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celestialkin
2008-10-26, 07:27 AM
OK, so yesterday I was playing with my weekly group, and a player playing a paladin got in a little argument with the group over the whole "poisons are evil" argument.

I tried to explain nicely that cultures throughout history IRL have used poisons to hunt and in war. I also mentioned that my great grandmother was a Native South American who came from such a tribe, and that down there it is a central and important part of those cultures, which is also vital for their survival. I also tried to explain that in D&D mechanics, a sword with a vial of poison spread on it in melee is no different than a sword with electric damage or an ability/stat damaging property on it, and that the main issue with it is using poison in a "cowardly" fashion.

He then rudely interrupted, shaking his head vigorously with his arms crossed and I believe his words were something on the lines of "I don't care, all poisons are evil!".

I honestly had an urge to smack him. I would have if I didn't know him so well, and for so long.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-26, 07:34 AM
You deal with it by not mixing real-world culture(s) with D&D.

In D&D, all poisons may indeed be evil, for no reason other than that the DM/a sourcebook says so. In the real world, there may be no such thing as "evil." D&D does not attempt to model the real world - as if you hadn't noticed.

Trying to use some real-world connection as a trump card in a RPG discussion strikes me as a poorly thought-out tactic.

And here I was actually expecting a story about stereotypes or appropriation.

hotel_papa
2008-10-26, 07:35 AM
I feel your pain. Truth is, some people are just pigheaded. I ran a game in Iraq with my fellow Marines, who are not known for their political correctness. It made for some discomfort at the table. If you are the DM, ruling poisons as non-evil is certainly your perogative. Though, I think your pally has some back-up, RAW. How does he feel about ravages? (BoED) The paladin is entitled to roleplay his understanding of evil. This is, by the way why I only ban two classes: Truenamer and Paladin. One is made of suck and the other seems based on the idea that you should be able to tell other players what to do. No, thank you.

That being said, how did that culture use poison to hunt? Doesn't that spoil the meat? Just curious.

HP

kamikasei
2008-10-26, 07:36 AM
How do you deal with cultural insensitivity in general? How do you deal with anyone being an ass during a session? These are the real questions, then just apply B to A.

I would probably recommend talking to the player after the session.

celestialkin
2008-10-26, 07:37 AM
You deal with it by not mixing real-world culture(s) with D&D.

In D&D, all poisons may indeed be evil, for no reason other than that the DM/a sourcebook says so. In the real world, there may be no such thing as "evil." D&D does not attempt to model the real world - as if you hadn't noticed.

Trying to use some real-world connection as a trump card in a RPG discussion strikes me as a poorly thought-out tactic.

And here I was actually expecting a story about stereotypes or appropriation.


Um, basically he screamed out (while winning like a child) that all my ancestors were evil, and that so are my distant cousins/relatives still out there in the amazon rain forest.

How would you feel about that?

Kizara
2008-10-26, 07:43 AM
Try not taking it personally, going out of your way to make it MORE personal, and then getting even more offended when he dismisses your personal arguments and states ""I don't care, all poisons are evil!".

Let him enjoy his character and class, and don't let YOUR cultural bias interfere with how he is playing his character.

I find it very believable that a paladin would view posion as being evil, as it causes unneccesary suffering or is often used in a cowardly fashion (assassination, etc). This doesn't mean it isn't useful, practical, or widely-used. Murder is extremely often useful, practical and widely-applied in many cultures, it doesn't make it inherently non-evil.

Saying "in my IRL culture it isn't" is pretty much irrelivant TBH unless he is trying to say that posion has no practical use ever and noone would ever want to use it, or some such complete nonsense.

celestialkin
2008-10-26, 07:43 AM
I
That being said, how did that culture use poison to hunt? Doesn't that spoil the meat? Just curious.

HP


It is kinda interesting in my opinion.

Basically, they get these poisonous frogs that are extremely brightly colored, kill them and rub dart on their skin.

They then hunt with the darts in blowguns.

I have always wondered about how they avoid second hand poisoning. However, considering that they have survived this long I am guessing that they have figured out how to deal with that issue.

See some Discovery Channel or National Geographic. Well, NG only. Discovery is no long really about science or "discovery" any more...


Oh, and there are still a few tribes out there. However, I am certain they will probably all fade in my lifetime due to human cruelty, which makes me quite sad. :smallfrown:

Kizara
2008-10-26, 07:48 AM
It is kinda interesting in my opinion.

Basically, they get these poisonous frogs that are extremely brightly colored, kill them and rub dart on their skin.

They then hunt with the darts in blowguns.

I have always wondered about how they avoid second hand poisoning. However, considering that they have survived this long I am guessing that they have figured out how to deal with that issue.

See some Discovery Channel or National Geographic. Well, NG only. Discovery is no long really about science or "discovery" any more...


Oh, and there are still a few tribes out there. However, I am certain they will probably all fade in my lifetime due to human cruelty, which makes me quite sad. :smallfrown:

As a complete aside, it's sad that posions suck so bad in 3.5 DnD. I rather enjoy playing the hunter trope (amounst others, including paladins; including right now a githyanki ranger//paladin) and would find posion use an interesting way to expand my playing in some of those characters.

kamikasei
2008-10-26, 07:48 AM
Was he saying that poison was evil within the game, or in real life? If the former, I have to agree with others that a real-world example doesn't do much to clear up the mess that is in-game morality, and you shouldn't take it personally.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-26, 07:53 AM
Um, basically he screamed out (while winning like a child) that all my ancestors were evil, and that so are my distant cousins/relatives still out there in the amazon rain forest.

How would you feel about that?

I could have sworn you said he was talking about the game, where poisons may, indeed, be evil, and which has no bearing on anything in the real world.

You should not have mixed a sensitive real-world matter up with a game.

Did you actually address this with the DM? Did you say, "Hey, that's a bit offensive - are you saying my culture is evil?" Or did you, you know, huff and puff and come write a rant online? (I'd say that's passive-aggressive, but that's not even remotely what the term means, despite popular usage, so...)

And I, not being any kind of a nationalist, couldn't care less what anyone thinks of ancient Finns (and their habit of murdering foreign clergymen on frozen lakes). Never mind that, objectively, most ancient cultures were pretty heinous in ways too many to count.

celestialkin
2008-10-26, 07:54 AM
Was he saying that poison was evil within the game, or in real life? If the former, I have to agree with others that a real-world example doesn't do much to clear up the mess that is in-game morality, and you shouldn't take it personally.

I am certain out.

Me, and the DM were explaining the same thing. And I believe the other player who was there said something as well. If the DM is explaining that it is not a moral evil no-no, then I am guessing it wasn't in game.

hamishspence
2008-10-26, 07:55 AM
all acids, are, technically, poisons. But there is no rule saying Acid damage is evil. I think pulling it out in 4th ed was one of their better decisions.

celestialkin
2008-10-26, 08:02 AM
Did you actually address this with the DM? Did you say, "Hey, that's a bit offensive - are you saying my culture is evil?" Or did you, you know, huff and puff and come write a rant online? (I'd say that's passive-aggressive, but that's not even remotely what the term means, despite popular usage, so...)

Geez...

No, I have problems (emotional and mental) which throughout my life have made me prone to rash and bad outbursts/decisions. Hence my urge to smack him, and my more recent urge to how I originally wanted to reply to you just now. So I decided to cool down, come on here, ask if others have had similar experiences or have helpful advice and if they would share them with me so I can better judge what to do, then I got some sprite and a snack while I wait for replies.


Now kindly, please leave this thread. You're not giving any productive help.

Kizara
2008-10-26, 08:04 AM
all acids, are, technically, poisons. But there is no rule saying Acid damage is evil. I think pulling it out in 4th ed was one of their better decisions.

Most of my evil characters have a liking for acid weapons for exactly this reason. That and screaming (sonic), because it's cool and intimidating.

charl
2008-10-26, 08:09 AM
all acids, are, technically, poisons. But there is no rule saying Acid damage is evil. I think pulling it out in 4th ed was one of their better decisions.

Acid = Poison makes no sense at all. Seriously. In that case vinegar would be a poison, and lemons and lots and lots of other stuff including the very building blocks of our (IRL) life. Plus IRL dangerous acids aren't considered poisons IIRC. They are corrosive, and that may cause severe irritation and loss of body parts, but they are not poisonous.

On the other hand D&D acid doesn't make sense. I figure the damage-dealing D&D acids are magical or at least supernatural by our reality's standard.

EDIT: As for the OP's question. I figure that you should ask him if he was talking about in-game or generally, and then deal with it when you know. Confront him and all that.

Can't say I've ever had any experiences like this in a game, but I'm extremely tolerant of other people, especially if they use ethnics slurs about my own ethnicity since I do it myself anyway. Swedish people suck. I'm no exception.

hamishspence
2008-10-26, 08:19 AM
maybe its more a legal thing- if someone is fed acid and keels over, verdict may be Death By Poisoning.

Though this may be a massive oversimplification.

hamishspence
2008-10-26, 08:21 AM
maybe phrase should have been "Killing someone by injecting acid into them, or feeding them it, counts as Poisoning them." Wasn't so much the scientific use of the term poisoning, as the colloquial use.

newbDM
2008-10-26, 08:23 AM
maybe its more a legal thing- if someone is fed acid and keels over, verdict may be Death By Poisoning.

Though this may be a massive oversimplification.

Can you feed someone acid? I would figure the burning and such would be more of an issue/culprit.

Maroon
2008-10-26, 08:27 AM
all acids, are, technically, poisons. But there is no rule saying Acid damage is evil. I think pulling it out in 4th ed was one of their better decisions.
Er, not really? Strong acids are corrosive substances and can cause burns. Poisons can cause illness, tissue damage and death when absorbed in a large enough dose by an organism. Furthermore, a substance that causes tissue damage but is not absorbed is classified as a corrosive, not a poison. All D&D acids, by virtue of burning your face off, are thus not poisons. They're distinct properties.

Acid damage is about as evil as fire damage or electric damage. It depends on if you see maiming someone as evil.

hamishspence
2008-10-26, 08:30 AM
Ah, I see. I've also seen references to powdered glass being used as a "poison" and it doesn't kill by absorption, but laceration.

Maybe term gets used too widely, and only substances that cause death by absorption into the body, count as poisons.

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2008-10-26, 08:32 AM
Just about everything can be poisonous if the dose is right.


Alle Ding sind Gift, und nichts ohn Gift; allein die Dosis macht, daß ein Ding kein Gift ist.

But the corrosive properties of acid is probably reason enough to describe it as acid rather than poison, just like we do not generally refer to water as poison. :smallamused:

hamishspence
2008-10-26, 08:35 AM
some things combine traits. I've heard plutonium is both poisonous and radioactive.

Also, what does Death By Fed Allergen count as?

EDIT:
Then there's terms like Toxin and Venom.

One trope I've seen for villains and poisons is them accidentally spilling a drop on a surface- and the surface starts smoking.

Douglas
2008-10-26, 08:44 AM
Did you ask why he considers poison evil? It could be that your argument was simply irrelevant to him rather than insufficient.

Saph
2008-10-26, 08:45 AM
Um, basically he screamed out (while winning like a child) that all my ancestors were evil, and that so are my distant cousins/relatives still out there in the amazon rain forest.

How would you feel about that?

I think you're taking this way too personally. Part of the reason that people play D&D is that it's a fantasy world where you can play around with stuff like this and have silly arguments that don't relate to the real world. If he'd actually said, "your ancestors were evil" I'd understand you being angry, but he didn't. He said that he thought poisons were evil, which is completely different.

Bear in mind that everyone's ancestors have, over a long enough length of history, done things that were considered evil. This means that whenever anyone says that anything is evil, then by the standards you're using they're being 'insensitive' to everyone else (and themselves).

My advice? Shrug it off. If he's your friend, then this would be a really really trivial thing to lose a friendship over.

- Saph

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-26, 08:51 AM
I think the technical distinction is that a poisonous animal uses a toxin as a defense (against being eaten, etc.), while a venomous animal uses a toxin as an attack (to subdue or kill prey, etc.).

For people, "poisoning" is just about anything harmful getting into your system.

Acid definitely isn't a poison, though.


If the DM is explaining that it is not a moral evil no-no, then I am guessing it wasn't in game.

