atimia); for some Athenians this amounted to permanent (and in fact inheritable) disqualification....[snip]

Another tack of criticism is to notice the disquieting links between democracy and a number of less than appealing features of Athenian life. Although it predated it by over thirty years, democracy is strongly bound up with Athenian imperialism. For much of the 5th century at least democracy fed off an empire of subject states. Thucydides the son of Milesias (not the historian), an aristocrat, stood in opposition to these policies, for which he was ostracised in 443 BC. At times the imperialist democracy acted with extreme brutality, as in the decision to execute the entire male population of Melos and sell off its woman and children simply for refusing to became subjects of Athens. The common people were numerically dominant in the navy, which they used to pursue their own interests in the form of work as rowers and in the hundreds of overseas administrative positions. Further they used the income from empire to fund payment for officeholding. This is the position set out by the anti-democratic pamphlet known whose anonymous author is often called the Old Oligarch.


Second, one factor people tend to overlook is that Socrates had been preaching against democracy for thirty or forty years. When the Athenians charged him with "corrupting the youth," they were specifically referring to his nephew, who had led a revolution to overthrow the democracy. Twice. And he succeeded both times!

So, really, cut the Athenians a little slack. :smallbiggrin: The defense of "Free Speech" was not invoked by Socrates, because he had been decrying the moral weakness of free speech for decades. Socrates was more Fascist than Democrat; he openly admired Sparta for her strength and power. Yes, Sparta, the state built on mass slavery.

Socrates probably would have detected as LE.

:smallbiggrin:

Strange, because what I know of Socrates is completely different.


Despite claiming death-defying loyalty to his city, Socrates' pursuit of virtue and his strict adherence to truth clashed with the current course of Athenian politics and society.[7] He praises Sparta, arch rival to Athens, directly and indirectly in various dialogues. But perhaps the most historically accurate of Socrates' offences to the city was his position as a social and moral critic. Rather than upholding a status quo and accepting the development of immorality within his region, Socrates worked to undermine the collective notion of "might makes right" so common to Greece during this period. Plato refers to Socrates as the "gadfly" of the state, insofar as he irritated the establishment with consideration

the link in the quote below is to the third of three parts of a series of podcast called "Pressure point fundamentals" Here's the link to part 1 (http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/1043) and part 2. (http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/1048)


The ideologies created by the power elite to justify that you owe them your labor, and you owe them your money need not be and inevitably are not: logically consistent, factually true, or a matter of physical or metaphysical truth. Its just a con game. And that is its weakness. Socrates was the first to practice logic and rationality. What happened to Socrates? What did Socrates do? Socrates went around Athens letting the air out of all the hogwash of the power Elite that governed Athens. Thats why they put him on trial. Thats why they put him on trial. Thats why he was dangerous.

However can we come across such very different information on Socrates? Heres what Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates#The_Socratic_problem) says:


The Socratic problem

In attempting to gather accurate information about Socrates, scholars face a specific problem. The problem (widely referred to as the Socratic problem academically) is due to three circumstances:

The primary sources relating to Socrates amount to the writing of four men: Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, and Aristophanes.[2]

* The information coming from these sources was written in artistic and philosophical styles that imply a level of creativity or imagination upon the part of the writer.

Therefore, the primary sources for the life of Socrates come without any claims of historical veracity. And since there are no known writings by Socrates, historians are faced with the challenge of reconciling the various texts that come from these men to create an accurate and consistent account of the historical Socrates.

In general, Plato is viewed as the most reliable and capacious source of information about Socrates' life and philosophy.[3] Thus, most classicists claim that any description of Socrates must cohere with what Plato wrote in his dialogues. However, information about Socrates cannot rely upon that source alone. If Plato were the only extant source of information about Socrates, there would be no reason to think that Socrates was an actual, historical figure; without further evidence, Socrates could merely be chalked up as a spokesperson for Plato's philosophy. Instead, the historians and classicists who study Socrates use the testimony of Xenophon and Aristotle (and some times alongside a careful reading of Aristophanes' The Clouds) to buttress the portrayal of Socrates within the dialogues of Plato.

The primary challenge in this endeavor has been to ascertain whether or not Plato provides readers with historically accurate information on his former teacher. The late Gregory Vlastos, a leading expert on Socrates and the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, has argued that there is a clear demarcation between Plato's depictions of the character. In his book, Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher, Vlastos makes the following claim:

In different segments of Plato's corpus two philosophers bear that name [Socrates]. The individual remains the same. But in different sets of dialogues he pursues philosophies so different that they could not have been depicted as cohabitating the same brain throughout unless it had been the brain of a schizophrenic. They are so diverse in content and method that they contrast as sharply with one another as with any third philosophy you care to mention...[4]

In Plato's earlier dialogues, Vlastos claims, Socrates is depicted as his actual historical self, right down to the philosophical ideas he propounds.



