Vaarsuvius: Chaotic Good. [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Texas Jedi

2008-10-15, 10:19 AM

Vaporizing that human was for the greater good, demonstrated a disdainful attitude towards his bureaucratic organization that has, and would have continued to get in the way of social improvement. Vaarsuvius, at worst, is complacent about personal freedom, but probably values it, as demonstrated by not preaching about questionable deeds committed by allies. Vaarsuvius is an elf.

V is not good, he has never been good in any of the comics I have read. He has always been a neutral alignment.

He did not kill the human for the so called "greater good" he killed Kubota because the trial would take time away from his studies. It was a purely selfish reason to do so. Heck he didn't even know who Kubota was he just assumed that he was a bad guy because Elan had him tied up. That easily could have been a hostage that Elan had rescued and was talking about a trial of the person that created the hostage situation, and V would have done the same thing because the trial takes away time looking for Haley and the next gate.

Being selfish is a very neutral trait and V has always put his own personal feelings ahead of the party. The only exception is when somebody else is threating the party then he defends them to the death because they are his friends. I would put his alignment as straight true Neutral.

Elan is Chaotic Good and even he wasn't tempted to kill Kubota. After the death had happened he tried to justify it by saying it was for the greater good but ELAN still didn't end up killing Kubota so he knew that it was WRONG to kill a person that has surrendered. Elan did not mourn for the life lost but he was still not willing to end said life.

Good is knowing right from wrong and doing what is right. Neutral is knowing right from wrong and knowing that sometimes the right way can be the wrong choice at the time (i.e. letting Kubota's trial happen). Evil is knowing right from wrong and then you go and kill a puppy.

I am tired of these discussions from people that have a crazy view of what a Chaotic Good person is.

The Alignment of the OotS in my opinion. (CAPS represent what is more important in their alignment).

Durkan: LAWFUL good
Roy: lawful GOOD
Elan: chaotic GOOD
V: true NEUTRAL
Haley: CHAOTIC neutral
Belkar chaotic EVIL

David Argall

2008-10-15, 06:09 PM

V is not good, he has never been good in any of the comics I have read. He has always been a neutral alignment.
Now one can argue our writer made a mistake in doing the strip, but #11 has been accepted by him as clear proof that V was Good at the start of the strip.

Now we can't conclude that because V was Good, he still is. In fact, we have reason to suspect the reverse. In 213, V doesn't like the idea of helping the dirt farmers, but recognizes a moral duty to help, even if that duty can be overcome by greater duties. In 599, V rejects that there is such a duty, minor or not. One can argue the moral movement here is minor, but it seems definitely not in the right direction.

He did not kill the human for the so called "greater good" he killed Kubota because the trial would take time away from his studies.
Now how would it do that? V studies off-stage. He would not seem to be a witness or other participant in the trial. On the facts we know, it would seem her studies will be interrupted much more by the fuss caused by killing Kubota.

It was a purely selfish reason to do so.
V's first comment is "...saved us all...would think you would be exceedingly grateful." So purely selfish seems out of the question.

Heck he didn't even know who Kubota was he just assumed that he was a bad guy because Elan had him tied up. That easily could have been a hostage that Elan had rescued and was talking about a trial of the person that created the hostage situation,
If Elan had rescued a hostage, he would have untied him. And Kubota and Elan were clearly opponents, which also rejects the hostage theory.
No, the comic clearly tells us that Kubota deserved what he got, and V was using valid logic in deducting that. We can argue the comic does not nail this down beyond doubt, but this is arguing a flaw in the comic, not in V's logic.

Being selfish is a very neutral trait and V has always put his own personal feelings ahead of the party.
This would seem to apply to every member of the party. See Haley robbing the rest of the part for example.

Elan is Chaotic Good and even he wasn't tempted to kill Kubota.
But of course he was. He didn't give into the temptation, instead doing a clearly wrong whack in the face, but that he was tempted is quite clear.

After the death had happened he tried to justify it by saying it was for the greater good but ELAN still didn't end up killing Kubota so he knew that it was WRONG to kill a person that has surrendered.
This argument depends on Elan having a high wisdom, something that the rest of the comic is at pains to point out is not even close to true. It also depends on their only being one acceptable way for a CG to behave in the situation, which is doubtful from the start since we are talking about chaotics.

Good is knowing right from wrong and doing what is right. Neutral is knowing right from wrong and knowing that sometimes the right way can be the wrong choice at the time (i.e. letting Kubota's trial happen).
Which is arguing that Neutral is gooder than good. Now a LG might follow some set of rules on how to be good even tho they lead to evil under rare conditions. The chaotic is not going to accept any such restrictions. He does not say "It is wrong to kill prisoners.". Rather, he says "It is usually wrong.".

Kish

2008-10-15, 06:18 PM

The Alignment of the OotS in my opinion. (CAPS represent what is more important in their alignment).

Durkan: LAWFUL good
Roy: lawful GOOD
Elan: chaotic GOOD
V: true NEUTRAL
Haley: CHAOTIC neutral
Belkar chaotic EVIL
I agree with all the others, but Haley described herself as, "Chaotic Good! Ish!"

Kranden

2008-10-15, 09:35 PM

Chaotic Neutral, V does not care about helping the forces of good or evil. He only wants to destroy the Snarl and attain Ultimate Power.

mockingbyrd7

2008-10-15, 09:56 PM

Mooncalf, I think you make a good argument, but I'm not sure if I agree with you.

Durkon: LAWFUL good
Roy: lawful GOOD
Elan: chaotic GOOD
V: true NEUTRAL
Haley: CHAOTIC neutral
Belkar chaotic EVIL

I agree with all except Haley (who I would call CHAOTIC Good). I've started thinking of it as a system similar to yours; I think of the alignments as being "Good", "Evil", "Chaotic", "Lawful", "Neutral", "Upper Left Corner", "Upper Right Corner", "Lower Left Corner", and "Lower Right Corner".
These encompass the character's general behavior under three alignments; i.e. Upper Right Corner translates to "varies between Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, and Chaotic Neutral most often".

So here's my interpretation:

:durkon: Upper Left Corner
:roy: Good
:elan: Good
:vaarsuvius: Neutral
:haley: Upper Right Corner
:belkar: Lower Right Corner (I think he's closer to Chaotic Neutral than Lawful Evil... not that I'm implying he's anywhere near Neutral)

Texas Jedi

2008-10-16, 11:00 AM

David Argall Now one can argue our writer made a mistake in doing the strip, but #11 has been accepted by him as clear proof that V was Good at the start of the strip.

Actually Good and Neutral characters are affected by Unholy Blight.

Unholy Blight
Evocation [Evil]

Level: Evil 4

Components: V, S

Casting Time: 1 standard action

Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)

Area: 20-ft.-radius spread

Duration: Instantaneous (1d4 rounds); see text

Saving Throw: Will partial

Spell Resistance: Yes
You call up unholy power to smite your enemies. The power takes the form of a cold, cloying miasma of greasy darkness.

Only good and neutral (not evil) creatures are harmed by the spell.

The spell deals 1d8 points of damage per two caster levels (maximum 5d8) to a good creature (or 1d6 per caster level, maximum 10d6, to a good outsider) and causes it to be sickened for 1d4 rounds. A successful Will save reduces damage to half and negates the sickened effect. The effects cannot be negated by remove disease or heal, but remove curse is effective.

The spell deals only half damage to creatures who are neither evil nor good, and they are not sickened. Such a creature can reduce the damage in half again (down to one-quarter) with a successful Will save.

Now we can't conclude that because V was Good, he still is. In fact, we have reason to suspect the reverse. In 213, V doesn't like the idea of helping the dirt farmers, but recognizes a moral duty to help, even if that duty can be overcome by greater duties. In 599, V rejects that there is such a duty, minor or not. One can argue the moral movement here is minor, but it seems definitely not in the right direction.

True he did recognize the moral duty but he still didn't want to do it (NEUTRAL). Roy, Durkon, Elan, and Haley (she wanted to impress Elan) all accepted it as the right thing to do (GOOD). Belkar accepted it because he liked the way ogres hit the ground after you stab them. Belkar could have cared less about the farmers he just wanted to cause pain to others so we know he isn't good (EVIL). You must be reading something completely different than me. He only accepted the dirt farmer quest because he didn't have a choice. Miko was going to help them and V was her prisoner so he didn't have a choice. He was still not happy about and complained to Roy saying "Fine. But let the record show that I consider this an utter waste of my prodigious magical talent." He never once accepted the quest.

In 599 what the heck are talking about you just proved my point. He doesn't care about the people or their suffering. He just wants to do what HE thinks is best damn the consequences. He has proven time and time again that he is of Neutral in alignment.

Now how would it do that? V studies off-stage. He would not seem to be a witness or other participant in the trial. On the facts we know, it would seem her studies will be interrupted much more by the fuss caused by killing Kubota.

It would take the party away from its priority which is CONTACTING HALEY, and getting the OotS back together and finding the Gate. If Elan would have to be a part of the trial as a witness it could takes months to figure out what happened. V didn't have that kind of time because in his mind getting to the next gate should be the highest priority and he will make sure that happens even kill if necassary.

V's first comment is "...saved us all...would think you would be exceedingly grateful." So purely selfish seems out of the question. I can choose random quotes that don't take everything in context as well......what was his next lines they were
I saved us all from a second tedious trial. I would think you would be exceedingly grateful. In that context it takes the altruism out of it and makes it a very sarcastic selfish quote.

If Elan had rescued a hostage, he would have untied him. And Kubota and Elan were clearly opponents, which also rejects the hostage theory.

Elan might not have had a knife and didn't know how to untie a complex knot. Or he had just rescued them and didn't have enough time to untie them. The rope could have been a cursed rope and the hostage knew that so they were going to Durkon to cast remove curse. That was just a few reasons I came up with off the top of my head on why the hostage could still be tied up. That still doesn't make my point invalid it could have easily been a hostage that V killed. A good person doesn't shoot first and ask questions later in that situation. They are better off to err on the side of caution. Dirty Harry did that and he sure as hell wasn't good.

No, the comic clearly tells us that Kubota deserved what he got, and V was using valid logic in deducting that. We can argue the comic does not nail this down beyond doubt, but this is arguing a flaw in the comic, not in V's logic.

I never said that Kubota didn't deserve to die. My argument was that V is not and has not ever been good in the comic.

This would seem to apply to every member of the party. See Haley robbing the rest of the part for example.

Thus me stating that she is Neutral and not good. She only acts good when she wants to impress Elan, otherwise she is neutral. Roy has only acted selfish on rare occasions like when Elan was kidnapped. He actually gave up sleep because he knew that others were not reliable to take watch (V and Durkon excluded) so that was a very selfless thing he did.

But of course he was. He didn't give into the temptation, instead doing a clearly wrong whack in the face, but that he was tempted is quite clear.

I was wrong there he was tempted at first but never after Kubota surrendered and was in ropes. The punch was just his frustration getting the better of him. Had Elan been neutral he would have stabbed Kubota right then instead of taking his surrender.

This argument depends on Elan having a high wisdom, something that the rest of the comic is at pains to point out is not even close to true. It also depends on their only being one acceptable way for a CG to behave in the situation, which is doubtful from the start since we are talking about chaotics.

Actually, I agrue that Elan has a high wisdom score because he has lots of common sense just not any intellegent way to use them. He is as dumb as a bag of rocks but has the knowledge to know that Therkla needed a better funeral than the one he provided. He also knows that Roy would have done better than he would have. That is common sense to know your flaws and accept them. He is just stupid.

Which is arguing that Neutral is gooder than good. Now a LG might follow some set of rules on how to be good even tho they lead to evil under rare conditions. The chaotic is not going to accept any such restrictions. He does not say "It is wrong to kill prisoners.". Rather, he says "It is usually wrong.".

No No No No NO No. Neutral is different than good it is not gooder than good. A neutral person sees what has to get done and does it damn the consequences. A good person would always think of the consequences before he would do something like a kill an unarmed prisoner. A good person would never shoot first and ask questions later in that type of situation. A good person never never never ever do anything if the ends justify the means (i.e. kill an innocent to save the world). A good person would stand up for what is right. Sometimes that makes a hard choice but he would still do what is right.

Now a LG might follow some set of rules on how to be good even tho they lead to evil under rare conditions. I need an example of that because there is a great thread http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93611&page=2 that has some great examples how a LG person can do what is right even in hard situations.

That last part is true but a CG person would not kill a person that has surrendered. If that person was killed like Kubota they wouldn't shed a tear but wouldn't be the one to do it. There is a difference Elan wanted Kubota dead but when he finally surrended Elan never picked up the blade to finish him off.

fangthane

2008-10-16, 11:20 AM

I tend to agree that V is neutral, has been the whole time, and that 11 is just a bit of artistic license since it's primary focus is obviously to indicate that Belkar is completely unaffected and thus evil. That said, allow me to quote a sentence from the description you posted for Unholy Blight from the SRD:
The spell deals only half damage to creatures who are neither evil nor good, and they are not sickened.
The entire party seems debilitated in spite of alignment (again, other than Belkar) so it weakens the claim that V is neutral in light of the spell's effect.

Still, I agree generally. I believe it's a matter of plot that they're all affected, rather than their all being of good alignment.

Jan Mattys

2008-10-16, 11:45 AM

I've said this before..but..the more I look af V., the more I think "Raistlin".

So you think we will get to see black robes soon?
:smallwink:

Ancalagon

2008-10-16, 11:58 AM

V was never good nor chaotic.

It seems black is going to be the new red. Would be cool.

David Argall

2008-10-16, 05:02 PM

Actually Good and Neutral characters are affected by Unholy Blight.

The spell deals only half damage to creatures who are neither evil nor good, and they are not sickened. Such a creature can reduce the damage in half again (down to one-quarter) with a successful Will save.
Read your own spoiler. Neutral characters Are Not Sickened. V was, like the others, "sickened".

If you go back, you will find where our writer posted that he had never labeled V as good. He was quickly pointed to #11, and he then posted the acknowledgement that he had labeled V as good, with the limit that he had not said that V remained good.
V then was of good alignment at the start of the story. It's settled and definite.

He only Accepted the dirt farmer quest because he didn't have a choice... He Never once Accepted the quest.
Now ignoring your contradiction, the point is not at issue. The point is his attitude, not his action. Here he accepts this is a good thing to do. It is, however, relatively trivial, and there are more important things to do.

In 599 what the heck are talking about you just proved my point. He doesn't care about the people or their suffering.
Which seems to be an attitude shift.

He just wants to do what HE thinks is best damn the consequences. He has proven time and time again that he is of Neutral in alignment.
Now this is a chaotic attitude. Whether it is good, evil, or neutral depends on circumstances, but acting as one deems best instead of by some set of rules is chaotic.

It would take the party away from its priority which is CONTACTING HALEY, and getting the OotS back together and finding the Gate. If Elan would have to be a part of the trial as a witness it could takes months to figure out what happened.
There is no evidence of this in the strip. AFAWK, V was researching by herself. Elan was busy elsewhere [guarding? Hinjo] and played no part in his research. So it remains how, if at all, the trial would actually bother V? Elan, Hinjo, etc, have clear stakes. V does not.

I can choose random quotes that don't take everything in context as well......what was his next lines they were . In that context it takes the altruism out of it and makes it a very sarcastic selfish quote.
You can try to explain how.

... might not have ... Or he had ... could have been ...
You are just reaching.

That still doesn't make my point invalid it could have easily been a hostage that V killed.
But it wasn't, and the chance it was was downright trivial. The comic tells us that V's reasoning was valid. Harsh maybe, but entirely valid. Putting up these phantom possibilities does not change this.

A good person doesn't shoot first and ask questions later in that situation. They are better off to err on the side of caution. Dirty Harry did that and he sure as hell wasn't good.
You may not think so, but that is obviously not the attitude of the movie.

I never said that Kubota didn't deserve to die. My argument was that V is not and has not ever been good in the comic.
And we know V was at one point good, and a good V would be quite capable of dusting Kubota just like V did.

Thus me stating that she is Neutral and not good.
Again we go back to 11, where Haley is just as sickened as Elan.

Roy has only acted selfish on rare occasions like when Elan was kidnapped.

He actually gave up sleep because he knew that others were not reliable to take watch (V and Durkon excluded) so that was a very selfless thing he did.
Entirely selfish. He feared being robbed or killed in his sleep. Not somebody else being hurt, himself.

I was wrong there he was tempted at first but never after Kubota surrendered and was in ropes.
There is nothing magical about being in ropes. The prisoner has the same rights either way.

The punch was just his frustration getting the better of him. Had Elan been neutral he would have stabbed Kubota right then instead of taking his surrender.
Speculative. Had Elan been behaving in a good manner, he would not have hit him at all. Frustration is not an excuse for hitting someone.

Actually, I agrue that Elan has a high wisdom score
Comic 80, among other places, suggests the contrary.

Neutral is different than good it is not gooder than good.
Yet you posit here that neutral would produce a better result than good would.

A neutral person sees what has to get done and does it damn the consequences.
As noted, this is a chaotic trait.

A good person would always think of the consequences before he would do something like a kill an unarmed prisoner.
And this is simply alignment free. Anyone of any alignment may, or may not, think of the consequences.

A good person would never shoot first and ask questions later in that type of situation.
The important questions have been answered

A good person never never never ever do anything if the ends justify the means (i.e. kill an innocent to save the world).
Now good people "kill innocents" to "save the world" routinely and wisely for a great many reasons. You can't avoid it. If you turn left at the corner, Joe will die and Sam will live, whereas if you turn right, it will be Sam who buys it. If you require a vaccination against some deadly disease, you will save the lives of those who would die from the disease, but the vaccination will kill some of those who get it. Either way, you kill innocents. Saying you would never kill an innocent to save others is nonsense.

a CG person would not kill a person that has surrendered.
Why not? Recall here our condemned prisoner. He gets killed and we see no sin involved whether or not he surrendered. That he had a trial? That's a lawful requirement, and we are talking chaotic.

If that person was killed like Kubota they wouldn't shed a tear but wouldn't be the one to do it.
This difference is hypocrisy. If there is not a duty to kill Kubota, there is a duty to save him.

V was never good nor chaotic.
Read above. V was of good alignment in strip 11.

I tend to agree that V is neutral, has been the whole time, and that 11 is just a bit of artistic license
But we are bound by that artistic license. We can't go around saying the artist didn't mean what he said or we end up with claims that Xykon is a good guy. There are just a whole lot of cases of artistic license.

Texas Jedi

2008-10-17, 09:28 AM

Read your own spoiler. Neutral characters Are Not Sickened. V was, like the others, "sickened".

If you go back, you will find where our writer posted that he had never labeled V as good. He was quickly pointed to #11, and he then posted the acknowledgement that he had labeled V as good, with the limit that he had not said that V remained good.
V then was of good alignment at the start of the story. It's settled and definite.

Find me the link. If you are going to use that as an arguement you have to provide the link. The artist has quoted many times that he operates on the rule of funny. It was funny to have everybody affected by the unholy blight except Belkar so it happened. The Giant doesn't need to make excuses for his writings. Yes his comic is based on DnD, but that doesn't mean he has to follow all of the rules to the letter. He uses the rules only when they don't trump the Rule of Funny. If you read Origin of the PC's you would find that V never acted good there either, so why the sudden shift about 4 or so days later after the Stick forms and they go into the dungeon. So this 1 (one) incident is supposed to make me believe that V was good, when The Giant has many times stated that the rule of funny trumps all. I am sorry it doesn't convince me when all V's other actions after that point to him being Neutral. This type of arguement was the same thing from the people that think Thog and Belkar were CG or CN. It is false logic. You have to weigh all of his actions against each other. By my counting I have seen far more Neutral actions and some downright evil actions for V to ever be considered good at all in any of the comics.

Now ignoring your contradiction, the point is not at issue. The point is his attitude, not his action. Here he accepts this is a good thing to do. It is, however, relatively trivial, and there are more important things to do.

So, I can tell when something is an evil thing to do and still not do it. V is really really smart. He has the intellegence to reason thru things and see to the logical conclusion that it would be a good thing to help these people. So what?!? Did he get off his ass and help them...................nope he wanted to go to Azure City to learn about a hugely powerful artifact and quench his thirst for knowledge for a bit. That has and always be V's motivation to do anything, and that is all he ever cares about when it really matters. Let's look at his option on that quest shall we.

Option 1: Help the dirt farmers
Option 2: Get ass handed to him by Miko when he doesn't help the Dirt Farmers.

Before you start arguing about that. Miko was going to help the dirt farmers. The OotS were her prisoners so where she goes they go. If V had refused Miko would have every right to kick his ass and even kill V without falling because V it could be argued was trying to escape. V is a smart person so he reasons logically that it would be the option that would get him kicked the least. Even during that quest he is unwilling to help, and afterwards he was going to charge Miko for his services. That doesn't seem like a very good thing a good person would do.

Which seems to be an attitude shift.

Uhhh no that isn't an attitude shift. He has always put the needs of himself before the needs of the others. He just hasn't been this tired and has felt this impotent before to let his frustration show.

Now this is a chaotic attitude. Whether it is good, evil, or neutral depends on circumstances, but acting as one deems best instead of by some set of rules is chaotic.

Selfishness is not a good or evil, chaotic or lawfull trait it is a NEUTRAL trait. Roy has acted selfishly when he left Elan to his fate with the bandits and had Roy not gone back he would have been placed in the NEUTRAL FILE. V has acted like that many times and he has never been apologetic so that places him straight in the Neutral File.

There is no evidence of this in the strip. AFAWK, V was researching by herself. Elan was busy elsewhere [guarding? Hinjo] and played no part in his research. So it remains how, if at all, the trial would actually bother V? Elan, Hinjo, etc, have clear stakes. V does not.

Because at the time he thought that his Friends and Comrades shared the same desire to find Haley, and locate the other gate as he did. A trial would have been a tedious waste of time and to see that Elan was willing to go thru it even though in V's mind there were higher priorities is why V did it. V at that point realised that if he was ever going to find Haley he was going to have to remove any and all distractions. At that point Elan and Durkon switched from being comrades and became distractions. V flew off because of that.

You can try to explain how.

Tone of voice. V has great intellect but a horrible Charisma so that wording and his general attitude of know-it-allness would have made it into a sarcastic reply. That and he didn't even consider the possibility that Elan didn'' want Kubota dead.

You are just reaching.

But it wasn't, and the chance it was was downright trivial. The comic tells us that V's reasoning was valid. Harsh maybe, but entirely valid. Putting up these phantom possibilities does not change this.

True, but all Elan had to say was that it was a hostage and then V would have been wrong. V used logic and reason but sometimes those things fail, or they can be used to jump to the wrong conclusion. He was lucky this time. Next time if he does something like this he might not be so lucky. I don't think I am reaching at all to say a good person would not even consider doing what V did.

You may not think so, but that is obviously not the attitude of the movie.

I might have used a wrong example at that it has been well over a decade since I have seen any of the Dirty Harry movies. :smallredface:

And we know V was at one point good, and a good V would be quite capable of dusting Kubota just like V did.

Again we go back to 11, where Haley is just as sickened as Elan.

All of that is trumped by the Rules of Funny, so that isn't a valid arguement. Haley is just as neutral as V is.

Entirely selfish. He feared being robbed or killed in his sleep. Not somebody else being hurt, himself.

Selfless because he didn't want his party hurt or robbed. Just because it pictured him only doesn't mean it would not have happened to the rest of the group.

There is nothing magical about being in ropes. The prisoner has the same rights either way.

Speculative. Had Elan been behaving in a good manner, he would not have hit him at all. Frustration is not an excuse for hitting someone.

I will give you that but it still means that he fought the temptation of killing Kubota and didn't act on it unlike V. At least Elan had the greater good in mind after Kubota died. V just wanted to get back to what he was doing without all of the pointless interuptions.

Comic 80, among other places, suggests the contrary.

Actually, that was a stupid thing to say. Elan has an average to mid sized wisdom. He just doesn't act smart half of the time. Actually later in that comic his god was able to smite Roy but Banjo didn't have enough followers to make it really smiteful. So that must mean that his prayer did work and that must mean he has at least an average wisdom. His shouting I GOT A 4 is being stupid.

Yet you posit here that neutral would produce a better result than good would.

I never said a better result I said a different result. Neutral people don't care about the consequences of their actions. They just want what is best for them at the time. They act on purely selfish means. If their actions have a good result that is okay but they can also have an evil result as well.

As noted, this is a chaotic trait.

Nope Neutral.

And this is simply alignment free. Anyone of any alignment may, or may not, think of the consequences.

Yeah that is true but a good person wouldn't act if the consequences outway the results. A good person wouldn't act first without thinking of the consequences and if the consequences are to great he wouldn't act at all. That is why some evil can happen.

Now good people "kill innocents" to "save the world" routinely and wisely for a great many reasons. You can't avoid it. If you turn left at the corner, Joe will die and Sam will live, whereas if you turn right, it will be Sam who buys it. If you require a vaccination against some deadly disease, you will save the lives of those who would die from the disease, but the vaccination will kill some of those who get it. Either way, you kill innocents. Saying you would never kill an innocent to save others is nonsense.

You could drive straight, you could stop the car, you could put the parking brake on there are always options. You just need to think harder and outside of the box. Why would the vaccination kill people, is it that harmful? If so they wouldn't release it to the general public. If it killed people in a freak reaction then it wasn't your fault it was the person's body that did it. If it killed 5 out of every 100 people that it was injected to they would never adminster that the general public.

Why not? Recall here our condemned prisoner. He gets killed and we see no sin involved whether or not he surrendered. That he had a trial? That's a lawful requirement, and we are talking chaotic.

A chaotic good person still follows the law if the law is just and good.....period he just might complain about it. A chaotic good person doesn't brake the law unless he thinks the law was unjust and evil (I.E. Slavery, racists laws, ect.)

This difference is hypocrisy. If there is not a duty to kill Kubota, there is a duty to save him.

I know that it unwise to use Batman as an example but I will use the Batman from Batman Begins. He was CG and just because you have a duty not to kill somebody doesn't mean you have to save him. He couldn't kill Ra's Al Ghul, but he didn't have to save him from the crashing train either. Elan was in the same boat as that. Elan in his mind thought that what happened to Kubota was justice. He got caught on the loosing end of a disentegrate spell. Was Elan supposed to jump in front of it and get killed himself? Elan didn't even know it was coming. No, he wasn't that is were the chaotic part of his alignent kicked in.

Read above. V was of good alignment in strip 11.

But we are bound by that artistic license. We can't go around saying the artist didn't mean what he said or we end up with claims that Xykon is a good guy. There are just a whole lot of cases of artistic license.

As quoted above the OotS operates on the rule of funny.

Kish

2008-10-17, 11:19 AM

Selfishness is not a good or evil, chaotic or lawfull trait it is a NEUTRAL trait. Roy has acted selfishly when he left Elan to his fate with the bandits and had Roy not gone back he would have been placed in the NEUTRAL FILE.

Uh? No, Roy would have been placed in the neutral file for leaving Elan with the bandits because it was a significant evil act, counterbalancing his good acts.

If selfishness was a neutral trait that pushed anyone toward Neutral, then it would follow that Redcloak and Xykon could stop being evil by being selfish--which is a ridiculous idea.

I know that it unwise to use Batman as an example
You're right.

but I will use the Batman from Batman Begins. He was CG

Do you seriously think you can just assert that and have anyone who doesn't already believe it accept it? :smallyuk:

and just because you have a duty not to kill somebody doesn't mean you have to save him. He couldn't kill Ra's Al Ghul, but he didn't have to save him from the crashing train either.

And that was a pathetic display of moral cowardice and one of the bigger problems with the movie.

"I'll save you even though you're evil," there's a case to make for.
"You're irredeemably evil, so I'll kill you," there's a case to make for.
"Standing and watching you die is morally superior to killing you myself"--please.

hamishspence

2008-10-17, 04:09 PM

The idea of neutral traits that push people toward neutral seems odd. I don't remeber any D&D books mentioning it. Other alignment systems, like one of the various Superhero RPGs, argue that a completely neutral act is an impossibility.

what one D&D source (Exalted Deeds) say is selfishness is enough to turn Good act into Neutral act. But a neutral act has no moral weight.