This doesn't make sense to me. The discussion seemed to concern the in-game morality of poisons. You need something stronger than an assumption to conclude that the DM was speaking about poison out of game.


Now kindly, please leave this thread. You're not giving any productive help.

Yeah, I'll get right on that, oh great King of Thread.

I think you meant that I'm not saying what you want to hear.

My advice still applies: don't drag real-world matters you are sensitive about into the game. It's a great way to avoid being offended.

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2008-10-26, 08:52 AM
some things combine traits. I've heard plutonium is both poisonous and radioactive.

Certainly, so it is a balancing act.
Plutonium is easy though, you generally should not eat it or give it to your children to play with, but labeling all water bottles as potentially toxic seems excessive.


Also, what does Death By Fed Allergen count as?


Respiratory arrest due to anaphylaxis is my guess.
Just because something is poisonous given the right dose does not mean that it is the cause of death.
Drinking acid would probably result in drowning before intoxication occurs as would being submerged in water.


EDIT:
Then there's terms like Toxin and Venom.


Well, venom are natural biological poisons that are typically injected through a sting or bite and used by the animal for defense or attack.

hamishspence
2008-10-26, 08:59 AM
And would the person who slips a big dose of Essence of Nut into his enemy's dinner be labelled a "Poisoner"?

My guess is, in fantasy settings, D&D, etc, poison is considered an exceptionally dishonorable method of dealing with an enemy.

Exalted Deeds reason was "unnecessary suffering" Which suggests they would have to be pretty excruciating, to cause more suffering than being chopped to bits by an enthusiatic adventurer.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-26, 09:01 AM
Exalted Deeds reason was "unnecessary suffering" Which suggests they would have to be pretty excruciating, to cause more suffering than being chopped to bits by an enthusiatic adventurer.

Well, Exalted Deeds - and everything else dealing in detail with D&D morality as written, really - is an elaborate exercise in ham-handed apologism and ad-hoc reasoning.

hamishspence
2008-10-26, 09:02 AM
Funny thing is, people moan about D&D poisons being ineffective, but, at least some, can expect to kill average commoner within one minute, and unlucky commoner in less than 6 seconds, through skin absorption (Black Lotus)

As far as I know, real world poisons aren't that deadly or quick-acting.

bosssmiley
2008-10-26, 09:08 AM
OK, so yesterday I was playing with my weekly group, and a player playing a paladin got in a little argument with the group over the whole "poisons are evil" argument.

<trim>

He then rudely interrupted, shaking his head vigorously with his arms crossed and I believe his words were something on the lines of "I don't care, all poisons are evil!".

I honestly had an urge to smack him. I would have if I didn't know him so well, and for so long.

Sounds like the player was really getting into the paladin's mindset there. Are you sure he wasn't speaking in character at the time?

I wonder how the character reconciles animals that use poison with his black-and-white prohibition. If it's not going to create friction with the player you could explore this, otherwise just let it ride.

celestialkin
2008-10-26, 09:12 AM
Yeah, I'll get right on that, oh great King of Thread.

I think you meant that I'm not saying what you want to hear.

My problem was not hearing something I did not agree with.



This part was my problem:

Did you actually address this with the DM? Did you say, "Hey, that's a bit offensive - are you saying my culture is evil?" Or did you, you know, huff and puff and come write a rant online? (I'd say that's passive-aggressive, but that's not even remotely what the term means, despite popular usage, so...)

And yes, I do suffer from that if you must know.

Thank you very, very much for bringing that up.

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2008-10-26, 09:14 AM
And would the person who slips a big dose of Essence of Nut into his enemy's dinner be labelled a "Poisoner"?

Even if the enemy just has a distaste for nuts rather than an allergy a loose use of the word could qualify him as a poisoner. :smalltongue:


2: to make unfit for use by the addition of something harmful or undesirable <exhaust fumes poisoning the air>
Source: Meeriam-Webster (http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/poison%5Bverb%5D)

However the evil kind of poisons are well-defined in D&D and nuts were not on the list last time I checked. :smallwink:

The RAW reasoning in BoED leaves a lot to be desired, so it seems like a natural place to adopt your own house rules.

Jayabalard
2008-10-26, 09:16 AM
just because you and your culture think something is acceptable does not mean that everyone else has to be accepting of it. If a culture practices ritual cannibalism, noone is obligated to say that cannibalism is ok. If a culture practices systematic mutilation of female genitals, noone is obligated to say that's mutilating genitals is ok. If a culture regularily uses poison, then there's obligation for anyone to say that using poison is anything but evil.

celestialkin
2008-10-26, 09:22 AM
And thank you guys. I think I got the help I needed. It clicked with what Saph said (thanks by the way) that it is not worth causing problems over. I occasionally have disagreements with this other player, and now that I think about it it is probably due the same reason.

The guy seems to have an IRL paladin mindset/outlook, which basically clashes worse with me in real life than it does in-game (not by much, though). As usual, the others in the group are worth working things out with this guys, although I'd be lying if I said I'd hate for us to eventually part ways. So I will just deal and be "passive aggressive".


And I guess I am a bit touchy concerning that part of my heritage. I honestly need to save up some money to one day fly to South America and make peace with that/them/it.

hamishspence
2008-10-26, 09:22 AM
Ah, I knew i'd gotten the losse definition of poisoning from somewhere.

While the previous reasoning (just cos culture is OK with it, doesn't mean they are right) works for D&D, applying it to real-life is iffy.

Recommendation: say "In D&D, using poisons is evil"
Note that knockout agents ("Drow Sleep Poison") don't count.

valadil
2008-10-26, 09:24 AM
I enjoy cultural insensitivity in D&D, so long as it remains in game and nobody goes overboard with it. As D&D is an escape from the real world I enjoy escaping from political correctness. That said, characters who do nothing but rail on members of other races are annoying at best.

celestialkin
2008-10-26, 09:30 AM
just because you and your culture think something is acceptable does not mean that everyone else has to be accepting of it. If a culture practices ritual cannibalism, noone is obligated to say that cannibalism is ok. If a culture practices systematic mutilation of female genitals, noone is obligated to say that's mutilating genitals is ok. If a culture regularily uses poison, then there's obligation for anyone to say that using poison is anything but evil.

I completely agree.

There are things I would personally never do for my own reasons, but I try my best to understand that for other it's OK.

For example: I remembering seeing a documentary on the National Geographic channel showing ritual cannibalism (ironically, it was on a series call Taboo about cultural differences and "taboos"), and I had a dryheave and had to change the channel. However, I then instantly thought to myself that "Hey, it's their way.", and I then started thinking about how their dead parents/grandparents/whatever were not just aware that they might be eaten, but were probably expecting and and looking forward to it before they went.

I was not asking for him to use the poison (in-game), but I don't like the fact that he called all poisons and everyone who uses them evil.


If he had said something on the lines of "I understand it is OK for some people/cultures, but not for me" I'd be OK, and asked for a few veils myself without ever giving it another thought.

However, what he said basically painted everyone who uses poisons, including my ancestors and probably distant relatives of mine today, as evil.

hamishspence
2008-10-26, 09:37 AM
the Dune answer was "we are descended from survivors, so we as Reverend Mothers end up being forced to accept that our ancesters committed atrocities to survive"

However, this may be overly judgemental.

Tengu_temp
2008-10-26, 09:55 AM
I always thought the "poison is evil" thing is retarded (of course, to find something retarded in DND you just need to open any sourcebook at a random page, but that's besides the point) - poison is just a tool, just like any other weapon. I can understand paladins not wanting to use it, since it's not exactly chivalric, but it's not evil in the slightest.

If the player continues to annoy you with his insensitivity, I suggest the classic d4 up the nose. Can be a poisoned d4 in this case, for some irony.

Worira
2008-10-26, 10:05 AM
I generally say poisoning someone's food is evil/dishonourable, but using poisoned weapons is fine.

Talic
2008-10-26, 10:05 AM
As for how tribes can hunt with poisons and not die?

Well, for one, the concentration in the dart is very high. The concentration in the flesh of a large animal brought down is low.

Second, many poisons only remain effective for a short amount of time. Others? Break down when heated. There are a wide variety of fish which are highly toxic, eaten raw, and completely harmless once cooked. A rare few are also toxic if overcooked, as the heating process eventually breaks down the enzymes in the meat into other toxic chemicals. Such meats have to be prepared very carefully.

ashmanonar
2008-10-26, 10:11 AM
I could have sworn you said he was talking about the game, where poisons may, indeed, be evil, and which has no bearing on anything in the real world.

You should not have mixed a sensitive real-world matter up with a game.

Did you actually address this with the DM? Did you say, "Hey, that's a bit offensive - are you saying my culture is evil?" Or did you, you know, huff and puff and come write a rant online? (I'd say that's passive-aggressive, but that's not even remotely what the term means, despite popular usage, so...)

And I, not being any kind of a nationalist, couldn't care less what anyone thinks of ancient Finns (and their habit of murdering foreign clergymen on frozen lakes). Never mind that, objectively, most ancient cultures were pretty heinous in ways too many to count.

Those damned Finns. With all their saunas, and their ice-cold water.

:D

Knaight
2008-10-26, 10:13 AM
That and a poison that causes paralysis, used against a small animal(most birds for example), is probably going to have a dose that is harmless against a human.

ashmanonar
2008-10-26, 10:13 AM
the Dune answer was "we are descended from survivors, so we as Reverend Mothers end up being forced to accept that our ancesters committed atrocities to survive"

However, this may be overly judgemental.

I was just thinking of the Dune connection. In the Dune world, assassination is the acceptable way of warfare; killing random people because they pinged "evil," or carpet-bombing an enemy city.

Starbuck_II
2008-10-26, 10:13 AM
The RAW reasoning in BoED leaves a lot to be desired, so it seems like a natural place to adopt your own house rules.

Come on, D&D doesn't say poison is evil. Why else would the Ninja (a not required to evil class) get poison use?

BoED lets you use Ravages (poisons) so really Poison may not be lawful, but it is definately neutral in respect to good v evil.

celestialkin
2008-10-26, 10:21 AM
As for how tribes can hunt with poisons and not die?

Well, for one, the concentration in the dart is very high. The concentration in the flesh of a large animal brought down is low.

Second, many poisons only remain effective for a short amount of time. Others? Break down when heated. There are a wide variety of fish which are highly toxic, eaten raw, and completely harmless once cooked. A rare few are also toxic if overcooked, as the heating process eventually breaks down the enzymes in the meat into other toxic chemicals. Such meats have to be prepared very carefully.


Thank you for finally answering that question for me. Much appreciated!


Also, I can probably use this knowledge as a DM.





Oh, and thank you all for the help. This thread came in useful for me. However, I would prefer that it not end in an eventual flame war or something, as morality and such treads often cause.

I am sincerely sorry about this mods. Can one of you lock this thread before it goes from a (mostly) civil and very useful thread to trouble for the forum?

celestialkin
2008-10-26, 10:23 AM
That and a poison that causes paralysis, used against a small animal(most birds for example), is probably going to have a dose that is harmless against a human.

Ah, I see.

However, won't that eventually build up in one's system?

hamishspence
2008-10-26, 10:29 AM
Might depend on the poison. Some build up (lead?) and others we have characters supposedly building up an immunity to, in various stories.

Discworld's Night Watch has Spymould, court food taster, who has apparently built up ridiculous level of immunity to poisons "and can turn a kettle black by breathing on it"

EDIT:

Oh, and concerning the direction of the thread, I would not mind in the least if it went into scholarly poison discussion, taking it biology and history, rather than argument.

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2008-10-26, 10:36 AM
Come on, D&D doesn't say poison is evil. Why else would the Ninja (a not required to evil class) get poison use?

BoED lets you use Ravages (poisons) so really Poison may not be lawful, but it is definately neutral in respect to good v evil.

It is not something I made up and the most direct quote is from the same book you base your alignment argument on.


Using poison that deals ability damage is an evil act...

There are inconsistencies in the alignment rules, but that does not change the general rules.


... A rare few are also toxic if overcooked, as the heating process eventually breaks down the enzymes in the meat into other toxic chemicals. Such meats have to be prepared very carefully.