Oh.

I guess I don't know what we're arguing about then.

No, you don't. I was responding to this:


You serve him, not because he's legitimate, but because he's stronger.

However, I will point out that the Tarrasque does not rule an empire, despite being unkillable by those who don't have wish (and how many people even know that you're supposed to wish it dead?).

However, you also don't what what we're arguing about because power doesn't determine everything. You strike as having a perception that every D&D world has is filled with commoners who never fight back not because they know they can't ever win. But thats just the thing. Most fantasy heroes are farm boys who suddenly became warriors. Luke Skywalker, Eragon, Frodo, these are a major icons in pop culture-and regularly the archetype that players choose for their characters (when they give their characters a personality at all.) You also miss the very reason wars are even fought in D&D (http://goblinscomic.com/d/20071107.html).

Lord Paladin, if he does drill the peasants, would likely train them at least as warriors, or he would give them important jobs to do in the case of an invasion. He would like emphasis that they is something everyone can do to better the situation, when the subject of monsters or any other threat comes up. (In fact, that is probably closer to the definition of Lawful good than the average Miko-esque stereotype will be.) He would motivate the people to action, if only for the scenario that he couldn't be there. He would only drill the general populace as a measure to help protect themselves. Lord Evil would only bring up the gnolls so as to de-motivate anyone from challenging him, or running away and starting their own society, or (and this one is most important) to suggest that, YES you do owe Lord Evil whatever he asks for, since you couldn't even survive without his protection.

You should go work for Lord Evil, Yahzi. You could really help him convey the idea to the peasant of how helpless they all are.

Charles Phipps
2008-01-28, 01:48 PM
Actually, I'm simply strongly emphasizing that D&D is mostly handled by individuals at this point. The majority of the peasantry are utterly helpless, that's their job because they live in a world where they exist to be saved. If they didn't need to be saved then there wouldn't need to be player characters.

Eventually, perhaps, Sir Paladin will slaughter the goblin host and the beholders so that the peasants can produce some trained 2nd Level Fighters or 4th Level Guard captains to protect them from the lesser threats.

It's just important that most of the lands I have my PCs visit are fairly lawless ones or ones that need rescuing.

Thoughtbot360
2008-01-28, 03:10 PM
Actually, I'm simply strongly emphasizing that D&D is mostly handled by individuals at this point. The majority of the peasantry are utterly helpless, that's their job because they live in a world where they exist to be saved. If they didn't need to be saved then there wouldn't need to be player characters.

Eventually, perhaps, Sir Paladin will slaughter the goblin host and the beholders so that the peasants can produce some trained 2nd Level Fighters or 4th Level Guard captains to protect them from the lesser threats.

It's just important that most of the lands I have my PCs visit are fairly lawless ones or ones that need rescuing.

You know, I agree with this post and the one you made before this a lot. They're actually very well thought out. But this one touches on the Campaign setting's misery as a construct of necessity (the DM needs content) instead of looking at it as some kind of simulation, based on the character level and CR rules.

Charles Phipps
2008-01-28, 04:40 PM
You know, I agree with this post and the one you made before this a lot. They're actually very well thought out. But this one touches on the Campaign setting's misery as a construct of necessity (the DM needs content) instead of looking at it as some kind of simulation, based on the character level and CR rules.

Actually, I tend to agree with your attempted simulation about "How many genuinely talented guys are there that are LG and with enough Hit Dice to make a difference in the world." I think it was a shame that people tended to dismiss it.

Now, clearly, plot contrivance and the variety of the worlds in question will change the answers. In most cases, there seems to be an infinite number of re-spawning Goblins and all the Beholders or higher level monsters never seem to be a problem until the PCs level up. If you're lucky, your PC starts out in a countryside already dominated by Evil then Levels up and attacks the Evil Overlord's stronghold before 20th level.

Plus, most Fantasy Worlds in Canon aren't entirely alone with PCs. There's Harpers, Knights of Solamnia, and other groups out there that are supposed to be helping protect the world. It may limit storytellers by saying "God Dammit, where's Elminster when you need him" But I strangely never have that problem when playing in DC or Marvel based Mutants and Masterminds.