So a Good guy who starts doing traditionally Good acts for selfish reasons shouldn't change alignment: "I've saving the world- because I'm ON the world, and so saving me in the process"

It also says UN-selfishness, or "Good reasons" isn't enough to turn Evil act into Neutral act.

Cleverdan22

2008-10-17, 06:39 PM

David Argall

2008-10-17, 10:14 PM

Find me the link. If you are going to use that as an arguement you have to provide the link.
Can anybody find me one of the postings? It's been reposted at least twice, but fining one in a million posts is not easy.

The artist has quoted many times that he operates on the rule of funny. It was funny to have everybody affected by the unholy blight except Belkar so it happened.
This logic would sound better if you were not also saying Haley is non-good. Our writer overlooking one alignment to do the spell and the joke is possible, but when we start adding in more, he would start looking for other ways to identify Belkar as evil.
But this logic applies only when we see a conflict. If we can see a solution that justifies both funny and the rules, that is the way the way we should read it.
Recall here that this is a comic, and everything is to be funny, which means the rule of funny proves entirely too much. We can throw out all the evidence on that basis.

He uses the rules only when they don't trump the Rule of Funny.
He uses the rules unless the rule of funny rules different. [The D&D rules are deemed subordinate, so they can't trump the rule of funny. Trump means overrule.]

If you read Origin of the PC's you would find that V never acted good there either,
She did not act in accord with any other alignment either. All the actions shown are alignment neutral. They could be done by evil, good, law, or chaos.
Nor do we see Durkon, Elan, or Haley do any good deeds.

this 1 (one) incident is supposed to make me believe that V was good, when The Giant has many times stated that the rule of funny trumps all.
But it does not obliterate all. Just because it is funny does not mean it is false.

I am sorry it doesn't convince me when all V's other actions after that point to him being Neutral.
Neutral actions are by definition simply not very alignment important. The typical good or evil does a huge majority of actions that are not good or evil. But they remain good or evil. Not neutral. 1 clearly good/evil act ranks above 100 neutral ones.

To quote an old joke...
"I worked as a banker every day for 30 years. Am I known as Benny the banker? No.
"I went to church every sunday for 50 years. Am I known as Benny the church-goer? No.
"But you murder just one child..."

This type of arguement was the same thing from the people that think Thog and Belkar were CG or CN.
But there is no place to start with such opinions. They are evidence free. With V, we start with very clear evidence.

It is false logic. You have to weigh all of his actions against each other. By my counting I have seen far more Neutral actions and some downright evil actions for V to ever be considered good at all in any of the comics.
Then you can list these evil actions.

V is really really smart. He has the intellegence to reason thru things and see to the logical conclusion that it would be a good thing to help these people.
More precisely, he has the intelligence to come to the conclusion that it would be better not to help these people.

afterwards he was going to charge Miko for his services. That doesn't seem like a very good thing a good person would do.
"The laborer is worthy of his hire."

Uhhh no that isn't an attitude shift. He has always put the needs of himself before the needs of the others. He just hasn't been this tired and has felt this impotent before to let his frustration show.
Attitude shift. In the first, he acknowledges the task as beneficial, even if minor. In the 2nd, he denies there is a benefit.

Selfishness is not a good or evil, chaotic or lawfull trait it is a NEUTRAL trait.
Labeling something as neutral is almost by definition wrong. In the case of selfishness, we would find a number of authorities who would set up a scale from little to much selfishness, scaling high selfishness as evil and low selfishness as good. A rather dubious standard since substantial amounts of selfishness are beneficial to society, but we just can't go around calling it neutral.

Roy has acted selfishly when he left Elan to his fate with the bandits and had Roy not gone back he would have been placed in the NEUTRAL FILE. V has acted like that many times and he has never been apologetic so that places him straight in the Neutral File.
You are trying to judge by one action [which is misjudged by the way], and which would score V as much more good than Roy. But if you use a balance system here, you are saying that almost nobody ranks as good.

Because at the time he thought that his Friends and Comrades shared the same desire to find Haley, and locate the other gate as he did.
Now why should he have such an opinion? And why should he have abandoned it? They have been at sea for 8-9 months. Why the sudden shift of opinion now?

A trial would have been a tedious waste of time and to see that Elan was willing to go thru it even though in V's mind there were higher priorities is why V did it.
This still makes no sense. There is simply no evidence before us that shows the distraction would be a distraction for V. A distraction for Elan, Hinjo, and the fleet. But V? Not at all.

Tone of voice.
There is no indication of tone of voice here that matters to our point.

but all Elan had to say was that it was a hostage and then V would have been wrong.
And Elan could not do so.

V used logic and reason but sometimes those things fail, or they can be used to jump to the wrong conclusion. He was lucky this time.
The strip says he was not lucky, he was right, and entirely logical in his actions. V was playing Sherlock Holmes here. Any way he might be wrong is a flaw in the strip, not a flaw in his logic.

I don't think I am reaching at all to say a good person would not even consider doing what V did.
Well, since you have already confessed that Elan did consider it...

But it is often considered, and often enough done by good characters in fiction where the evil guy has a very good chance of walking.

All of that is trumped by the Rules of Funny, so that isn't a valid arguement. Haley is just as neutral as V is.
You of course wish to defend this rather obviously minority opinion?

Selfless because he didn't want his party hurt or robbed. Just because it pictured him only doesn't mean it would not have happened to the rest of the group.
But there is no picturing of the others. We have no evidence that he has other than his own interest in mind. You are simply reading into the picture what you want to find there.

Actually, that was a stupid thing to say. Elan has an average to mid sized wisdom.
Roy has tremendously greater exposure to Elan than you do, and you wish to argue his judgement is inferior to your's? http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0314.html We're talking about the man who decided to say blah 497 times in a row because he heard it had never been done.

He just doesn't act smart half of the time.
The rest of the time he is sleeping, eating, etc.

I never said a better result I said a different result.
You said a result that is superior in the view of the good to what the good would do.

Neutral people don't care about the consequences of their actions.
Flat out nonsense. Now to some extent we can say neutrals do not care about consequences for other people, but even this is an exaggeration.

Nope Neutral.
Please explain your claim.

Yeah that is true but a good person wouldn't act if the consequences outway the results. A good person wouldn't act first without thinking of the consequences and if the consequences are to great he wouldn't act at all.
You have acknowledged Elan as good. He quite obviously does not think about consequences [or at all for that matter].

You could drive straight, you could stop the car, you could put the parking brake on there are always options.
And there are people killed by each of them. If you drive straight, you crash into the garage of the house at this T-intersection and kill yourself. If you stop, Mary rear-ends you and dies, if you... We can lower the odds and divert them, but we can not achieve zero.

Why would the vaccination kill people, is it that harmful? If so they wouldn't release it to the general public.
Each and every vaccine ever issued has killed people. Any exceptions simply were not issued to a serious number of people. As to why they were issued, they would kill a hundred and save a thousand. Simple as that.

If it killed people in a freak reaction then it wasn't your fault it was the person's body that did it.
It is your fault. You did actions that killed a man who would have lived. And you knew this, or should have known it. [You just didn't know which one would die. But you did not do the tests that would have identified him and thus his blood is on your hands.]

If it killed 5 out of every 100 people that it was injected to they would never adminster that the general public.
Well, not unless the disease would have killed 10 out of every 100.

This is a standard and routine problem for public health officials. They know their measures will kill people. They must balance that against the numbers they can save.

A chaotic good person still follows the law if the law is just and good.....period he just might complain about it. A chaotic good person doesn't brake the law unless he thinks the law was unjust and evil (I.E. Slavery, racists laws, ect.)
But by the very nature of law, any and every law makes somebody unhappy. No way to avoid that. If it doesn't forbid someone from doing what they want to or insist they do what they don't, it is a nullity. We can argue that many laws also make people happy, but there is no logical necessity of that and it is easy to find laws that make a great many more unhappy than happy. So our CG always has potential grounds for objecting to a law.

I know that it unwise to use Batman as an example but I will use the Batman from Batman Begins. He was CG
Now using somebody from another universe and logic system is definitely unwise. And there is good reason to deem at least some versions of Batman LG or LN. So he is a dubious support for your argument.

and just because you have a duty not to kill somebody doesn't mean you have to save him.
But see Elan in 68 & 69. His conscience rejects such a distinction.

hamishspence

2008-10-18, 05:34 AM

I got the impression that the vaccination rationale was resolved by the fact that: no-one has to take the vaccine.

In fact, there was big furure over people Not taking it, and as a result causing minor measles epidemic.

However, the Must Consent to it rule may not apply everywhere.

On the issue of substantial amounts of selfishness: that is a valid point. A Superhero RPG divides aligments into Scrupulous (effectively Good) Selfish (effectively Neutral) and Malevolent (effectively Evil) And some authors argue that the definition of Selfishness as evil is the cuse of troubles.

However, thats not the way D&D does it. As per Exalted Deeds, Selfishness can make good acts Neutral. However, Unselfishness cannot make evil acts Neutral. which, I think, rates them in correct order of importance.

OOTS_Rules 2

2008-10-18, 08:13 AM

Durkon: LAWFUL Good until the end!
Roy: Lawful GOOD, but often acts Neutral GOOD. Still tries his hardest to be Lawful, however.
Elan: Chaotic GOOD until the end, but is now more responsible.
Haley: Foremerly CHAOTIC Good, her role as leader is pushing her into Neutral GOOD territory.
Belkar: Chaotic EVIL. Any question about that?
V: Began as NEUTRAL Good. Then began going down the Miko path of "WE MUST FINISH OUR GOAL, GUYS!" fairly recently. Eventually turned Chaotic NEUTRAL.

David Argall

2008-10-18, 06:31 PM

I got the impression that the vaccination rationale was resolved by the fact that: no-one has to take the vaccine.

In fact, there was big furure over people Not taking it, and as a result causing minor measles epidemic.

However, the Must Consent to it rule may not apply everywhere.

Properly, it doesn't matter. The public health authority does its best to make taking the vaccination mandatory [or sometimes forbidden].
And the public health authority has, or should have, a tremendous advantage in knowledge of the subject. Its "advice" is followed almost blindly by large numbers. When that advice is wrong, they are potentially at fault. Additional people die.

Lizard Lord

2008-10-18, 08:27 PM

Durkan: LAWFUL good
Roy: lawful GOOD
Elan: chaotic GOOD
V: true NEUTRAL
Haley: CHAOTIC neutral
Belkar chaotic EVIL
Haley is selfish when it comes to material possessions, but not lives. Remember when she was willing to help those farmers despite the fact that there would be no reward. What about when she risked her life to rescue the paladin guy?

I would say Haley is CHAOTIC good. Also I think Belkar is equally chaotic and evil or, as you would put it on your list, CHAOTIC EVIL.

Otherwise I agree with your list there.

Fiery Diamond

2008-10-18, 08:50 PM

dps

2008-10-18, 08:50 PM

Durkan: LAWFUL good
Roy: lawful GOOD
Elan: chaotic GOOD
V: true NEUTRAL
Haley: CHAOTIC neutral
Belkar chaotic EVIL

IMO, Haley started off Chaotic neutral but is probably now chaotic good. I agree that, strip #11 notwithstanding, V has been true neutral, but I'm not sure that's still the case. Otherwise, I agree with you.

pnewman

2008-10-19, 01:49 AM

The thing is that V is the one who is most focused on stopping the destruction of the world, and all the innocents in it. She's not letting petty things like the rights of the individual (Kabuto and Elan, for instance) get in the way of the overall good of everyone else. This suggests that she is more concerned with the good of society than of the individual. That sounds like Lawful Good, albeit in a Mikoish way, not a Royish way. I think V is not any sort of Chaotic.
Her tightly wound personality, attention to detail, and work (magic) focused life are more typical of a lawful person than a Chaotic one.

She's never said anything suggesting her world-saving motives are Neutral, like 'I want to save the world so I can selfishly go on enjoying myself in it'; or Evil, like 'I want to go on saving the world so I can go on killing people, which I like.' She's concerned about the group over the individual, and willing to sacrifice the individual, even when they're her friends (Elan), to save the world. That sure sounds Lawful to me.

So she's non Chaotic, non Evil and (probably) non Neutral. That would make her Neutral Good or Lawful Good. When you look at how her main concern is for the mission, you see how much like the LG Roy she really is.

Of course even if she is LG that doesn't stop her from being the villain (Miko). V has that whole Malcom X'ish 'By Any Means Necessary!' attitude that got Miko in so much trouble. Unlike Miko V's loses no class abilities if she stops being good, say by committing evil acts in service of good.

hamishspence

2008-10-19, 09:09 AM

The assumption is once again made, that a focus on saving the world, with no other motivation, makes one Good. D&D has a long standing tradition of considering methods first, motive only secondarily. Goes right back to 1st edition, when burning a plague-ridden village to protect the rest of the country from that plague, was considered very, very Evil.

See books like Champions of Ruin, for more details on how a being who uses reprehensible methods in a "Good Cause" can be considered evil. Its not the reason you are doing it that matters as much as the method itself:

Good Ends + Good Motives + Evil Means = Evil.

Skaarg

2008-10-19, 12:03 PM

Sanjay

2008-10-19, 12:25 PM

I'm never good at gauging DnD alignments because there is a whole lot more wanton killing in the DnD universe than I would allow with my own interpretation of what is good and what is evil. I could imagine some kid playing as a character that fireballs people like Kubota but still calls herself Good.

Still, it seems neutral at best to me.

Wardog

2008-10-19, 02:30 PM

David Argall:

I'm not sure these car crash and vaccination examples are very useful.

Regarding the car crash:
a) If you turn left, they hit someone and kill them
b) If you turn right, they hit someone and kill them.
c) If you carry straight on, they crash and die themselves.
d) If you stop, someone else crashes and dies.

Firstly, it seems rather unlikely that someone would find themselves in exactly that situation (unless you are speeding or being reckless, in which case you are unlikely to be Good in the first place).

Secondly, if you break and someone goes into their rear, then that is the fault of the other person for driving too close/fast. Your blood isn't on their hands - its on their hands.

Finally, if you were really, really good, you might be willing to go straight on, and sacrifice yourself to avoid killing the others.

That said, I can think of similar, more realistic situations where simila dilemmas would apply (e.g. pilot of a crashing plane deciding where to bring it down, when all possible crash sites are inhabited), so maybe my nit-picking over details is unnecessary.

However, neither case is really relevant to V's alignment, as they are about disaster management and choosing the least worst outcome, rather than the ethics of whether or not to kill a known villain.

Similarly, I don't think the vaccination example is very useful for Good vs Other alignment debates, unless either:
a) The vaccination has a high chance of killing you.
b) The risks have not been reasonably assessed.
c) You are forcing (or tricking) people to take it.

Indeed, as long as the recipient is both aware of the risks, and taking the vaccine willingly, I think it would be a gross exaggeration to say that anyone has "blood on their hands" if a some people die.

That said, you are right about Good people sometimes having to make decissions where they know innocents will die, but they will tend situations where more will die if you do nothing, and you have to chose the least worst alternative. The situation with V doesn't seem to me to be that sort of example, as he was choosing to kill someone that didn't need to be killed, just to save everyone the time and inconvenience of a trial.

I can accept a CG person killing a prisoner (or advocating doing so), if e.g. they were in the wilderness, and trying to take the prisoner back to the proper authorities (or finding some mercifal but less lawful solution) carried a significant risk of the prisoner killing party members, or escaping and going on to kill others. But that wasn't the case with Kobuto, nor did V try to claim it was.

A chaotic good person still follows the law if the law is just and good.....period he just might complain about it. A chaotic good person doesn't brake the law unless he thinks the law was unjust and evil (I.E. Slavery, racists laws, ect.)

I agree with the first statement (CG will still follow the law if it is Good and just).

I disagree with the second (they will only break it if it is evil and unjust).
LG will only break the law in such circumstances.
CG will willingly break the law as long as the law isn't Good.

Spiky

2008-10-19, 08:09 PM

You really can't use the D&D alignments for real good vs evil issues. Or vice versa. D&D is simply too limited in scope to even be a useful comparison.

dps

2008-10-19, 10:31 PM

The assumption is once again made, that a focus on saving the world, with no other motivation, makes one Good.

Yeah, people are overlooking the fact that it can make you a Well-Intentioned Extremist.

I'm not linking to the TV Tropes entry, because:

1) I'm in a lazy mood,

2) there's plenty enough links from this forum to TV Tropes anyways, and

3) given #2 above, I figure most everyone here who would give a darn is already familiar with TV Tropes.

Warren Dew

2008-10-19, 10:37 PM

David Argall

2008-10-20, 02:50 AM

Regarding the car crash:
it seems rather unlikely that someone would find themselves in exactly that situation
True and irrelevant. We may be talking about a million ball games of billiards here. You shoot ball 1, ball 748 goes into a hole. You shoot ball 2, ball 8765 goes into a hole. And if you shoot #3, balls 342 & 98334 go into holes. They may bounce against dozens of balls in the process, but they are unimportant to the final result. Because you shoot, a ball goes into the hole, even if you have no idea which ball or which hole.
If we go back to our auto case, the right turn may slow down the driver behind you, who then speeds up and passes somebody else who gets mad and is too busy cursing to notice a pedestrian, who... The number in the string doesn't matter. Somebody ends up dead who would have lived if you had turned left or...

Secondly, if you break and someone goes into their rear, then that is the fault of the other person for driving too close/fast. Your blood isn't on their hands - its on their hands.
It is also on your hands. You could have taken other actions that could have saved her, but you did not [possibly wisely], so you get blame for her death, and credit for those [likely unknown] ones you have saved. The law is [wisely?] lazy and only considers the close and direct causes, but this does not excuse you.

maybe my nit-picking over details is unnecessary.
Many a nit turns out to be an elephant.

However, neither case is really relevant to V's alignment,
True, to some degree. They are a response to

A good person never never never ever do anything if the ends justify the means (i.e. kill an innocent to save the world).
They demonstrate that such a principle is impossible to live up to. And so that means we can not accept a rule that a good person can never execute a prisoner. The cases where such execution is justified will be rare, but they will not be zero. And since they are not zero, we must consider the actual situation of V & Kubota rather than blathering about helpless prisoners.

Similarly, I don't think the vaccination example is very useful for Good vs Other alignment debates, unless either:
a) The vaccination has a high chance of killing you.
b) The risks have not been reasonably assessed.
c) You are forcing (or tricking) people to take it.
Now what you have here are some of the standards for judging the use of a vaccine as good or bad. And these standards accept that you will be killing people with the vaccine. [A low chance of killing becomes a smaller pile of bodies, not zero bodies.] So our good man can administer a vaccine that kills innocents who would have lived, and still consider himself a good man.

Indeed, as long as the recipient is both aware of the risks, and taking the vaccine willingly, I think it would be a gross exaggeration to say that anyone has "blood on their hands" if a some people die.
Had you acted differently, these people would be alive instead of dead. Of course there is blood on your hands.

Good people sometimes having to make decissions where they know innocents will die, but they will tend situations where more will die if you do nothing, and you have to chose the least worst alternative. The situation with V doesn't seem to me to be that sort of example, as he was choosing to kill someone that didn't need to be killed, just to save everyone the time and inconvenience of a trial.
On the evidence before us, Kubota was going to get a death sentence [any fair sort of trial] or walk [if he can con or bribe the judge]. In which case he had every intention and ability to continue to cause lethal havoc. V was not just saving the inconvenience of a trial, he was quite possibly saving a great many lives. So this potentially fits easily into the mold of the good person taking the least bad alternative.

I can accept a CG person killing a prisoner (or advocating doing so), if e.g. they were in the wilderness, and trying to take the prisoner back to the proper authorities (or finding some mercifal but less lawful solution) carried a significant risk of the prisoner killing party members, or escaping and going on to kill others. But that wasn't the case with Kobuto, nor did V try to claim it was.
Kubota's statement was that he was such a danger. Now he said he was going to escape in the courtroom instead of on the way to it, but the end result would be the same. He would resume his plotting against Hinjo and a number of people would die from his plots.

Now in our real world, the problem with V's behavior would be that there would be a large chance that "Kubota" would not be guilty. We know we don't know all the facts, and that some we know are wrong. Thus there is strong pressure not to make such a final decision when we can delay and consider the answer more carefully. However, in the comic, we know Kubota to be guilty, and so does V. So this problem does not arrise, and V is scads freer to just blast away.

hamishspence

2008-10-20, 07:47 AM

Dairuka

2008-10-20, 08:35 AM

Alignments can change. So any occurrences in a character's past that can be used to define a character's alignment are null and void in the present argument. We should focus on the actions.

Unless one single action is entirely against what that alignment is about, one single action will not change that alignment.

Multiple actions that fall into a different alignment, signify that the alignment has already changed. A single action that falls into a different alignment signifies a gaffe. Unless you're role-playing a Diva, you're going to have to take into account that they're human(ish) and they're going to make mistakes.

We should take into account the multiple actions taken in V's past that fell into each different section of the alignment spectrum, and decide for ourselves what V's alignment is.

Think like a DM in that regards. What alignment would you force onto that PC's sheet assuming the PC constantly plays outside the chosen alignment like we all assume V has?

The answer alone should suffice for you. Just don't expect everybody to come to the same conclusion. Since the Giant is the DM of this little campaign; hes the only one who gets to decide in the end regardless of how much you guys bluster, bluff and prattle on with your ceaseless yet logic-less logic.

{Scrubbed}

nleseul

2008-10-20, 09:38 AM

If selfishness was a neutral trait that pushed anyone toward Neutral, then it would follow that Redcloak and Xykon could stop being evil by being selfish--which is a ridiculous idea.While this is not really a rebuttal to your argument, I think that in the case of Xykon, more selfishness might well make him less evil. If he were more selfish, he might be more worried about things that help his personal position - like having an adequate supply of minions - and he might cut back on killing allies just for fun.

Personally, I think of a good person as one who goes out of her way to help other people, and an evil person as one who goes out of her way to hurt other people. A neutral person is one who does neither—i.e., is completely unconcerned with other people.

David Argall

2008-10-20, 01:43 PM

once again, V does not know Kubota is guilty. He said, himself, explicitly, that all he heard was from the point Kubota said: "My trial will take weeks, and by the end, Hinjo will look like a fool for charging me."

While he might be able to surmise from tone of voice, and previous incidents, he does not know Kubota is guilty.
He does not know what Kubota is guilty of. He does know he is guilty of major crime for which the death penalty is a suitable punishment. He doesn't need to know such petty details any more than the state executioner does. The prisoner has been found guilty of death-penalty level crime [by the court system in the real world, by Elan following dramatic convention in the comic] and that is sufficient to act on.

hamishspence

2008-10-20, 02:30 PM

AKA_Bait

2008-10-20, 02:57 PM

This is Elan we are dealing with here. Are we saying that V trusts completely that anyone Elan has tied up Must be a major villain worth of a death sentence. And, at the same time, V doesn't trust Elan on the subject of who to "hand over to justice"? Inconsistant.

Not if V thinks that Elan is a soft touch. I.e., if Elan has tied them up they must be a major villian (like Nale) and deserving of death but Elan is too nice to actually kill them so he foolishly hands them over to 'justice' from which they promptly escape.

Kish

2008-10-20, 04:18 PM

While this is not really a rebuttal to your argument, I think that in the case of Xykon, more selfishness might well make him less evil. If he were more selfish, he might be more worried about things that help his personal position - like having an adequate supply of minions - and he might cut back on killing allies just for fun.
That's prudence, not selfishness. :smallyuk: "I want to have fun" is just as selfish a goal as "I want to be safe." How could Xykon care less about other beings than he already does?

Manoftyr

2008-10-20, 05:05 PM

Chaotic Good is known as the "Beatific" or "Rebel" alignment. A chaotic good character favors change for the greater good, disdains bureaucratic organizations that get in the way of social improvement, and places a high value on personal freedom. Most elves are chaotic good, as are some fey.

Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica, Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly, and Robin Hood are examples of Chaotic Good individuals.[3] Eladrin are the outsider race representing Chaotic Good.
...

Vaporizing that human was for the greater good, demonstrated a disdainful attitude towards his bureaucratic organization that has, and would have continued to get in the way of social improvement. Vaarsuvius, at worst, is complacent about personal freedom, but probably values it, as demonstrated by not preaching about questionable deeds committed by allies. Vaarsuvius is an elf.

I agree up into a point, V would be CG if his motives were pure and entirely motivated by a desire to help others, punish the wicked, stick up for the little guy, challenge corruption and other common CG themes, but, as far as we know all he wants to do is pursue his studies feverishly and eliminate all perceived threats to it in order to locate Haley and while not 'evil' it isn't entirely 'good' either putting him at CN, maybe with some good tendencies but still CN.

And as for the whole 'ends justify the means attitude makes you evil regardless' argument that seems to be floating around I'll just say this, throwing around the book of vile deeds and Champions of Ruin like they're some kind of bibles isn't conducive to a strong argument, a lot of people don't even consider them source for crying out loud, as far as I consider it 'and I've been a D&D gamer for a decade and a half now' the entire premise of CG is putting the accepted 'norms' of what others commonly consider 'good' aside and doing what you personally feel is right in pursuit of a greater good of some kind which can and often does include an 'ends justify the means' outlook, to say that is evil effectively removes CG as an alignment...like in 4th edition:smallannoyed: but I'm not even going to get into that.

Personally, I feel books like the BoVD and CoR COMPLETELY screw up the alignment system by throwing askew the law/chaos axis and relegating it as secondary to the good/evil axis, even going as far as to imply chaos=evil and law=good, which goes against everything I love/enjoy about D&D, and therefore I forbid them from my campaigns. Hell, it even spelled ill omens for the alignment system in regards to the new 4th edition where the law/chaos axis has again been relegated as minor to the good/evil, shrinking it even further.

That said, saying V is evil because he killed some random villain in captivity is rather silly...I've played a few CG characters that would have done the same, and know of other campaign buddies who have as well.

David Argall

2008-10-20, 05:57 PM

This is Elan we are dealing with here. Are we saying that V trusts completely that anyone Elan has tied up Must be a major villain worth of a death sentence. And, at the same time, V doesn't trust Elan on the subject of who to "hand over to justice"? Inconsistant.
As noted, not really. Confronted with 20 people, 10 major criminals and 10 not, we can assume Elan will tie up 5 of the major criminals and none of the others. Based on the strip to date, if they are then turned over to the law, 4of them will escape justice. Kubota produces some evidence that he will be one of those 4, and ...

Kish

2008-10-20, 08:46 PM

And as for the whole 'ends justify the means attitude makes you evil regardless' argument that seems to be floating around I'll just say this, throwing around the book of vile deeds and Champions of Ruin like they're some kind of bibles isn't conducive to a strong argument, a lot of people don't even consider them source for crying out loud, as far as I consider it 'and I've been a D&D gamer for a decade and a half now' the entire premise of CG is putting the accepted 'norms' of what others commonly consider 'good' aside and doing what you personally feel is right in pursuit of a greater good of some kind which can and often does include an 'ends justify the means' outlook, to say that is evil effectively removes CG as an alignment...
I wish I had that Worf-facepalm link someone on this forum uses.

As far as I consider it--and I've been a D&D gamer for two decades, if that counts for anything, which I fail to see why it would--that's nothing like the description of Chaotic Good in 3ed, in 2ed, or even in crazy "if you roll a 3 for Charisma you have to be an evil-aligned assassin" 1ed. Calling that "Good" makes it impossible for there to be a vaguely realistic villain, as people like Redcloak who consider their depraved actions to be serving a good cause are "Chaotic Good," and only cackling Snidely Whiplash caricatures who know what they're doing is evil and like it can be classed as evil.

Your arguments puzzle me. In one breath you say you hate the idea of chaos=evil and law=good, which is an idea I hate as well. In another, though, you advance the idea of Chaotic Good as effectively meaning "dirty good." There is no reason for a Chaotic Good character to value life one jot less than a Lawful Good one.

MageLeif

2008-10-20, 09:05 PM

V: true NEUTRAL
Haley: CHAOTIC neutral

I'm not sure if you could classify V as having his/her alignment being true neutral. It depends on his intent for killing Kubota. Sure he/she revealed that it was to bypass boring "lawsuit stuff", or whatever it was that involved those idiot lawers, but it is a possibility that he/she killed Kubota for the greater good as well, but just didn't reveal it.