Do they at least taste good? :smallamused:

hamishspence
2008-10-26, 10:40 AM
I think my least favorite inconsistency was Deathwatch. Began as Neutral, then recommended change to evil in Vile Darkness, than actually changed to Evil in 3.5, then, Slayer of Domiel, and the Must Be Good Healer class, get it on their spell lists.

I tend to say- just remove evil descriptor.

lord_khaine
2008-10-26, 10:40 AM
However, won't that eventually build up in one's system?

organic compounds, like natural poisons would generaly get broken down in the liver, and passed out along the other waste products of the metabolism.

this is of course assuming you survive the damage done.

also regarding whats poisonous, then funny enough, even water can kill you if you get to much of it.

Knaight
2008-10-26, 10:44 AM
Also as to poison building up many poisons leave the body eventually, so the speed at which it happens is pretty important. Some poisons leave relatively quickly(for instance most poisons which would be going through the digestive system, or even entirely respiratory poisons, if they exist. Meanwhile anything that gets into the neural, circulatory, or nerve system is probably going to be staying around for a while). Between that, immunity, and poison breaking down when heated, over time, etc. building up is not an issue for the majority of biological poisons. Chemical poisons are an entirely different issue.

newbDM
2008-10-26, 10:46 AM
organic compounds, like natural poisons would generaly get broken down in the liver, and passed out along the other waste products of the metabolism.

this is of course assuming you survive the damage done.

also regarding whats poisonous, then funny enough, even water can kill you if you get to much of it.

So would slow liver/kidney damage be more of a concern to those people?

hamishspence
2008-10-26, 10:47 AM
In fantasy novel, I remember reading that removal of arsenic after feeding victim it over a long period was what would have killed the victim- poison built up in the fat, then got back into the blood.

Mercedes Lackey book- Oathblood

However this may just be a myth.

newbDM
2008-10-26, 10:51 AM
In fantasy novel, I remember reading that removal of arsenic after feading victim it over a long period was what would have killed the victim- poison built up in the fat, then got back into the blood.

Mercedes Lackey book- Oathblood

However this may just be a myth.


Are people who become poisons by feeding them poison since they are babies also a myth? I believe the story goes that they can poison/kill you by just scratching you with their finger nails. Supposedly done in ancient times I think.

hamishspence
2008-10-26, 10:54 AM
like I said- i'm not citing a novel as an authority, but am curious as to if the author is right.

Knaight
2008-10-26, 11:00 AM
I'm no expert, but that might be possible, with the removal of poison doing more damage than the poison, as it is feasable that that could cause the liver to stop working on the poison, and it to get into the blood stream. As for people being poisonous, being able to poison someone by scratching them seems unlikely, that said blood and such could be poisonous. Again, I'm not an expert, so this is speculation.

snoopy13a
2008-10-26, 11:11 AM
Using poison to hunt animals is clearly not evil. The point is to kill the animal so that one and their family can eat it.

Using poison in war isn't really that evil either. Especially since in pre-modern times, any wound could result in a deadly infection. Using poison could ironically be seen as more merciful. Anyway, people who may or may not have been my ancestors* rubbed arrowheads in human/animal waste to increase chances of infection, launched diseased ridden animal corpses into castles while they were under siege and gave blankets contaminated with smallpox to native peoples. War is nasty and there is no playing fair. In times of the ancient Greeks, if you lost a war, all the men in your city could be killed and the women and children sold into slavery (Athens was lucky in that the Spartans spared them to maintain a balance of power with Thebes).

*For all I know, my distant ancestors were serfs so I have no idea what they may or may not have done.

Keld Denar
2008-10-26, 11:23 AM
MASSIVE WALL OF TEXT ATTACK GOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!


Oh, and concerning the direction of the thread, I would not mind in the least if it went into scholarly poison discussion, taking it biology and history, rather than argument.

Ok, I'm an engineer, and I work in an oil field, and have worked in the petrochemical industry for a couple of years. The term "acid" as used in D&D is absolutely rediculous. An "acid" is a substance with a pH between 1 and 7. The closer to 1 the acid is, the more concentrated it is. This has no effect on how corrosive it is, that is dependant on chemical makeup. An acid with a pH of 3 may be less corrosive than an acid with a pH of 5. The damage that acids cause is called oxydation (essentially the same process as fire, on a molecular basis). The way they cause damage is by reacting with your molecules and reducing them to basic H2, H2O, and carbon based salts. The tissue that was, is now something else.

That said, there are also bases, which have a pH from 7 to 14. Bases can be caustic, which also causes severe burns in people, similar to acids. Caustics are things like lye and bleach. Most highly concentrated bases are just as likely to cause "burns" as acids, again, individual substances may vary.

All of that said, according to NIOSH (National Institute of Ocupational Safety and Health) and OSHA (Ocupational Safety and Health Association), a substance that is toxic is one that has immediate or long term impacts to health. Almost EVERYTHING is toxic at different exposure concentrations and exposure lengths. Also, repeated exposure to a given substance can result in an increased sensativity to the substance, rather than a build up immunity. Most toxic substances kill by either binding with cells in parts of the body to inhibit function, destroy the cell, or cause celular mutation (cancer). Most nural toxins, like pesticides, work by inhibiting the production of cholinesterase, an enzime that disolves acetylcholine, the conductor your body produces to span the gap between nerves, causing them to fire. Without cholinesterase to disolve this conductor, your nerve will continuously fire, causing muscle spasms which can lead to cardiac arrest, brain damage, and a host of other nurological damage. The crazy thing is, cholinesterase inhibitors are also used as medication, especially to treat the onset of Alzheimer's Disease. The difference between poison and medication is all about concentration.

Here in the oil field, the number one toxic danger is H2S, Hydrogen Sulfide. This stuff is nasty, with effects similar to Hydrogen Cyanide, the gas used in the gas chamber to execute prisoners here in the US. It is both poisinous (causes long term damage when absorbed into the body through aspiration (breathing) or absorbtion through mucus membranes (primarily eyes)) and corrosive (reacts with metals to cause oxydation over time). Therefore, it is both an acid and a poison. Suprisingly though, its primary mode of killing is asphyxiation through the displacement of oxygen. That means that where it collects, it tends to push the lighter oxygen away, leaving an oxygen deficient area. Asphyxiation can knock a person out in seconds, allowing the gas to enter the body in lethal concentrations. Most "poisonous" gases in real life kill this way. Liquid and solid poisons typically enter the body through injestion or absorbtion through skin or the weaker membranes (eyes, nose, mouth). They may or may not cause immediate damage to contact area, but generally have detrimental health effects if concentrations are above exposure limits.

And as far as venoms not being acid, I beg you to do some googling for the effects of the bite of the Brown Recluse or Fiddleback spider. These suckers pack a powerful necrotic poison that first kills, then disolves the tissue in the immediate area. The damage caused is horrendous if its not treated immediately with steroids. Don't go looking for images unless you've got a strong stomach though, some of those pictures are gruesome.

Your body is pretty good at keeping itself alive, though. Many common toxins are water soluable, which means that over time, your body can flush them out. It does this by binding the toxin to various vitamins in your body and then disolving them in water, which is passed. Fat soluable toxins (things like lead and DDT) are more dangerous. Your body can't naturally process them, so it stores them in fatty tissue. There it can accumulate to toxic levels that interfere with biological functions. I don't know much about them, but I'd guess that the toxin in the poison arrow toads in South America is water soluable, and the human body can process and flush it before it builds up in lethal levels.

So, like almost everything else in D&D, poisons and acids are a total abstraction with very little bearing on the real world. This concludes today's lesson on biology and chemistry. Any questions?

almyki
2008-10-26, 11:44 AM
Oh. Semi-ninja'd, I guess. Well, uh, nice post, person who is above me XD .

I'm surprised no one brought this up, but I guess better late than never.

I once watched a Korean historical drama based on a woman who became a great doctor, working for the king and stuff, and in one arc, she was training in order to try and enter the palace as a nurse. Her teacher was strict and wise and junk, and one day they had a test.

Their test was to list various medicines and poisons. Nearly everyone failed, except for two. The first was a girl who, rather than list poisons and medicines, wrote down various herbs and ingredients and their effects and how they're used (including detriments, positives, etc.). The other was the heroine, who wrote, basically, "There is no such thing/no difference between poison and medicine. Only the effects and possible uses of any component." The basic point is, anything can become a poison if you use enough of it or apply it in the wrong way/when it shouldn't be/etc.. And anything could have a possible use medically and thus become a medicine.

This would be a thousand times more true in a world with various sentient species, whom would all be effected differently by different so-called medicines or poisons.

Personally, I find it silly as well that poison is evil. Does that make medicine 'good'? What if a medicine for one person, would kill another (which happens aaall the time even when it's just humans), is it still good, even if the 'medicine' was intentionally used for 'evil' means? How about if someone used an 'evil' poison somehow to save someone's life, medically? For example, something that is normally used to paralyze is applied to an agonized, hallucinating person that refuses to let people near them in order to keep them still for transportation in so he can be taken to a doctor. Or a poison that gives someone an ill effect, but can also act as a medicine to cancel out another poison that's worse. After all, is there any medicine that doesn't have potential ill side effects, even in today's advanced medicines?

Well, whether to bring that into D&D isn't really my issue, though, just wanted to bring up that point.

<3 ali

Keld Denar
2008-10-26, 12:06 PM
Or a poison that gives someone an ill effect, but can also act as a medicine to cancel out another poison that's worse. After all, is there any medicine that doesn't have potential ill side effects, even in today's advanced medicines?


Chemotherapy? Treat cancer by introducing chemicals that kill cells that are growing in abnormal fasion. Poisoning to enhance health.

Doomsy
2008-10-26, 12:16 PM
Oh. Semi-ninja'd, I guess. Well, uh, nice post, person who is above me XD .

I'm surprised no one brought this up, but I guess better late than never.

I once watched a Korean historical drama based on a woman who became a great doctor, working for the king and stuff, and in one arc, she was training in order to try and enter the palace as a nurse. Her teacher was strict and wise and junk, and one day they had a test.

Their test was to list various medicines and poisons. Nearly everyone failed, except for two. The first was a girl who, rather than list poisons and medicines, wrote down various herbs and ingredients and their effects and how they're used (including detriments, positives, etc.). The other was the heroine, who wrote, basically, "There is no such thing/no difference between poison and medicine. Only the effects and possible uses of any component." The basic point is, anything can become a poison if you use enough of it or apply it in the wrong way/when it shouldn't be/etc.. And anything could have a possible use medically and thus become a medicine.

This would be a thousand times more true in a world with various sentient species, whom would all be effected differently by different so-called medicines or poisons.

Personally, I find it silly as well that poison is evil. Does that make medicine 'good'? What if a medicine for one person, would kill another (which happens aaall the time even when it's just humans), is it still good, even if the 'medicine' was intentionally used for 'evil' means? How about if someone used an 'evil' poison somehow to save someone's life, medically? For example, something that is normally used to paralyze is applied to an agonized, hallucinating person that refuses to let people near them in order to keep them still for transportation in so he can be taken to a doctor. Or a poison that gives someone an ill effect, but can also act as a medicine to cancel out another poison that's worse. After all, is there any medicine that doesn't have potential ill side effects, even in today's advanced medicines?

Well, whether to bring that into D&D isn't really my issue, though, just wanted to bring up that point.

<3 ali

The only difference between medicine and poison is the dosage. An inappropriate dose of pretty much any effective medicine will kill or seriously harm you. Poison and medicine are the same thing save for different concerns. They are substances designed to alter the working of biology. The only real difference is intent. This extends right down into the animal kingdom, as venomous animals are primarily either defensive, digestive, hunting aids, or both. A good deal of our medicine is actually based on toxic reactions to natural substances.

As for hunting with poisons a great deal of them denude when heated, but I think that was covered earlier.

As for the morality in D&D? Paladins can use ravages which are clearly poisons. The book has spoken there. As long as you tell the paladin IC it is something that has the exact same effects as poison but is clearly not called poison, he is totally karmically clear and can even use it himself.

You got to love the alignment system.

EvilElitest
2008-10-26, 12:17 PM
OK, so yesterday I was playing with my weekly group, and a player playing a paladin got in a little argument with the group over the whole "poisons are evil" argument.