"Superman is trapped in the Phantom Zone...again. The Justice League has been turned into stuffed animals by Felix Faust. Seriously, those guys are never around when you need them."

Personally, if you're interested in how it works in MY campaign. It's this...

1st through 4th Level Challenge Ratings: This is stuff that happens but most of the peasantry and so on can, reasonably to some extent, deal with. These are bandits, Goblins, and so on. Most villagers will not be willing to fight against the guys on horseback with swords if their demands are too outrageous. This is why Goblin Villages are often within walking distance of humans as no one wants the fight until they're ready.

Reasonably, these things get taken care of by the peasants occasionally on their own or local lords or whatnot.

5th through 7th Level Challenge Ratings: This is when I determine that people start getting known. George isn't just the leader of a scruffy gang of scum but he's an actual threat to the kingdom's stability if he's a Bandit Leader. Robin Hood and his Merry Men, in my games, would qualify as the Sheriff of Nottingham and Prince John to a certain extent view these guys as serious local threats.

Rooting these guys out are difficult and they're often able to seize small regions. You need a "named" somebody in the kingdom (i.e. Adventurers, Assassins, or Whatnot) to deal with them.

8th through 10th Level: Generally, these are when guys start becoming genuine "heroes" that people have heard of. They're the famous people that are trucked with carefully by Kings and Dukes. Can Zanci the Wizard take over a Kingdom at 9th level? Not unless he's very careful but you can be sure that even the monarch approaches the guys tower with a reasonable amount of care.

In my campaigns, more or less 9th-10th level is when people stop being NPCs. George the Grandmaster at 10th level is the Greatest Knight in the Kingdom and a generation with everyone oooing and aweing over him. Elves and Wizards have a slightly higher power level rating with 13th Level considered pretty much the apex of power.

13th level is the Dumbledoes and Voldemorts of your wizarding world.

14th through 18th: This is where the characters more or less have become legendary figures on the world. Instead of just being "The best of your generation", you're now included in the annals of "the best ever" candidates.

Einstein was an 18th level Expert as "The Best Physicist ever."

Only PCs and legendary heroes can expect to be this level plus supervillains.

19th through 20th: Basically, you aren't amongst the best. You are the world shaking "best ever" threat that no one will ever be able to match in history. Vecna died 20,000 years ago but h's still feared.

Needless to say, Liches are uncommon in my stories.

Yahzi
2008-01-28, 08:37 PM
The joke was that King John had no combat ability whatsoever but had managed to genuinely befriend Pyrothax the Red Dragon
Well, if your pet can put down a peasant revolution, that's good enough. :smallbiggrin:


It's sadistically horrible but I imagine that in the Kingdom of Set, the people of the Farming Community actually might view the regular human sacrifice of members of their community as an okay price to pay in exchange for blessings on the crops (which benefit the Priesthood as well), fertility (again---more sacrifices for their Snake God), and the occasional indulgence of healing.
Of course they do.

The Aztec viewed regular human sacrifice as an okay price, and they didn't get anything out of it but a show. :smalltongue:

Yahzi
2008-01-28, 09:11 PM
Strange, because what I know of Socrates is completely different.


Socrates was accused (1) of denying the gods recognized by the state and introducing instead of them strange divinities and (2) of corrupting the young. The first of these charges rested upon the notorious fact that he supposed himself to be guided by a divine visitant or sign. The second, Xenophon tells us, was supported by a series of particular allegations: (a) that he taught his associates to despise the institutions of the state, and especially election by lot; (b) that he had numbered amongst his associates Critias and Alcibiades, the most dangerous of the representatives of the oligarchical and democratical parties respectively; (c) that be taught the young to disobey parents and guardians and to prefer his own authority to theirs; (d) that he was in the habit of quoting mischievous passages of Homer and Hesiod to the prejudice of morality and democracy.



As Plato admits in his Seventh Letter, the extreme behavior of his second cousin Critias-along with another cousin, Charmides, the leader of the Ten who governed the Piraeus during the rule of the Thirty-effectively ended any thoughts he had previously entertained about a future political career (Plato, Seventh Letter 324d).
Oops. I got Plato's cousin confused with Socrates' nephew. :smallredface:

Ah, they're all Greek to me... :smallbiggrin:


However, I will point out that the Tarrasque does not rule an empire
The Tarrasque has an INT of 3.


Most fantasy heroes are farm boys who suddenly became warriors.
Even in the D&D world, people understand that those are fantasies. :smallbiggrin:


You should go work for Lord Evil, Yahzi. You could really help him convey the idea to the peasant of how helpless they all are.
In D&D, they are helpless. They already know this. They don't need me to tell them.