Now as for Haley, I think she is chaotic neutral, but may eventually turn to chaotic good. It depends where all these plot twists end up to.

Favorite quote from one of my fellow D&D players: "Oh snap! Plot twist!"

hamishspence

2008-10-21, 07:49 AM

Given the choice between "Well intentioned extremists are Chaotic Good" and "Well intentioned extremists are Evil" I plump for EVil. Most 3.0 and 3.5 Faerun books stress this, Faerun is Full of Well Intentioned Extremist EVil Organizations. So, for that matter, is Eberron.

I also seem to remember people arguing that Elan hitting Kubota, at all, after he had surrendered was Evil. So, by that same logic, killing Kubota out of hand, at all, after he has surrendered, should be Evil. Execution or self-defence only, permitted. And V's act doesn't fit either.

Especially given that V had no evidence whatsover of Kubota's crimes. Not even a confession. Merely a snarky speech that might contatin the faintest hint that he was not entirely innocent "My trial will take months"

David Argall

2008-10-21, 04:23 PM

I also seem to remember people arguing that Elan hitting Kubota, at all, after he had surrendered was Evil. So, by that same logic, killing Kubota out of hand, at all, after he has surrendered, should be Evil. Execution or self-defence only, permitted. And V's act doesn't fit either.
V's action was rather obviously execution. It was Elan's action that fits neither classification.

Especially given that V had no evidence whatsover of Kubota's crimes. Not even a confession. Merely a snarky speech that might contatin the faintest hint that he was not entirely innocent "My trial will take months"
You keep on saying this, which is at most technically true, and clearly misleading. Kubota was guilty and V knew that. He did not know the precise crimes, but he knew they justified Kubota's death.

zuzak

2008-10-21, 11:06 PM

You keep on saying this, which is at most technically true, and clearly misleading. Kubota was guilty and V knew that. He did not know the precise crimes, but he knew they justified Kubota's death.

"I was just saying that I guess Kubota got what was coming to him after all."
"What is a Kubota?"
. . .
"He was the one behind the ninjas and devils and all that stuff!"
"Was he, now? I confess that I tired of those happenings some time ago and have paid them scant attention ever since"
. . .
"You executed him just because I happened to have him tied up???"
"Yes, but that mustache did not do him any favors either."

V in no way KNEW that Kubota was guilty. S/he didn't even know his name, and had no clue as to what he was accused of, and didn't even care about what happened except as it affected finding the rest of the party. Killing someone after they surrendered is a Chaotic Evil act. I think Elan's image of Belkar sums it up:
"'Surrender.' Ha! How do they come up with this stuff?" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0115.html)

David Argall

2008-10-22, 12:06 AM

V in no way KNEW that Kubota was guilty. S/he didn't even know his name, and had no clue as to what he was accused of,

“Your strict adherence to dramatic convention has proven to me over the length of our association that you only bother to take captive the main villains of any encounter-such as your brother.
“The man I killed was bound, and you were holding the rope. I therefore deducted that he was an enemy of some sort, and therefore a valid target.”

V Correctly determined that Kubota was guilty of death penalty level crime. He does not need to know which one. Kubota was guilty of murder? Of treason? Of rape? It makes no difference. His life continues only on sufference.

Killing someone after they surrendered is a Chaotic Evil act.
Killing someone after trial can be LG, whether or not they surrender. That in turn means it may be NG or CG to do so without trial. It depends on the clarity of their guilt-which is dead certain in this case, and the level of inconvenience of their staying alive [which is potentially quite high in this case]. There is simply no promise not to administer justice to any prisoner in your power.

JaxGaret

2008-10-22, 12:20 AM

Now one can argue our writer made a mistake in doing the strip, but #11 has been accepted by him as clear proof that V was Good at the start of the strip.

Unholy Blight affects Neutral characters too.

hamishspence

2008-10-22, 06:57 AM

But doesn't cause sickness in them.

V Knew nothing. V Guessed. Correctly, but he still Guessed. A Guess is not evidence.

And V might call it an execution, But Hinjo might call it a murder. Its in V's own words, that he had no evidence whatsover that K had committed any crimes at all, other than that Elan had arrested him.

David Argall

2008-10-22, 02:41 PM

V Knew nothing. V Guessed. Correctly, but he still Guessed. A Guess is not evidence.
A guess is based on evidence. In this case, the comic labels that as very good evidence. V is the super genius, able to deduct correctly from very little [unless that involves sexual differences]. The comic of course also says his "guess" was correct.

When we start talking about guessing, we are in the realm of "it depends". We can no longer say "It's certain". V may [or may not] be CG in this action.

And V might call it an execution, But Hinjo might call it a murder. Its in V's own words, that he had no evidence whatsover that K had committed any crimes at all, other than that Elan had arrested him.
Which is like saying "I had no evidence he had committed a crime, other than he was in prison." [Indeed, we are more so. The innocent prisoner, while way rarer than he appears in stories, does exist. V lives in a simpler fiction world where judgement is much more definite.]

Wardog

2008-10-22, 02:46 PM

It is also on your hands. You could have taken other actions that could have saved her, but you did not [possibly wisely], so you get blame for her death, and credit for those [likely unknown] ones you have saved. The law is [wisely?] lazy and only considers the close and direct causes, but this does not excuse you.

I get the blame?

By who? Not by the law, nor by any sensible person. Maybe by some ambulance-chasing lawyer, but I don't think their opinions count here.

And its "lazy" to not punish someone for doing something that doesn't harm any innocents, but doesn't prevent someone else dying due to their own recklessness?

And I'm "not excused"? Who isn't excusing me?

hamishspence

2008-10-22, 02:54 PM

Actually, he wasn't in prison. He was being escorted to whatever acts as prison on board ship ( a brig?) to await trial.

And, if you think intent matters, V made it clear his intent was a matter of convenience: V saw a long trial as an inconvenience. Check his wording- nothing suggests it was out of "justice" or "greater good"

PHB: NE: Sheds no tears for those she kills, whether out of sport, profit, or convenience.

After Elan has mentioned kubota's crimes, V said "Probably deserved death anyway" Good people don't kill others based on "probably." Not Even in D&D. And V did not have access to that info when V killed Kubota.

I seem to remember someone stating Roy launching an attack on an armed Miko who'd just committed murder in front of him was behaving immorally.

If thats immoral, V attacking a bound Kubota, with no evidence whatsever of his crimes, only a surmise that Elan tends to tie up major villains, must be triply immoral.

JaxGaret

2008-10-22, 03:28 PM

But doesn't cause sickness in them.

Sickness (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#sickened) doesn't cause immobilization. The Giant is obviously using a homebrewed version of Unholy Blight.

As such, it might easily immobilize Neutral characters as well as Evil ones.

Dallas-Dakota

2008-10-22, 03:32 PM

V can be perfectly lawfull good.
He's just following elven laws.

I'm not saying he's chaotic good or lawfull good, just saying that he can perfectly be both.

David Argall

2008-10-22, 09:34 PM

I get the blame?

By who? Not by the law, nor by any sensible person.
We are not arguing a vote here. We are engaged in simple logic. You did something, and as a result, somebody died. You could have done something else and the victim would have lived. You are at fault, just as you deserve the credit when your actions save lives.
Now you wish to provide some sort of excuse here, but that excuse is a positive defense. You must prove its validity. Otherwise the default is that the defense fails.

And its "lazy" to not punish someone for doing something that doesn't harm any innocents, but doesn't prevent someone else dying due to their own recklessness?
If you check with the law, you will find it does sometimes punish people in such cases. One such legal doctrine is called "attractive nuisance". You can be required to physically prevent people from going where they have no legal right to be.

The law is lazy here because it avoids the cases that are hard to decide. You have a verbal contract with someone. If one of you is violating the contract, that violation is still there whether you have it in writing or not. But it is frequently nearly impossible to determine just what the verbal contract actually said. So the law often refuses to make the effort needed to determine what that contract said.

Actually, he wasn't in prison. He was being escorted to whatever acts as prison on board ship ( a brig?) to await trial.
You are mixing different cases up here. We see a prisoner in prison. We therefore know he has been arrested, tried, found guilty, and of the more serious charges. We don't know his exact crime, and don't need to. We are not going to turn our back.
Now the strip makes it clear that V "saw" much the same thing, somebody who was guilty of major crime meriting a death penalty. V does not need to know the precise crime to know he is justifed in killing him.

And, if you think intent matters, V made it clear his intent was a matter of convenience: V saw a long trial as an inconvenience. Check his wording- nothing suggests it was out of "justice" or "greater good".
You continue to ignore half of V's reasons.

V: “The man I killed was bound, and you were holding the rope. I therefore deducted that he was an enemy of some sort, and therefore a valid target.”

E: “You executed him just because I happened to have him tied up???”
V: “Yes”

Kubota was somebody who could be killed on sight. V was being merciful to wait until he had additional reason to dice him.

PHB: NE: Sheds no tears for those she kills, whether out of sport, profit, or convenience.
You are relying too much on one definition of convenience here. PH, p. 105 also gives us "Alhandra, a paladin who fights evil without mercy...is lawful good." And we have V killing the evil Kubota without mercy.

"Convenience" as used in PH means it is the sole reason. Kubota might threaten to sue V. This would be inconvenient for V, but it would be evil to kill him on that basis. In the case at hand, V already has valid grounds for killing Kubota. That the straw that breaks the camel's back is convenience is not important. Even without it, there are sufficient grounds to eliminate Kubota.

After Elan has mentioned kubota's crimes, V said "Probably deserved death anyway"
V: “According to your own words, he probably deserved death, anyway.”

V is telling Elan "You got what you wanted. What are you still objecting for?

I seem to remember someone stating Roy launching an attack on an armed Miko who'd just committed murder in front of him was behaving immorally.
And for the same reasons Elan was acting immorally, he was. He had no intention of making this the sole punishment of Miko. He simply wanted to add this to the punishment, without any reason to think the legal punishment would be inadequate.

If thats immoral, V attacking a bound Kubota, with no evidence whatsever of his crimes,
And as we have seen, V did have entirely adequate evidence of Kubota's crimes. And V killing him substituted for the law killing him. It was not an additional punishment, as with Roy and Elan.

only a surmise that Elan tends to tie up major villains,
That is an established fact that he ties up Only major villains.

Sickness doesn't cause immobilization. The Giant is obviously using a homebrewed version of Unholy Blight.

As such, it might easily immobilize Neutral characters as well as Evil ones.

You are rather obviously reaching.
This strip follows D&D rules except where it does not. So unless there are reasons clear to the reader, the D&D rule applies.
And in this case, we have the statement of the writer, that no, he was not intending any such special version of the spell, that the strip does indicate V was good at that time.

DarkCloud

2008-10-22, 10:01 PM

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0053.html

apparently V has "pure heart" although by action, I'd clearly throw her into the True Neutral camp due to fairly large selfishness. Her loyalty to Haley and Roy appears to be driven by strongly lawful tendencies, however.

Lira

2008-10-22, 10:12 PM

DarkCloud

2008-10-22, 10:33 PM

Thanks... I was about to edit my post after I reread a few more comics and realized my mistake. Then I realized I was not quite fast enough and you had already corrected my mistake ;) Ode well, memory fades with time. I jumped too quickly to conclusions.

Apologies.

Warren Dew

2008-10-22, 11:38 PM

That's prudence, not selfishness. :smallyuk: "I want to have fun" is just as selfish a goal as "I want to be safe." How could Xykon care less about other beings than he already does?

If anything one wants is selfishness, then people primarily motivated by "I want to be kind to others" or "I want the world to be a better place for everyone" are also selfish. I think it would be a strange alignment system that judged someone who managed to make the world a perfect place for everyone, greatly evil.

I think it makes more sense to restrict selfishness to wanting more personal wealth or power. I think that makes it largely a neutral goal, and the means one used to reach that goal might then determine whether one is good or evil.

Your arguments puzzle me. In one breath you say you hate the idea of chaos=evil and law=good, which is an idea I hate as well. In another, though, you advance the idea of Chaotic Good as effectively meaning "dirty good." There is no reason for a Chaotic Good character to value life one jot less than a Lawful Good one.

My thoughts exactly. A chaotic good character might be more random about when to show mercy rather than justice, where a lawful good character might use detailed sentencing guidelines, but "ends justify the means" is never as good as "uses good means towards good ends".

Which is like saying "I had no evidence he had committed a crime, other than he was in prison."

And yet, many serving a just prison sentence still do not deserve execution.

Trizap

2008-10-22, 11:48 PM

ummmmmm.............

V threatened to kill Elan I don't think that closes her off from any type of good.

True Neutral, tha's V.

remember when people used to argue over V's gender and not her alignment?
I don't miss those days.

hamishspence

2008-10-23, 07:14 AM

The point is, he has not been tried, or found guilty, and "adequate evidence" does not consist of "he's tied up"

Nor was Kubota someone who could be "killed on sight" by anyone who hasn't been notified that he has committed crimes. And "Kill on sight" applies to uncaptured villains, not captured ones, anyway.

hamishspence

2008-10-23, 08:22 AM

To paraphrase Hinjo:
"Emphasis on the "accused""
"Because we have the rule of law on this boat, and the rule of law says you don't get to kill someone because you think, based on the fact that they're tied up, that they happen to have done something wrong"

David Argall

2008-10-23, 05:51 PM

And yet, many serving a just prison sentence still do not deserve execution.
You are ignoring the moral of the case. We do not need to know that somebody has done Crime A instead of Crime B or C in order to assume our crook has done something that justifies his punishment.

To paraphrase Hinjo:
"Emphasis on the "accused""
"Because we have the rule of law on this boat, and the rule of law says you don't get to kill someone because you think, based on the fact that they're tied up, that they happen to have done something wrong"
And not many are trying to claim V is lawful. We are considering CG, which does not think well of law at all.

The point is, he has not been tried, or found guilty, and "adequate evidence" does not consist of "he's tied up"
The strip says different. We know Kubota to be entirely guilty and V gives us a reason that shows that tied up by Elan is not merely tied up.

Nor was Kubota someone who could be "killed on sight" by anyone who hasn't been notified that he has committed crimes.
But V has been notified that Kubota was guilty of crimes that merit kill on sight.

And "Kill on sight" applies to uncaptured villains, not captured ones, anyway.
This is just a variation of your unsupported claim that there is an absolute rule that a prisoner should not be killed. The law executes prisoners, and chaotics do too. They do not have to bother with the technicalities of the lawful to do so. In both cases, they have a need to be sure the prisoner is in fact guilty, and the trial is often a very good way to do that. But it is only a way to be sure of the guilt. When that is sure, there is no need for the trial.

hamishspence

2008-10-24, 01:35 AM

Check Exalted Deeds, check Champions of Valor "Heroes who put captured opponents to the sword are little better than common murderers" The issue of killing captured prisoners without some kind of trial or hearing is not a matter of Law/chaos in these books, it is a matter of good/evil.

And "Fights evil without mersy, not "Destroys evil without mercy" is the quote. It can apply to always handing down heaviest reasonable sentence.

And "We know" does not equate to "V knows"

When was V notified? Offscreen? He states himself he has no idea what Kubota had done.

David Argall

2008-10-24, 02:56 AM

Check Exalted Deeds, check Champions of Valor "Heroes who put captured opponents to the sword are little better than common murderers"
But heros who put captured opponents to the sword after a proper trial are clearly not covered by this statement. It is thus a general case to which there are exceptions. And one of those is where the guilt of the prisoner is sufficiently established. Another would be where the danger of holding the prisoner is simply too high.

The issue of killing captured prisoners without some kind of trial or hearing is not a matter of Law/chaos in these books, it is a matter of good/evil.
Rather obvious nonsense [tho possibly that of the books]. Our Good wants the guilty punished and the innocent protected. The means is merely an incidental. It is the lawful who would insist there must be a trial.

And "Fights evil without mersy, not "Destroys evil without mercy" is the quote. It can apply to always handing down heaviest reasonable sentence.
Which would mean killing our prisoner who surrendered.

And "We know" does not equate to "V knows"
Of course, but that requires us to show V doesn't know, and that this is important.

When was V notified? Offscreen? He states himself he has no idea what Kubota had done.
She had no idea of the exact crimes. He was well aware that Kubota was guilty of crimes meriting the death penalty.

And Kubota was guilty. Totally and obviously so. You are objecting to the death of somebody who was going to be killed, or would have caused great trouble if he had gotten off. He completely deserved what he got.
V either hurried the process along, saving a little bother, or saved a great many lives. The idea that this good result can't be achieved by someone of good alignment is absurd.

hamishspence

2008-10-24, 07:23 AM

Every time I give sources, you say "I do not accept those sources." Even when they cover subject in more detail, and were written after PHB.

I do not object to death, only death without trial, hearing, etc, of a prisoner who has surrendered, carried out by someone who has no authority to carry out such sentences.

Unless there is a strip where Hinjo granted V that authority.

As for V not knowing, V's words were: "I deduced that he was an enemy of some sort, and therefore a valid target"

Except: captured enemies are not necessarily valid targets.

For those interested in what the sources had to say: they are as follows:

Exalted Deeds: Page 7:
Evil's most seductive lure may be the abandonment of mercy. Mercy means giving quarter to enemies who surrender and treating criminals and prisoners with compassion and even kindness. It is, in effect, the good doctine of life taken to it's logical extreme- respecting and honoring even the life of one's enemy. In a world full of enemies who show no respect for life whatsoever, it can be extremely tempting to treat foes as they have treated others, to exact revenge for slain comrades and innocents, to offer no quarter and become merciless.
A good character must not succumb to that trap. Good characters must offer mercy and accept surrender no matter how many times villains might betray that kindness or escape from captivity to continue their evil deeds. If a foe surrenders, a good character is bound to accept the surrender, bind the prsioner, and treat him as kindly as possible.

Exalted deeds page 11:
When fighting through a dungeon, character's needn't switch to subdual tactics when they suddenly encounter evil dwarf minions. But if those minions surrender, it is best to take the prisoners back to town to stand trial for their crimes. When the adventure takes place in a city and the opponents are citizens of the city (rather than evil monsters from the sewers or deeper underground) subduing opponents and turning them over to the city watch is preferable to killing them and possibly being forced to stand trial for murder.

Champions of Valor, pages 14 and 15:
Adventurers are common enough that most places have laws specifying what adventurers can and cannot do, and good aligned adventurers should not feel they can disregard local laws just because they're out of earshot of a town.

Most countries have laws about killing prisoners without a trial or at least make arrangements to ransom them back to their comrades in the hope that enemies will respect a similar agreement- so heroes who put captured opponents to the sword are little better than common murderers.

Good heroes should prepare for the necessity of binding subdued opponents or be willing to let their captives go free with a promise of better behavior (and possibly stripped of their weapons and armor so they can't easily harm other people.

Of course, it is a different situation when the heroes are acting as agents of the law- killing a wanted murderer in open combat is completely legal- but even those acting with approval of the law must obey those same laws;

a Waterdhavian priest of Tyr acting under orders of his temple to root out a thieves guild should try and capture some of the thieves if possible so that they can be questioned, tried, and sentenced.

Kubota is a citizen of Azure city, his crimes were committed on an Azure city boat, and a magistrate of Azure city was mentioned back when they were being attacked by trolls.

hamishspence

2008-10-24, 07:52 AM

Also, see DMG 2 for trials in chaotic societies: sometimes favour ordeals, since in D&D the gods are real, powerful, and capable of intervening.

And Races of The Wild for details on CG elven judiciary- the ruler is nominally in charge, but most disputes are resolved by a triad of elders. The defendant and plaintiff are not named, to avoid bias, and evidence is heard and witnesses called.

David Argall

2008-10-24, 05:15 PM

Every time I give sources, you say "I do not accept those sources." Even when they cover subject in more detail, and were written after PHB.
Well, I am not going to accept such sources as final, particularly not when we are dealing with a comic. And for the most part nobody does accept these sources as final. They are useful guides rather than commandments written in stone.
Any of the supplement books are just that, supplements. They are optional, to be used when deemed useful. One is still playing D&D when these books are unread or completely violated.

Now in particular, I am not going to accept your reading of those books. I have already explained why you are wrong on a number of points. That seems to be the case in what provoked you into making this comment. I said that your quoted remark did not support your reading of it, meaning it was unimportant whether the remark was a piece of random gossip or iron law.

I do not object to death, only death without trial, hearing, etc, of a prisoner who has surrendered, carried out by someone who has no authority to carry out such sentences.
But you are talking Lawful again. "Authority". The chaotic recognizes no such need for authority. If it is right for him to do, it is right whether or not any authority figure has spoken, and no matter what they said.

As for V not knowing, V's words were: "I deduced that he was an enemy of some sort, and therefore a valid target"

Except: captured enemies are not necessarily valid targets.
Now this is rather a weak response. V does not say that all captured enemies are valid targets. She says that those captured by Elan are.

For those interested in what the sources had to say: they are as follows:

Evil's most seductive lure may be the abandonment of mercy. Mercy means giving quarter to enemies who surrender and treating criminals and prisoners with compassion and even kindness. It is, in effect, the good doctine of life taken to it's logical extreme- respecting and honoring even the life of one's enemy. In a world full of enemies who show no respect for life whatsoever, it can be extremely tempting to treat foes as they have treated others, to exact revenge for slain comrades and innocents, to offer no quarter and become merciless.
A good character must not succumb to that trap. Good characters must offer mercy and accept surrender no matter how many times villains might betray that kindness or escape from captivity to continue their evil deeds. If a foe surrenders, a good character is bound to accept the surrender, bind the prsioner, and treat him as kindly as possible.

Now this is followed by "...If every prisoner schemes to betray the party and later escapes from prison, the players quickly come to realize that showing mercy simply isn't worth it...will rightly give up in frustration."
In other words, despite this being written as absolute text, it is only general text. One should in general extend mercy, but there will be cases where it simply is not justified.

When fighting through a dungeon, character's needn't switch to subdual tactics when they suddenly encounter evil dwarf minions. But if those minions surrender, it is best to take the prisoners back to town to stand trial for their crimes. When the adventure takes place in a city and the opponents are citizens of the city (rather than evil monsters from the sewers or deeper underground) subduing opponents and turning them over to the city watch is preferable to killing them and possibly being forced to stand trial for murder.

Here too we have the point of "general rule". "It is best to..." is a statement that is almost automatically followed by "but...". We read the text to say something more like "In general...it is best to take the prisoners back to town, but ...exceptions such as physical difficulties, lack of adequate town... may require that the party does otherwise." The DM should view such excuses with a skeptical eye, but he should not deny their possible validity.

Adventurers are common enough that most places have laws specifying what adventurers can and cannot do, and good aligned adventurers should not feel they can disregard local laws just because they're out of earshot of a town.

Most countries have laws about killing prisoners without a trial or at least make arrangements to ransom them back to their comrades in the hope that enemies will respect a similar agreement- so heroes who put captured opponents to the sword are little better than common murderers.
Now here we see the value of context. The statement deals with the law, not with the morals, and the meaning is that the law deems heros who kill prisoners as little better than murderers, not that they morally are [tho the distinctly can be minor.]

Good heroes should prepare for the necessity of binding subdued opponents or be willing to let their captives go free with a promise of better behavior (and possibly stripped of their weapons and armor so they can't easily harm other people.
Here too, we see the statement has unstated qualifications. Tho it talks of the "necessity", we already know it is entirely acceptable to haul them back to town for trial no matter how much they claim to have reformed.
so we have to regard this too as a general statement, which may not be binding on the particular situation.

Kubota is a citizen of Azure city, his crimes were committed on an Azure city boat, and a magistrate of Azure city was mentioned back when they were being attacked by trolls.
Which means a lot to a lawful, not so much to a chaotic. Since we are discussing CG, it's no big thing.

Also, see DMG 2 for trials in chaotic societies: sometimes favour ordeals, since in D&D the gods are real, powerful, and capable of intervening.

And Races of The Wild for details on CG elven judiciary-
That chaotics use trials does not mean they are required to. Trials have a number of practical advantages. You take the time to consider the matter and look at all the evidence. There is a much better chance of getting the right answer. But the chaotic rejects the idea that the average case rules the particular. When there is good reason to deem the average wrong, the particular ignores it.

Kubota was guilty and deserved his punishment. The alternative of not killing him would have meant his death at a great deal more cost and trouble for all, and/or the death of a great many innocents as he continued his treason. Why shouldn't a CG deem it best he die right away?

Warren Dew

2008-10-24, 08:01 PM

But heros who put captured opponents to the sword after a proper trial are clearly not covered by this statement.

I am unconvinced. There is a reason why such executions, when present in stories, tend to be done by executioners rather than heros. Typically the executioner is not seen as extremely good on the basis of having killed so many evil people; rather, he's seen as neutral - lawful neutral in D&D terms - at best.

Our Good wants the guilty punished and the innocent protected.

Do you have a cite for this from the rules? I'd agree with the "innocent protected" part, but not the "guilty punished" part. I don't think there's a consensus on vengeance being good, or even nonevil.

And Kubota was guilty. Totally and obviously so. You are objecting to the death of somebody who was going to be killed, or would have caused great trouble if he had gotten off. He completely deserved what he got.

No one has provided any real evidence of this. Lots of people have asserted without support that he deserved death, but that's more akin to the bloodthirsty ravening of the mob than any accurate assessment of justice. The only person Kubota actually killed was herself a murderer, and while the story has been written for the reader to be more sympathetic to Therkla than to Kubota, from an objective standpoint, Kubota's killing of Therkla can be as easily rationalized as "good" as Vaarsuvius' killing of Kubota - which is to say, not at all.

David Argall

2008-10-24, 09:48 PM

I am unconvinced.
You don't need to be convinced. A 51-49 split is obviously sufficient, and even being on the short end can be good enough.

There is a reason why such executions, when present in stories, tend to be done by executioners rather than heros. Typically the executioner is not seen as extremely good on the basis of having killed so many evil people; rather, he's seen as neutral - lawful neutral in D&D terms - at best.
The original statement was "Heroes who put captured opponents to the sword are little better than common murderers". That is considerably different from LN executioners. So you are also agreeing that the statement has exceptions.

Do you have a cite for this from the rules? I'd agree with the "innocent protected" part, but not the "guilty punished" part. I don't think there's a consensus on vengeance being good, or even nonevil.
The very fact we talk about turning people over for trial shows this. If you don't want the guilty punished, it is quite easy to just let them go.

No one has provided any real evidence of this. The only person Kubota actually killed was herself a murderer,
That you personally did not carry out a crime in no sense means you are not guilty of the crime. In fact, you are often considered more guilty than the one who actually did the crime. The Godfather who orders the hit is a murderer. If you hire somebody to kill your spouse and he gets caught, he can sell you out and you serve a lot of hard time, well more than you do.
Kubota is shown ordering the death of Hinjo and Elan. 484 shows him behind the attack on Hinjo. In 508 & 509 we see him shown as the inspiration for 14 + a likely higher figure deaths. 562 shows him behind the orc trouble. And only the determined would deem him at all innocent in the attack on the Katos.
We may not have seen enough evidence to uphold a conviction in court, but we are dealing with a comic with limited room. Kubota is shown about as guilty as he can be within that limit.

hamishspence

2008-10-25, 06:21 AM

If the total evidence is that convincing, he would likely have been convicted on trial, making V's killing of him unnecessary.

I have made my case, I leave it to my fellow posters to assess the evidence each of us has provided.

hamishspence

2008-10-25, 06:43 AM

I have given my sources which say Chaotic cultures have trials, judiciaries, etc. What is your source that says they are entitled to ignore these?

Warren Dew

2008-10-25, 09:16 AM

The original statement was "Heroes who put captured opponents to the sword are little better than common murderers". That is considerably different from LN executioners. So you are also agreeing that the statement has exceptions.

A lawful neutral executioner is only one step away from a lawful evil murderer. That's "little" compared to an argument that Vaarsuvius' killing of Kubota is good, which is two steps away from an evil murder.

Of course, my argument was not so much about which source book to use as a rebuttal - successful, it seems - of your argument that execution is a good act.