I tried to explain nicely that cultures throughout history IRL have used poisons to hunt and in war. I also mentioned that my great grandmother was a Native South American who came from such a tribe, and that down there it is a central and important part of those cultures, which is also vital for their survival. I also tried to explain that in D&D mechanics, a sword with a vial of poison spread on it in melee is no different than a sword with electric damage or an ability/stat damaging property on it, and that the main issue with it is using poison in a "cowardly" fashion.

He then rudely interrupted, shaking his head vigorously with his arms crossed and I believe his words were something on the lines of "I don't care, all poisons are evil!".

I honestly had an urge to smack him. I would have if I didn't know him so well, and for so long.

Well i would recommend first reading this absurdly intelligent and well written essay on the subject of D&D morality vs. Real life Morality here (http://evilelitest.blogspot.com/2008/10/alignment-part-one.html):smallbiggrin:
from
EE

hamishspence
2008-10-26, 12:25 PM
Read it- interesting. and would you say removing Poison is Evil- was one of the things 4th ed did right?

Iuris
2008-10-26, 12:47 PM
For dealing with problems where the real life morality and the DnD morality clash, especially on the "is this good" or "is this evil", I would recommend this:

There is no abstract good. Good is the concensus of those that grant the powers of good. Gods and such. They grant powers to good, they can take them away. Those who believe in good look to them for judgement.

So, anyone can be good by their own criteria, but it's whether the great good block up there agrees or not that matters when powers are concerned.


P.S. About poisons and edibility: poisons also generally get used up in the process of poisoning the target...

EvilElitest
2008-10-26, 01:18 PM
Read it- interesting. and would you say removing Poison is Evil- was one of the things 4th ed did right?

Wait are you talking to me?

If so, yeah, i think poison being evil is silly. Drugs maybe, but poison? Its just killing somebody, i mean if burning them alive, cutting them up, and sucking their soul out is ok, why would poison be wrong

Now i would say that poison is dishonorable and thus a paladin wouldn't do it because of the whole lawful thing

Except 4E doesn't do law/chaos really, or even teh alignment for that matter, so its pretty useless
from
EE

hamishspence
2008-10-26, 01:22 PM
Its not hard to 'port alignment through, and going by some posts, Exalted Deeds alignment is massively biased in favour of Law anyway.

Also, senior designer of 4th ed also designed Exalted Deeds (James Wyatt)

I am inclined to object more to some (not all) of the mechanics.

Waspinator
2008-10-26, 01:54 PM
I generally say poisoning someone's food is evil/dishonourable, but using poisoned weapons is fine.

That's what I would go with. It's the difference between assassination and a combat tactic.

EvilElitest
2008-10-26, 02:13 PM
Its not hard to 'port alignment through, and going by some posts, Exalted Deeds alignment is massively biased in favour of Law anyway.

Also, senior designer of 4th ed also designed Exalted Deeds (James Wyatt)

I am inclined to object more to some (not all) of the mechanics.

1) Exalted codes work on the basis of law, it makes sense
2) so? Lucus made all the star wars movies, including the god awful cartoon. They 4E aligniment system still isn't worth paying attention to
3) Eh? What about the mechanics?
from
EE

hamishspence
2008-10-26, 02:25 PM
the multiclassing mechanics leave something to be desired.

and the point i'm making is, based on Assumption that Exalted Good is Lawful good, in disguise, 4th ed system is like Exalted to Vile system.

yes, lack of alignment description is a pain, but 3.5 didn't exactly flesh it out in the core 3 books. Supplements were needed.

EvilElitest
2008-10-26, 02:27 PM
the multiclassing mechanics leave something to be desired.

and the point i'm making is, based on Assumption that Exalted Good is Lawful good, in disguise, 4th ed system is like Exalted to Vile system.

yes, lack of alignment description is a pain, but 3.5 didn't exactly flesh it out in the core 3 books. Supplements were needed.

1) I think all 4E mechanics leave a lot to be desired, but fluff more so
2) Wait, Exalted good is just uber good. Law doesn't have to have anything to do with it.
3) To be fair through, 3E had a good system, just bad presentation. 4E doesn't really have a system
from
EE

hamishspence
2008-10-26, 02:31 PM
"Exalted codes work on the basis of the law."

Which has been usual justification for people saying CG characters aren't obliged to Not Kill prisoners, or turn them over for trial, they can execute them themselves.

EvilElitest
2008-10-26, 02:33 PM
"Exalted codes work on the basis of the law."

Which has been usual justification for people saying CG characters aren't obliged to Not Kill prisoners, or turn them over for trial, they can execute them themselves.

Wait, it says under mercy and waht not that no good person can kill prisoners or not try people. Exalted people work under the basis of law under the idea that they kinda need to be LG, because its holding yourself to the code in every single way, opposed to NG or CG who can stretch it (not dong evil of course, but don't have to be as honorable)
from
EE

Asbestos
2008-10-26, 02:41 PM
So would slow liver/kidney damage be more of a concern to those people?

*throws on his "I've taken Pharmacology" shirt*

Indeed! Ever notice how many meds aren't supposed to be taken by people with liver or kidney damage? The reason is that they can't break down/eliminate the drug at a proper rate which can lead to toxic rather than therapeutic effects.

Also, consider the amount of poisons that plenty of us regularly encounter.

Ethyl Alcohol: Is a drug... but as part of breaking it down your body converts it into Acetaldehyde which is most definitely a toxin (and subsequently a poison.) This metabolic product is what's responsible for the sick feeling of hangovers and for the damage to our livers caused by drinking. Oh, its also a carcinogen.

Paracetamol aka Acetaminophen aka Tylenol: Also converted into a darn harmful substance, but more importantly, its the most common cause of acute liver failure in the US! Also, be especially careful if taking this with alcohol (in fact, just don't do that) because they are synergistic and gang up on your liver cells.

Here's a great one....
Grapefruit Juice: Yep. Grapefruits contain a chemical that inhibits a particular enzyme in your liver. This enzyme is incredibly important for the metabolism of various drugs. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_drugs_affected_by_grapefruit) People on these drugs (particularly statins) are told to avoid grapefruits as it might KILL THEM! The reason is because the drug isn't being broken down in the liver and its bioavailability (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioavailability) is greatly increased, causing a 'normal' dose to very easily be a lethal dose. Now yes, the grapefruit juice isn't the direct poison here, but its effects on the metabolism cause what should be therapeutic to be deadly.

Devils_Advocate
2008-10-26, 02:46 PM
Hoo boy. OK, here's the deal: "Evil" is actually an extremely vague term/concept. If you want to get specific and pin it down to something in particular, there are countless mutually incompatible definitions that you could use. The reason that all of these specifications can be associated with the same word, often without anyone so much as noticing, is that they have so much overlap. Torturing someone for your own mild amusement, for example, is gonna be somewhere near the center of any of the clouds of acts in the space of all possible acts that are associated with "evil". Often two clouds will have so much overlap that you have to look really closely to see that they're not actually the same cloud.

Given the very large number of possible definitions of evil, we can categorize the definitions themselves based on their similarities and differences, just as each definition categorizes acts as evil or non-evil. And one of the many, many bases on which we can categorize these definitions is on their... erm, cohesiveness. So, near one end of that spectrum you get things like

"An evil act is one whose consequences are more to the detriment of sentient beings than they are to the benefit of sentient beings"

and on the other end stuff like

"Evil acts include, but are not limited to, murder, rape, torture, poison use, and defiling corpses. Many other acts may also be evil, depending on circumstances. For more information, see chart 3-A."

Hopefully you can sort of see the distinction I'm making here.

Low-cohesion-evil acts don't necessarily have anything in common except that they're on the Official List of Evil Acts. So you can have a "evil" necromancer who's a perfectly nice guy and never does anything to hurt anybody, but does routinely animate dead bodies. He gets lumped in with the people who actually do hurt others because something he does got lumped in with things that actually hurt others. And maybe a bunch of "good" characters break into his home and kill him, because "good" has been defined to include the prevention of "evil", even harmless "evil"...

You may gather from my use of quote marks above that I have a problem with that sort of definition of evil. There are several problems with that sort of definition, in fact.

(1) It's not easy to work with. You have to look over chart 3-A to figure out what the alignment of a given act is. Basically, it's the problem with Attacks of Opportunity, needlessly applied to alignment.
(2) It's offensive. Players very understandably don't like to see acts they approve of classified as "Evil". If you're going to define alignments this way, you really should use non-loaded terms.
(3) As alluded to above, you can potentially have a group of hateful, murderous zealots come in and slaughter a bunch of harmless innocents and have the hateful zealots be the "good" guys. This is upsetting to players who want a black-and-white morality where the bastards are officially bad and wrong, instead of a black-and-white morality where you get to do horrible things because you're on the side of "good". For these players, this prevents escapism. They don't idealize a world where other cultures really are well and truly Evil!, and therefore it's OK to go and kill them all. And they don't want to play with the sort of people who do idealize that.
(4) D&D has an alignment for people who consistently follow a big list o' rules. That alignment is Lawful. If you make Good adherence to a particular big list o' rules, then the highest Good is necessarily Lawful Good, and there's pretty much a limit on how Good you can be and still be Chaotic. Good is basically a particular Lawful tendency, so the two alignment axes aren't as distinct and separate as they could be. Alternately, the rules of being Exalted are picked out as being specially non-Lawful (though also non-Chaotic) in order to prevent this, making super-Good not a Lawful philosophy purely through special exception.

In conclusion, unless I'm missing something, cohesive definitions of Good and Evil are just plain better in every possible respect, while non-cohesive definitions are pretty much bloody stupid. A player who wants his character's alignment to reflect a detailed moral philosophy beyond simple benevolence should give his character Lawful alignment. Call him extra-super-Lawful even, I don't care. If you don't mind him being Lawful Evil, you can even have him bust harmless people's heads in when they refuse to do things his way. Whatever.

One more point: Even with cohesive definitions, you can make arbitrary acts Evil. You just weirdify the behavior of the setting instead of your definition of "Evil". Call this approach "Every time you cast deathwatch, it kills a puppy." The Book of Exalted Dumb tells us that "Evil" acts, even if done for Good ends, "let evil into the world" or something. What might this mean? Very probably nothing, in which case it's a failed handwave. But it could mean that, oh, say, "Evil" deeds cause devils to appear on the Material Plane and start murderin' people. Maybe they invariably summon up enough devils to completely outweigh any Good the deed accomplished. That's just an example of how you could implement this, but the basic principle is that, due to the nature of the world, characters have to follow deontological ethics for utilitarian reasons. At last, disparate value systems brought into perfect agreement with each other by authorial fiat! And all it took was the introduction of an utterly contrived setting element that completely breaks suspension of disbelief! Now all moral dilemmas have clear-cut answers, sparing the game from the risk that anyone might engage in any remotely complex moral philosophizing requiring an Int score over 3.

Not only is this approach ridiculous, it's not even done well by the official material. Poisons that deal ability damage cause "undue suffering" which is, by implication, even worse than such standard attacks as stabbing someone or setting him on fire? Well, hell, OK, given how hit points work, it sort of makes sense that the latter options aren't actually so bad in D&D. Ravages are extra-special magic poisons that only work on Evil creatures? Neat! It's OK for Good characters to use ravages, but not poison? ... Um, why? Do ravages cause less suffering than poison? 'Cuz if so, it really seems like they should explicitly mention that. And if ravages are OK because they only cause great suffering to Evil creatures... wouldn't that mean that using regular poison on Evil creatures should be OK, too? Why would it be wrong just to use something that could potentially be used to do Evil things to innocent people, if you're only actually using it against Evil people? Using a sword isn't wrong because you could chop adorable little children's heads off with it, is it?

Well, maybe using poison's just wrong because it summons up devils. :smallsigh:

EvilElitest
2008-10-26, 02:48 PM
well not to blow my own trumpet, but i think i we should be aware of the differences between good and evil and right and wrong, so please check out the article i linked
form
EE

hamishspence
2008-10-26, 03:00 PM
I think one of the more interesting ones I saw put it in terms of defense- its ok to defend yourself, and others, but not OK to initiate attack.
Pre-emptive striking might come under defense- if threat is immediate enough- guy doesn't have to actually strike you with weapon, to be menacing you and for you to have right to defend yourself.