In the Real World, one man with a sword, no matter how good he is, cannot defeat more than a handful of determined amateurs with swords. With guns, the number goes down significantly. This is why the idea that human beings are somehow equal makes sense in the Real World.

It just doesn't make sense in D&D, where it is manifestly not true. Some people are born to be adventurers, and then there's everybody else.

VanBuren
2008-01-28, 09:33 PM
The Aztec viewed regular human sacrifice as an okay price, and they didn't get anything out of it but a show. :smalltongue:

You were probably joking, but just in case anyone is taking that at face-value, they actually did get something out of it.

According to their mythos, the sacrifice was needed to give strength to the Sun god so that he could have the power to fight off the darkness and bring the new dawn.

Charles Phipps
2008-01-28, 11:32 PM
You were probably joking, but just in case anyone is taking that at face-value, they actually did get something out of it.

According to their mythos, the sacrifice was needed to give strength to the Sun god so that he could have the power to fight off the darkness and bring the new dawn.

Yes. Though with all due respect to the Aztec culture, it's still here. Science, unfortunately, has proven a lot of things not quite as true as certain religious groups would like.

(Said as a religious man)

And for Yahzi....

Even in the D&D world, people understand that those are fantasies.

Actually, it's not that uncommon even in real life. Usually, the money to start going off to kill people for more money requires you to be the son of at least someone successful. Hence why it's usually poor knights.

However, if you can get the weapons anyway or get conscripted, you might get some luck.

In D&D, they are helpless. They already know this. They don't need me to tell them.

To be fair, there's two kinds of peasants in the world as well. Fairly analogous to real life in a way. There's Barbarian Peasants whom basically are a warrior culture like Conan's people. There's a few warriors scattered amongst them.

Then there's your Village of Hommlet peasants whom are pretty much meat for the grinder.

In the Real World, one man with a sword, no matter how good he is, cannot defeat more than a handful of determined amateurs with swords. With guns, the number goes down significantly. This is why the idea that human beings are somehow equal makes sense in the Real World.

Countpoint, however, that even in D&D. The majority of guys are 1st level Mooks that can get slaughtered by a couple of arrows in the chest. While the average peasant may die by a Housecat, he still has a chance of firing an arrow and that can be a LOT of arrows.

Why 0-level archers didn't suck at battlefields.

Yahzi
2008-01-29, 01:41 AM
You were probably joking, but just in case anyone is taking that at face-value, they actually did get something out of it.

According to their mythos, the sacrifice was needed to give strength to the Sun god so that he could have the power to fight off the darkness and bring the new dawn.
Um. The new dawn actually came, whether or not they did the sacrifice. So all they actually got out of the ritual was the entertainment.

I'll grant you that they thought they were getting more, but I'm pretty sure they weren't.

:smallbiggrin:

Yahzi
2008-01-29, 01:48 AM
Why 0-level archers didn't suck at battlefields.
Exactly!

Every single 0th level guard in D&D should have a Heavy Crossbow, and nothing else. Seriously! Any other equipment is just a waste of time, and giving them swords is downright insulting.

And yet, in every single module, the stupid guards are decked out in chainmail with yada yada yada.

Just once I'd like to play D&D the way it would really be, instead of ignoring the rules-as-written and pretending that somehow the world is a classic Medieval society despite actual functioning magic.

Which is kinda what this thread is all about... :smallbiggrin:

Charles Phipps
2008-01-29, 01:52 AM
Which is kinda what this thread is all about... :smallbiggrin:

nah, that was this thread.

;-)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=70579

But this one is fine.

VanBuren
2008-01-29, 03:32 AM
Um. The new dawn actually came, whether or not they did the sacrifice. So all they actually got out of the ritual was the entertainment.

I'll grant you that they thought they were getting more, but I'm pretty sure they weren't.

:smallbiggrin:

Isn't this all about how it's perceived from their point of view? I wasn't speaking objectively, you know.

Titanium Dragon
2008-01-29, 04:00 AM
I think the most plausible reason is that evil is not equivalent to bad in D&D. Chaotic good people might be trying to topple the government, while the lawful evil police state protects the people from their neighbors. The lawful evil people may well not be nice people, taxing people heavily, being unnecessarily brutal, what have you, but it'd be preferable to being overrun by the orc hordes. Not to mention the lawful evil guy may actually be more dependable than the lawful good guy - if he gives his word he may keep it no matter what, unlike the lawful good guy who may be like "this is evil". Also, the vast majority of people in the world are more neutral than good or evil anyway.