The very fact we talk about turning people over for trial shows this. If you don't want the guilty punished, it is quite easy to just let them go.

It shows no such thing. We could be refraining from letting them go to protect the innocent rather than to punish the guilty. We could want to punish the guilty because our system is neutral or evil, rather than because it is good.

You do not even demonstrate that releasing a prisoner would be considered evil. In fact, in stories when the hero does that, it's usually portrayed as a good act, not as an evil act, even if it does turn out to be mistaken.

That you personally did not carry out a crime in no sense means you are not guilty of the crime....
Kubota is shown ordering the death of Hinjo and Elan.

And Hinjo and Elan have never died. There was no murder there, and you cannot be guilty of a crime that was not committed.

I do concede that you have a point with respect to the offscreen deaths committed by the trolls. I'd forgotten about that or possibly failed to register it the first time around.

Stormwolf

2008-10-25, 09:24 AM

And Hinjo and Elan have never died. There was no murder there, and you cannot be guilty of a crime that was not committed.

Murder may not have been committed, but conspiracy to commit murder was; which in itself is a crime in many societies. Whether or not they'd have been able to prove it is a moot point now.

hamishspence

2008-10-25, 09:30 AM

I think the problem is: we keep getting told We have to prove it was murder and that V's motives weren't good enough.

Isn't it the other way round normally? When a person has carried out a killing, its up to them, to prove it wasn't murder. Last I checked, in D&D, it was possible to murder someone evil, and their killing doesn't automatically become manslaughter.

Also, we've repeatedly been told it was For The Greater Good. When does V use those words? Reading the strips in question shows V's motives, and the amount of information V had, and why V carried out the deed.

Still, these are only my personal opinions.

Warren Dew

2008-10-25, 09:32 AM

Murder may not have been committed, but conspiracy to commit murder was; which in itself is a crime in many societies.

It's not a capital crime, and thus doesn't justify execution, let alone Vaarsuvius' killing of him.

hamishspence

2008-10-25, 09:34 AM

So far, worst act involves summoning of trolls- multiple people have dies as a result.

It is possible to believe both that he "deserves to die" and that V's summarily killing him was murder.

Spiky

2008-10-25, 09:41 AM

And Hinjo and Elan have never died. There was no murder there, and you cannot be guilty of a crime that was not committed.

So? Assasins failed and you say Kubota gets what....total immunity?

Stormwolf

2008-10-25, 09:43 AM

It's not a capital crime, and thus doesn't justify execution, let alone Vaarsuvius' killing of him.

You're assuming modern tenets of law in a medieval / feudal society. Conspiracy to commit murder / regicide (therefore also treasonous) was definitely a capital crime. There are plenty of historical references where people have ended up staring at their own intestines for entertaining the thought of killing their appointed leader (and getting caught).

Spiky

2008-10-25, 09:45 AM

So far, worst act involves summoning of trolls- multiple people have dies as a result.

You should look up the laws in most lands about treason. Usually a capital crime, easier to be capital than murder, actually. Hiring at least 3 serious assasins and several lesser ones to kill Hinjo is technically his worst.

It is possible to believe both that he "deserves to die" and that V's summarily killing him was murder.

Yes.

hamishspence

2008-10-25, 09:47 AM

point is, according to DMG2, Cityscape, and Exalted Deeds, morality and legality in D&D do not abide by medieval rules.

Same could apply in OOTS, with plea-bargains, different degrees of murder, and rules on what kind of evidence is admissible (in cliffport, not Magical Evidence)

EDIT:Problem is, we've been told (over and over) that V believed he deserved to die, therefor it wasn't murder. Exactly why is this true? and what source confirms it?

Also, treason is a lot more subjective, with whole issue of tyrants, etc: I was focusing on lives lost.

Spiky

2008-10-25, 10:05 AM

EDIT:Problem is, we've been told (over and over) that V believed he deserved to die, therefor it wasn't murder. Exactly why is this true? and what source confirms it?

I agree, the people on this board frighten me with their ability to rationalize anything. Selfishness is the key point of this messed up world. And I mean ours, not D&D.

V committed a crime. Probably 2nd degree murder in the USA, although the component of Kubota being tied up would push sentencing to the high end, I imagine. However, V is also completely out of his gourd right now. Insanity defense, no doubt. And location will be a problem for the prosecution, as well. It may be a ship belonging to Azure City, but the laws are still usually different.

hamishspence

2008-10-25, 10:21 AM

The assumption is that V's great intelligence means his deduction that K was a major villain deserving of death, therefore OK to kill him. And since previous strips have indeed shown K to be a major villain, V can do what he likes.

The problem is, V can be right by accident. The Order have tied up villains numerous times, not all of them have been major ones (bandits)

and, we are basically being asked to accept that Chaotic means Has no interest in doing things the legal way. Even when chaotic societies have been shown to have judiciary and courts.

We are also being told that V was doing it For the Good of others, even if V's words don''t fit this.

The comment about selfishness is interesting, but it has one problem. Usual justification for killings without trial is "For the Good of Others" Which is the opposite of selfishness.

David Argall

2008-10-25, 02:40 PM

If the total evidence is that convincing, he would likely have been convicted on trial, making V's killing of him unnecessary.
What is convincing to us may not be to a jury. We all know of several cases where juries have decided wrong. Kubota is the expert here and he says he will get off despite being guilty. We have good reason to deem him biased, but that he would have beaten the rap has to be deemed a real possibility.

I have made my case, I leave it to my fellow posters to assess the evidence each of us has provided.
Following which you make 5 posts.

I have given my sources which say Chaotic cultures have trials, judiciaries, etc. What is your source that says they are entitled to ignore these?
Just about any description of chaotic. PH for example mentions "resentment towards legitimate authority", which of course includes chaotic courts. Chaotics will of course frequently respect even lawful courts, but the very fact they are chaotic says they retain the option of following their own judgement on any point no matter who says otherwise.

we keep getting told We have to prove it was murder and that V's motives weren't good enough.

Isn't it the other way round normally? When a person has carried out a killing, its up to them, to prove it wasn't murder.
We are arguing V's alignment, not his legal situation. The question is whether the killing shows V to be neutral, or is it consistent with CG? So one must show the action is inconsistent with CG. And that puts the burden entirely on those who wish to say it is inconsistent. Standard rule of logic.

Also, we've repeatedly been told it was For The Greater Good. When does V use those words?
Elan does. However, this is a judgment call we can make ourselves. If Kubota goes to trial and is executed, V killing him merely saves time and bother. Perhaps a trivial gain, but not something to object to, at least if one is chaotic and isn't interested in following form in the first place.
If he is not executed [no lesser punishment makes much sense] and instead walks, he will continue to make attempts on Hinjo's life and rulership, and people will die in those attempts. Here we have a major gain from killing Kubota right away.

according to DMG2, Cityscape, and Exalted Deeds, morality and legality in D&D do not abide by medieval rules.
This is both true and false. D&D morality rapidly descends into a haze of loose thinking, justified by the game not being a philosophy class exercise. So ultimately it abides by no rules. But medieval rules are one of the sources of the mess we call D&D morality.

Same could apply in OOTS, with plea-bargains, different degrees of murder, and rules on what kind of evidence is admissible (in cliffport, not Magical Evidence)
All of which may be interesting, but is irrelevant to the discussion.

we've been told (over and over) that V believed he deserved to die, therefor it wasn't murder. Exactly why is this true? and what source confirms it?
We have been over this, many times. See 596 "V: “The man I killed was bound, and you were holding the rope. I therefore deducted that he was an enemy of some sort, and therefore a valid target.” [Now this does not prevent V from legally being a murderer, which is defined as killing someone without legal justification, but we are talking Chaotic morals which ignores such a requirement.]

treason is a lot more subjective, with whole issue of tyrants,
Since we don't deem Hinjo a tyrant, this is unimportant.

The problem is, V can be right by accident. The Order have tied up villains numerous times, not all of them have been major ones (bandits)
Being right by accident is still being right. However the standard here was not that the party has tied up people, but that Elan has. He is ruled by dramatic convention, which means he only ties up major foes, those guilty of great crimes.

and, we are basically being asked to accept that Chaotic means Has no interest in doing things the legal way. Even when chaotic societies have been shown to have judiciary and courts.
You have this pronounced tendency to casually shift "may" into "does". That chaotics can ignore their courts does not mean they do.
However, the existence of chaotic courts can not be used to show that not having a trial is not chaotic, which is the thesis here. There are also lawful courts, neutral courts, and evil courts. Having a trial is thus insufficient to determine alignment.
When we then ask where do the non-trial cases go?, the obvious answer is chaotic. The individual is acting on his own and thus is chaotic.

We are also being told that V was doing it For the Good of others, even if V's words don''t fit this.
596, 2nd sentence by V "I would think you would be exceedingly grateful." So her words do fit fine the idea that he is doing this for others.
Moreover, we are having a good deal of trouble showing how the killing of Kubota is of much benefit to V at all. She is not a witness of any note for any trial, and can casually continue to research all the way thru it. By contrast, he can expect a notable amount of bother dealing with Hinjo as a result of the killing. From V's personal view, the killing seems to be a loss.

A lawful neutral executioner is only one step away from a lawful evil murderer. That's "little" compared to an argument that Vaarsuvius' killing of Kubota is good, which is two steps away from an evil murder.
A step is not little if one can only make 2 steps total. [We can argue the number of steps can be four, but that does not change the basics of the point.] When someone says "little different", they are talking about one step in 100 or so.

Of course, my argument was not so much about which source book to use as a rebuttal - successful, it seems - of your argument that execution is a good act.
Well, if you want to avoid the chance to escape...
Taking any part whatsoever in an execution is morally the same as doing the whole thing yourself. The fact you stand on the sidelines and do nothing but watch makes you no different from the actual executioner, or the judge, or the cop who arrested him. You are all contributing to a result, and the evil or good of that result reflects onto you.
If you hold a man down for somebody else to cut his throat, you are still just as guilty of murder as the actual killer [and may serve more time if he has the better lawyer]. If you hold a killer down so the cop can slap the cuffs on him, you are eligible for part of the reward.
D&D decrees that the good PC can, without stain, turn the prisoner over for trial and execution. That means the good PC is involved morally in every step of the process. He can not excuse himself from any moral responsibility on the grounds somebody else did the actual sin. [He of course can say he could not predict that the sin would happen, but he can plea the same about his personal actions.]
So in D&D, executions are, or rather can be, good.

We could be refraining from letting them go to protect the innocent rather than to punish the guilty.
We could, but we obviously often are not.
Now we can say we punish the guilty for the purpose of protecting the innocent, say to prevent this criminal from sinning more or to deter future criminals, but we are still saying then that we want to punish the guilty.

You do not even demonstrate that releasing a prisoner would be considered evil.
I don't need to. I need merely point out that if we do not have a goal of punishing the guilty, we have an alternative action that is in fact of much less trouble for us. The fact we inconvenience ourselves shows we do have a goal of punishing the guilty.

And Hinjo and Elan have never died. There was no murder there, and you cannot be guilty of a crime that was not committed.
Attempted murder is a rather major crime. And if you kill somebody else, however accidentally in the process, you are simply guilty of murder.

Strip 507
“…this month alone we’ve fought locathah, sahuagin, merrows, an’ now sea trolls.”

“…we’re losing good men and women with each attack.”

Kubota has a long list of murders to answer for.

It's not a capital crime, and thus doesn't justify execution, let alone Vaarsuvius' killing of him.
The list of capital crimes is variable, and not limited to murder. One addition is treason, which is what any conspiracy to kill the head of state is.

V committed a crime. Probably 2nd degree murder in the USA,
Murder 1. V acted with malice and aforethought.
However that is the legal charge. We are considering the moral one. And we have yet to show that the act was not acceptable for a chaotic good PC.

hamishspence

2008-10-25, 02:44 PM

D&D merges legal and Moral. Vile Darkness, and many, many other supplements, explicitly state murder is an evil act.

My subsequent posts were answers to questions other people had raised.

B. Dandelion

2008-10-25, 03:20 PM

Doesn't this just basically illustrate the problem with the traditional 9 alignment system? People pick a definition they like and try to squeeze their favorite characters and their actions into it, and won't accept any alternate definitions that might contradict their preference.

My opinion here isn't really worth anything since I don't play D&D, but calling V's actions "good," ANY variety of good, rubs me the wrong way. It wasn't an action performed FOR any purpose of good, that's the justification that's being applied to it afterwords. V didn't kill Kubota because she was afraid he'd escape and/or knew he deserved to die, she killed him because she didn't want to be bothered with another irritating trial sequence. She said she deduced that he was an enemy, not that he was EVIL. He died for the cardinal sin of being a potential annoyance.

AlexanderRM

2008-10-25, 04:23 PM

I originally had about 10 quotes open with responses, but decided that it was too long and closed most of them. I decided to leave one for my two cents, though.
I'd also like to a couple things in brief:
-Most chaotic actions are considered to be evil by good characters. This is why there are laws against them.
-The ends do not justify the means, but nor do the means justify the ends.
-Neutral Good is just two steps away from Neutral Evil, yet practically everything defines them as polar opposites.

D&D merges legal and Moral. Vile Darkness, and many, many other supplements, explicitly state murder is an evil act.

Actually, D&D explicitly separates Law (which determines what is legal) from morality in the basic alignment system itself. Law is on one axis, Good and Evil are on another. It's perfectly possible to have a CG character who ignores the law completely and still be good, or even an LE character who obeys the law and is still evil, though this would be more difficult since most societies tend towards LG and, as such, have laws against many evil actions.

"Murder" in this case is not a legal definition, it means killing someone without a suitable justification so as to make it nonevil. If Murder was defined by law then, in an evil society that had no law against it, killing someone would not be an evil act.

tribble

2008-10-25, 05:04 PM

stuff

I was under the impression we had WordOfGod on this. but, into the fray!

I am personally a true neutral person, leaning towards lawful good. now, I personally do not understand why it is that people had so much trouble with the 3x alignment system:
Chaotic Good: believes in the greatest good for greatest number, feels that "the establishment" gets in the way of that.
Lawful good: believes in the greatest good for greatest number, believes that Systems and establishments are the best paths to that end. the Boy Scouts are probably LG. Roy's actions are NOT a good example for LG, he would have gotten chucked out of the LG afterlife except that the Deva gave him points for effort.
Neutral good: again, greatest good for greatest number. however, this character is likely to behave thus: do it lawfully when possible, but if that doesnt work, time to get..."creative" (chaotic)
Lawful Evil: believes in systems and such, but is ultimately in it for themselves/their master (the master is in it for himself.) Sauron is LE: he puts together a kingdom to conquer the world, but has ALWAYS venerated and honored Melkor, his boss (even after Melkor DIED)
Neutral Evil: this is a self-serving creep who will do it lawfully when that's percieved as easier, but if not will do it chaotically.Catbert is probably NE.
Chaotic Evil: Serial Killers is the first thing we think of here. the second is probably sadists. If you cant recognize chaotic evil behavior, you have -18 wisdom.:smallamused:
Chaotic neutral: people who live outside of society, neither helping people out nor hurting them. a Hermit is you!
Lawful Neutral: bureocrats who are not corrupt. The law is the law, and that is that. they do not uphold the law because of "nobility", they do it because it's the law.
TRUE neutral: two breeds: "balancists" and "meritocrats" V (and myself) are of the latter, so I will only discuss that to save time.
A "meritocratic" TN chooses things based on their percieved value. the logic goes like this:
If a lawful act does not help me, I will not do it. likewise, if a chaotic act does not help me, I wont do it. so on for Good and Evil.
Despite popular opinion, I think that Machiavelli was actually TN. if you feel like arguing about that we can do so in friendly banter.

zuzak

2008-10-25, 06:06 PM

The only things that matter about whether the act was justified are the things that V knows. If you kill an innocent because you think he's guilty of a crime which would justify his death, its not an evil act.

The only evidence that V had was that he was tied up, and Elan was leading him with a rope. If it was justified for V to kill Kubota, then it is justified for him/her to kill anyone who is tied up and being lead by Elan. Aren't there situations where this is not true, or at least when its a bad idea to kill the person? Even with Nale, the party agreed that killing him was a bad idea for logical reasons. Couldn't Elan lead someone who was tied up if they were a prisoner who was guilty of a crime that didn't deserve death, or someone who was innocent who he thought was guilty, or someone who was tied up for some other reason, like Durkon during the fight with the bandits?

Warren Dew

2008-10-25, 08:22 PM

You're assuming modern tenets of law in a medieval / feudal society.

Not at all. "An eye for an eye," specifying that the punishment befit the crime, neither insufficient nor excessive, goes back to the old testament and Babylonian law.

If anything, it is the concept of "conspiracy" to commit an ordinary crime that is modern.

Conspiracy to commit murder / regicide (therefore also treasonous) was definitely a capital crime. There are plenty of historical references where people have ended up staring at their own intestines for entertaining the thought of killing their appointed leader (and getting caught).

Sure it happened - but that it happened does not mean it was just. Treason has nothing to do with good and evil; it has only to do with protecting the state - the source of law - and that is purely a lawful goal, not a good or evil one. Killing an evil leader of an evil government is still treason, but that in itself does not make the act evil, and some would argue the act there would be good.

Taking any part whatsoever in an execution is morally the same as doing the whole thing yourself.

I agree with this sentence, though your conclusion does not follow. Watching a lawful execution is indeed just as neutral as performing it. By that point, however, any "good" part has already been done - the original capture of the criminal. Capturing the criminal is good because it protects the innocent; once captured, executing the criminal is neutral because it does no more to protect the innocent than would leaving the criminal imprisoned.

Now we can say we punish the guilty for the purpose of protecting the innocent, say to prevent this criminal from sinning more or to deter future criminals, but we are still saying then that we want to punish the guilty.

Not at all. We are only saying that punishment is our only means of protecting the innocent. If another means of protecting the innocent were to present itself - for example, releasing the criminal with a slightly improved version of Belkar's mark of justice that incapacitated him just before the first murder, rather than just afterwards - that action of releasing the criminal with the improved mark would be no less good than keeping the criminal imprisoned.

D&D merges legal and Moral. Vile Darkness, and many, many other supplements, explicitly state murder is an evil act.

I would say, rather, that those supplements consider the definition of crimes such as murder to be a matter of good and evil rather than a matter of legal codes.

David Argall

2008-10-26, 02:20 AM

Vile Darkness, and many, many other supplements, explicitly state murder is an evil act.

And these sources define murder as unjustified killing. Since we are arguing whether the killing was justified, these statements are of no use.

calling V's actions "good," ANY variety of good, rubs me the wrong way. It wasn't an action performed FOR any purpose of good, that's the justification that's being applied to it afterwords.
No, it was applied at the time. V's 1st test was that Kubota was someone it was no sin to kill.

V didn't kill Kubota because she was afraid he'd escape and/or knew he deserved to die, she killed him because she didn't want to be bothered with another irritating trial sequence. She said she deduced that he was an enemy, not that he was EVIL.
For the purposes here, enemy and evil are the same thing.

He died for the cardinal sin of being a potential annoyance.
An annoyance that had killed a great many people and who intended to kill more, a fact V knew well enough.
Kubota was guilty, guilty, guilty. Our BED and such talk about forgiveness, for those that ask for it. Kubota is bragging about how he is going to beat the rap. He is not showing any intent to reform, or even to slow down his crimes. He was guilty and under proper justice was going to be put to death. Do you really want to argue it is wrong to make sure justice is done? That people be spared this menace?

Now you may argue on a pragmatic basis that people do make mistakes, and even being sure, as in Miko, does not make one right, and so it is best to wait for the trial, but this is a pragmatic point, and so when the crime is sufficiently proven, there is no need for the trial. It would merely validate the conclusion, at considerable expense, or blunder. We, and V, knew Kubota was guilty of many massive crimes. It is no sin to snuff him.

-Most chaotic actions are considered to be evil by good characters. This is why there are laws against them.
Now ignoring the point that most is far from all, this would seem to come from a misunderstanding of D&D 3.5 rules, where somehow many players get the idea that LG is The Good instead of NG. But the rules give LG and CG equal standing in the forces of good.

-The ends do not justify the means, but nor do the means justify the ends.
Unimportant here. It is the results that justify [or condemn] the means. You are driving a sick baby to a hospital. That will not excuse any traffic accidents you get into on the way [which result in your failure to get there faster], but it will negate any traffic tickets if you thus do get there faster without notable harm to others.

The only things that matter about whether the act was justified are the things that V knows.
Now we need to be careful about the definition of "knows" here. Many things should be treated as unknown even tho we know them, while others are to be treated as known even tho we know we don't know them.

If you kill an innocent because you think he's guilty of a crime which would justify his death, its not an evil act.
As we can see with the case of Miko, this is only partly correct. You must be justified in thinking he is guilty of that crime. Merely having the mistaken idea he is criminal is not enough.

The only evidence that V had was that he was tied up, and Elan was leading him with a rope. If it was justified for V to kill Kubota, then it is justified for him/her to kill anyone who is tied up and being lead by Elan. Aren't there situations where this is not true, or at least when its a bad idea to kill the person?
From what the comic tells us, no. V is being presented here as Sherlock Holmes, able to deduct the truth from very little. If we find there is a flaw in the presented logic, that is error by the writer, not error by V.

Even with Nale, the party agreed that killing him was a bad idea for logical reasons.
These being pragmatic reasons that killing him was unlikely to work. V is on solid grounds in assuming Kubota is not in the same situation.

Couldn't Elan lead someone who was tied up if they were a prisoner who was guilty of a crime that didn't deserve death, or someone who was innocent who he thought was guilty, or someone who was tied up for some other reason, like Durkon during the fight with the bandits?
By the logic of the comic, no. Such can't happen as long as Elan is Elan.

We know Kubota is guilty. Why is it a shock that the highly intelligent V can deduct that easily?

Treason has nothing to do with good and evil; it has only to do with protecting the state - the source of law - and that is purely a lawful goal, not a good or evil one. Killing an evil leader of an evil government is still treason, but that in itself does not make the act evil, and some would argue the act there would be good.
Of course it may be. However, here we are dealing with a good government, which makes the act of treason evil.

By that point, however, any "good" part has already been done
Unimportant. If you are one part of a chain, you take the credit and blame of all parts. If you help a little old lady to cross the street, to where she is attacked by a mugger, you get no credit for any good deed. If the captured criminal is executed, you take on both the credit for his capture and any blame for his punishment.

once captured, executing the criminal is neutral because it does no more to protect the innocent than would leaving the criminal imprisoned.
That is highly disputable. Particularly under D&D conditions where prisons seem to be built with revolving doors. For that matter medieval times did not feature much in the way of prisons. Unlike moderns, the ancients knew prisons were expensive and inefficient.

Not at all. We are only saying that punishment is our only means of protecting the innocent.
Which works out to wanting to punish the guilty.

that action of releasing the criminal with the improved mark would be no less good than ...
Which acknowledges that the alternative is good.

hamishspence

2008-10-26, 02:52 AM

the terms Execution and Murder are used foer the same act by Hinjo
"I'll stand between any two murderers I want"
"I heard the same things you did and I managed to refrain from executing my liege"

This would suggest that OOTS is rather free with use of the term Execution, and that Elans "You executed him just because I happened to have him tied up?" doesn't mean it was a valid execution.

My reading of the combination, in Exalted Deeds, of "Killing captured prisoners is out of the question" and "Execution for serious crimes does not qualify as evil" is that for an execution to qualify, it must be a valaid execution: carried out after evidence has been heard and a verdict reached.

However, my reading may be wrong.

evileeyore

2008-10-26, 07:01 AM

-Most chaotic actions are considered to be evil by good characters. This is why there are laws against them.

No they are considered wrong by society or the Authority creating the Laws. This is why there are Laws agaisnt them.

Take for example the Law against Regicide, for which the punishment is often far more severe than simple murder... the difference of which exists soley because Kings think that people going about killing Kings all willy-nilly is more wrong than killing mere peasants.

-The ends do not justify the means, but nor do the means justify the ends.

This is purely subjective. For instance I am of the "The End justifies whatever you want it too", not just the means. :smallwink:

-Neutral Good is just two steps away from Neutral Evil, yet practically everything defines them as polar opposites.

Ahem, Evil is but two steps from Good. Please divorce all talk of Law and Chaos from that example if your going to attempt to make that sort of point.

Actually, D&D explicitly separates Law (which determines what is legal) from morality in the basic alignment system itself. Law is on one axis, Good and Evil are on another. It's perfectly possible to have a CG character who ignores the law completely and still be good, or even an LE character who obeys the law and is still evil, though this would be more difficult since most societies tend towards LG and, as such, have laws against many evil actions.

Legal and Lawful are actually two seperate but similiar concepts in D&D. Getting these two things confused is often the largest mistake from which Alignement Arguements begin.

One can be Chaotic and follow Laws just fine for instance.

And LE is a matter of callousness to the suffering of others (or being the cause of said suffering), not necessarily commiting crimes. If it permissable to beat ones servants simply because under the law they are considered property and thus not subject to any notions of Rights, it wouldn't be illegal to do so, just (under "our" concepts) immoral. Also consider the Landlord who does not extend any extra time his renters to pay him before being evicted, the Employer who fires over the most minor of offenses and refuses to pay more than the barest minimums... both are within Legal rights, but both are acting without charity and furthering their own selfish goals (and thus, depending on how extreme, bordering into Evil).

"Murder" in this case is not a legal definition...

Murder actually is a legal definition. The moral quibbling over whether killing another living being is "right" or "just" (thus Good or Lawful) or "vile" or "without cause" (thus Evil or Chaotic) has little to do with Laws of the Land or what an Authority thinks is correct, even though Authority figures and Society prefer to dress the Laws up in Morality to help support thier cause.

evileeyore

2008-10-26, 07:07 AM

My reading of the combination, in Exalted Deeds, of "Killing captured prisoners is out of the question" and "Execution for serious crimes does not qualify as evil" is that for an execution to qualify, it must be a valaid execution: carried out after evidence has been heard and a verdict reached.

However, my reading may be wrong.

The difference between Executing tied up prisoners when they clearly deserve death and holding them for trial is a matter of Law (Alignment) and Laws (Legalities), not Good or Evil.

However... Killings committed simply to avoid being sidetracked **, that is a level of callous treading closely on Evil side of Good/Evil actions.

** Versus killing the villian because one cannot be sure of keeping them under wraps while bringing them to justice for instance. There are times when "Vigilante Justice" is arguably appropriate, The Case of Vaarsuvius in Kubuto's Death is not one of them.

hamishspence

2008-10-26, 07:46 AM

The tricky part is what sources you use. There is no line in PHB saying "Murder is unjustified killing" In fact, in "Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others" we have the problem that Adventurers are hired to hurt and kill others to protect people from Evil (or do this on their own initiative.)

If you accept Exalted Deeds as a source (3.5 ed WOTC book, written after PHB, and one of its writers went on to be a senior 4th ed designer) then issues of how you treat prisoners who have surrendered, and whether you are obliged to accept that surrender, are Issue of Good and Evil, not Law and Chaos)

However, depending on your views, you may consider this source excessively biased toward Law.

Other tricky issues are: is it murder, if there are no laws, no legal system, in place? I tend to argue yes. I killing in space, or Antarctica, or Wooden Forest in OOTS, can still be murder, even if there are no laws in place.

Maybe its a personality flaw, but I tend to convert strip scenes to real-world examples in my head. For example, if someone had witnessed a bank robbery and murder, saw the cops handcuff the robber and begin leading him off, and walk in, shoot the robber, and say "I saved the state the cost of a trial, and that money can go to helping orphans" is that murder?

And V did not witness the crime, either, nor was he told specifics of Kubota's crimes. Unless he had a Wizard Eye in the Kato's rooms, which I am inclined to doubt.

Warren Dew

2008-10-26, 11:33 AM

Responding to me:

that action of releasing the criminal with the improved mark would be no less good than keeping the criminal imprisoned.

David Argall:

Which acknowledges that the alternative is good.

I'm glad you finally agree that it is only keeping the criminal imprisoned, and not the execution, that is good.