OzymandiasVolt
2008-10-26, 03:23 PM
Here, have a link to an article that points out exactly why "poison is evil" is a completely indefensible position (http://ynnen.blogspot.com/2005/09/poison-its-too-good-to-be-bad-ddrpg.html). Enjoy. :smallbiggrin:

hamishspence
2008-10-26, 03:25 PM
which, I'm guessing, could be why they removed it in 4th ed.

Beleriphon
2008-10-26, 04:03 PM
I'm going to throw this out there. Poison isn't evil, even by paladin standards. Using it may be considered dishonest, dishonourable or even cowardly, but I don't recall seeing anywhere that says its outright evil.

hamishspence
2008-10-26, 04:11 PM
yes, only in Exalted Deeds. It is listed in code: not lying, cheating, using poison.

However, in Dragon magazine compilation of paladin data, in one of the last print ones, 358 August 2007, it states under Act With Honor- May not use poison. May use Ravages.

Weiser_Cain
2008-10-26, 04:12 PM
This is why I shy away from playing.

hamishspence
2008-10-26, 04:18 PM
thats what houserules are for- for example, stating before game starts: in these games, Poison will not be specifically Evil.

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2008-10-26, 04:20 PM
I'm going to throw this out there. Poison isn't evil, even by paladin standards. Using it may be considered dishonest, dishonourable or even cowardly, but I don't recall seeing anywhere that says its outright evil.

A RAW quote from the BoED was provided earlier in this thread.

Whether a paladin or a non-paladin commits an act does not matter, it is still either evil or non-evil. The consequences of committing a single evil act may vary greatly, but that is another matter entirely.

In D&D poison use is an evil act if the poison causes ability damage. If anyone disagree they should house rule it differently like most reasonable people would.

Oracle_Hunter
2008-10-26, 04:36 PM
In D&D poison use is an evil act if the poison causes ability damage. If anyone disagree they should house rule it differently like most reasonable people would.

QFT

And this goes double for such fluffy problems like "is poison use Evil?" It's not like you have to invent a dice mechanic to change this :smalltongue:

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2008-10-26, 04:48 PM
It's not like you have to invent a dice mechanic to change this :smalltongue:

I guess the compromise would be to roll 1d10 every time you used poison.

1-3: Poison use is Good
4-6: Poison use is Neutral
7-9: Poison use is Evil
10: Roll twice and then roll again



This is why I shy away from playing.

Don't be shy.:smallsmile:

FMArthur
2008-10-26, 05:09 PM
I guess the compromise would be to roll 1d10 every time you used poison.

1-3: Poison use is Good
4-6: Poison use is Neutral
7-9: Poison use is Evil
10: Roll twice and then roll again

lol Good+Evil poisoning: you poisoned an innocent baby, but that baby would later have gone on to slaughter more innocents than an Arithmancer can count.

Devils_Advocate
2008-10-26, 05:27 PM
well not to blow my own trumpet, but i think i we should be aware of the differences between good and evil and right and wrong
Well, that depends on what you take each of those things to mean, but I'll admit that I maybe shouldn't have used "bad" and "wrong" to mean Evil.


so please check out the article i linked
You seem to be arguing from the assumption that Good and Evil are clearly defined in D&D. Man what? The designers clearly never came to a consensus on some fairly basic issues. For example, is Evil simply hurtful, or is it fundamentally malicious? They basically chose a different answer to that for the PHB than they did for the Monster Manual, which is why you get Neutral wyverns and slaadi that are more Evil than Evil Assassins.

What if you bust into a warcamp of goblins that has been raiding your town and start slaughtering them all? You're protecting innocent villagers by hurting, oppressing, and killing goblins. Is that Good and Evil? Is it Neutral, because you're taking sides based on your personal relationship to the villagers? If favoring some sentient beings over others makes you Neutral, isn't pretty much everyone on Earth Neutral?

Alignment is laid out in the PHB as a description of how your character relates to other sentient beings, with very little guidance on how to cope with the fact that there are many sentient beings in the world and no remotely realistic character relates to all of them in the same way. There are all sorts of lines that need to be drawn. The BoED and BoVD take this situation, draw some incredibly stupid lines, and are still amazingly vague on exactly what distinctions we're supposed to be making.

Maybe I'll go into detail later.


I think one of the more interesting ones I saw put it in terms of defense- its ok to defend yourself, and others, but not OK to initiate attack.
Pre-emptive striking might come under defense- if threat is immediate enough- guy doesn't have to actually strike you with weapon, to be menacing you and for you to have right to defend yourself.
The thing is, you can be willing to kill anyone who might harm you -- in which case you can kill anyone, because, hey, you never know; or you can be unwilling to kill anyone you aren't certain will harm you -- in which case you won't kill the guy charging at you with a sword, because for all you know he could be stopped by divine intervention; or anything in between.

It's not unreasonable to say that going on the offensive might actually be justified for the same reasons as going on the defensive, because the real question is whether someone is enough of a threat to justify violent force. But until you decide how to answer that question, you've drawn a line that is by default so thick that everything on the entire map is on the line. So it's less useful then nothing for creating an actual consensus on how to adjudicate things, but it may very well create an illusion of consensus that will break down into a shouting match when group members discover that they do not have the same intuition of what constitutes "sufficient threat".

As a general rule, moral philosophy only looks simple when you ignore all the issues that make it complex. And the alignment system needs to embody some sort of moral philosophy if it's gonna correspond to any real-world notions about good and evil. (And if it's not supposed to, why use those (extremely loaded) terms?)

Greg
2008-10-26, 05:58 PM
What about drow poison? Only causes unconsciousness - which would allow you to incapacitate enemies without killing them.

Oracle_Hunter
2008-10-26, 06:16 PM
What about drow poison? Only causes unconsciousness - which would allow you to incapacitate enemies without killing them.

Or incapacitate enemies before killing them

monty
2008-10-26, 06:34 PM
Ravages: they're exactly like poisons in every way, except they only hurt evil people. Never mind that you'd probably only be using them on evil people anyway; it's still better! *thumbs up*

Asbestos
2008-10-26, 07:00 PM
Ravages: they're exactly like poisons in every way, except they only hurt evil people. Never mind that you'd probably only be using them on evil people anyway; it's still better! *thumbs up*

I don't think the "Ravaged Beholder" agrees with you.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/boed_gallery/75036.jpg
I like how they still float for a while after they die, imagine that thing drifting into town and getting caught on a steeple like a loose piece of trash or something

Dervag
2008-10-26, 07:44 PM
He then rudely interrupted, shaking his head vigorously with his arms crossed and I believe his words were something on the lines of "I don't care, all poisons are evil!".

I honestly had an urge to smack him. I would have if I didn't know him so well, and for so long.Ask him how he feels about bug spray.

In general, the way to cope with someone who insults the culture you regard as yours is to compare it to the culture they regard as theirs. The two cultures usually have more in common than you expect.

Of course, to do that, you have to be able to understand his culture as well as he can understand yours. Well enough to recognize the similarities nad the limits of those similarities.

Swordguy
2008-10-26, 08:19 PM
Chiming in on the topic in general, I generally tell people to deal with it and grow a thicker skin.

It takes two people to be offended - one person to say something, and the other person to choose to be offended.

Devils_Advocate
2008-10-26, 09:10 PM
It takes two people to be offended - one person to say something, and the other person to choose to be offended.
:smallconfused: I'd say that feeling offense is an involuntary reaction, at least most of the time.

Whether one clings to feelings of outrage or just lets it go, on the other hand...

Riffington
2008-10-26, 09:18 PM
D&D carries a lot of baggage from the real world. It's hard not to.

The Geneva Conventions ban the use of certain poisons for good reason: the way they are used in warfare. The effects of mustard gas are horrible. It is an evil weapon. If the prototypical chemical weapon were less painful and disfiguring, the assessment would be different. In D&D, those effects are typically much less painful or disfiguring.

Similarly, in a frontal assault, it is evil to add poison or disease to one's weapon, because it can only kill after there the need for killing has passed. If one is fighting hiding or in a "hit and run" sort of fashion, the situation is different - it's a legitimate tactic (provided one does not use too horrible a poison or disease). In D&D this is entirely different: poison has a super fast onset, and enemies have the HPs to take a direct hit and keep on fighting. It's a legitimate tactic even in a frontal assault. But the game makers are heavily influenced by the real world circumstances.

This applies to much more than morality. D&D typically features castles even though the ramifications of Create Food/Water, Teleport, etc make them nearly useless. If you don't want to spend years thinking through all the political ramifications of D&D physics, it's easier to just call poison evil, put the Duke in a castle, and just ignore the barrel of worms that Detect Evil opens...

/Now ravages are just silly.

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2008-10-27, 12:48 AM
What about drow poison? Only causes unconsciousness - which would allow you to incapacitate enemies without killing them.

Drow poison is not evil, since it does not cause ability damage.


I don't think the "Ravaged Beholder" agrees with you.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/boed_gallery/75036.jpg
I like how they still float for a while after they die, imagine that thing drifting into town and getting caught on a steeple like a loose piece of trash or something


Talk about an insensitive post! :smalltongue:

hamishspence
2008-10-27, 02:05 AM
actually, in the context of D&D ravages make sense- think of them as like super-powerful holy water, or Essence of Holy word, only, they don't work on Neutral beings as well.

However, use of ravages is as circumscribed as use of any other weapon. Murder of an evil being is still murder, whether carried out by weapon, spell or ravage,

Of, course, not all killings of evil beings are murder. But some are.

Oracle_Hunter
2008-10-27, 02:14 AM
actually, in the context of D&D ravages make sense- think of them as like super-powerful holy water, or Essence of Holy word, only, they don't work on Neutral beings as well.

However, use of ravages is as circumscribed as use of any other weapon. Murrder of an evil being is still murder, whether carried out be weapon, spel or ravage,

I'd have to disagree. Holy Water doesn't burn Evil people - it burns supernaturally Evil people. Ravages seem to just target the alignment, and an alignment poison strikes me as plain ol' dumb.

Why? Because that seems like an unusual development for any reasonable church. We've already established that poison (generally) is Evil, so why is some Good institution playing around with poison anyhow? Sure, it's useful, but it's kind of like a nation developing a virus that only targets "bad people" - we agree that bio-weapons are Evil, so why the heck are you developing one?

Secondly, alignment-specific substances kind of cheapen the sense of Holy Smiting that alignment-specific magic already has. Previously, only specially enchanted weapons or big spells could target an intangible quality like Chaos or Evil; now it's just something you smear on a sword? It turns magic into bug-sprays - a commoditization of magic I'd just as soon do without.

Quincunx
2008-10-27, 06:44 AM
On poisoned arrows in RL: A National Geographic article on the pygmies, discussing duiker (small antelope) hunts with poisoned arrows, mentioned that the hunters "lick the flesh to find the parts of the meat affected by the poison and cut it away."

On cultural insensitivity in-game: I instigate it and then protest noisily and ineffectively. Give people a handle and they will wind it up, and it gives me something to do.

:smalleek: "You took the gnome meat for yourself!"
:smallsigh: "I did not! I turned it into bones! They're inedible now! No gnomiekabobs for you!"
:smallamused: "Mmmm-mmm, soup stock!"
:smallfurious: "NO BOILING GNOMIE BONES!!!!"

Starbuck_II
2008-10-27, 06:52 AM
Ask him how he feels about bug spray.

In general, the way to cope with someone who insults the culture you regard as yours is to compare it to the culture they regard as theirs. The two cultures usually have more in common than you expect.

Of course, to do that, you have to be able to understand his culture as well as he can understand yours. Well enough to recognize the similarities nad the limits of those similarities.

Bah, he should use Tabacco, a natural bug killer.

EvilElitest
2008-10-27, 11:31 AM
Well, that depends on what you take each of those things to mean, but I'll admit that I maybe shouldn't have used "bad" and "wrong" to mean Evil.

The idea is taht right and wrong are subjective, while good and evil are objective.