Riffington
2008-01-29, 08:12 AM
Exactly!

Every single 0th level guard in D&D should have a Heavy Crossbow, and nothing else. Seriously! Any other equipment is just a waste of time, and giving them swords is downright insulting.

And yet, in every single module, the stupid guards are decked out in chainmail with yada yada yada.



I don't think I understand why a Heavy Crossbow would be a better weapon than a sword for a level 1 guard facing a couple level 1 peasants, experts, or (on a bad day) warriors?

If you mean, because obviously they will be facing level 4 adventurers... they really should be carrying white flags instead.

Thoughtbot360
2008-01-29, 11:53 AM
You were probably joking, but just in case anyone is taking that at face-value, they actually did get something out of it.

According to their mythos, the sacrifice was needed to give strength to the Sun god so that he could have the power to fight off the darkness and bring the new dawn.

Precisely. Once the Sun continued to exist despite the sacrifices, and the world didn't fall into eternal darkness, there wasn't a particularly good reason to believe in their Sun god anymore, especially since the plagues and conquistadors from Spain had helped destroy everything else of their culture.

But while they did do it, they had to be afraid of something more than just the sacrificial priest as a man; they needed to fear interfering with him because doing so would threaten the very balance upon which their lives were built. Not only that, but if they saw someone with a weapon charging the priest, the belief in the ritual's "legitimacy" had to be so that the priest wouldn't even have to fight him off- the people witnessing it would all be willing to join in to take that joker out themselves for threatening the Sun god himself.

The sacrifices had a reason. Not a factually true reason, but they weren't just randomly done for the amusement of some tyrant that everyone knew was psychopath who liked killin' ever now and then. Neither was it the case that the Aztec people themselves were savages who couldn't go without killin'. The sacrifices were perceived to be a justified necessity.

Theres a big difference between that and simply saying "Because I can."

Yahzi
2008-01-29, 08:54 PM
But while they did do it, they had to be afraid of something more than just the sacrificial priest as a man;
If the priest had been able to paralyze people with a word, inflict deadly diseases at a touch, and take a few hits from a battle-axe before he slowed down, they would have been afraid of just the man.

"Because I can" stops working when a dozen people can gang up on you and kick your butt. In D&D, that doesn't work. D&D, with its emphasis on personal power, is poisonous to social cohesion.

VanBuren
2008-01-29, 09:05 PM
If the priest had been able to paralyze people with a word, inflict deadly diseases at a touch, and take a few hits from a battle-axe before he slowed down, they would have been afraid of just the man.

"Because I can" stops working when a dozen people can gang up on you and kick your butt. In D&D, that doesn't work. D&D, with its emphasis on personal power, is poisonous to social cohesion.

Emphasis on personal power? I thought the emphasis was on party coordination.

Charles Phipps
2008-01-29, 09:21 PM
Emphasis on personal power? I thought the emphasis was on party coordination.

Yes, frankly, it's a bizarre world also where Medieval Knights have Holy Orders that guarantee will fight for justice and holinessness plus charity with no real corruption tolerated.

I'm not down on the Church but people would look at religion a lot differently if corruption was smoked from on high.

Runa
2008-02-02, 08:10 PM
I'm kind of a Buffy fan - and a particularly nerdy one at that, who actually reads things like Slayage: The Journal of Buffy Studies or Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy - so I couldn't help but comment on the following:



<OT rant> It reminds me of a similar double standard pervasive in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series: If a "good" protagonist did something wrong or went off the deep end, their friends were always ready to forgive, because, you know, we know you're a nice person deep down. And the script supported this vision. Whereas if Spike, the vampire who had joined the hero side, tried to "do good" to become accepted, instead of helping him on the path to redemption, they rebuffed him. Instead of wondering how remarkable it was that a vampire without a soul wuld honestly try to change, even if he didn't always knew how (on account of lacking a moral compass), they accused him of only doing good acts for selfish purposes... such as "getting into Buffy's pants". They told him, no matter how many lives you save now or in the future, we will never forgive you your sins. So basically, they put higher standards on him than on any random human. Is the wish to be accepted and loved now a selfish act? Isn't that how little children learn to develop their consciousness? By absorbing society's rules for moral and immoral behaviour, and learning empathy? Even religious people doing "good" do so basically because they believe they will be rewarded by a higher divine being. Yes, both in humans and animals (and lately, in robots, too) you will find a few rare individuums who act truly selfless, sacrificing themselves in the service of others, even if the others are not related to them. But it's rare. Psychopaths are not even able to feel empathy for others living being. </OT>


You obviously have never done more than watch the show. Which, granted, seems like a silly thing for me to say on the face of it, given it is in fact primarily a TV show (/comic book series now), and in the past, a show itself spoke for itself.