David Argall

2008-10-26, 02:10 PM

My reading of the combination, in Exalted Deeds, of "Killing captured prisoners is out of the question" and "Execution for serious crimes does not qualify as evil"

You are trying to make absolute what is conditional. Just about all absolute statements dealing with people are in fact conditional. The exceptions are just rare or obvious. [If you are told to paint a car entirely green, you would be yelled at for painting the windows green.]

Killing captured prisioners is out of the question [and that statement continues with the implied "usually". the killings are to be avoided when possible, but even tho the statement is absolute, there will be times when you will kill the prisoners, and justifiably so.]

And execution for serious crimes is rather obviously evil in a number of cases. We do not need BED stating that to know this.

Words are only an approximation to meaning. They are a crutch, in most cases a very useful one, but there are the times when they just get in the way.

for an execution to qualify, it must be a valaid execution: carried out after evidence has been heard and a verdict reached.
But there are other definitions of execution, including that used in the comic. Why would the trial and verdict be necessary parts? The standard reasons for deeming it a good idea are pragmatic, which by inself means there are exceptions where it is not needed and others where the trial is a bad idea.

There is no line in PHB saying "Murder is unjustified killing"
You find it in the dictionary. It doesn't need to be in PH.

If you accept Exalted Deeds as a source (3.5 ed WOTC book, written after PHB, and one of its writers went on to be a senior 4th ed designer)
That is not particularly a recomendation here. One of 4e's big boasts is that it is not 3.5, and so those involved with it can be suspected of distaste or disinterest in proper 3.5 rules.

then issues of how you treat prisoners who have surrendered, and whether you are obliged to accept that surrender, are Issue of Good and Evil, not Law and Chaos)
They are issues of both. We have the 9 alignments precisely because many issues have aspects of both law and good to consider.

Other tricky issues are: is it murder, if there are no laws, no legal system, in place? I tend to argue yes. I killing in space, or Antarctica, or Wooden Forest in OOTS, can still be murder, even if there are no laws in place.
Now how do you punish that murderer? You can't maintain a prison, and you have no way to hold a trial. Do you wish to say the killed gets to walk with no moral sin?

if someone had witnessed a bank robbery and murder, saw the cops handcuff the robber and begin leading him off, and walk in, shoot the robber, and say "I saved the state the cost of a trial, and that money can go to helping orphans" is that murder?
The standard punishment for robbery is maybe 10 years, not execution [and can be considerably less depending on circumstances], so we have an easy call here. But let us fiddle with the facts a little...
Our robber kills a few people before being arrested. But when the cops arrest him, he points out the jails are under court ordered affirmative action programs and they are going to have to let him go to comply with that order. Knowing this to be true, our witness would seem to have a decent moral case for offing the thug.
Our robber doesn't kill anyone, but the cops don't catch him before he reaches an embassy where he has diplomatic immunity. The diplomats may not be able to expell him, but why should we deem it wrong if they stash him in a cell and otherwise treat him just as the law would have?

And V did not witness the crime, either, nor was he told specifics of Kubota's crimes.
And V does not need to. He knows, and we know, that Kubota is guilty, guilty, guilty. The exact charges are a matter of trivia. Only the lawful worries about the paperwork.

There are times when "Vigilante Justice" is arguably appropriate, The Case of Vaarsuvius in Kubuto's Death is not one of them.
Why not? The basic standards for vigilante justice is that the target be guilty and deserving of the punishment [Kubota was, quite clearly] and that the law be seriously inefficient in dealing with him. [We have Kubota already successful in avoiding one rap, and now bragging he will beat this one too.] On the face of it, we have a reasonable case for vigilante justice here.

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Argall
Which acknowledges that the alternative is good.

I'm glad you finally agree that it is only keeping the criminal imprisoned, and not the execution, that is good.
No such implication is possible. I noted that your statement meant that either of two punishments could be good, which more or less conflicts with your basic case of a punishment not being good. No part of my position falls within the statement.

hamishspence

2008-10-26, 02:17 PM

evileeyore

2008-10-26, 09:30 PM

Why not? The basic standards for vigilante justice is that the target be guilty and deserving of the punishment [Kubota was, quite clearly] and that the law be seriously inefficient in dealing with him. [We have Kubota already successful in avoiding one rap, and now bragging he will beat this one too.] On the face of it, we have a reasonable case for vigilante justice here.

No. Vigilante Justice is arguably appropriate when the Legal Authority cannot be relied upon to perform Justice, not when it is simply inefficient.

Examples: Where in Group refers to "The Heroes", Villian(s) refers to murderous scum and criminals, Authority refers to whatever the authority type is (be it Monarchy, Demonocracy, Plutarchy, what-have-you) and Justice refers to whatever Legal Method of Enforcing Laws and Punishments.

--Group has someone weakened and in captivity but does not believe they have the capacity to bring the Villian(s) to the Legal Authorities (Example: Should the OotS ever aquire Xykon's prophylactery and have Xykon at a disadvantage)

--Group is in an area where there is no Legal Authority and has evidence supporting the idea that nearby Authorities would not act should the Villian(s) be brought for Justice (Example: Wooden Forest Bandits)

--Group has Villian(s) in custody but has direct knowledge that the Authority will not perform Justice (Example: The Sheriff of Nottinghem was appointed by King John to further the King's villainy).

In this case, though Kubuto has "beaten the system" in the past, Vaarsuvius is certianly knowledgeable in the events concerning the change in Authority, Hinjo is not Shinjo. So while the Old Regime would bend over backwards to keep things smooth, Hinjo has much less moral flexibility. The trial while perhaps slow, would not have failed Justice.

No, Vaarsuvius simply decided expediency was the better part of the deal and rather foolishly presumed that Elan would be more amiable than he was. Vaarsuvius has... cracked I believe to best most descriptive term.

Pure Lawful Neutral with a decided lean towards line of Evil, if Vaarsuvius hasn't erased that line for greater efficiency.

hamishspence

2008-10-27, 02:00 AM

Ok, so your reason for Murder in D&D being Unjustified Killing is- because its the dictionary definition.

And the dictionary definition is based on the legal definition.

And anything that fits the legal definition, will fit the dictionary definition, and so, the D&D definition.

So, If V's crime is Murder 1 by the legal definition, then it is, by the dictionary definition, and the D&D definition.

So, by the D&D definition V's crime was Murder.

Q.E.D.

David Argall

2008-10-27, 03:14 PM

I said bank robbery And Murder.

Guilt of criminal doesn't affect issues of whether killing them is murder. If a guard on death row kills one of the prisoners- thats murder, even when prisoner has been convicted and is awaiting sentence.
[Technical point: You are sentenced before you go to death row. There, the sentence is carried out.]
Legally that is murder. Morally, it may or may not be.
It may be an active form of assisted suicide for example. While there are plenty of those who do not approve of that, a great many others do, and we can easily imagine the prisoner thanking the guard.

But the guilt of the criminal in our basic case is a/the major factor in the morality of killing him. If he is not guilty of a crime that justifies his death, we do not even have to consider the other points. The killing becomes unjustified, and murder.
And once we do establish his guilt, the matters of who kills him, how, and when seem rather trivial. He is to die in any case. These are not matters of no concern, but the big point is that he is to die. The rest pale in comparison.

Now we can note a number of pragmatic points here. But as noted, pragmatic almost automatically means sometimes. When you do the work to get paid, there is no reason to do the work when you are not. Exceptions thus spring up easily and such reasons can never be final reasons.

We want people to know that justice was carried out, that the guilty get punished while the innocent walk. That means public witnessing of the event and as formal a procedure as possible. So when the thug dies in his cell instead of on the chair, there is a loss of that lesson. Even when we establish that the guard killed him for his crime, and not for sassing the guard, we lose that assurance/warning that public action provides. And so we want to avoid it.

But the criminal walking rather obviously provides the opposite lesson, that one can get away with major crime. Here, the action by anyone to properly punish the criminal is socially useful and desirable. Our guard should not shoot the prisoner in his cell, but when he gets out of the cell, justification for shooting increase with every step he takes towards unjustified freedom. And the more the justification that any random individual has for shooting him.

the dictionary definition is based on the legal definition.
No. The legal definition is only one of many that will appear in a dictionary. It is also one that is routinely rejected as binding when one is discussing morals.

Vigilante Justice is arguably appropriate when the Legal Authority cannot be relied upon to perform Justice, not when it is simply inefficient.
Efficiency is merely "cannot be relied upon" written small. Now we can say that efficiency has definite limits on what it can justify by the very fact it measures the small. You got $99 back out of the $100 you lost. You are still owed that $1, but nearly anything you can do to collect it will cost more than $1. So you forget it. But you are still out that $1 and the moral right to collect it continues to exist.
So our vigilante justice is justified by any defect in the legal justice system. However, particular forms are only justified according to the amount of the defect.

Hinjo is not Shinjo. So while the Old Regime would bend over backwards to keep things smooth, Hinjo has much less moral flexibility. The trial while perhaps slow, would not have failed Justice.
As near as we can see, the change from Shinjo to Hinjo increases the chance of Kubota getting off. Hinjo is not going to violate the rules to make sure the guilty get punished, and he is far less skilled than his uncle in manipulating the system.
W&X "Hinjo...singularly unsuited to the task of governing..."
We can note here that Kubota walked from the wall assassination attempt despite Hinjo's certainity that he was guilty. On the record before us, Kubota has an increased chance to get off since Hinjo is in charge.

Pure Lawful Neutral
Definitely not. That would require the trial no matter how hopeless the chance of conviction. Law is form over function. It is the chaotic who argues "he's guilty. What does it matter how he gets punished?".

hamishspence

2008-10-27, 03:27 PM

Why, exactly, do we reject the legal definition of murder when discussing morals? Especially morals in a D&D context?

EDIT: Awaiting the carrying out of the sentence would fit better.

And, what, precisely, does Legally murder but not Morally murder mean?

gibbedman

2008-10-27, 05:45 PM

I continue to say with these alignment debates that the important factor in guessing what alignment might be on some hypothetical character sheet is in guessing what the character him/herself would have put there.

V is aware of his/her actions and proves throughout the ogre sidequest that he/she doesn't care if they are legal or not and doesn't care if they're good or not. He/she was willing to ask for money for services rendered (in a beaurocratic and lawful kind of way) one second and cast explosive runes for a paladin the next, and explains her/himself in those terms. See "I object to the intrusion of secular law..." V gets it. V knows how his/her actions fit in the good/evil/law/chaos scheme. She/he just doesn't care.

V cares about goals that are neither good for the world nor evil for the world, not in accordance of any laws nor directly opposing them. Those goals (such as personal knowledge and the safety and comfort of her/him and his/her friends) are for just plain old people.

As I say, if I imagine a player putting an alignment of N on a character sheet, then playing like V, I see no problems. For CG, I would expect to see some effort of charity or altruism, and, as a DM, I'd have a talk with the player and say, "I don't think your alignment is working out."

hamishspence

2008-10-27, 05:51 PM

Point is, in D&D, there are characters given Evil alignment, who are obsessed with protecting people, but use brutal and terrible methods. The Witch Hunter in Tome of Magic is one example.

Indifference to whether your acts are Evil or Good, doesn't necessarily make you neutral. At least in some D&D books.

EDIT: I figure- amoral but hardly ever commits overtly Evil acts (small ones) = Neutral, Amoral- routinely commits massively evil acts = Evil.

zuzak

2008-10-27, 06:59 PM

From what the comic tells us, no. V is being presented here as Sherlock Holmes, able to deduct the truth from very little. If we find there is a flaw in the presented logic, that is error by the writer, not error by V.

I don't really see where you get the idea that V's logic is necessarily correct. Someone can easily come to a correct conclusion using false logic, and the writer can depict someone using bad logic, such as Miko.

Couldn't Elan lead someone who was tied up if they were a prisoner who was guilty of a crime that didn't deserve death, or someone who was innocent who he thought was guilty, or someone who was tied up for some other reason, like Durkon during the fight with the bandits?
By the logic of the comic, no. Such can't happen as long as Elan is Elan.

Don't you mean by V's logic? Elan is capable of capturing someone who doesn't deserve to die. V saying something doesn't make it true.

We know Kubota is guilty. Why is it a shock that the highly intelligent V can deduct that easily?

Intelligence is irrelevant. If all you know is "Elan is leading someone, who is tied up, with a rope," it is impossible to prove that that person deserves death.

evileeyore

2008-10-27, 08:12 PM

Efficiency is merely "cannot be relied upon" written small.

Perhaps, but it is smaller than I will make allowances for.

So our vigilante justice is justified by any defect in the legal justice system. However, particular forms are only justified according to the amount of the defect.

The first is untrue. The second becomes true as "Vigilante Justice becomes justified according to the amount of the defect in the Justice System."

We're just going to quibble about those particularly subjective lines forever. :smallwink:

As near as we can see, the change from Shinjo to Hinjo increases the chance of Kubota getting off. Hinjo is not going to violate the rules to make sure the guilty get punished, and he is far less skilled than his uncle in manipulating the system.

maybe rabbit, maybe...

I had overlooked Shojo's capacity to "just get teh damn job done".

Definitely not. That would require the trial no matter how hopeless the chance of conviction. Law is form over function. It is the chaotic who argues "he's guilty. What does it matter how he gets punished?".

i disagree that Lawful is form over function. I have always seen lawful as "Organized/Ordered/Dedicated" to Chaos' "Disorganized/Disordered/Willy-Nilly".

Vaarsuvius has always expressed the ideal that Organization and Dedication are the supreme tools of the Intellect. Vaarsuvius (except for Vaarsuvius' lack of needless cruelty) has always been Elan's most direct opposite.

However I am willing to take the tormenting of Belkar as evidence of an Evil bend in Vaarsuvius' nature, but unwilling to accept that as evidence of actual Evil as the torment was never of a particularly maliscious nature.

Now... Kubuto's absolute destruction... that was definitely Not-Good, even in my book Evil.

AlexanderRM

2008-10-27, 08:31 PM

Has anyone else realized that what we're doing is called DISCUSSING ETHICS?
So, perhaps this has something to do with the ETHICAL AXIS?
People who believe that killing prisoners is evil tend towards Law. People who don't either tend towards Chaos, or are reasonably neutral and recognize the distinction.

Also, in more detail:

Now ignoring the point that most is far from all, this would seem to come from a misunderstanding of D&D 3.5 rules, where somehow many players get the idea that LG is The Good instead of NG. But the rules give LG and CG equal standing in the forces of good.

Players get the idea that LG is "more good" than NG because our society believes that chaotic actions are evil, and teaches them such. As such this seems to be a rephrasing of what I said.

No they are considered wrong by society or the Authority creating the Laws. This is why there are Laws agaisnt them.

Pretty much when society considers something wrong, that means it considers it to be "evil".

Ahem, Evil is but two steps from Good. Please divorce all talk of Law and Chaos from that example if your going to attempt to make that sort of point.

No, what I meant is that the alignment that is known as Neutral Good is two steps from the alignment known as Neutral Evil. This applies to Lawful Good and Lawful Evil and such, but those two are generally considered to be opposites and as such are the best examples.

Legal and Lawful are actually two seperate but similiar concepts in D&D. Getting these two things confused is often the largest mistake from which Alignement Arguements begin.

One can be Chaotic and follow Laws just fine for instance.

Yes, and one can be evil and commit good actions- even have a conscience (that you just happen to resist at times). I'd say it's a pretty good guess that "lawful" has something to do with laws, wouldn't you?

hamishspence

2008-10-28, 08:33 AM

The definition of Ethics as Law-chaos and Morals as Good-evil was made in 2nd ed. It may not fit normal philosophy.

I've seen one dictionary that has Murder as A, Unlawful, deliberate killing, and B, Unjustified, deliberate killing. (Shorter Oxford dictionary only listed Unlawful, not Unjustified) And I would argue that both of these definitions are required, not one.

Lawful but unjustified killing- execution of an innocent man or a man convicted of minor crimes, and various others- murder

Unlawful but "justified" killing- lynching of a man who is actually guilty of serious, death-penalty crimes, Also murder.

Self defense is Lawful, if person was in genuine, reasonable fear for their life against a genuine threat to it. And justified, so falls into neither of these.

If Execution is Lawful, Lynching is Chaotic. V could be treated as a one-man lynch mob. Does Lynching count as CG to CN, or CE? And, aside from the fact that V is one man, not 2, does V's actions fit the definition of lynching?

David Argall

2008-10-28, 03:08 PM

I've seen one dictionary that has Murder as A, Unlawful, deliberate killing, and B, Unjustified, deliberate killing. (Shorter Oxford dictionary only listed Unlawful, not Unjustified) And I would argue that both of these definitions are required, not one.
Both definitions are used, sometimes for the same case. Other times the use of one is an explicit rejection of the other. So no, we can not say that the act is murder if it violates either standard. For a given situation we use one or the other definition.

If Execution is Lawful, Lynching is Chaotic. V could be treated as a one-man lynch mob.
Rather incorrectly. Two of the flaws of a lynch mob are a lack of invididual responsibility, which V clearly had, and a poor understanding of the relevant facts, and V knew the important points.

Does Lynching count as CG to CN, or CE?
That depends on who is being lynched and why.

Shatteredtower

2008-10-28, 03:26 PM

Being right by accident is still being right.

No, it's still a case of two wrongs.

V was wrong to act on insufficient information, with no concern over the consequences to Hinjo or Elan. V was doubly wrong to kill a man for the sake of convenience.

HamsterOfTheGod

2008-10-28, 03:32 PM

Originally Posted by David Argall
Being right by accident is still being right.

No, it's still a case of two wrongs.

Two wrongs do not make a right. Three lefts make a right.

-- from the Book of Taxi Cab Driver Wisdom

hamishspence

2008-10-28, 03:32 PM

If its a villain, say, a murderer- caught in flagrante delicto. They haul him up and Hang Him High.

"Two Wrongs don't make a Right, but two Rights make a U-turn."

EDIT:
"When the case comes down to "he said-she said", the court does not simply take each speaker as equally valuable. That is the default in the absence of other evidence. But there routinely is other evidence. The speaker can and is judged and his testimony discounted on that basis. When he has to "explain" a bunch of inconvenient facts, he is discounted yet more. Kubota is going down if he gets to court."

Exactly what has changed, since you argued this?

David Argall

2008-10-29, 12:39 AM

V was wrong to act on insufficient information,
The comic tells us that V did have sufficient information. That there were facts that lesser minds deem important is not binding on her. He came to the logically valid, and correct, conclusion that Kubota was deserving of death.

with no concern over the consequences to Hinjo or Elan.
Again: 596 "I would think you would be exceedingly grateful." On the face of it, the consequences for Hinjo and Elan are distinctly favorable.

V was doubly wrong to kill a man for the sake of convenience.
V killing a man who was guilty, guilty, guilty. He killed a mastermind of dozens of murders who had every intention of continuing to kill people who got in his way. It is definitely convenient to have such types dead.

If its a villain, say, a murderer- caught in flagrante delicto. They haul him up and Hang Him High.
That would seem to say V is right.

"When the case comes down to "he said-she said", the court does not simply take each speaker as equally valuable. That is the default in the absence of other evidence. But there routinely is other evidence. The speaker can and is judged and his testimony discounted on that basis. When he has to "explain" a bunch of inconvenient facts, he is discounted yet more. Kubota is going down if he gets to court."

Exactly what has changed, since you argued this?
This is a difference between real world justice and comic justice. In a real world court, Kubota would likely have only a trivial chance of getting off. But in the comic world, that chance is determined by the writer, and the evidence we have suggests a rather substantial chance Kubota would get off.

So what we have is different evidence on the Azure justice system.

hamishspence

2008-10-29, 02:49 AM

I think, at the time, you were arguing he had no chance of getting off, in-comic.

HamsterOfTheGod

2008-10-29, 04:39 AM

I think, at the time, you were arguing he had no chance of getting off, in-comic.

I'm either reading that wrong or that doesn't seem like a very appropriate thing to disscuss in this forum.

hamishspence

2008-10-29, 08:04 AM

As in getting off the charges. Though it is also a synonym. In Harry Potter 5, after he has beaten the charges the Ministry brought against him, the younger Weasleys are all singing "he got off, he got off, he got off"

HamsterOfTheGod

2008-10-29, 11:01 AM

hamishspence

2008-10-29, 11:02 AM

And the Dursleys asking Dudley what has happened and how Harry was involved, in book 5

David Argall

2008-10-29, 01:43 PM

I think, at the time, you were arguing he had no chance of getting off, in-comic.

Side point here: In the future try to supply a link to the post. We are both ogres with thousands of posts. Finding something not part of the current thread is way too much trouble. And it's way too easy to misquote a past post.

Now quite possibly I was. However any such comment should be read as "should have" rather than "has". The writer has control of the facts of the case and no matter how certain it is that X will happen, the writer can write something else. Often doing such is a very bad idea, but it remains an option.
So just about any time we make a prediction in the comic, we are saying "If the situation actually happened, this would happen", which can be different from "the writer will do X".

The basic situation here is one where Kubota should be convicted. There are witnesses and evidence against him. But Kubota remains confident. This is understandable until Therkla arrives. The witnesses are about to die and the evidence is to be fixed. So it is routine to assume he will be convicted if the witnesses live.
But now the witnesses live and he is still confident. Why? We could assume he is just insanely optimistic, but he is shown as a very knowledgable expert. He also gives us a somewhat plausable explanation of why he is confident. So now it is not routine to think Kubota would be convicted. We have become aware of "facts" we still don't know, but now know they exist.

hamishspence

2008-10-29, 01:53 PM

Yukitsu

2008-10-29, 02:23 PM

When quoting I always do Copy/paste with no alterations whatsover.

As for the V issue- lets so you're right, and Killing is a neutral act, determined entirely by context (it doesn't exactly say that in Vile Darkness, but what the hey) and killing an extremely evil person is, before any other context is applied, a good act. You argue that giving a person a fair trial is entirely a matter of Law, not Good, and Chaotic can choose to disregard it.

My view is its a matter of Good- that not granting a fair trial is a mark of an evil culture in D&D, and the difference between Law and Chaos is how they handle internal government- with Chaos demanding as much freedom as they can, and agitating at each repressive law, but at the same time accepting, even promoting, laws consistent with Good.

A CG person will be just as disapproving of theft or murder as a LG person- and have no problems with law enforcement dealing with the issue- they don't have to be a vigilante, and will only instigate revolution if the system is really corrupt.

This view is consistant with both Champions of Valor and Exalted Deeds.

You know, I once played a character that was so excellent at divinations that he was essentially omnicient. It got to the point that I would skip such justice protocals because the process was irrelevant to determining guilt, and as such, I would just act based on the divinitory actions. The trial is a formality to determine guilt or innocence, in essence. Whether justice is served is ultimately a question that doesn't necessarily require courts of law, and indeed, justice can be hindered by a sufficiently short sighted or incompetent court of law.

hamishspence

2008-10-29, 02:40 PM

Yukitsu

2008-10-29, 02:46 PM

I think main reason was V didn't do any divination or trial, or hearing, or Have You Anything To Say Before I Pass Sentence? Or find out what specific crimes were committed.

In my view it wasn't that different from smiting someone because they detected as evil.

That is, if you treat Being Tied up by Elan as as good or better diagnosis of evil acts committed, as Detecting As Evil.

V however is very familiar with Elan and his shenanigans, and also has an effective 22 int (if we assume the lads at class and level geekery are accurate.). For point of reference, if we took Stephen Hawking (who is a min maxer) and assumed his starting int at 18, he'd have to be level 16 to match Varsuuvius' active int score. Since I doubt he would survive a crit from a dagger, I'd have to assume it's otherwise, and that V's deductive reasoning is higher than Stephen Hawking's, or Sherlock Holmes, or Moriarty's.

Being incredibly smart, at a certain point, is good enough when you have that much evidence kicking about.

hamishspence

2008-10-29, 02:52 PM

Real people's physical durability doesn't advance as fast as their intelligence, knowledge, skills.

V himself admitted he had no idea what Kubota had done, only that, if his reading of Elan was correct, he was a "major villain"

Deaths caused by villain somehow escaping justice are not your responsibility, even if you may feel bad about it. Otherwise Elan and the rest of the order would have been morally responsible for Nale's killing spree in Cliffport.

And It was V who proposed delivering Nale over to justice in the first place, back in the dungeon.

Yukitsu

2008-10-29, 02:58 PM

Real people's physical durability doesn't advance as fast as their intelligence, knowledge, skills.

Intelligence levels off at a certain age, at about the same point in time physical fitness maxes out. Knowledge, sure, but inference is intelligence, not knowledge, nor is it a skill.

V himself admitted he had no idea what Kubota had done, only that, if his reading of Elan was correct, he was a "major villain"

And hir inference was correct.

Deaths caused by villain somehow escaping justice are not your responsibility, even if you may feel bad about it. Otherwise Elan and the rest of the order would have been morally responsible for Nale's killing spree in Cliffport.

It's not any individuals responsibility to do anything. As a good samaritan, however, I can still do them, if they are for a greater justice (not in real life, necessarily, as that may break law, even if it doesn't break good.)

And It was V who proposed delivering Nale over to justice in the first place, back in the dungeon.

Different situations. Nale et all hadn't killed anyone as far as they knew, and they weren't likely to get out from their knowledge at that point in time. Plus, Haley tied them up, not Elan.

hamishspence

2008-10-29, 03:09 PM

In that case, how come "association with you has proved you only tie up major villains" if it wasn't him who did it? That reduces it to One incident- the second Nale encounter.

Yukitsu

2008-10-29, 03:34 PM

In that case, how come "association with you has proved you only tie up major villains" if it wasn't him who did it? That reduces it to One incident- the second Nale encounter.

Because it's an over used trope that a heroic character will only take relevant and evil people hostage. I mentioned when V zapped Kubota that I was pretty sure V's "character" was metagaming at that point in time.

hamishspence

2008-10-29, 03:56 PM

I think the term in this context is prisoner, not hostage.

One of my favorite authors, even if she is a bit cliched, is Mercedes Lackey, and while in some of the stories (and one short story) who, very, very occasionally kill somebody in a style eevn they call murder, when there is no way to bring such a powerful target to justice, its very rare, and they are very morally troubled by doing so.

This bit comes from someone who is about as Chaotic as the heroes of the Valdemar setting get, after killing villain in self-defence. Be warned- dialect is pretty thick.

Alberich: "Regrets?"

Skif: "Sort of, there weren't no justice."
Alberich: "But it was your own hand that struck Vatean down."

Skif: "Now don' you go tryin' that sly word twistin' on me. I know what you're tryin' t'do, an' don' pretend you ain't. No. There weren't no justice. Th' bastid is dead, quick an' easy, he didn' have t'answer fer nothin', an' we ain't never gonna find out a half of what he was into. I got revenge an' I don' like it. Revenge don't get you nothin'. There. You happy now?"

This comes from a person whose family was murdered thanks to said villain, whose sheer malevolence makes Kubota look like Celia.

David Argall

2008-10-30, 02:33 AM

When quoting I always do Copy/paste with no alterations whatsover.
However the point immediately at issue is the context of the quoted statement, and since there is no link to the statement, that context is effectively lost.

with Chaos demanding as much freedom as they can, and agitating at each repressive law, but at the same time accepting, even promoting, laws consistent with Good.
Now this seems distinctly unlikely. Reluctantly accepting, possibly, but the very idea of the chaotic freedom lover is a hatred of laws. About the only time we would expect our CG to be promoting good law is when the alternative is bad law.
Recall here that all law, no exceptions, is repressive. That is its purpose. Most of us want to repress serial ax-murderers, but that law is still being used to repress somebody.

A CG person will be just as disapproving of theft ...
For reasons that can be challenged, Robin Hood the well known thief is routinely put in CG. However, it is rather obvious that the CG is going to be more willing to accept the reasoning that stealing from X to benefit Y is a good idea than the LG would [unless it is done by the government in the form of taxes, regulations, etc...]

...or murder as a LG person-
Now here there is more of a definitional problem. The lawful and the chaotic have sharply different ideas of what is murder. Killing people who resist government orders is frequently not murder in the governments eyes, and is murder in the eyes of the chaotic. And of course in the case of most importance to us, the lawful defines V's action as murder while the chaotic would not.

and have no problems with law enforcement dealing with the issue-
Of course they will have problems with law enforcement dealing with the issue. Why involve those incompetent control freaks if you can avoid it? is the chaotic position.

they don't have to be a vigilante, and will only instigate revolution if the system is really corrupt.