You seem to be arguing from the assumption that Good and Evil are clearly defined in D&D. Man what? The designers clearly never came to a consensus on some fairly basic issues. For example, is Evil simply hurtful, or is it fundamentally malicious? They basically chose a different answer to that for the PHB than they did for the Monster Manual, which is why you get Neutral wyverns and slaadi that are more Evil than Evil Assassins.
The thing about PHB alignment is that the system itself is pretty good with a few exception (necromancy) but the actual system is pretty sound, just horribly presented. in the source books they explain it better and it makes more sense within context, while the PHB is horrible


What if you bust into a warcamp of goblins that has been raiding your town and start slaughtering them all? You're protecting innocent villagers by hurting, oppressing, and killing goblins. Is that Good and Evil? Is it Neutral, because you're taking sides based on your personal relationship to the villagers? If favoring some sentient beings over others makes you Neutral, isn't pretty much everyone on Earth Neutral?
If they refuse any offer of mercy, neutral. If you don't offer mercy and just slaughter them, evil/murder
from
EE

Tengu_temp
2008-10-27, 11:34 AM
If they refuse any offer of mercy, neutral. If you don't offer mercy and just slaughter them, evil/murder


Actually, I'd say it's good - the moment the goblins started to raid and kill innocent villagers, you're free to kill them. I don't think if there are any innocent non-combatants in the goblin camp. Attacking the goblins for no reason would be evil, as well as killing those goblins who surrender (but you don't have to offer mercy yourself to be good).

Fax Celestis
2008-10-27, 11:36 AM
Now kindly, please leave this thread. You're not giving any productive help.

Jeez, who spit in your bean curd? Settle down.

EvilElitest
2008-10-27, 11:36 AM
Actually, I'd say it's good - the moment the goblins started to raid and kill innocent villagers, you're free to kill them. I don't think if there are any innocent non-combatants in the goblin camp. Attacking the goblins for no reason would be evil, as well as killing those goblins who surrender (but you don't have to offer mercy yourself to be good).

well killing itself is a neutral act, its never good (protecting innocents is good). however what i'm saying is, even if they were guilty and your attacked them, killing any who beg for mercy is evil. If they don't ask for quarter, your fine
from
EE

hamishspence
2008-10-27, 12:45 PM
I think preferred term is Violence is "acceptable" within certain limitations. Which include, not attacking non-combatants, or even targeting combatants and non-combatants simultaneously with same effects.

Oslecamo
2008-10-27, 01:52 PM
Actually, I'd say it's good - the moment the goblins started to raid and kill innocent villagers, you're free to kill them. I don't think if there are any innocent non-combatants in the goblin camp. Attacking the goblins for no reason would be evil, as well as killing those goblins who surrender (but you don't have to offer mercy yourself to be good).

How'd you know the villagers are inocent? Perhaps they raided the goblins themselves many years ago, and now the goblins are out for righteous justice.

Blackfang108
2008-10-27, 01:54 PM
OK, so yesterday I was playing with my weekly group, and a player playing a paladin got in a little argument with the group over the whole "poisons are evil" argument.

I tried to explain nicely that cultures throughout history IRL have used poisons to hunt and in war. I also mentioned that my great grandmother was a Native South American who came from such a tribe, and that down there it is a central and important part of those cultures, which is also vital for their survival. I also tried to explain that in D&D mechanics, a sword with a vial of poison spread on it in melee is no different than a sword with electric damage or an ability/stat damaging property on it, and that the main issue with it is using poison in a "cowardly" fashion.

He then rudely interrupted, shaking his head vigorously with his arms crossed and I believe his words were something on the lines of "I don't care, all poisons are evil!".

I honestly had an urge to smack him. I would have if I didn't know him so well, and for so long.

This is why humans have five fingers.

KevLar
2008-10-27, 02:19 PM
OK, here's the thing. If in any culture (and I include D&D's "culture" here) something is considered "evil", it's not necessarily because it objectively does more harm than good, or because .

It's because of custom.

I can easily imagine a culture that regards a minor thing like poisons [I]evil, and I can easily imagine the same culture having no problem whatsoever with slavery, torture and what we'd now call pedophilia. (Case in point: the entire Ancient World, from Mesopotamia to Rome.)

That said, the "poisons are evil" rule in D&D is indeed retarded. But at least, of the many retarded rules in this game, it's the easiest to fix.

"Using poisons is not necessarily evil in this game."
Better yet?
"We won't be using alignment in this game."

There. Problem solved. :smalltongue:

hamishspence
2008-10-27, 02:22 PM
"out for righteous justice" doesn't really work, if gap is big enough. However, same principle should apply in reverse- if villagers ask you to destroy orc village because it raided them some 50 years before, thats not very just.

hewhosaysfish
2008-10-27, 02:33 PM
"out for righteous justice" doesn't really work, if gap is big enough. However, same principle should apply in reverse- if villagers ask you to destroy orc village because it raided them some 50 years before, thats not very just.

What's the statute of limitations of Evil?

hamishspence
2008-10-27, 02:40 PM
I have no idea. "A year and a day" is a classic medieval term: if someone avoided vengeance of people he'd offended for a year and a day, they lost right to kill him on sight.

Devils_Advocate
2008-10-27, 05:48 PM
This applies to much more than morality. D&D typically features castles even though the ramifications of Create Food/Water, Teleport, etc make them nearly useless. If you don't want to spend years thinking through all the political ramifications of D&D physics, it's easier to just call poison evil, put the Duke in a castle, and just ignore the barrel of worms that Detect Evil opens...
No, saying that poison in particular is always Evil but not giving the same treatment to other equally nasty things just makes the rules nonsensical, ambiguous, or both. It's easier to not say that poison is Evil. Note that this is not the same as saying that poison isn't Evil.

More broadly speaking, some gamers prefer to play in a setting that is at least plausible, if not realistic per se. Making a setting plausible may require -- gasp! -- some work, but I don't think that it requires so much work that it's not worth it. It can even be interesting to think through the actual implications of a world where people have cool superpowers and stuff.

I, uh, haven't read it :smallredface:, but I gather that that's sort of what made Watchmen a good story.


in the source books they explain it better
No, they don't.

Consider the issue of how and whether a person's beliefs determine the alignment of his actions. The Book of Vile Darkness addresses the example of someone poisoning a town's water supply, believing the town's inhabitants to be demons. And it says both that this act is Evil and that it's probably not! Apparently, it's Evil when done by "a maniac", but probably not Evil when the character was tricked into this belief by someone else.

So... What the hell? What makes the guy in the first case more Evil than the guy in the second? Is it that if you're just doing what the voices in your head tell you, you're still fully responsible for your actions, because the cause is still fully within you? If so, would it be not Evil if a telepath put the voices in your head, instead of them occurring due to natural insanity? Or is the standard here that actions should be judged based on what a "reasonable person" would think... even if the reasonable person would be wrong?

I don't know. And the book certainly doesn't tell me. It doesn't lay out a clear standard by which they're distinguishing between the two cases, so if I want to know what standard they're using, I pretty much have to guess.

The section on ravages in the BoED is another example of this. If ability-damaging poison causes "undue suffering", does that mean that it's worse than being stabbed or set on fire? Or are do those cause equally bad or worse suffering that's somehow "due"? Or are those more standard means of attack also evil? Do ravages not cause as much suffering as poison? If they do cause just as much suffering, is using regular poison on Evil creatures also non-Evil? If not, why are ravages less Evil to use against Evil creatures than poison?

I don't know. And the reason that I don't know is that there's no clear basis on which some acts are distinguished as Evil. If there were such a basis, everything else would presumably fall into place. But it's not even clear whether there was meant to be a basis, or just an Official List of Evil Acts. If the latter, they really should have just made simple chart listing all of the deeds that are always Evil no matter what. That would clarify things a lot.


it makes more sense within context
No, it doesn't.

The Book of Exalted Deeds explains that a Good character must accept surrender, no matter how often villains escape from captivity to continue their misdeeds. So if you've got a horrible mass murderer on your hands, and he's somehow escaped you and gone on murdering people several times in the past, and you have every reason to believe that this will happen again... a Good character will not just kill him. There is explicitly no exception for this situation.

Under other circumstances, it is acceptable for Good characters to kill Evil characters in order to protect innocents. But once the Evil characters are no longer resisting arrest, apparently it's not. And this is explicitly not because they're no longer a threat. Good characters, apparently, have a code of conduct that they value more than the lives of innocent people.

That doesn't make any sort of sense. It's nonsensical, counterintuitive, and frankly pretty bloody stupid. "Let justice be done, though the heavens fall!" makes far more sense as a LN thing, at least by default.


I don't think if there are any innocent non-combatants in the goblin camp.
Question: Is "Eh, they probably don't have any innocent noncombatants, let's just bust in and slaughter them all" Good, Neutral, Evil, or none of the above? Does the answer change if it's an implicit assumption that someone doesn't realize he's making?


well killing itself is a neutral act, its never good (protecting innocents is good).
Well, here's the thing. "Killing" and "protecting innocents" may describe the same physical act: bringing your sword down into the flesh of the evil goblins. The act has multiple consequences (the goblin dies, the goblin doesn't kill innocents, etc.), and can be described in terms of any of them, but the same actual deed is being referenced in both cases. A more complete description of the act than either of the preceding ones would be "protecting innocents by killing".

So either protecting innocents is at least sometimes Neutral, or killing is at least sometimes Good. It can't be that protecting innocents is always Good and killing is never Good, as that leads to contradiction.


OK, here's the thing. If in any culture (and I include D&D's "culture" here) something is considered "evil", it's not necessarily because it objectively does more harm than good, or because .

It's because of custom.
Right. If people in the game world call something "good" or "evil", that's more of an indication that it's Lawful or Chaotic respectively, if they're using those words the way they're used in the real world. Lots of things that official material associates with Good and Evil would make more sense to associate with Law and Chaos, and it would be best to rename the Good and Evil alignments Benevolence and Malevolence or something for clarity, since the terms they chose for them have so many potentially misleading connotations.

But instead, they decided to cram a bunch of stuff into the Good/Evil axis, where it doesn't really fit, with the result that Good and Evil are each officially a complicated mish-mash of different things, and Law and Chaos are largely irrelevant.

That makes me sad. :smallfrown:


What's the statute of limitations of Evil?
Well... If you're attacking the descendants of a bunch of long-dead guys who once committed some horrible atrocity, that's rather different from attacking the guys who actually committed the atrocity, arguments about whether these new guys still make up the "same group" aside. This seems like an important point, if not the only important point.

If another race has a much longer lifespan and keeps much better history than yours, it could well be that they remember some extremely important event that your ancestors were involved in that you don't even know about. Races of War (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=681572) addresses this:


So life is pretty weird for a Dwarf. As a Dwarf you [I]know that you are in an eternal struggle with the Goblin people. You also know that several times in your life, goblinoids are going to behave towards the Dwarven people as if nothing was wrong and have flourishing trade relations instead. But you also know that once every couple of goblin generations (which is to say several times in your life if you happen to be a Dwarf) some warlord is going to arise and send hordes of goblins to destroy your family. So if Dwarves come off as being intolerant jerks, that's why.

hamishspence
2008-10-27, 05:55 PM
Note that BoED also says Executions (for serious crimes)are Not Evil, so, while adventurer acn't kill villain himself, can still hand them over to court, who can try, sentence, execute.

If the place villain is being tried in doesn't have a death penalty, thats different thing, but it is "widely accepted" in the D&D world.

EDIT: also, it would require that every time villain and PC meet, villian promptly says "I'll come quietly"

Actually, that sounds a lot like the Batman setting.

Jayabalard
2008-10-27, 06:02 PM
I completely agree. Do you perhaps mean disagree? If so, we already know that from your OP.


There are things I would personally never do for my own reasons, but I try my best to understand that for other it's OK.You're welcome to do that if you feel that way. You are completely out of line to expect other people to feel that way; it's quite all right for them to say "You're a horrible person for having sex with children and I don't care that your culture says it's ok, that just means that your culture is sick."

The "it's moral behavior because they by their culture it's moral behavior regardless of what any other culture might think" argument is a load of PC BS.

If you have actual arguments about why their conclusion is wrong, feel free to use these; you can defend the use of poison in any way that you want, except to say "it's ok, it's a cultural thing" because that excuses nothing.

Keep in mind that for the person condemning your ancestors, it's totally ok for him to judge other cultures strictly by the moral code of his own culture. Which winds up being a nice little paradoxical cycle, eh, since you can't condemn him for judging you by his own moral code.