But given that you're obviously into analyzing character motivations but obviously have missed out on some of the analyses that are out there of said characters, given the complexity and analysis-friendly nature of TV today (no seriously. Give Everything Bad is Good For You by Stephen Johnson a read, if you don't believe me!)... I'd highly recommend checking out some of the scholarly work on the series, as it may make this character behavior pattern seem a little less obnoxious! :smallbiggrin:

One of the running themes of the series is (and you'll see this brought up again and again in scholarly papers on it) "we are a very, very, VERY flawed species that despite the capacity for rationality, tends to be irrational, stupid, and masochistic as often or more so as we are bright and full of common sense", as well as the idea that it's hard enough to understand yourself, let alone another person, and you never know either as much as you think you do. We self-delude all the time, we avoid and yet embrace pain and complications, we make life harder for ourselves and others because we're all stumbling in the dark and have no clue what's really going on, like ever. This is pretty much 99% of what the show is about, when you get right down to it. :smallwink: In fact, Whedon's outright stated in commentaries and interviews on Buffy and Angel and Firefly, that all his shows are about being lost in the woods and trying to find your way, which includes the "families you make" (the snarky, squabling families that don't always trust each other and sometimes trust each other too much, to be specific), in order to try and cope with living in a difficult and confusing and lonely and possibly even meaningless world.

In other words, we're a stupid and lost and perpetually lonely species blindly stumbling in the dark and sometimes we trust too little, and sometimes we trust too much, but we're always fallible. :smallsmile:

Of note brief note, I think, is that at the time, vampires with souls were rare and for a long while Spike did in fact not have a "soul", which I'd like to note has been at some point at least assumed by many Buffy scholars over at Slayage as being pretty much the supernatural Buffyverse equivalent of a conscience/moral compass. I'd also like to note that Spike, even before he regained his soul or fell in love with Buffy, was a pretty unusual vampire to begin with, as he obviously loved Drusilla - something that vampires are supposedly incapable of - and that his first turning was his mother, because yes, he was a mama's boy even as a vampire. Being that he's an apparent exception to the "vampires don't feel like the rest of us do" rule - which I'm not arguing is actually a hard and fast supernatural rule in BtVS to begin with, but which tends to be the case, possibly just because Power Corrupts(TM) - it can be, if not forgivable than at least understandable that other, non-vampire, besouled characters tend not to trust him, on the basic assumption that he's probably like any other vampire, even if he's in truth not. Keep in mind he also - though obviously being an emotionally sensitive person to begin with - attempted for ages to be seen as a "big bad", so he kind of slightly reaped what he sowed when people refused to trust him a bit. :P

Also, keep in mind that Buffy and friends have been taught from day one that any vampire "without a soul" is literally infested with a demon (there's even a line about how a "demon takes up residence" in the corpse), and therefore can't be trusted to be "good". Buffy even makes the mistake of thinking that a vampiric version of a person is "nothing" like the original (this would be in the "Doppelgangland" episode from season three, to be specific) - Angel, we can see in this scene though, knows better, as he initially starts to correct her ("Well, actually... uh") before realizing that under the circumstances (they're trying to comfort Willow, since a vampiric version of her from another universe has popped into theirs and is a particularly nasty one), and considering what that would presumably imply about him as well (that he has a natural potential to be freaking sadistic serial killer, with only a tiny psychological tweak keeping him from being just that)... well, it would be best to just agree with Buffy and pretend that yeah, the demon makes the person soooo totally different. Even though it apparently doesn't. :smallwink:

So... there's really more to that issue, and the more you look at it and into it, the more you realize that the characters are supposed to be stupid and make mistakes and assume things that aren't true and which are in fact in some cases a really bad idea to assume in the first place. :smallbiggrin: Hell, if you read the Season Eight comics, it's eventually revealed that that spiffy new organization Buffy's started to fight evil and join Slayers together for training? It's funded by a robbing of a Swiss bank, which was a very stupid thing to do, and probably at least part of why the gov't thinks of her as a a terrorist. :smallbiggrin:

Which, to be honest, this actually what makes me still like the series after all these years. It's actually very cynical about human nature! :smallbiggrin:

-Runa