What kind of sissy chaotics do we have here? Not standing up to the government until things get terrible? No, you fight the goverment each and every time it gets out of line.
Of course you have to pick your fights and sometimes you just have to suffer, but revolt is not a last resort.

V didn't do any divination or trial, or hearing, or Have You Anything To Say Before I Pass Sentence? Or find out what specific crimes were committed.
And none of this was necessary or particularly useful under the circumstances. V did not need trial or hearing or knowledge of what crimes Kubota had done to know he was guilty of ones meriting kubota's death.

In my view it wasn't that different from smiting someone because they detected as evil.
However, we know that those detecting as evil may be guilty of no serious crime, or even of no crime at all, and may commit no future crime either. They are not the sort of people we should turn our back on, but they are frequently not enough danger to justify active self defense.
Kubota, by contrast was just such a case, killing people and intending to kill more. The sooner he was eliminated, the better [for the NPCs at least. He was rather entertaining for the reader.]

That reduces it to One incident- the second Nale encounter.
We do not see all party activities, and so can not say that V was lacking evidence for his logic. Rather the way she is treated in general and in the strip tells us that V is correct no matter if no evidence we see supports that. Thus we have V telling Elan there will be exactly one random encounter, which proves correct.
By contrast, we see the evidence of what happens when V doesn't trance. The PCs comment on it as well. So our lack of evidence says that V is correct.

hamishspence

2008-10-30, 08:17 AM

Revolution, not rebellion. Two different things, by Albert Camus definitions.

LG are not only not penalized, but expected, to rebel against evil, just as CG are, but as a rule they favor reformation of the system, rather than its overturn and the establishment of a new system.

I have pointed out earlier that CG systems in D&D have laws, and judiciary. But design them to promote freedom- laws to protect the people, from the government- only the most extreme believe there should be none. Diaboli, in Dragon compendium, and much earlier, in Mystara, are Chaotic outsiders that fit this.

As for deserves evil, the lesson that BoED and BoVD seem to give, put together, is that, in mortals, evil is a mental disease, caused by bad chemistry or bad nurture, and that evil people deserve compassion and treatment, not hatred and destruction, and that destroying the evil to protect the Good from it, should be a last resort, not a first one, only done when trying to redeem rather than kill it would pose an unacceptable risk to others.

The mercy-forgiveness-redemption theme in BoED is very, very strong.

Elan has compassion for Nale when he has first been taken prisoner, wondering if bad things will happen to him. Roy goes out of his way to ensure a peaceful resolution between orcs and locals, in Origin of PCs. The people we are supposed to sympathise with, in short, seem to follow this trope.

David Argall

2008-10-30, 04:26 PM

Revolution, not rebellion. Two different things, by Albert Camus definitions. .
Also by more widely accepted definitions, but the difference is, for our purposes, a difference in degree rather than kind. The Good might lead a revolt or a revolution against an evil king. That is merely circumstance differences.

LG are not only not penalized, but expected, to rebel against evil, just as CG are, but as a rule they favor reformation of the system, rather than its overturn and the establishment of a new system..
Which amounts to saying "NOT just as CG are".

The mercy-forgiveness-redemption theme in BoED is very, very strong..
True, but not unlimited.

Consider the bottom of page 10, where we have a guilty murderer who got off in court. "The demands of her good alignment suggest she should punish the wrongdoer, but the demands of her lawful alignment..."

So a trial is not final judgement. The paladin can reject its judgement and still punish the guilty. How much more so a CG who doesn't respect the judgement of the court in the first place?

Elan has compassion for Nale when he has first been taken prisoner, wondering if bad things will happen to him. Roy goes out of his way to ensure a peaceful resolution between orcs and locals, in Origin of PCs. The people we are supposed to sympathise with, in short, seem to follow this trope.
Of course. The guy who is too willing to forgive still makes a nice neighbor even if he is a fool. The guy who is too willing to punish is dangerous. No question who we prefer to have around.
But that our overly nice guy really doesn't harm anyone except himself does not make him the morally correct standard. As long as there is evil in the world, his stance is suicidal, and he needs protecting, which makes his superior those who provide that protection.

We should note here that 90% or so of all criminals have no trials. They go to court, plead guilty and are sentenced. Almost by definition, a very large percentage of these sentences are unjust [tho often in the criminal's favor]. Yet we continue to use the system because the alternative would be worse.
So our trial is not a necessity for justice. It can be both wrong, and too much bother. It can also be very useful, and so we often resort to it, but the mere fact of a trial is not a guarantee of justice. Nor is its absence a guarantee of injustice.

So we come back to the facts. V killed someone who deserved killing, and the predictable results were also good. Why should we insist this is not a good act?

hamishspence

2008-10-30, 04:36 PM

EDIT: they both rebel, but in different ways.

it said "Good is the highest priority. In the example above, the murderer must at least be captured, if not killed, before he can kill again."
and

"if paladin has reason to suspect corruption either in the court or in her own order, the paladin must attempt to uncover it, though it might mean being cast out of her order, punished, or both."

Translation- both courts that let off murderers on technicalities, And, knightly superiors who order you to kill acquitted men, may be corrupt- unjust.

Paladin would, one might expect, fix the corruption in both, then put murderer on trial again (no double jeopardy in D&D)

You phrase Good as Justice, and say CG character cases about Justice as much as LG one.
I will concede that a murderer going free is, unjust. Will you consider the possibility that a person being killed without trial, might also be unjust?

EDIT: In the absence, that is, of the various mitigating factors, like self-defence, listed in BoED.

If one chooses to plead guilty, one still has legal protection, like, if sentence is just below death, other people are not allowed to kill you. Waiving the right to a trial doesn't mean government is not required to at least offer you one, until you make decision to waive it. And punishment must still be handed out by those with the authority to do so, and carried out by those delegated to do so.

One of the most freedom-centric philosophers I have read argued "Retaliation (not self-defence) cannot be left in the hands of the individual, because this leads to lynch mobs, blood feuds, and anarchy"

Yukitsu

2008-10-30, 08:15 PM

Doing another trial simply means it's another chance that justice won't be served due to the technical, rather than objective rendering of laws. Trials are law. With the lack of courts, we don't suddenly see that all justice is evil. Trials are merely the laws way to attempt justice.

Also, governmental edicts on the treatment of that person based on their personal judgement of the trials resolution is law, not justice necessarily. That they try to make them match makes people confuse the two.

awibs

2008-10-31, 05:07 AM

I don't necessarily have a good argument for what alignment (s)he is, but the reason I don't think he's True Neutral is because Roy's very vividly characterized sister is. Julia's hyperbolized indifferent teenager attitude is a very good comedic choice for how to portray the behavior of a True Neutral person... and while Vaarsuvius is bitchy as hell, he's not ever indifferent on that scale. Every time he states his unwillingness to help with an endeavor, it is purely because he thinks something else he is doing to help the Good cause has a higher priority (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0554.html), and/or that the others should be able to manage without him (Lien IS an adult with extensive fighting experience, and saving the universe ASAP is definitely a valid argument for "more important than cleaning up after every stubborn paladin's mistake.")

Nor is he ever as manic as Julia was when she significantly hurt and then aided (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0343.html) Roy in the same strip with the True Neutral punchline. V may unintentionally hurt others due to arrogance and impatience, but those are personality defects that can easily be credited to his admitted dump-stat Charisma even in a Good character. Hell, Roy admittedly screwed up enough to be judged True Neutral (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0490.html) if not for how hard he tried to be Lawful Good. There's nothing V has done worse than anything Roy stood accused of in that strip or the few immediately preceding it (is verbally bitchy, is indifferent when frustrated, in a fit of temper quite nearly left a party member to their fate), and yet was Officially Judged Lawful Good in spite of.

As far as killing Kubota (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0596.html) is concerned, he may have had some haphazard and Chaotic reasons, but he did actually have reason to believe Kubota was evil on short judgement. Elan is right to mock his disregard for Azurite due process as stupid idea, but he also admits that Kubota did get what he deserved. Haphazard? Done in temper? Absolutely. But those are Chaotic behaviorisms, not Evil. Point is, he still acted upon the intent to kill a bad guy and as the very strip before that said, towards the greater goal of saving the world. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0595.html)

The repeated trying to be good counts for something, as was said to Roy in judgement. Durkon with his high morality and high Wisdom stat of all people acknowledges it (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0505.html) when he asks if it's V's guilt that has him looking for Haley. A True Neutral character would never have guilt, and it's certainly not a case of someone like Durkon being unperceptive or nonjudgmental of someone's motivation. This is the guy who sent Hilgaya off for not "doing the right thing, even though it makes her miserable" and he seems to absolutely believe that V is trying to do the right thing, in an annoyingly stubborn way or not.

Final peice of evidence: this whole monologue (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0504.html) about being to blame for wasting the lives of countless soldiers and Haley's suffering? Does a True Neutral character, especially as defined by Julia Greenhilt, run himself ragged for months to atone for a guilt that "slacking off made me not prepared to save all the innocent lives I could have saved if only I'd worked harder all along"?

Even though V doesn't fit the normal archetype of Chaotic Good... He's admittedly not Evil (Miko's detection spell) and I feel there is a very strong argument for not Neutral. He certainly cares about the greater good, the well being of not only his party, but random innocents, and I think his temper and selfish lapses can be explained by low Charisma and forgiven as much as the Deva forgave Roy before judging him officially Good.

awibs

2008-10-31, 05:17 AM

Elan has compassion for Nale when he has first been taken prisoner, wondering if bad things will happen to him.

Even though we're not directly talking about the same thing, this reminded me of a further argument I'd like to make.

Some would argue that V's lack of compassion for fallen bad guys makes him Neutral rather than Good. I argue that low Charisma is what makes one an asshat, and Roy and Elan have high and higher Charisma, making them dutiful and empathetic to the defeated, respectively.

A lack of senseless sympathy for every enemy killed (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0539.html) doesn't make anyone doubt Haley's Good alignment.

Namisnspence, I apologize for hijacking a line of your sub-discussion for this theory.

Kish

2008-10-31, 06:20 AM

Does a True Neutral character, especially as defined by Julia Greenhilt,
I'm snipping out that part to respond to it because it epitomizes my problem with your argument.

Alignment is not personality. You seem to be asserting, "If Vaarsuvius was True Neutral s/he would act like Julia Greenhilt." But there are much more than nine personalities in the world. Roy doesn't act much like Hinjo, or Soon Kim, or Durkon, or Miko. Yet they're all Lawful Good.

As for your double post--how long have you been here? "Haley is Chaotic Neutral" arguments have existed much longer than "Vaarsuvius is X Neutral" ones, even surviving an in-comic explicit statement that she's "Chaotic Good! Ish!"

HamsterOfTheGod

2008-10-31, 07:05 AM

awibs

2008-10-31, 07:30 AM

"Haley is Chaotic Neutral" arguments have existed much longer than "Vaarsuvius is X Neutral" ones, even surviving an in-comic explicit statement that she's "Chaotic Good! Ish!"

Wait... people here argue that their interpretation of the comic's characters is more valid than what the author explicitly writes in it?

Oh yeah... this is an internet fan forum... never mind.

evileeyore

2008-10-31, 07:32 AM

A lack of senseless sympathy for every enemy killed (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0539.html) doesn't make anyone doubt Haley's Good alignment.

That would be because it isn't senseless.

Are you at war with a particular foe? If yes, then occasionally killing one or even looking the other way when one happens to die is pretty much okay.

It makes sense as you are at War with your enemies. You know, during a War you kill your enemies. You shuffle them off the motal coil, run them down the curtian to join the choir invisible. You make them ex-enemies.

Allandaros

2008-10-31, 08:55 AM

I have been playing D&D since back in 1st edition and there are only 9 ways to play a character

Lawful Good - Never lie and take prisoners
Neutral Good - Lie sometimes and take prisoners
Chaotic Good - Lie and kill if you think its OK
Lawful Neutral - Never lie, otherwise whatever you want is OK
True Neutral - Whatever you want is OK
Chaotic Neutral - Act randomly every second as if you were insane
Lawful Evil - Never lie and plot to kill everyone
Neutral Evil - Lie sometimes and kill if you can get away with it
Chaotic Evil - Always lie and kill every one on site

Obviously a smart player always takes True Neutral so that they can act like any other alignment whenever they want.

It would seem that you have assigned "True Neutral" as the "Chaotic Stupid" alignment. No thanks, I'll pass.

And honestly, the claim of "playing since 1st edition" doesn't do too much. Alignment debates have been going on ever since 1st Edition - hell, ever since the original pamphlets. Experience is not a claim to authority here, my friend.

HamsterOfTheGod

2008-10-31, 09:16 AM

And honestly, the claim of "playing since 1st edition" doesn't do too much. Alignment debates have been going on ever since 1st Edition - hell, ever since the original pamphlets. Experience is not a claim to authority here, my friend.
Just because there was no :smallsmile: visible, it does not mean I was serious.

It would seem that you have assigned "True Neutral" as the "Chaotic Stupid" alignment. No thanks, I'll pass.

I'm pretty sure that I described Chaotic Insane and Convenient Neutral correctly and on that I will claim my experience in watching people play and debate alignment as an authority.

Allandaros

2008-10-31, 09:35 AM

Fair enough. I think some of my Firefox extensions are interfering with my snark detection capabilities, and so it often passes me by. :smallwink:

hamishspence

2008-10-31, 10:19 AM

Neutral has evolved some since 2nd ed. It may have begun as "I go both ways" but now:

"Such a character thinks of good as better than evil- after all, she would rather have good neighbours and allies than evil one's. Still, she's not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way" and:

"have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others"

Note that this is subject to other factors:

" Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships. A neutral person may sacrifice himself to protect his family or even his homeland, but he would not do so for strangers who are not related to him"

"Mialee, an (elven) wizard who devotes herself to her art and is bored by the semantics of moral debate, is neutral"

"someone who is neutral with respect to law and chaos has a normal respect for authority and feels neither a compulsion to obey nor a compulsion to rebel, She is honest but can be tempted into lying or deceiving others"

When it describes chaotic and lawful traits, it also describes downsides, as in, traits which might lead, step by step, to evil- "resentment against legitimate authority, arbitrary actions"

All this put together seems more consistant with a Neutral to Chaotic Neutral alignment for V-

V's actions in the dirt farmer incident show a certain lack of compassion, despite the "I am not intending to show complete lack of compassion for their plight" claim from V. As a prisoner, V's "We need to find out about the gate"excuse is somewhat iffy.

Also, V's willingness to use Explosive Runes on people who annoy V- Miko, the Stablemaster, and Belkar, and V's initiating a long chain of ill treatment on Belkar, with the sole purpose of making him hate V (since V finds idea of Belkar Not hating V, but lusting after V, repulsive) do not speak well for a good alignment.

Durkon: "So... that explains why ye just Charmed a muskrat into humpin' Belkar's bare feet."
V: "Hmm? Oh, no, that is merely for my personal amusement."
Belkar: "What the- Aargh! Get off! Wild Empathy check! WILD EMPATHY CHECK!!!"

Funny, very funny, but more sort of thing Neutral would do than Good.

Yukitsu

2008-10-31, 11:55 AM

I'd just like to point out that Arcadia, which is lawful good has a smite evil mercilessly policy, and in many cases would act as V did. Celestia, which is lawful good would do the trials etc.

gibbedman

2008-10-31, 12:41 PM

Hamishspence makes a very good point, and does it using some original source material, and I'm going to quote a little more.

"Good implies altruism, respect for life and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others."

Further (quoting now from Book of Exalted Deer...uh Deeds [dude...that's my book]), "a good character can be cautious, determining how powerful the dragon is and whether additional reinforcements are required, but she should never say, "Sorry, I'm out of my league. Go find another hero."

V's latest act of expediency, the disintegration of Kubota required no sacrifice, in truth, required barely any effort. Elan was willing to spare the life of this man who personally wronged him, killed his friend, tried to kill others and was threatening his future well-being because of this one fact:

Good people don't kill people who are surrendering. Period.

That's the consequence of "respect for life"; that if you want to be good, you have to try at every turn to save the lives of everybody, and not just good guys. That's why Celia won't kill at all. The paladins code wouldn't allow such an action, not because the action is unlawful, but because it's un-good; which is not to say "evil" but it is simply beneath the standards of goodness.

If V wanted to be Good of any kind, that's not the action she/he would have taken, but V didn't want to be Good.

Now, there is the argument that V has taken actions for the greater good of saving the world, but here's something funny:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0442.html
Xykon wants to save the world, too.

Villians often start on their paths by "acting for the greater good" and by "trying to save the world" (see: the world is a mess, and I just need to rule it). That doesn't make V a villain, it just doesn't prove he/she is Good.

Xykon wants to save the world and rule it.
Roy wants to save the world and improve its quality of life.
Elan wants to save the world and make everybody alive and happy.
Vaarsuvius wants to save the world and live in it with his/her friends and family; no more, no less.

The actions V is willing to take along the way make force him/her to make personal sacrifices or else make corporate sacrifices and it should be a great ride getting to see whether V could take some truly Evil acts or some truly Good ones, but for now...I haven't seen it.

Kish

2008-10-31, 12:43 PM

Celestia is LAWFUL GOOD--at the top of both alignments.

Arcadia is LAWFUL good--between Celestia and Mechanus.

Yukitsu

2008-10-31, 12:48 PM

Whatever, points stands that in some place of some sense of good smiting people for having the audacity of being jerks is perfectly fine from a non-evil stand point.

hamishspence

2008-10-31, 01:54 PM

David Argall

2008-10-31, 04:11 PM

put murderer on trial again (no double jeopardy in D&D)
While most legal systems effectively have no double jeopardy, a great many have no such legal limit and there is no such limit built into D&D.

I will concede that a murderer going free is, unjust. Will you consider the possibility that a person being killed without trial, might also be unjust?
Well of course. In fact, this is commonly the case. However, the reasons it would be unfair are little or unrelated to the question of a trial. The suspect is not guilty or is under or over punished... Whatever. All sorts of ways a killing, with or without trial, can be unjust.

The advantages of a trial are merely pragmatic. The evidence gets closer consideration and all learn the facts of the case. That can be quite important, but these are only pragmatic advantages, which means they may not exist in a given case. Where the guilt is certain, there is little advantage to considering that closer. There can be quite large costs.

If one chooses to plead guilty, one still has legal protection, like, if sentence is just below death, other people are not allowed to kill you. Waiving the right to a trial doesn't mean government is not required to at least offer you one, until you make decision to waive it. And punishment must still be handed out by those with the authority to do so, and carried out by those delegated to do so.
All of which is Lawful thinking, and we are considering Chaotic thinking.

One of the most freedom-centric philosophers I have read argued "Retaliation (not self-defence) cannot be left in the hands of the individual, because this leads to lynch mobs, blood feuds, and anarchy"
Now, not naming the philospher negates the authority of the quote. For all the reader knows, you are quoting yourself.
The statement needs to have retaliation defined before it can be discussed much. It talks about "individual", but also refers to group actions as part of that individual. So we have worries about what is assumed here.
"Retaliation" is a distinctly suspect theory of justice at best in the hands of government or individual. Since A is hurt, we go out and hurt B? On the face of it, we are making things worse. We can talk about compensation, say in the form of detering C & D from hurting E & F, but we still are going to a lot of trouble to make trouble for B.

"Good implies altruism, respect for life and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others."

Further (quoting now from Book of Exalted Deer...uh Deeds [dude...that's my book]), "a good character can be cautious, determining how powerful the dragon is and whether additional reinforcements are required, but she should never say, "Sorry, I'm out of my league. Go find another hero."
This is one of those statements that one must either read in the almost or usually, or dismiss the writer as a fool. There are a zillion good deeds that need to be done and one simply can't do even a noticeable fraction of them. One has to say "I can be more effective elsewhere and so must ignore this task."

V's latest act of expediency, the disintegration of Kubota required no sacrifice, in truth, required barely any effort.
An act of good does not have to be a sacrifice. In fact, ideally it should not be. A sacrifice is a loss to somebody, which is not good by definition.
We can argue that V is in fact sacrificing here. By any reasonable measure, V would be less bothered by a Kubota trial than by the investigation into his death.

Good people don't kill people who are surrendering. Period.
Good people execute prisoners, whether they have surrendered or not. They don't do so often, and generally only after a trial, but they do do so, and walk away with heads held high.

The paladins code wouldn't allow such an action, not because the action is unlawful, but because it's un-good; which is not to say "evil" but it is simply beneath the standards of goodness.

While the strip does not directly say so, it appears that Miko killed a number of foes under such conditions. And of course she remained good.

Now, there is the argument that V has taken actions for the greater good of saving the world, but here's something funny:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0442.html
Xykon wants to save the world, too.
More precisely, he doesn't want to destroy it. He isn't taking actions that make it more likely the world will survive.
And this argument is ad hominem, a standard fallacy. That Xykon does or does not do something does not make it evil or good.

hamishspence

2008-10-31, 04:34 PM

"Good people execute, generally, only after a trial" you said. Isn't that what I've been saying, that not waiting for trial to be tested is very much exception?

One obvious reason for trial? It grants Katos claim on Kubota family- it has wronged them and must pay for the costs involved in repairing any damge. Without trial, Kubota's acts must be fixed out of Hinjo's own pocket.

Freedom-centric philosopher was Ayn Rand.

I was saying about double jeopardy (not being tried twice for same crime) that while its common in real world, it isn't mentioned in D&D, so villain being acquitted is not a huge obstacle.

the sacrifice bit is in BoED- acts that come without some form of sacrifice, of time, comfort, risks, are neutral rather than Good. Also a normally good act that serves own self interests, done for selfish reasons, is neutral (one of the lines I liked less)

BoED seems to hybridize elements of objectivism (no compromise with evil, ever. You can work alongside it, but not allow evil allies to commit evil acts if they are about to do so in your presence.) and Altruistic theory.

I think its better point is altruism is never, ever, ever, a justification for evil acts- makes up for selfish motives turning Good acts into Neutral acts.

EDIT: and isn't execution of people who "deserve it" retaliation- life for life? As well as protecting population from potential future evil acts carried out by the villain.

And scenes are not shown. "YES! They were evil so I killed them" You seem to say that proves you can execute people just for detecting as evil and not Fall. I say- it doesn't fit with post-BoED D&D- to avoid falling, other factors must be introduced.

Yukitsu

2008-10-31, 05:13 PM

Arcadia has its own celestials- and those who get carried away with the smiting? Welcome to Fallsville. Population: You.

The Arcadian Avenger in MMV has Lawful and Good subtypes, but alignment Usually Lawful good instead of Always LG. They are "benevolent and helpful, but see adherence to the rules as more important than kindness" and when they "forgo compassion" they start slipping to LN.

"Those who are tainted with evil are immediately and relentlessly attacked." So no, they don't fall for smite on sight, because that's the action that the plane itself demands. In either event, smite on sight, given the setting arguments is good to neutral aligned. It's a stupid view, but no less valid than the atrocity that is the BoED.

The usual argument seems to go- once surrendered, an evil prisoner can be executed, and, trying them is lawful-only (despite existence of Chaotic trials in DMG2) and Knowing Kubota is Guilty of Serious Evil and Deserves Death (even if you don't know what he's guilty of ) grants you the right to carry out that execution.

I may be exaggerating, but thats what argument looks like to me.

No, that he is a threat to lives that a trial will not succeed in bringing to justice, the just action is not a trial.

hamishspence

2008-10-31, 05:20 PM

Yukitsu

2008-10-31, 05:27 PM

anyone can be a "threat to lives" in the future- does that give people the moral duty to kill them?

Why does Batman always, always hand over supervillains he captures? or Superman? given the number of times they have escaped, the "pragmatic" think to do would be just to take them up to a great height and drop them- but they don't because the DC setting, like BoED, tends heavily toward the idealistic.

BoED is a mixture of great and awful ideas. Sometimes its hard to tell which is which.

Though I think the forgiveness-mercy-redemption bit, if nothing else, deserves applause.

Batman does it because he's daft, and superman does it because even if they start trouble again, he can put the villain in his place without breaking a sweat before anyone dies because of it. In any event, I view batman as horrendously immoral, as he lets his honour get in the way of saving thousands of innocent lives. People who make actual moral decisions tend to not have the ability to beat to death a million lackeys, then spare the person who's actually responsible for the problems over and over again without real risk to themselves and call themselves moral. Especially if doing this over and over again is causing more deaths than would occur if they smote the jerk.

Also, most people aren't any real threat to lives. Kubota was a serious and immediate threat to many lives.

Not to mention, the situation in Arcadia is a pretty clear statement that you don't need to care about redemption, mercy or forgiveness to be good. It's just something that some individuals who are also good aspire to.

hamishspence

2008-10-31, 05:33 PM

he was tied up. A future threat, but not an "immediate one" An "immediate threat" is a guy with a weapon to somebody's throat.

Shojo, I notice, the CG type, didn't go all "slaughter the evil nobles" during his reign, even after he began to pretend to be senile. War and XPs back of book tells us that Azure City Law allows for nobles, and even the Lord of the City, to be brought to book for wrongdoing.

hamishspence

2008-10-31, 05:34 PM

The Avenger entry suggests that went avengers lose their compassion, they can change from LG to LN.

Yukitsu

2008-10-31, 05:36 PM

Shojo wasn't in a political position to kill all the evil nobles, and killing evil without compassion doesn't mean you have lost your compassion. Also, immediate includes, when I say it, the immediate future. In all odds, the court wouldn't even have him a day.

hamishspence

2008-10-31, 05:38 PM

"my trial will last a few weeks, at most" was what Kubota said, not "A day"

Yukitsu

2008-10-31, 05:41 PM

"my trial will last a few weeks, at most" was what Kubota said, not "A day"

At most is the lengthiest. I would bet it would last as long as the OoTS trial, which was a day. (sans incarceration period, which may have been a couple more.)

hamishspence

2008-10-31, 06:30 PM

and V's words were "something about trial lasting weeks, which means 20 or 30 strips of mindless drudgery, probably involving those idiot lawyers"

It appears V might not have heard the "at most"

Yukitsu

2008-10-31, 06:42 PM

and V's words were "something about trial lasting weeks, which means 20 or 30 strips of mindless drudgery, probably involving those idiot lawyers"

It appears V might not have heard the "at most"

I've said V was heavily metagaming at this point several times before, and since this has already broken the fourth wall severely, I tend to construe that as weeks of comics, not weeks from the characters point of view.

hamishspence

2008-10-31, 06:50 PM

so, the explanation V gave for nailing Kubota was a metagame explanation.

How about "he was a valid target"? Elan seems decidedly suspicious of V's rationale, especially when it amounts to "he was tied up"

Maybe Elan's an idiot, and we haven't seen the repercussions of V's act on the Azure city fleet, but House Kubota probably has a new leader, not aware of his predecessor's perfidity.

If my theoretical Kubota is aware about mysterious disappearence of his predecessor, what do you think he will be doing?

EDIT:
and then there is the Katos, how do you think they will react to news that Kubota has mysteriously disappeared- with joy, or "We want that guy found and charged!"

Yukitsu

2008-10-31, 06:59 PM

Mysterious predicessor will either take his place and likely be less competent (high int, trope aware BBEG does not want a competent heir.) or will realize that being an evil jerk who argues semantics and loopholes will get turned into dust by someone who is largely ignoring what's coming out of your mouth.

As for the Katos, they trust Elan, and he said he drowned. (And was eaten by dire boneeating salt water were piranhas, but that's why charisma is a fun stat when fighters don't have ranks in sense motive.)

hamishspence

2008-10-31, 07:13 PM

hamishspence

2008-10-31, 07:28 PM

Point is, V's act might have solved one problem- Kubota is no longer around to try and kill Hinjo, or the Order who are stopping him from having Hinjo killed, or numerous unfortunate people who have been killed in his attempts to get the Order killed.

But, it may also have opened a whole new can of worms.

EDIT: V's solution, whatever else it may be, was expedient. Could it be that lack of sleep has eaten away at V's patience, causing V to choose "the quick and easy path" to solving anything V sees as a problem?