Devils_Advocate
2008-10-27, 06:07 PM
Note that BoED also says Executions (for serious crimes)are Not Evil, so, while adventurer acn't kill villain himself, can still hand them over to court, who can try, sentence, execute.
Right. It's important that the execution be carried out by a legitimate authority. Lawful stuff, stupidly crammed into the Good alignment where it doesn't belong.

Well, obviously you can play a character who is both Lawful and Good, but they should be two distinct (though overlapping) things.


The "it's ok because they think it's ok" argument is a load of PC BS.
If so, then it's not OK to condemn something just because you think it's OK to condemn it. Unless I'm missing something.

Jayabalard
2008-10-27, 06:09 PM
Unless I'm missing something.I'm thinking that has to be the case; maybe I can clarify.

Worira
2008-10-27, 06:10 PM
Consider the issue of how and whether a person's beliefs determine the alignment of his actions. The Book of Vile Darkness addresses the example of someone poisoning a town's water supply, believing the town's inhabitants to be demons. And it says both that this act is Evil and that it's probably not! Apparently, it's Evil when done by "a maniac", but probably not Evil when the character was tricked into this belief by someone else.


Just put ravages in the water supply. In fact, you should put ravages in the water supply wherever you go, randomly smear/spray ravages everywhere, and put them in any food you prepare.

hamishspence
2008-10-27, 06:12 PM
Nope, that would come under "Killing evil people who don't necessarily deserve death"

Riffington
2008-10-27, 06:14 PM
No, saying that poison in particular is always Evil but not giving the same treatment to other equally nasty things just makes the rules nonsensical, ambiguous, or both. It's easier to not say that poison is Evil. Note that this is not the same as saying that poison isn't Evil.


I see what you're saying, but I think it's the other way round. Certainly if Gygax (and WotC) wanted to be consistent, they'd say that acid is evil, because of the way it permanently disfigures and cripples, and the nasty way it kills (perhaps not as horrific as curare, but far worse than belladonna).

But what they really wanted to do is change the way acid works in D&D. The "just a bit of damage each round, not really torture, no scars" version of acid in D&D isn't evil, so they don't call it evil. They could have done the same thing with poison (and nearly do), which would make it non-evil. But they would really rather not. They really wanted to have some tactics be villainous - and poison (along with the animation of undead) are reasonable choices because of the real-world connotations. That choice needs a corollary: that poison should really work in awful ways in D&D. But the creators wanted PCs to face poison and yet keep D&D a light game, so they decided against that.

Really that's what it boils down to. To make poison look as evil as they want it to be requires making D&D a darker game. But they want to keep the evil/good dichotomy without really showing the horrors of evil.

Worira
2008-10-27, 06:15 PM
I'm using ravages, so it's ok. Shut up with your "consistent morality" jabber.

Jayabalard
2008-10-27, 06:18 PM
To make poison look as evil as they want it to be requires making D&D a darker game. But they want to keep the evil/good dichotomy without really showing the horrors of evil.And when you go back and look at D&D's history, it's not surprising that they took that path, since they've historically caught a lot of flak from certain portions of our society.

hamishspence
2008-10-27, 06:18 PM
Again- BoED- Killing people without Just cause is Evil- merely Being Evil is not sufficient justification (in this case, orc village)

Jayabalard
2008-10-27, 06:20 PM
I'm using ravages, so it's ok. Shut up with your "consistent morality" jabber.not really, even if you're only harming evil people, that doesn't make it "OK"

Worira
2008-10-27, 06:20 PM
Raising the question of why they're Evil in the first place if they aren't hurting anyone.

hamishspence
2008-10-27, 06:22 PM
Ruthless landlord, thuggish officer, etc, etc. Lots of little acts that cause misery, but nothing truly big.

Evil people certainly hurt others without good reason- but that's not good enough justification.

Worira
2008-10-27, 06:30 PM
And that's part of my problem with ravages. They harm a broad enough range of people that they can be used for evil purposes, but they're still better than poison. I agree that randomly ravaging water supplies isn't the best idea, but there's still a huge double standard between ravages and poisons. I don't think I'm expressing myself very well, though.

hamishspence
2008-10-27, 06:38 PM
yes- I figure, if its used to carry out murder, it doesn't matter if its a ravage, a Holy Word spell, or a poison. Holy word may have the Good descriptor, but a murder carried out with it, is still a murder.

I'd go with both being Neutral, and ravages merely being safer if Good Hero accidentally exposes himself to it. But, that would be a houserule.

Devils_Advocate
2008-10-27, 06:55 PM
I'm thinking that has to be the case; maybe I can clarify.
Are you saying that there are some things (e.g. condemning others' actions) that are OK just because the people doing them think they're OK, but other things aren't OK even if the people doing them think they're OK?

If not, what are you saying?

Raum
2008-10-27, 07:01 PM
The "it's moral behavior because they by their culture it's moral behavior regardless of what any other culture might think" argument is a load of PC BS.

If you have actual arguments about why their conclusion is wrong, feel free to use these; you can defend the use of poison in any way that you want, except to say "it's ok, it's a cultural thing" because that excuses nothing.It's worth noting that most (perhaps all) cultural moral attributes are based in how life is lived. Extended childhoods are a recent development - and only feasible in cultures / states with a fairly high standard of living.

Historically, and in many current cultures, people simply couldn't afford to support unproductive children for 18+ years. They were often considered adult sometime around puberty.

We changed our moral expectations only because we could afford to do so.

hamishspence
2008-10-27, 07:04 PM
if one chooses to judge, one should try and Judge Fairly, and be aware of mitigating factors, and remember people are not liable for acts of their ancestors.

And even if you do Judge, it may be polite to keep it to yourself.

KevLar
2008-10-27, 07:19 PM
It's worth noting that most (perhaps all) cultural moral attributes are based in how life is lived. [...]
We changed our moral expectations only because we could afford to do so.
+1.
I'd also like to note that any in-depth discussion about D&D morality is, by definition, like hunting a black cat in a dark room etc.

Because while there are tons of mechanics that depend on culture (pet peeve alert! which they shouldn't, that's a major flaw in the design that forces us to make up a million house rules whenever we want to play something not generic), they don't define it. Even if you want to play by RAW, you have to fill in the gaps yourself, and everyone does that differently.

So we argue and fight about D&D morality when there's no such thing, there are just some gross generalizations, scattered in the (hated) alignment sections and BoED and BoVD and whatnot. But where is the fine print? It's not written somewhere, it's matter of interpretation and imagination.

Really, all we can meaningfully talk about is:
1) The existing rules
2) And how to break them if they happen to be in conflict with our vision for a specific game.
And if there's not an existing rule for something, we make it up depending on the game world.
...IMO.

Riffington
2008-10-27, 07:31 PM
Because while there are tons of mechanics that depend on culture (pet peeve alert! which they shouldn't, that's a major flaw in the design that forces us to make up a million house rules whenever we want to play something not generic),

You might prefer GURPS... it has a very solid set of generic mechanics, and then lets you add on more specifics depending on the setting you want to play.

as to the moral relativism, Raum only shows that the ways in which moral principles are applied depend on the situation. We all have a duty to take care of our children; that is a moral absolute. However, the question of when a child becomes an adult has to do with one's level of education, ability to produce food, etc.

KevLar
2008-10-27, 07:49 PM
You might prefer GURPS... it has a very solid set of generic mechanics, and then lets you add on more specifics depending on the setting you want to play.
I know, I have the books and have been dying to play for some time now. I'm waiting for a PbP. :smallsmile:


as to the moral relativism, Raum only shows that the ways in which moral principles are applied depend on the situation. We all have a duty to take care of our children; that is a moral absolute. However, the question of when a child becomes an adult has to do with one's level of education, ability to produce food, etc.
I disagree. There are no moral absolutes.

We all have a duty to take care of our children, you say? All our children? Unconditionally? What if we can't afford to take care of all of them? There is, actually, evidence that humans of the paleolithic era were in the habit of killing (would you rather say culling? or murdering?) their babies when either there was not enough food for everyone, or a baby would slow them down and it was absolutely necessary to keep moving fast to get to the pasture before winter, or a nasty predator was near and they would all die if the baby cried and betrayed their position.

And I can find you lots of examples at recent times, where babies have been killed for similar reasons (the Guarani did this regularly due to a lack of food, while several instances of "killing the crying baby before the occupying forces get to the hiding group" occurred in WWII and other wars). Were, in your opinion, these people immoral? Or did they do an immoral act?

I think not.

EDIT- Oh, and don't think for a minute that childhood has been universally and historically revered as it is today. Because, let me tell you, until Romanticism came along, children weren't perceived as these adorable, blessed and innocent creatures, but rather as annoying brats and a necessary evil/counterproductive stage. (Apart from Cupids and other myths, the first representations of children in European art are paintings by Bruegel (http://www.manatee.k12.fl.us/sites/elementary/ballard/Art%20Museum/Europe/Rennaisance/Bruegel-childrensgames.jpg). The children are not depicted idealized - that would come centuries later - but ugly and useless.)

Yes, they would be protected when possible. Yes, the mothers were especially expected to give their lives for their children, and were praised when they did - one of the rare occasions a woman earned praise, and that was post-humously. But a father killing a child that he just discovered is not his, that was not so extreme. A "leader of the tribe", however you want to define that, deciding that they couldn't feed all the children, so some should die, that was not so extreme. Abraham was commanded to sacrifice his son (and children were often sacrificed, in many cultures, for many reasons) and the Spartans dropped weakling off a cliff.

That doesn't sound like a moral absolute to me...

Swordguy
2008-10-27, 08:07 PM
I disagree. There are no moral absolutes.


I foresee that you and EE will get along well. :smallamused:

(Good luck, btw. I'm on your side with this one.)

Riffington
2008-10-27, 08:07 PM
Or did they do an immoral act?


There are times when two moral duties come into conflict. This does not change the fact that both are duties. Some of the acts described above are immoral; others are not. (Let's avoid talking about real religions though).

At any rate: if you believe that no actions can be more/less moral than others, then the consequence isn't one you'll like. It means that there can't be any reason to doubt the DM when he says that an action is evil in D&D. After all, he's the only point of reference left if you've discounted all others.

Devils_Advocate
2008-10-27, 08:19 PM
We all have a duty to take care of our children; that is a moral absolute.
Given that not all of us have children, I'm pretty sure you're wrong on this one. Unless you really want to say that I have a "moral duty" to provide all zero of my children with the total lack of care they require by doing nothing in particular.

More broadly speaking, it looks to me like you're talking about the sort of principles that make up a low-cohesion morality. If you expound a bunch of ideals that have nothing in common but that they're the dominant moral values of your culture, then you are in practice defining "good" to mean following the dominant moral values of your culture. Even if you claim that you aren't doing this. Your opinion is not a priori any more valid than anyone else in history who has been convinced that his own set of moral standards is the one objectively correct set (leaving aside for the moment the question of what that would even mean).

KevLar
2008-10-27, 08:30 PM
s an easy example, we know that worshippers of Moloch used to throw babies at his red-hot idol as human sacrifice. Surely you admit this was immoral.
Nice one. :smallsmile:
Answer: From my perspective? Of course it's immoral. But my perspective is defined by my education (in the broad sense), which has taught me, among other things, that Moloch doesn't exist. And therefore, Moloch will not shower fire and brimstone on the whole village if the babies aren't sacrificed to his name.

Ignorance and immorality are not the same. In the end, if someone back then truly believed that sacrificing a baby would, say, ensure rain and a plentiful crop and survival for all, it doesn't make him different, morally speaking, from one who correctly assumes that one more mouth to feed in the family is death for all.

Now, if one priest in particular was perfectly aware that he was duping people, and if he continued the practice not because he believed all those superstitions, but just so he could keep his revered and feared position of power, that's another story. That would be immoral even from his perspective.

(I'm referring to child sacrifices in general, because the case of Moloch in particular is very much disputed.)

Riffington
2008-10-27, 08:30 PM
Given that not all of us have children, I'm pretty sure you're wrong on this one. Unless you really want to say that I have a "moral duty" to provide all zero of my children with the total lack of care they require by doing nothing in particular.


Obviously if you don't have kids you can't have any duties to them. I'm not sure that this is terribly controversial.



