Savageman
2008-06-10, 07:40 PM
And I need help!
I was thinking this over today, and I reached some conclusions, but I'm still having trouble. To make this easier, here is a hypothetical situation that demonstrates my problem:
A group of paladins (Lawful Good) wipes out a tribe of goblins (chaotic evil). Men, women, children, the whole lot, except for one, who gets away. He goes on to lead another tribe and when said tribe is big enough he attacks a town, killing all involved, men, women, children. Except for one. He gets away, becomes a paladin to fight evil, and one day leads a group and destroys the tribe that destroyed his home.
So who is evil? Goblins, because they are listed as such, even though the kid who escaped did the same thing the goblin kid did? Honestly, this isn't what bugs me. It did at first, but I was able to come to the answer of "personal alignment" which is basically most people see their side as the "right" side (not really good or evil. Maintaining this allows for LG paladins who slaughter whole tribes of sentient goblins, and CE goblins (since dnd typically operates on a "good" races perspective - humans and dwarves are good, goblinoids bad, etc.). It even allows for "real evil" and "real good" - a villain who knows he's the bad guy - hell, he wants to wipe out all life, there is not a lot of wriggle room there - and a genuinely good person, who abhors killing and just wants to heal people.
The problem, then, is the presence of absolute good and absolute evil. The gods, in other words. Some divine being, supposedly the epitome of lawfulness and good, sanctioned the murder of a whole tribe of goblins by his chosen. To me, at least, it's pretty clear that a whole tribe isn't really evil, they're just trying to survive, just like the humans who killed them.
So how do you deal with gods who are supposed to be the absolutes when it comes to good and evil? Especially active gods? If a god was really good, wouldn't he rule the world, and force it to be good too? Same with evil gods. And there would be no reason to hold off on account of worshippers, at least not for evil gods - unless they draw power from them, which more or less makes the pantheon inactive.
So how do you deal with active gods who exemplify good or evil? Because I am at a loss (note: I am playing 3ed right now. I may upgrade to 4e but not for a while at least).
I was thinking this over today, and I reached some conclusions, but I'm still having trouble. To make this easier, here is a hypothetical situation that demonstrates my problem:
A group of paladins (Lawful Good) wipes out a tribe of goblins (chaotic evil). Men, women, children, the whole lot, except for one, who gets away. He goes on to lead another tribe and when said tribe is big enough he attacks a town, killing all involved, men, women, children. Except for one. He gets away, becomes a paladin to fight evil, and one day leads a group and destroys the tribe that destroyed his home.
So who is evil? Goblins, because they are listed as such, even though the kid who escaped did the same thing the goblin kid did? Honestly, this isn't what bugs me. It did at first, but I was able to come to the answer of "personal alignment" which is basically most people see their side as the "right" side (not really good or evil. Maintaining this allows for LG paladins who slaughter whole tribes of sentient goblins, and CE goblins (since dnd typically operates on a "good" races perspective - humans and dwarves are good, goblinoids bad, etc.). It even allows for "real evil" and "real good" - a villain who knows he's the bad guy - hell, he wants to wipe out all life, there is not a lot of wriggle room there - and a genuinely good person, who abhors killing and just wants to heal people.
The problem, then, is the presence of absolute good and absolute evil. The gods, in other words. Some divine being, supposedly the epitome of lawfulness and good, sanctioned the murder of a whole tribe of goblins by his chosen. To me, at least, it's pretty clear that a whole tribe isn't really evil, they're just trying to survive, just like the humans who killed them.
So how do you deal with gods who are supposed to be the absolutes when it comes to good and evil? Especially active gods? If a god was really good, wouldn't he rule the world, and force it to be good too? Same with evil gods. And there would be no reason to hold off on account of worshippers, at least not for evil gods - unless they draw power from them, which more or less makes the pantheon inactive.
So how do you deal with active gods who exemplify good or evil? Because I am at a loss (note: I am playing 3ed right now. I may upgrade to 4e but not for a while at least).