(I'm not keen on Hir, nor switching back and forth between Him and Her, nor choosing before there is evidence, so I'm just using "V". Sorry if my posts seem odd as a result.)

Yukitsu

2008-10-31, 08:43 PM

Hinjo, and especially Lien, appear to Not trust what elan is saying.

Funny- despite "I'm going to tell Hinjo exactly what happened" and V's treat, and Elan's apparently not understanding it was a threat, elan does indeed go on to lie for him. I wonder why- a rethink?

And the next Kubota, with no V around (V left fleet several strips ago) is likely to be somewhat curious. Unless Kubota shared his plot with rest of family, its possible the family are unaware of his actions.

The end result however, is that they know he died, and according to allegations of the only surviver of that fracass, he died doing evil, so the onus would be on Elan, but only because the implication that ones father is evil is a pretty serious one. However, that means a vendetta against Elan and no others in particular. If his family was in on the evil, they will likely usurp his place with a lessoning in competence. That V left is of no concern to them. V has stated that the paladins have been getting on hir nerves for a while now. Killing that pit fiend without any congratulations not admitting that V may have been right about strategy to defeat it would be their most likely conclusions. They haven't exactly been doing much to keep the arcanist on board.

As for Hinjo and Lien, they are paladins, which typically have high wisdom scores, and have sense motive as a class ability. The Katos as fighters have neither.

As for the can of worms theory, if you can accurately guess what they all are, then accurately guess all the ones that will never happen because V killed Kubota, then you can validly say that hir actions were wrong because of indirect consequince.

David Argall

2008-11-01, 02:38 AM

"Good people execute, generally, only after a trial" you said. Isn't that what I've been saying, that not waiting for trial to be tested is very much exception?
No, what you have been saying is that it is simply wrong, not just exceptional. If you want to say exceptional, then we find that the killing without trial is not a proof that V was not CG.

One obvious reason for trial? It grants Katos claim on Kubota family- it has wronged them and must pay for the costs involved in repairing any damge. Without trial, Kubota's acts must be fixed out of Hinjo's own pocket.
From what we can see, the Katos can not make any significant claims against the Kubota estate. All three Katos are healthy.

the sacrifice bit is in BoED- acts that come without some form of sacrifice, of time, comfort, risks, are neutral rather than Good.
A position that is logically incorrect. It is also one that virtually zero D&D players or PCs of good alignment adopt. The typical PC of moderate plus level is extremely rich as a result of his adventuring. [The talk of time, comfort, risks, etc is largely drivil. It amounts to saying all acts are neutral.]
D&D players work on the theory that the worker is worth his hire, that they get paid a lot of money for doing a lot of good. A book that wishes to challenge this is rejected before it gets off the press.

BoED seems to hybridize elements of objectivism (no compromise with evil, ever. You can work alongside it, but not allow evil allies to commit evil acts if they are about to do so in your presence.) and Altruistic theory.
This greatly exaggerates the logical base of BED, and is likely wrong.
We can say that maybe 30 pages of BED is on the nature of good, as opposed to game mechanics. We can go to the local library and find 30 books, thick books on the nature of good. Taking more time, we can find 30 libraries of books on the nature of good. So our 30 pages is a very simple summation, done by people of no particular competence on the subject.
What BED is is a compilation of popular ethics, with no attempt to challenge its inconsistencies and errors. It's goal is not to challenge popular nonsense, but to affirm it. That allows the players to get back to killing monsters faster.
It is not impossible that the authors had heard of Objectivism, but that they could define it well enough to use in their work is unlikely, and that they tried is almost certainly not the case.

I think its better point is altruism is never, ever, ever, a justification for evil acts-
Altruism is used to justify evil acts all the time, sometimes even correcty.

isn't execution of people who "deserve it" retaliation- life for life?
Quite often, which does not change the point that such a theory of justice has many weaknesses and flaws.

"YES! They were evil so I killed them" You seem to say that proves you can execute people just for detecting as evil and not Fall.
I do not claim that much. The claim here is that these victims of Miko were frequently, and perhaps never, tried beyond a trivial sense. And since she remained Good, this can not be deemed an evil act.

They were detected as evil. We have several ways this might happen, but they all amount to some non-violent interaction between the parties. In effect, many of these would amount to prisoners. Miko had power over them.
"I killed them." No mention of any trial or formal procedure. She did it herself.
So Miko killed a large number of people without trial, and remained of good alignment, and a paladin. None of these acts were evil. The only possible conclusion here is that a trial is not a necessary part of the Good theory of justice.

despite "I'm going to tell Hinjo exactly what happened" and V's treat, and Elan's apparently not understanding it was a threat, elan does indeed go on to lie for him. I wonder why- a rethink?
Possibly, tho one can question how much Elan was thinking in the first place.
Presumably Elan wanted peace between V and Hinjo, and since he has no devotion to the truth, he tried to duplicate his success at the jail.

And the next Kubota, with no V around (V left fleet several strips ago) is likely to be somewhat curious. Unless Kubota shared his plot with rest of family, its possible the family are unaware of his actions.

While we are only able to speculate about the next Kubota, the presumption is that he will be less trouble, at least for a year or two. He is younger, with a more questionable hold on power. The alliances with other nobles are at least called into question, and may be completely gone...
Now Kubota Jr probably knows most of Kubota's plans and secrets. He has seen most of Kubota's actions and his reactions to events. It is hard to believe he didn't know daddy was plotting to become ruler. But he probably doesn't know all the secrets and so is hampered compared to pop.

hamishspence

2008-11-01, 05:17 AM

Possibilty- the trials were conducted in their absence. Miko was sent after those who Azure City diviners had already "tried and convicted" and, when using her detect evil, she concludes that "Conviction of Crime worthy of Death Sentence + Evil Alignment" grants her the right to decide sentence.

War and XPs tells us Azure City has been sending paladins after fugitives, into other countries, for a while, much to the annoyance of the rulers of those countries.

This would fit with SoD, where "the twelve gods" have judged the goblin village, like a "trial in their absence" and passed sentence, and the paladins are there to carry out that sentence "for threatening the fabric of the universe"

While its not clear if she used Detect evil on Samantha or not, Samantha had, as far as Miko knew, not committed any crimes, so it was only when Samantha attacked Miko with magic that Miko responded by killing her.

When she confronts the Order, because they have Not been tried in their absence, despite detecting one as evil before attacking, she still gave them a "Surrender or die" message before attacking.

There are many ways of carrying out a trial in the D&Dverse, as illustrated by DMG2 and Cityscape- they do not all have to have juries or arguments- they can have ordeals (chaotic-DMG2) three man judge panels (elven- see Races of the Wild) and verdicts are mostly rendered by judges rather than juries (Cityscape).

the issue here, however, is not Miko, but V. and, IMO, some form of knowledge of the specific crimes is necessary for the killing of a unarmed, restrained prisoner, to be just. V had no knowledge of the specific crimes, only a general surmise.

I believe you said earlier that Just killings are a matter of Good, not Law.

hamishspence

2008-11-01, 05:34 AM

and 30 pages on the nature of good in BoED compared to 2 pages, that has to share with Chaotic, evil, and lawful, in PHB, means PHB is way too scanty.

While the "Sacrifice is needed" bit in BoED is one I personally object to, it is also a fundamental part of altruistic morality. At least, according to the critics of altruism- the term used for generally good acts that don't cost that actor is "benevolence".

The view is that pro altruism + anti-selfishness leads to defining a sliding scale of good acts with selfishness making them less good, and self-sacrifice making them more good.

"Altruism is the first word on Good in the PHB"

On the mercy bit, Celestia is much more merciful than either Arcadia, whose citizens are described as "hard-pressed to recognize their own flaws" in Manual of the Planes (Arcadia is mildly law aligned and not good aligned at all by rules), though some more formidable inhabitants do have both Good and Lawful subtypes:

and Elysium "evil creatures are slain on Elysium"

Mercy is described as a part of Lawful Goodness of Celestia, supported by BoED's "Justice demands mercy" And, it is possible to be a "chaotic evil wizard sincerely committed to learning the paths of goodness" and be welcome.

Even if you "have a long way to go, and retain many of the instincts and notions of your former lifestyle"

Point is, if you are both LG and merciless, over time, you will slip to LN. In War and XPs The Giant points out that Miko had been pushing the boundaries of her alignment for a long time.

EDIT: Elan, while "not minding Kubota is dead, and thinking "he got what was coming to him" still tries to argue to V that "its wrong to-"

What? "kill people without trial or knowing what their crime is?" Possibly. If the poster boy for Extremely Chaotic CG thinks its wrong and "it feels so weird, even for a jerkhead like him" maybe he's right. He is, after all, Dangerously Genre Savvy, maybe Too Genre Savvy.

David Argall

2008-11-01, 05:58 PM

Possibilty-
Now the very nature of "possibility" means this is a weak point. For the most part we don't even consider them. It is only when the certain points seem to conflict that we give them serious attention. When we say "Miko was good" & "Miko did not provide trials", the routine conclusion is that trials are not necessary parts of being good. Only when we have already established that trials are necessary would we look at the possibilities.

the trials were conducted in their absence.
"...exposed thousands...an alarmingly high percentage...are now deceased?"

We of course do not have exact figures here, but the presumption is that the numbers are far too high for anything like formal trials to have been held. A good many of these had to be on Miko's own initiative.

We do have the ogre battle here. Rather clearly, Azure City had no knowledge of these ogres and had not tried them nor sent Miko after them. [Strictly speaking, dealing with them was a violation of her orders.] Nor does Miko give them any sort of formal trial. She gives them adequate chance to display honorable intentions and had time to test for evil, but if we call this a trial, we are pretty much saying that V gave Kubota a trial.

War and XPs tells us Azure City has been sending paladins after fugitives, into other countries, for a while, much to the annoyance of the rulers of those countries.
Can you give a page number here? [& W&X references probably should be spoilered for the next year or two.]

This would fit with SoD, where "the twelve gods" have judged the goblin village, like a "trial in their absence" and passed sentence, and the paladins are there to carry out that sentence "for threatening the fabric of the universe"
While there are a number of things to challenge about this scene, the immediate point would be that this is hardly a proper trial, and thus again we have support for V's action being potentially CG.

IMO, some form of knowledge of the specific crimes is necessary for the killing of a unarmed, restrained prisoner, to be just. V had no knowledge of the specific crimes, only a general surmise.

As the witnesses, we want a connection between crime and punishment, the more precise the better. But the the means of getting from C to P do not need to be aware of anything. We tend to laugh at the environmentalist who is eaten by a bear. Gun control advocates like to mention the possibility that you will be shot by your own gun. And as noted before, the executioner does not have to know a thing about the criminal's crime.
Knowledge of crime, armed state, restraints, all of these are things that eliminate killing under certain conditions, but not under others.

Elan, while "not minding Kubota is dead, and thinking "he got what was coming to him" still tries to argue to V that "its wrong to-"

What? "kill people without trial or knowing what their crime is?" Possibly. If the poster boy for Extremely Chaotic CG thinks its wrong and "it feels so weird, even for a jerkhead like him" maybe he's right. He is, after all, Dangerously Genre Savvy, maybe Too Genre Savvy.
The accent is on "maybe". We had just seen Elan doing an undefensible attack on Kubota. That he has a firm idea of right and wrong in general seems suspect at best.

hamishspence

2008-11-02, 06:00 AM

Exactly the same happened with the Lawful poilce officers of Clifport, who, once they had Elan down and pinned, punched him (they had provocation, having just seen "him" murder their Chief.)

Yet, despite Serious reasons to believe he really, really deserved death, they took him alive, for trial, and refused Roys suggestions of detection spells or truth spells. If Roy had offered to kill him for them, would they have refused?

Point to be made is, you can't just have "kill when crime is witnessed, try when crime is not witnessed" its all or nothing if you want consistency and reliability.

and had these officers been "kill on sight" types, Elan would be dead now.

Yes, Identical Twins is a bit unusual, but a little magic and a lot of cunning can frame anyone for a crime, so, given how easy it is, guilt has to be determined by rational due process. And even that can be fallible, but this fallibility we accept. Accepting total overriding of due process is a bit more of a stretch.

EDIT: And its possible to lose your temper and do wrong, and still know its wrong, have firm grasp of right and wrong. Grasp loosens when you justify it afterwards (anakin, Tuskens). Elan might be willing to steal in time of desperation, to save Haley, but absent that, and you see him going "That would be Stealing! Like, in a BAD way!"

hamishspence

2008-11-02, 08:51 AM

as for the V issue, my view is, retaliatory killing to save the lives of others is only valid when there is an immediate threat. The threat Kubota poses us subject to the vagaries of fate- he Might get loose of his bonds, he Might be acquitted, if acquitted he Might go on to kill again.

Might, might, might. Not Good Enough in my view.

The reason we have laws to carry out our retaliatory killings for us, is because without them, its pretty much guaranteed to devolve into anarchy if everyone does it.

If you witness a murder, and you think the murderer is powerfully connected, and would need a lot of evidence to convict, that doesn't give you the right to sneak into his house and kill him "to protect other people from him" That isn't a CG viewpoint IMO, its a CE viewpoint.

If you were watching murder of Batman's parents in the Burton movie, and you saw Napier levlling gun at Bruce- killing to defend Bruce would be moral- there is a clear intent to kill, broken only by calls of "Let's go!"

Following Napier after the murder and killing him, would not be moral.

This is, however, only my view.

To sum up- only one good justification for killing- to protect others from the killed. And, in the absence of a clear and immediate threat, thats not the sort of decision people should make on their own.

Yukitsu

2008-11-02, 11:47 AM

Might is only vague when you can't replace it with "probably". What chance was there, in all honesty that that isn't exactly what happened? A guy with a law rocket launcher pointed at my room right now is only likely to kill me, even if I can literally see the intent. However, weapon malfunctions, random deus ex machina and the like can all prevent it from occuring. So thus, if I shot him in the head (I don't have a gun, I live in Canada, but bear with me here.) I would be immoral in your standards, because despite the 99.999999999999% likely hood that he is about to kill me, it isn't guaranteed.

Kish

2008-11-02, 12:31 PM

hamishspence

2008-11-02, 12:57 PM

And remember, I also pointed out "clear intent to kill" and said in that case, force isn't immoral.

The CPD used the minimum amount of force necessary to subdue what they believed to be Nale (and one punch out of "righteous indignation" which while dubious is understandable- same with Elan and Kubota, or Roy and Miko)

And took him in for trial, despite believing him to be a cop-killer and serial killer.

All hail the CPD- even more exemplary of LG than Roy or Miko (which isn't too hard)

David Argall

2008-11-02, 02:09 PM

Exactly the same happened with the Lawful poilce officers of Clifport, who, once they had Elan down and pinned, punched him (they had provocation, having just seen "him" murder their Chief.)
Now at that point, Elan was still "resisting" arrest. Unlike Kubota, he had not clearly surrendered.
Of course, given the number of wounds shown on Elan, we can assume some excess violence, but that is precisely what we label it. That Elan is not the only person to abuse prisoners does not make his sin any the less.

Yet, despite Serious reasons to believe he really, really deserved death, they took him alive, for trial,
They are lawfuls for starters.

and had these officers been "kill on sight" types, Elan would be dead now.
And would a trial have had any result other than taking a year to kill Elan? Cliffport bans a good deal of, if not all, magical evidence, so how does Elan show he is Elan? The state has loads of witnesses to "his" having killed lots of people. Elan has only the obviously useless statement of Thog, and this strange story about an identical twin, who is supposed to have fooled all his close friends as well as the police. Something might have happened of course, but it's not obvious we are getting a better result.

Yes, Identical Twins is a bit unusual, but a little magic and a lot of cunning can frame anyone for a crime, so, given how easy it is, guilt has to be determined by rational due process. And even that can be fallible, but this fallibility we accept. Accepting total overriding of due process is a bit more of a stretch.

Of course, but that does not make the decision incorrect in the particular case. We are not arguing over the generic case of seeing evidence of a possible crime and trying to punish the supposed criminal. We are discussing whether V had sufficient grounds to overcome the presumptions to take the prisoner in.
The comic tells us she does. We are shown Kubota's crimes in quite sufficient detail to be sure he was guilty [and we get Elan endorsing that fact], and we are given an excuse for believing that V could deduct this fact.
[Challenges to this excuse are simply a refusal to suspend your disbelief. V is routinely presented in the role of dispenser of fact. So when he says Elan only ropes up major villains, that is an observed and established fact, no matter how weakly established that "fact" may actually be.] We are then given evidence that Kubota has not in spirit surrendered. He has merely adopted a tactic that he expects will hamper his proper punishment and leave him free to resume his criminal behavior. Nothing here inconsistent with CG.

retaliatory killing to save the lives of others is only valid when there is an immediate threat.
Clearly wrong. It is the certainity of the threat that matters, not its point in time. Now there is a fair amount of overlap. The less a threat is immediate, the less certain it tends to be. But this is only a tendency. We also have the reverse case, where the threat may be immediate, but is not certain. Immediate can be used as an excuse for errors, but it is only an excuse.
[But the language here seems wrong. A retaliatory killing is heavily a killing done with planning and intent, not something done in an emergency, where we have most of the self defense cases.]

If you witness a murder, and you think the murderer is powerfully connected, and would need a lot of evidence to convict, that doesn't give you the right to sneak into his house and kill him "to protect other people from him" That isn't a CG viewpoint IMO, its a CE viewpoint.
That depends on the validity of your evidence and such. After all, every self defense plea becomes on analysis just this sort of case. You think X is threatening some innocent and kill him to protect that innocent. [That you are the alleged innocent can produce side issues, but doesn't change the base analysis.]
Having accepted self defense as a possibly valid plea, it then becomes potentially valid for you to approach someone you have had no dealings with and expect none in the future and gun him down since you are defending someone you have also never met or will. You face major problems in proving your case, but in theory, it's entirely reasonable.

But let us turn your case around a little. What would you call doing nothing here? You are the only one able to stop this threat, and it is in the least acceptable for you to do nothing? You just quoted the BED "...she should never say "...go find another hero."

only my view.

To sum up- only one good justification for killing- to protect others from the killed.
Which is enough to void your position. Game and strip obviously say there are other good justifications for killing. They may on analysis turn out to be the same, but they mean that you can kill under D&D or OOTS rules without clear or immediate sign of anyone who will be protected in any degree, and still be deemed good.
You may have a different opinion of what the rules should be, but that is what the rules are.

Yukitsu

2008-11-02, 02:24 PM

As hamishspence observed, if the Cliffport police had followed your line of reasoning, Elan would now be dead.

Cliffport police are lawful, which is something most people observe V to not be. And either group (lawful good, chaotic good) is capable of making potentially lethal mistakes due to the methods they employ.

And remember, I also pointed out "clear intent to kill" and said in that case, force isn't immoral.

Kubota has a clear intent to kill. He states it in his dialogue with Elan, even if indirectly. Intent has nothing to do with "Ah, but he never explicitly stated he would kill more people when he got out." so in this case, it's pretty clear that he was still a present threat.

All hail the CPD- even more exemplary of LG than Roy or Miko (which isn't too hard)

Pretty much on both accounts, yeah. Although I'm going to argue that CPD has displayed lawful tendancies, and not explicitly good tendancies.

hamishspence

2008-11-02, 02:35 PM

check both BOED and Vile darkness- in discussions on violence this is the reason they cite, and in Vile darkness, profit as a motive for same act says "its not a good act" (though its not an evil act either)

and those aren't self-defence pleas- issue is defence of others, not self-defence. A police or military sniper, for example, can be done for manslaughter if he fires when there is not an immediate threat.

Yukitsu

2008-11-02, 02:55 PM

Being tried or not is, again, a law chaos distinction, not a good evil one.

hamishspence

2008-11-02, 03:02 PM

Chaotic power centres, Chaotic legal systems (DMG2) Chaotic laws (BoED)- ones that promote freedom and restrict others from oppressing you.

As I said- Retaliatory violence is different from self-defence- IMO cannot be any better than Neutral- Revenge- Vile Darkness. "Violence as Paying back for evil deeds done is not Good" BoED.

"Violence is acceptable to prevent further evil deeds from being done" BoED.

And it appears you are arguing that V is doing exactly that. Except, he doesn't say that, he merely says "an enemy, and therefore a valid target"

now a more chaotic way involves a trial "outside the law" but still certain rules of evidence- John Grisham novel- 12 men take it upon themselves to enact the justice the law has not.

But one elf taking it on himself to do this? Dubious.

Yukitsu

2008-11-02, 03:09 PM

Chaotic power centres, Chaotic legal systems (DMG2) Chaotic laws (BoED)- ones that promote freedom and restrict others from oppressing you.

As I said- Retaliatory violence is different from self-defence- IMO cannot be any better than Neutral- Revenge- Vile Darkness. "Violence as Paying back for evil deeds done is not Good" BoED.

"Violence is acceptable to prevent further evil deeds from being done" BoED.

And it appears you are arguing that V is doing exactly that. Except, he doesn't say that, he merely says "an enemy, and therefore a valid target"

Define an enemy though.

now a more chaotic way involves a trial "outside the law" but still certain rules of evidence- John Grisham novel- 12 men take it upon themselves to enact the justice the law has not.

But one elf taking it on himself to do this? Dubious.

I really fail to see how making a sub set of the legal system that isn't within the current legal framework is chaotic, as opposed to a differing ideal of law. Chaos doesn't require that kind of structure, and frankly, the DMG2 notion of chaotic trials is rather nonsensical.

hamishspence

2008-11-02, 04:04 PM

Races of the wild- chaotic Good race- the elves- have legalisative system- with the king at the top delegating law enforcement to others.

You can't be a community and not have some kind of enforcement (unless you are Outsiders with the Chaotic subtype like the Diaboli, and even they stretch definition of community to its limit.)

Right to use force is never community wide- it tends to stop at self-defence. Powers above that get restricted- the police, the military, security guards, and, of course, hired adventurers.

But V isn't hired- he's an independant. Elan might have semi-official duties as Hinjo's bodyguard, but I'm not thinking V has.

hamishspence

2008-11-02, 04:05 PM

Chaos with zero structure is the domain of slaadi. In fact, even demons and orcs have some, though its often only "do what i say or die"

Yukitsu

2008-11-02, 04:22 PM

Indeed. All those societies need some law to be a society at all. That they are generally chaotic in principle doesn't negate that that which makes them a society is in essence, law in nature. Much as there is chaos in every place except the realm of pure law, or other planes without free will.

hamishspence

2008-11-02, 04:48 PM

and, in my view- chaotic enough to tear a society down completely because all societies have some Law = CE.

While V isn't nearly that far, my view is V's like Machiavelli's fictional prince in The Prince or republic in The Discourses- willing to murder for "The greater good" of society, or even "the world"

Murder in the legal definition of the term, which I believe has already been admitted.

And so, since Machiavelli himself admitted that murdering threats to the state and the people, while "justifiable" "not blameworthy" and "praiseworthy" was also "reprehensible" and "evil", I fit V's act into that category.

Yes, "praiseworthy" "justified" but also, "evil"

Not necessarily evil enough to change V's alignment though.

EDIT: In this case, it is the philosophy, that I am talking about.

Yukitsu

2008-11-02, 04:57 PM

Possible, but given that then no action in a given dialemma can be good, because one will give an evil outcome, and one requires evil means indicates then that the world is all evil, at some point. It is preferable to simply say the least evil out of all options, and so long as the good both outweighs the bad and does so in a manner that only does bad to the bad themselves should be considered good.

V's action does for the greater good, harms only the wicked, is justified and as such, should not be an evil action based on the action itself. The only argument that seems to oppose that notion was that the killing was unlawful, but that doesn't relate to good. Other individuals who don't do lawful actions can be good, neutral or evil depending on context, but that it was murder has nothing to do with good or evil.

hamishspence

2008-11-02, 05:00 PM

why precisely do all acts give "an evil outcome"?

Murder is defined as evil in BoED, BoVD, and FC2. While I have seen numerous arguments that an act can be legally murder but not morally, I am not sure about them.

The reverse, by contrast- I am happy with- a country can legalize murder (and I don't count execution as this) but its still murder.

Yukitsu

2008-11-02, 05:13 PM

why precisely do all acts give "an evil outcome"?

To use V's diallema as an example:

Trial is rigged to stop Kubota from going to jail, or he silver tongues his way out. You murder him (note it's still murder) because the court couldn't uphold what's just.

Kubota walks free and kills dozens of innocents because you prioritized law before good.

Kubota is killed without trial. Same result as the first.

Kubota is put into a second, third, fourth trial as you try to convict him and remove flaws from the legal system. In this event, people still die, because his ability to kill people relates to lackies that he can relay orders to, not to his personal presence.

I can't honestly see him being convicted and put to the sword by the law, not only because of the politics involved (other nobles) nor can I see that as any more good just because you had a trial. I can hold a trial to convict and execute jaywalkers. It doesn't make it any better than if I simply shot them. Nor is it inherently more good if the man actually is deserving of death, which people argue against anyway.

Murder is defined as evil in BoED, BoVD, and FC2. While I have seen numerous arguments that an act can be legally murder but not morally, I am not sure about them.

Slayers of Domiel, who can also be paladins murder and don't fall. The books you mention seek to vastly oversimplify something that is inherently complex, and while they work for simplistic black and white morals that exist in some D&D games, it's not sufficient for games that wish to integrate more complex moral dialemmas. (The DM gave me a dialemma. What does the alignment chart say I have to do in the rules?) Nor does "always" actually mean "always" in D&D terms.

The reverse, by contrast- I am happy with- a country can legalize murder (and I don't count execution as this) but its still murder.

How is it murder? I'm not sure how you're defining murder at this point. If you mean unjustified killing, then murder never occurs, because anything can be justified, even if it's not justly justified. "That guy looked at me funny." is a justified reason, even if it's not a good one, nor do people agree with it.

David Argall

2008-11-03, 02:31 AM

And remember, I also pointed out "clear intent to kill" and said in that case, force isn't immoral.

It would help if you would quote the original source when you make statements like this. We can lose track of what you were talking about.

issue is defence of others, not self-defence.
There is no fundamental difference between the two. In either, the shooter must show there was clear and grave threat, and that there was no adequate alternative. [As a practical matter, there is also need for showing the need for immediate action. In theory this is not necessary, but in nearly any case not an emergency, there is an adequate alternative.]

A police or military sniper, for example, can be done for manslaughter if he fires when there is not an immediate threat.
He can be, yes. Will be? Quite another story. Government snipers getting orders to shoot to kill in situation where the threat is not immediate are far from unusual. [The moral propriety of this is open to considerable challenge of course, but it gets by the courts.]
Now you may be using a rather flexible definition of immediate here. Certainly the government is willing to exagerate the definition. However, the common thug holed up in a house is not an immediate threat. He can be talked into surrender in an hour or a couple of days. He is dangerous, but since a non-lethal means will routinely work, lethal means are not morally acceptable.

You can't be a community and not have some kind of enforcement
Enforcement takes care of itself in communities of under 200, and this does not really break down until the community reaches a thousand [at which point, it is the government doing a fair amount of the breaking down.] At these lower numbers you are dealing with Uncle Bob, Cousin Jeb, or a close friend.. Just as you can routinely beat your wife up, but just as routinely let her have her way anyway, you just can't do all that much pushing these people around. Force only becomes a useful weapon when most of society is a stranger to most of the society.

While I have seen numerous arguments that an act can be legally murder but not morally, I am not sure about them.
While there can be, and is, debate about individual cases, just about any moral philospher would tell you the category exists.

Talic

2008-11-03, 02:38 AM

Just remember. Morality is a socially defined concept. As in, society defines what is right and wrong. So taking lethal force guidelines from the real world, and applying them into a world where lethal force is radically different (that is, unless you've gone into a cave, killed any proto-humanoids or pseudo-humanoids in it, and taken their treasure, recently)... well, it doesn't work.

In D&D, it is generally considered moral to proactively act to stop evil, even with greater force than necessary, if done for the reason of stopping evil.

The noble was clearly evil, had even admitted actions at point blank range, had eyewitness accounts of murders he had committed. In this context, in D&D, it can be considered a moral and good act to kill him.

Now, Vaar's actions weren't done to stop evil, but rather, to remove a distraction. So, while they may not be good, they are not evil, as he is removing evil from the world, and his motives aren't evil, in and of themselves.

I'd go towards a slip towards Chaotic Neutral.

hamishspence

2008-11-03, 08:50 AM

hamishspence

2008-11-03, 09:11 AM

To sum up, Violating Good Laws is CE, Obeying Evil laws is LE, and the law against carrying out executions unless you are sanctioned to do so, is, IMO, a Good Law. BoED also says this.

The reason I take this stance is I figure the "Chaotic Good means selfish" and "Chaotic neutral means crazy" style in 2nd ed was a big mistake, as is "Chaotic Good means following your own moral code no matter what" when sometimes, that moral code has errors in it.

David Argall

2008-11-03, 03:06 PM

Now, Vaar's actions weren't done to stop evil, but rather, to remove a distraction.
This was the straw that broke the camel's back. It's relatively trivial nature is not a flaw.

In essence, we are saying V would have been morally OK to just dust Kubota without hearing a word he said. [He might cite the inability of the law to keep away Nale, whose survive she should know about.]

Lets try another analogy. All societies, Chaotic and Lawful, sanction the use of force. However, such sanction is a privilege, not a right, and the unsanctioned use of force is always illegal (note that self-defence counts as a sanctioned use of force in most cases)
This is pushing the logic. In most societies, force is sanctioned except when and how it is not. If you refuse to leave my house, I may not shoot you, but I can use a non-harmful level of force to shove you out the door [assuming I have the better lawyer since I may have to convince a jury that you didn't have a right to be there and that you were not harmed.] Alternately, I may force you to stay until the cops come [also a risky procedure in practice since if I must use force to do so, you likely have motive to use harmful force in order to escape, and defending a suit against false arrest can be expensive.]

V exceeded the bounds of his authority, when he imposed a sentence that he had no right to impose.
This is stipulated. But we are discussing CG, not LG. That the action was illegal does not make it immoral.

the law against carrying out executions unless you are sanctioned to do so, is, IMO, a Good Law.
Now for starters, your opinion has no standing here. You are not in any sense appointed as judge.

More important, just what is your opinion based on? What is your logic?
If you wish to say something like because we don't want everybody killing alleged criminals, you might have a good reason, but not a Good reason. The idea is pragmatic, which means there [almost always] are exceptions where the Good is quite the opposite. That means the individual action may not be condemned merely by reference to the general case.

hamishspence

2008-11-03, 03:56 PM

I say "In my opinion" because its the polite thing to say, rather than "Clearly"

while: BoED says so, is not much of an argument,

how about- because, if everyone does it, society collapses into a morass. Or "Justice must not only be done, it must manifestly be seen to be done": British Lord Chief Justice.
Or- "Disappearing" accused criminals is a very, very bad sign.

hamishspence

2008-11-03, 04:33 PM

When I have circumstantial evidence and my opinion, I state that it is only my opinion, rather than claiming it as fact.

The: You May Not Kill Prisoners line in BoED, plus the: Execution Is Not Evil line, weren't for "You may Execute Prisoners at your own discretion", they were for- "You may hand over your prisoners to a court with a clean conscience"

Assume that the jurisdiction does not torture- handing prisoners over Knowing they will be tortured is Evil (BoED)

As for why killing bound prisoners in absence of trial is evil- check Magna Carta, Constitution, Geneva convention- the correct treatment of prisoners is considered a moral issue in these, not just one of Law.

EDIT:
and if "the general case" is that murder is evil- the onus is on defenders of V to prove, in this case, that it wasn't, and that an evil act done to defend others ceases to be evil.

Yukitsu

2008-11-04, 12:25 AM

Those are statutes of law with an agenda to ensure desired rights to a certain class of individuals. Not to enforce good. The magna carta for instance, was originally designed to protect wealthy dukes properties from the king. It simply evolved to benefit the proletariat when they started becoming more relevant to the world stage, and thus had more power.

Talic

2008-11-04, 01:25 AM

How exactly do you slip toward Chaotic Neutral, from CG, without committing at least a slight evil act? Simply changing perspective toward others?

Lets try another analogy. All societies, Chaotic and Lawful, sanction the use of force. However, such sanction is a privilege, not a right, and the unsanctioned use of force is always illegal (note that self-defence counts as a sanctioned use of force in most cases)

Sentencing is never left in the hands of the ordinary citizen, or, for that matter, in the hands of the foreign comrade of your bodyguard.

so V exceeded the bounds of his authority, when he imposed a sentence that he had no right to impose.

War and XPs info:
(pages immediately after 484): Even nobles and the Lord himself is accountable to the law, a tradition established after the fall of the Ancient Empire.

Note that if you take the view that failing to convict an "obviously guilty" criminal invalidates the legitimacy of the system, you could argue that Azure City ceases to be a "legitimate authority" by doing so, and thus the requirement that all executions be sanctioned by the city legal system ceases- heroes can kill Kubota.

EDIT: BoED actually says this- even a paladin can decide law is corrupted if magistrate lets a "clearly guilty" person off. But, should fix the law before trying them again.

And rules down a dungeon aren't the same as rules in a city (or on a boat-city). Yes, its a bit of a double standard, but DMG2 and Cityscape also support this.

and they may be on boats, but they still have a magistrate and follow City law.

I feel that a rejection of authority, and acting out of the bounds of established law is definately a chaotic act. No word on evil.

Now, in killing him, he did remove evil from the world. Kuboto plotted multiple assassinations, and personally murdered at least one person. He consorted with demons, among other things.

So we've established that Kuboto was evil. Opposing evil is good.

However, although Vaar did oppose evil, he didn't do it for the sake of good. He had selfish motivations, though his driving goal was a good one (rescuing individuals from hostile forces in Azure City, etc).

I'm not saying it makes him neutral, but it was a chaotic act that was not evil, and probably neutral.

hamishspence

2008-11-04, 08:04 AM

Opposing doesn't automatically mean killing, on your own initiative, after surrender was accepted.

You can do evil acts for very good motivations, as well as neutral ones. Torturing a villain to Save The World- evil by BoVD, BoED and FC2.

Murder is also listed.

"Legally murder but not morally murder" is not that different from "sometimes murder is moral"

Probably my favorite example of a trial, outside the law, Chaotic, unorthodox, but still conducted with the aim of justice- Milady De Winter in the Three Musketeers novel. 5 judges, 6 witnesses, unanimous verdict, sentence carried out by a legally appointed professional executioner.

Societies have many ways of carrying out justice, some more Chaotic than others.

Napoleonic era battleship- crew trying one of them for theft- verdict, sentence, execution of sentence (running the gauntlet) carried out by the group as a whole.

Small villages have a headsman, who carries out the sentences that mayor, magistrates, judges, or jury impose.

all sentences are carried out according to some sort of rules, Chaotic or Lawful. When an individual takes it upon himself to try, and execute, people, with no sort of authority, that is the beginning of mob rule. As far as I can tell, the general consensus is that The Punisher is not a good man- Neutral at best and more likely Evil.

Which is why enforcement and punishment are split- cops and executioners, not merged. Dredd society doing so was unjust "We should never have taken justice out of her hands"

and on pragmatism- D&D isn't pragmatic in most books- its objective. Every book that mentions alignment tends to say so, including the ones that offer alternatives, like Heroes of Horror.

Yukitsu

2008-11-04, 05:23 PM

Probably my favorite example of a trial, outside the law, Chaotic, unorthodox, but still conducted with the aim of justice- Milady De Winter in the Three Musketeers novel. 5 judges, 6 witnesses, unanimous verdict, sentence carried out by a legally appointed professional executioner.

I don't really get how this isn't a lawful court.

Napoleonic era battleship- crew trying one of them for theft- verdict, sentence, execution of sentence (running the gauntlet) carried out by the group as a whole.

The execution here is chaotic, but the trial is lawful. The commander has the authority to pass out judgement by law, and the execution is held in a chaotic manner.

Small villages have a headsman, who carries out the sentences that mayor, magistrates, judges, or jury impose.

Execution and "trial" are lawful. Authority imposes a lawful ruling in accordance with laws, and the execution is handed out.

all sentences are carried out according to some sort of rules, Chaotic or Lawful. When an individual takes it upon himself to try, and execute, people, with no sort of authority, that is the beginning of mob rule. As far as I can tell, the general consensus is that The Punisher is not a good man- Neutral at best and more likely Evil.

Rules can be chaotic seeming in nature, but in reality they are still fundamentally a lawful entity. The execution itself as well may be chaotic, but that doesn't make the trial chaotic.

Methinks you are assuming a chaotic execution=chaotic trial, but even with a chaotic execution, a chaotic trial doesn't really make any sense.

Which is why enforcement and punishment are split- cops and executioners, not merged. Dredd society doing so was unjust "We should never have taken justice out of her hands"

That's because it was written by a person who lives in a democracy where trials are considered good, regardless of whether or not they are necessary to enforce justice.

and on pragmatism- D&D isn't pragmatic in most books- its objective. Every book that mentions alignment tends to say so, including the ones that offer alternatives, like Heroes of Horror.

It's again, something many people argue as a major flaw, because there will be cases when a paladin is given two choices that from an objectivists point of view are evil, and thus must fall. Obviously, the rules shouldn't work to support that kind of thinking.

David Argall

2008-11-04, 05:27 PM

The: You May Not Kill Prisoners line in BoED, plus the: Execution Is Not Evil line, weren't for "You may Execute Prisoners at your own discretion", they were for- "You may hand over your prisoners to a court with a clean conscience"
But BED [& common sense] does not say that. In fact it says the opposite. "Delivering a person to be tortured, even if the person is thoroughly evil and the torturers are a legitimate authority, is evil."-p. 11. You do not escape the moral consequences of an act by passing the actual deed off on somebody else. If you willingly hand over prisoners, you are still by and large responsible for them.

Assume that the jurisdiction does not torture- handing prisoners over Knowing they will be tortured is Evil (BoED)
But this is just an example of the general case. You hand over the prisoner, you are still "doing" whatever is done to the prisoner. They torture means you are torturing. They letting him go means you are letting him go. They executing him means you execute him.
There are differences of course. You can't be held responsible for what you can't predict for example. But the basic point remains that if execution is morally ok after a trial, it can be ok before the trial.

As for why killing bound prisoners in absence of trial is evil- check Magna Carta, Constitution, Geneva convention- the correct treatment of prisoners is considered a moral issue in these, not just one of Law.
These are laws [or somewhat would-be laws in the case of the Geneva convention]. They do not explain why much of anything is evil or good. They largely just state it is legal or not.

and if "the general case" is that murder is evil- the onus is on defenders of V to prove, in this case, that it wasn't, and that an evil act done to defend others ceases to be evil.
Now the 2nd point is easily done. Every act of self defense shows this nature. Killing Joe is an evil act. But if you kill him when he is attempting to kill you, it is self defense and you are in general absolved.

So we get back to the particular case. How well does V's elimination of Kubota fit the model of a moral execution.

We know Kubota to be a criminal with a long list of lethal crimes, a list he has every intention of extending as soon as he gets the chance. V "knows" this in entirely adequate detail.

We & V know that Kubota is threatening to resume his criminal activity. Now we do not know how likely that threat is to be carried out, but we have no reason to think the threat is in any degree a bluff.

Now what are the predicable results of doing nothing? A trial, with the result that Kubota is executed [which is largely the same as just killing him now] or he is freed [which means the death of a substantial number of people as a result.] There really is no third choice that makes much sense. Ships are small and crowded. There is no place to put him for any serious amount of time.
V's experience with courts and jails gives him no reason to deem them likely to achieve a just result, an opinion that is shared by most chaotics. Most people most of the time are not in this situation. They know they are seriously faliable and may be wrong in whole or part. Moreover, they have reason to think the court will make a better judgement in the great majority of cases. V, however, is in the reverse situation. She, correctly, deems her judgement better than that of the court, and that there is a serious chance of the court making the wrong call here.

So the probable result of killing Kubota was notably superior to the alternative of letting him live. There is thus a reasonable case for deeming this what the good PC should do.

"Justice must not only be done, it must manifestly be seen to be done"
A good reason to prefer trials, but again, this is a pragmatic reason. It works because people will see justice done. But if the trial shows the criminal getting away with murder, this reason reverses itself, and the trial becomes a disaster to be avoided.
Here we have Kubota confident he will get off. To the extent that is reasonable, we have reason under this logic to kill him now and avoid the disgrace.

Opposing doesn't automatically mean killing, on your own initiative, after surrender was accepted.
Of course not. But opposing is by definition not surrendering. Kubota is saying I will continue to fight, and in the way that hampers you the most.

"Legally murder but not morally murder" is not that different from "sometimes murder is moral"
No. Murder is by definition unjustified killing, and is thus always immoral when we are talking morals. If it is moral, it is not murder. Legally murder means the law says it is murder. Morally murder says it is murder by the given system of morals. We thus have 4 distinct cases.

Probably my favorite example of a trial, outside the law, Chaotic, unorthodox, but still conducted with the aim of justice- Milady De Winter in the Three Musketeers novel. 5 judges, 6 witnesses, unanimous verdict, sentence carried out by a legally appointed professional executioner.
But it is outside the law. And he who says A must say B. Having accepted one case of illegal execution as moral, one can not automatically say others are not moral. [There would be other standards, but the mere fact of its legal standing becomes irrelevant.]

Small villages have a headsman, who carries out the sentences that mayor, magistrates, judges, or jury impose.
Small villages are small villages. They simply don't specialize that much and would not have a headsman. On the rare times they needed to execute somebody, it was more or less mob action. Even kings and cities did not have enough executions to make that a full time job.

Which is why enforcement and punishment are split- cops and executioners, not merged.
Again, our reason is merely pragmatic, not principle. We need to judge whether the cops are doing their job, and that requires somebody other than the cops do some judging.

and on pragmatism- D&D isn't pragmatic in most books- its objective. Ever book that mentions alignment tends to say so, including the ones that offer alternatives, like Heroes of Horror.
That D&D is objective morals does not mean it is not pragmatic. It is objective that North/Good is that way. It is pragmatic that one uses an efficient means of going that way, which may mean going South/evil, say to avoid a difficulty.

hamishspence

2008-11-05, 01:40 PM

What sources do you have on execution being done by mobs at the village-town level?

BoED said: "1 Evil act and you Fall." Pretty clear.

Headsman, hangman, etc. An appointee with a day job. Not a mob lynching.

When one man chooses to mete out laws according to his own whim, with no recourse to established authority, we usually call that tyranny.

In this sense, V is behaving as a tyrant- placing his own views above the laws of the land (or, in this case, the boat)

You are indeed morally responsible for the hands you delive someone into- but that doesn't mean you are any better equipped. If you have a sick man, can't treat him, have choice of doctors, if you choose an incompetant doctor and he dies, that's partly your responsibility.

But- not completely- you didn't kill him. Nor were you qualified to treat him, either.

Same applies to V- not qualified to try someone, or to hand out executions. Not a professional- a complete amateur. Thus, unjust.

And "means the death of others" not proven- highly dependant on fate and how vigilant Hinjo and company are. You can't be held responsible for deaths that might happen, in the future, based on possible actions from another person.

"future events" are not moral hostages on you, otherwise every judge would be morally responsible for actions of every criminal they didn't execute.

and the Shorter Oxford Dictionary doesn't mention Unjustified killing, it mentioned Unlawful killing.

hamishspence

2008-11-05, 02:54 PM

To take another man's life outside of self-defense is not a right- it is a privilage- one that must be earned, and cannot be taken to yourself because you personally think it "needs" to be done.

even those who have the privilege in defense of others- may have it taken away for abusing it.

For another man to forfeit his life- the acts he has done to forfeit it must be attested to. Mere conjecture is not sufficient.

An executioner always has the choice, to take a life, or not to take it. while his job may oblige him to carry out orders, he may resign that job at any moment.

a sufficiently corrupt system- like- a murderer being granted a carte blanche to do anything in the service of the state, my justify defying the law because the law may not be legitimate.

But, unless you have evidence that the law is not legitimate, there is no excuse for defying it.

Yukitsu

2008-11-05, 03:35 PM

But, unless you have evidence that the law is not legitimate, there is no excuse for defying it.

Equivalently, there is no reason for a good man to have to follow it, so long as the conclusion is still the same as what would occur via the law (he can be arrested, but can't be considered immoral). You are again, equating good with law.

Papers, qualifications, sanctioning by the government... None of these change that it is a person who is working in the protection of the people from a person who presents a legitimate threat. Those arguments merely determine if he is following the law when doing so.

hamishspence

2008-11-05, 03:40 PM

hamishspence

2008-11-05, 03:47 PM

Point is- we know Chaotic trials exist because DMG2 has them. All states that can be called states, have some form of procedure- because people simply cannot be trusted to try, sentence and execute others, all themselves.

Power corrupts and Absolute power corrupts absolutely, which is why we have these checks and balances. And there is no power more absolute than the power of life and death over others.

Yukitsu

2008-11-05, 03:57 PM

maybe because, famously, "when the law breaks the law, there is no law"

Why, precisely, do we get so het-up when a state kills people without trial, disappears them without showing their evidence...but are perfectly happy when its an individual doing it?

to kill people without trial or evidence is what most people would say defines an evil system.

So why's it ok for V to do it?

It is because we as individuals, don't know what they were disappeared for, and as a society, we don't know if they were guilty or not, or if it may happen to us for things that we either aren't guilty of, or if the reason is unjust. It's not morally wrong if it happens to someone who is guilty, but the government doesn't tell us that. In the same manner, if we didn't know anything about Kubota, didn't know that he was responsible for many deaths, didn't know that he'd be responsible for more if he wasn't, then we'd be horrified too. Again to say, I don't think the chaotic trail very well represents justice in a chaotic and relevant manner.

hamishspence

2008-11-05, 04:45 PM

the argument that killing a murderer is always execution, either before or after sentencing, makes me think of this:

A man walks into a jail, goes to the cells where the condemned are awaiting the carrying out of their sentence. He shoots each and every one. The guards yell "what did you do THAT for?" he says- "they're all condemned to die- what difference does it make who carries out their sentence?"

I doubt most judges would agree- they'd say that was murder, legally and morally.

If it works like that for the condemned, how much more does it apply to the not-yet condemned?

David Argall

2008-11-05, 04:51 PM

What sources do you have on execution being done by mobs at the village-town level?
Recall the standard Bible punishment was stoning, which consists of everybody picking up rocks and tossing them at the criminal.

Headsman, hangman, etc. An appointee with a day job. Not a mob lynching.
Nowhere near the needed business. The US has maybe 30,000 homicides a year. Take the somewhat supported guess that ancient times were three times as violent and you get 90,000, but there are 300 million people. That makes for a population of over 3000 before a community can expect even an execution a year. That's not what you call a full time job.
Of course, there were a variety of other crimes that were possible death sentences, but there was also a lot of countryside or other cities to run to, not to mention lesser sentences like bloodprice were common. So except in really large communities, the headsman was part time work, and often not even that.

When one man chooses to mete out laws according to his own whim, with no recourse to established authority, we usually call that tyranny.
No. We call that anarchy. The tyrant is the established authority.

if you choose an incompetant doctor and he dies, that's partly your responsibility.

But- not completely- you didn't kill him. Nor were you qualified to treat him, either.
That depends on circumstances. Largely, to the extent you knew doing A would lead to his death while doing B would not, you are responsible. The number and kind of intermediate steps does not matter beyond making it difficult to know that A is fatal while B is not.

Same applies to V- not qualified to try someone, or to hand out executions. Not a professional- a complete amateur. Thus, unjust.
Does not follow. It is the result that counts here. That you are shot by a highly trained cop or some kid down the block makes no difference in court. It asks what was the reason for the shooting, not the qualifications of the shooter. [Now the court is apt to assume the cop knew what he was doing, even tho he often doesn't, but at least in theory, he can do nothing that you can't do.]

Moreover, V does qualify as a professional, one presumably far more skilled than the court would be. He has been an adventurer for a substantial period and has killed a great many creatures during this period. She is a professional killer. He thus knows and follows a code about who may and may not be killed. [Whether this code is CG, NN, or some other is our chief topic, but for the moment irrelevant since we are merely discussing his qualifications.] He has applied this code in a large number of real life cases, whereas our magistrate may have never tried a capitol case at all.

And "means the death of others" not proven- highly dependant on fate and how vigilant Hinjo and company are. You can't be held responsible for deaths that might happen, in the future, based on possible actions from another person.
You certainly can be. Now the punishment is likely to vary with the probability of harm, but your drunk driver is arrested because he might hit somebody, and the bar that served him can be sued for getting him that drunk. [This is often in practice based on the idea that some poor soul needs some money and so the nearest deep pocket is to be emptied no matter what the justice of that, but the theory is sound. If A got B so plastered that an accident was a quite real possibility, A is responsible for the accident.]
In our case at hand, the idea that a free, or just living, Kubota would not kill people seems absurd. He has a long record of lethal attacks and every reason to continue them.

"future events" are not moral hostages on you, otherwise every judge would be morally responsible for actions of every criminal they didn't execute.
And to some extent they are. On the opposite tact, we have the teacher who wants to claim credit when a student goes on to great things. If you want to claim credit, you have to accept blame.

and the Shorter Oxford Dictionary doesn't mention Unjustified killing, it mentioned Unlawful killing.
That a particular dictionary is deficient is of not concern to the discussion. The simple fact the phrase "legal murder" is common and routinely understood shows the definition is not limited to unlawful killings.

To take another man's life outside of self-defense is not a right- it is a privilage- one that must be earned, and cannot be taken to yourself because you personally think it "needs" to be done.
There is no distinction here between right and privilege here. The distinction in general is dubious, merely reflecting the demands the law puts on you, but in the case of killing people, there is never a privilege to do that. It is always forbidden, or your right.

even those who have the privilege in defense of others- may have it taken away for abusing it.
No, a cop or soldier does not have a privilege of killing you. He has the duty not to, or the duty to.

For another man to forfeit his life- the acts he has done to forfeit it must be attested to. Mere conjecture is not sufficient.
That depends on your definition of conjecture. We can call the expert witness saying these are your fingers on the murder weapon as "mere conjecture".
The comic makes clear that V had entirely sufficient evidence to conclude Kubota was guilty.

An executioner always has the choice, to take a life, or not to take it. while his job may oblige him to carry out orders, he may resign that job at any moment.
Which seems irrelevant to the point at hand. Absent evidence he is unlikely to have, he kills helpless prisoners who may have surrendered and takes no blame for it.

But, unless you have evidence that the law is not legitimate, there is no excuse for defying it.
This again is a lawful view of the law. The chaotic has no such belief.

Yukitsu

2008-11-05, 04:55 PM

hamishspence

2008-11-05, 05:55 PM

a soldier has the privilege of taking life- when it is his duty to do so, and only then. A civilian does not. That it what makes the distinction between a combatant and a non-combatant. People have different amounts of authority- that can make the differnce between a legal and an illegal killing.

Who's opinion is authoritative in ethics?

and even when "everybody" is carrying out the sentence, that doesn't mean one person decides who is guilty and who is not- there is always giving of evidence.

A tyrant is not an established authority but an illegitimate one- thats part of definition of tyranny.

When everyone acts as a "tyrant" that is anarchy.

Credit and blame can both be unjustly claimed- a teacher is not the sole responsibilty for his students future, even if he might play a part in it.

Headsmen didn't just carry out executions- brandings, floggings, stocks, a headman was the person who carried out most non-imprisonment punishments.

and point of being an executioner is trusting in the law- trusting that the sentences given to you to carry out were just, and that the people were guilty. Thats why carrying out lawful sentences of punishment is an Obesiant Act in Fiendish Codex 2- a very strongly Lawful act.

Where, preciously, in 3.0 and 3.5 do you get the idea that Chaotic good people can and will ignore laws passed by Good alignment people, as part of the running of a good-aligned system?

And didn't you say earlier that Adventurers were mercenaries out for money, who have no authority? V has no "right" or "duty" to kill, V chose to take those onto himself, to "take up adventuring" And V hasn't been doing it for long- see Origin of PCs.

hamishspence

2008-11-05, 05:59 PM

In any case, wasn't V the one who recommended turning captured criminals over to the Law in Dungeon Crawling Fools? Sure, it turned out the Law there wasn't very good at their job, but it does show how V's attitudes seem to have evolved.

as for "knew"- some things, you don't "know" you can only surmise. A less skilled doctor might save someone, or might not. A trial might convict someone, or might not. Some things you just can't reliably predict ahead of time, so acting on an unfounded assumption can be very dubious.

David Argall

2008-11-06, 03:40 AM

a soldier has the privilege of taking life- when it is his duty to do so, and only then.
Which means it is not a privilege. The soldier has the duty of shooting, or he has the duty of not shooting. His opinion on the subject is not a factor. I have the privilege of driving a car. It is my choice whether I drive and where and when.

A civilian does not.
But a civilian may lawfully and morally take a life under certain conditions too. This is what you do in self defense or defense of others.

and even when "everybody" is carrying out the sentence, that doesn't mean one person decides who is guilty and who is not- there is always giving of evidence.
I don't think I am following you here.

A tyrant is not an established authority but an illegitimate one- thats part of definition of tyranny.
The tyrant is deemed illegitimate by those who call him that, but he is the established authority, sometimes by legal means, sometimes by having the most guns. But you have to be the established authority in order to give orders and have them carried out.

When everyone acts as a "tyrant" that is anarchy.
That is simply not possible under the definitions of these terms. A tyrant is someone who rules, in a particular manner, but still someone who rules, and under anarchy, nobody rules.

Credit and blame can both be unjustly claimed- a teacher is not the sole responsibilty for his students future, even if he might play a part in it.
Which is largely irrelevant to the point at issue. The teacher, or the judge, can be credited, or blamed, for the future results of his actions, even tho these results are not yet certain when he makes his decisions.

Headsmen didn't just carry out executions- brandings, floggings, stocks, a headman was the person who carried out most non-imprisonment punishments.
Which only minorly changes the point. We are talking about a "small village" and we are finding that there really isn't enough work for a headsman in a town 5-10 times the size of that small village. The small village had no formal headsman. Such duties were assigned to others as a part of their duties.

and point of being an executioner is trusting in the law- trusting that the sentences given to you to carry out were just, and that the people were guilty. Thats why carrying out lawful sentences of punishment is an Obesiant Act in Fiendish Codex 2- a very strongly Lawful act.
This seems irrelevant, if not outright agreeing with me. This says the executioner is not to be blamed for the death of the criminal, and makes no requirement that he knows what the criminal did, nor any other limit that we might put on V, other than that the executioner is part of a legal system [which is unimportant since we are discussing CG, not LG.]

Where, preciously, in 3.0 and 3.5 do you get the idea that Chaotic good people can and will ignore laws passed by Good alignment people, as part of the running of a good-aligned system?
Where would I not? PH "..resentment towards legitimate authority...little use for laws and regulations...follows his own moral compass..." So the system is run by good people? It is still a system of laws and not what the chaotic will follow. Our CG will expect to have less clashes with a good system of laws, but he expects to clash.

And didn't you say earlier that Adventurers were mercenaries out for money, who have no authority? V has no "right" or "duty" to kill, V chose to take those onto himself, to "take up adventuring" And V hasn't been doing it for long- see Origin of PCs.
Authority, V lacks. What he has is competence in the field in question. He has dealt with the morality of killing on a number of occasions. [For the moment, we don't need to worry about what his answers were. A given set would be CG. Another might be neutral, or evil or... But by the fact he has acted this way, he has competence in knowing what these acts mean in a moral sense.]
The time has been quite long enough for our purposes. V has gained at least two levels, and likely 4 during the period, which means she has had the moral experiences we speak of.

A man walks into a jail, goes to the cells where the condemned are awaiting the carrying out of their sentence. He shoots each and every one. The guards yell "what did you do THAT for?" he says- "they're all condemned to die- what difference does it make who carries out their sentence?"

I doubt most judges would agree- they'd say that was murder, legally and morally.
Now we know in any real system that a notable number would not be executed. And we would suspect that there would be legitimate reason for that. Their guilt was not as firmly establish as was thought. So the action is improper.

With V & Kubota, Kubota's guilt was established beyond question, and so the reason to condemn the killing no longer applies.