Even if you claim that you aren't doing this. Your opinion is not a priori any more valid than anyone else in history who has been convinced that his own set of moral standards is the one objectively correct set (leaving aside for the moment the question of what that would even mean).

I claim that I am not doing this :smallcool:
In fact, I can point to several people in history whose set of moral standards are closer to correct than mine. Studying their writings is a helpful way for me to improve my own moral understanding.

Raum
2008-10-27, 08:42 PM
as to the moral relativism, Raum only shows that the ways in which moral principles are applied depend on the situation. We all have a duty to take care of our children; that is a moral absolute. However, the question of when a child becomes an adult has to do with one's level of education, ability to produce food, etc.Actually that stems from survival as much as any other moral attribute. If we didn't care for our offspring we wouldn't survive as a society. Therefore it becomes 'moral' to care for our children. That said, survival is the imperative, not the caring. There have been times and societies where caring child rearing was minimized due to other imperatives. Of course those societies are typically on the edge of extinction themselves. Also, a nitpick, educations are expensive, they increase based on standard of living just as length of childhood does. But the education itself doesn't extend childhood.

It's all about what the society needs to survive and what luxuries (including many 'moral' requirements) they can afford.

Devils_Advocate
2008-10-28, 12:22 AM
Obviously if you don't have kids you can't have any duties to them. I'm not sure that this is terribly controversial.
Well, in that case, it seems like perhaps you're using the term(s) "all" and/or "absolute" in a rather unusual way. Or, alternately, you were simply mistaken.


In fact, I can point to several people in history whose set of moral standards are closer to correct than mine. Studying their writings is a helpful way for me to improve my own moral understanding.
I can see how you could believe that the standards that another person follows are better than the ones you follow. But how can you conclude that another person's beliefs are more accurate than the ones you presently hold? To quote Ludwig Wittgenstein, "If there were a verb meaning 'to believe falsely,' it would not have any significant first person, present indicative." To believe a belief true is to hold that belief.

I guess that it's not inconsistent to think that another person holds more accurate beliefs than you if you don't yet know what the other person's beliefs are... Is that the situation you're describing?

I'd be interested in hearing about how you assess the correctness of moral standards.

Aquillion
2008-10-28, 05:24 AM
Er, not really? Strong acids are corrosive substances and can cause burns. Poisons can cause illness, tissue damage and death when absorbed in a large enough dose by an organism. Furthermore, a substance that causes tissue damage but is not absorbed is classified as a corrosive, not a poison. All D&D acids, by virtue of burning your face off, are thus not poisons. They're distinct properties.

Acid damage is about as evil as fire damage or electric damage. It depends on if you see maiming someone as evil.Most types of acid in the D&D universe do, however, produce poisonous gasses:

The fumes from most acids are inhaled poisons. Those who come close enough to a large body of acid to dunk a creature in it must make a DC 13 Fortitude save or take 1 point of Constitution damage. All such characters must make a second save 1 minute later or take another 1d4 points of Constitution damage.If you rule that poisons are evil, then using acid is also evil, because it produces poison; it'd be like a Paladin wielding a sword that eats a baby for every attack you make with it.

Or something. I don't know, I'm not good with analogies.

Jayabalard
2008-10-28, 06:20 AM
If you rule that poisons are evil, then using acid is also evil, because it produces poison; Not so; you're glossing over the word "most" in that, whicn means that it's not actually an "if X then Y" situation.

If you rule that all poisons are evil, then using something that does acid damage wouldn't be evil unless it actually has that poison effect.

Tengu_temp
2008-10-28, 07:24 AM
How'd you know the villagers are inocent? Perhaps they raided the goblins themselves many years ago, and now the goblins are out for righteous justice.

I assume we're going with the simplest scenario here. Not to mention that those goblins are mentioned to be raiders - they don't make a living by farming and picking flowers.



Question: Is "Eh, they probably don't have any innocent noncombatants, let's just bust in and slaughter them all" Good, Neutral, Evil, or none of the above? Does the answer change if it's an implicit assumption that someone doesn't realize he's making?


Meta-assumption from me, as a real life person debating an example. If there were any non-combatants in the camp, non-bloodthirsty adventurers would surely spot them and act accordingly.

Riffington
2008-10-28, 07:57 AM
Well, in that case, it seems like perhaps you're using the term(s) "all" and/or "absolute" in a rather unusual way. Or, alternately, you were simply mistaken.

I think you're trying to pick a miniscule nit. We have a duty to love our neighbor; if you happen to be alone in Antarctica, this might not apply to you specifically.



I can see how you could believe that the standards that another person follows are better than the ones you follow. But how can you conclude that another person's beliefs are more accurate than the ones you presently hold?

Einstein understood physics better than I do, and Akiva understood morality better than I do. By studying Einstein's writings I can improve my own understanding of physics; by studying Akiva's writings I can improve my own understanding of morality.

KevLar
2008-10-28, 08:11 AM
We have a duty to love our neighbor; if you happen to be alone in Antarctica, this might not apply to you specifically
....:smalleek:
1) Am I guilty of nitpicking if I point out that your neighbor may very well be a prick, like so many people are?
2) Am I guilty of nitpicking if I point out that a duty to love is a contradiction in terms? You can't force yourself (or anyone) to experience a particular emotion. Sure, you can condition and train yourself to suppress one, or at least its expression, but you can't, by definition, be obliged, by law or morality, to feel something. Not any morality that makes sense, at least.

Muad'dib
2008-10-28, 08:23 AM
I think you're trying to pick a miniscule nit. We have a duty to love our neighbor; if you happen to be alone in Antarctica, this might not apply to you specifically.

And where might I find this universal constant that I am obliged to love my neighbor, furthermore, what definition of love? what definition of neighbor?


Einstein understood physics better than I do, and Akiva understood morality better than I do. By studying Einstein's writings I can improve my own understanding of physics; by studying Akiva's writings I can improve my own understanding of morality.

And in both cases, one does oneself a disservice by accepting their writings as absolute.

Daimbert
2008-10-28, 08:28 AM
Nice one. :smallsmile:
Answer: From my perspective? Of course it's immoral. But my perspective is defined by my education (in the broad sense), which has taught me, among other things, that Moloch doesn't exist. And therefore, Moloch will not shower fire and brimstone on the whole village if the babies aren't sacrificed to his name.

Ignorance and immorality are not the same. In the end, if someone back then truly believed that sacrificing a baby would, say, ensure rain and a plentiful crop and survival for all, it doesn't make him different, morally speaking, from one who correctly assumes that one more mouth to feed in the family is death for all.

What I find most interesting here is that you seem to be arguing that there are no moral absolutes by basically assuming one in making statements that you think people will not think are immoral.

Specifically, you seem to be assuming Utilitarianism here: what is moral is that which provides the most utility (ie the least suffering and the most happiness) across all people. So ensuring the benefit and survival of all in your arguments means that the sacrifice of the child is JUSTIFIED morally; it provides the most utility across all people. This is, in fact, an OBJECTIVE moral principle, which is why people like Bentham and Mill proposed it; they thought that they could objectively justify the base principle of maximizing utility AND that utilty was easily calculable objectively, so we have an objective moral code. That makes Utilitarianism about as absolute a moral code as you can get; it merely doesn't posit a set of absolute moral rules preferring just one: maximize utility, and provides a helpful calculus for figuring that out.

So, this isn't cultural relativism at all. After all, your appeal is to get us to see that these sacrifices don't seem immoral, but this assumes an objective standard of morality that we can all at least sort of agree with. Otherwise, the reply could be that it is indeed still immoral to kill a baby for the "greater good" and your own stance would not allow you to gainsay that statement.

(Utilitarianism, BTW, has much more serious problems that get it rejected as a moral code, even though it and derivatives of it seem to be in vogue at the moment).


Now, if one priest in particular was perfectly aware that he was duping people, and if he continued the practice not because he believed all those superstitions, but just so he could keep his revered and feared position of power, that's another story. That would be immoral even from his perspective.

Not if he was an Ethical Egoist; then, since all he is required to do is look after his own benefit, that would not only not be immoral, but might be morally demanded if the payoff was right. This again shows that you are imposing a standard of morality on the discussion even though you are claiming that no such standards are possible.

Daimbert
2008-10-28, 08:32 AM
Well, in that case, it seems like perhaps you're using the term(s) "all" and/or "absolute" in a rather unusual way. Or, alternately, you were simply mistaken.


It's an issue of emphasis.

You are placing the emphasis thusly:

"We ALL have a duty to support our children."

I believe his claim is actually:

"We all have a duty to support OUR children".

By the second emphasis, there is no duty to support children that are not your own, so if you don't have children clearly you don't have a duty to support any children, especially not those that are not your own. Nor does that imply any duty to HAVE children, so there's really nothing wrong about what he said.

newbDM
2008-10-28, 08:49 AM
You're welcome to do that if you feel that way. You are completely out of line to expect other people to feel that way; it's quite all right for them to say "You're a horrible person for having sex with children and I don't care that your culture says it's ok, that just means that your culture is sick."


Oh, wow. You resorted to the old "No, not every cultural/sexual thing is OK, because then that means raping children is OK!!!" argument.

Since no one can possibly argue that without being accused as a child abuser, you totally won this argument!


Has anyone compared one side or the other to Nazis yet? That also always works!


Yeah, well done dude. :smallannoyed:

If you can't win an argument without resorting to this, please don't try arguing.

hamishspence
2008-10-28, 08:56 AM
"if there were any non-combatants in the camp, non-bloodthirsty adventurers would spot them and act accordingly"

Depends on the setting. Start of Darkness has Sapphire Guard paladins slaughtering goblin children left and right, after the elimination of the actual threat (Bearer of the Redcloak).

Why they do not fall is tricky. Possibilities include-A: In OOTS, gods can override the usual rule that paladins who commit Evil acts Fall, and, B: OOTS uses pre-exalted rules, and follows the general presumption among some players that killing Evil children is OK.

I prefer A, since Rich spoke of "karma kicking the Azure City in the behind" for acts like this, in War and XPs.

Tengu_temp
2008-10-28, 09:05 AM
Having not read SoD, I can only speculate, but it seems like an example of the paladins either acting very OOC, bloodthirstily (which'd probably also be OOC for them), or having a very good reason for this. Can there be justified reasons for slaughtering innocents is an entirely another matter.

hamishspence
2008-10-28, 09:14 AM
If you want to read the book yourself, you don't need to look inside the spoiler. If you wish to, it describes the Paladin Assault.

"Die Goblins!" paladin cuts down several without warning, and shouts this.
Next scene: A paladin announces:

"Wretched goblins of these forsaken wastelands, The Twelve Gods have judged your hearts and found them to be evil. Furthermore, one among you threatens the very foundation of creation itself."

A second one says:
"Prepare yourself for death with whatever dignity your kind can muster"

After finding and killing The Bearer:

"Exterminate the rest and let us be done here"

we see unarmed goblin children venture out of cave to which they fled, and are promptly attacked as they flee, by paladins with swords.

Tengu_temp
2008-10-28, 09:17 AM
Ah, the standard "is it okay for humans to kill goblins just because the goblins are evil-aligned" thing. I won't give my answer, I will only say that many people who answer "no" see no problem when it's the other way around (http://www.goblinscomic.com/).

hamishspence
2008-10-28, 09:19 AM
I know the Exalted Deeds answer- no, its not. Which is main reason I prefer it, with all its flaws, to PHB alone.

EDIT:
I do howver, figure its not fair to apply a double standard. In either direction.

Daimbert
2008-10-28, 09:20 AM
Oh, wow. You resorted to the old "No, not every cultural/sexual thing is OK, because then that means raping children is OK!!!" argument.

Since no one can possibly argue that without being accused as a child abuser, you totally won this argument!


Has anyone compared one side or the other to Nazis yet? That also always works!


Yeah, well done dude. :smallannoyed:

If you can't win an argument without resorting to this, please don't try arguing.


Let me ask you this, in all honesty: how do you expect people to demonstrate that cultural relativism means that they cannot object to certain actions that we think are absolutely horrible without listing moral actions that everyone pretty much thinks ARE absolutely horrible? Why those arguments do indeed work is more that no one is willing to say that those things are morally right and so shouldn't be condemned than that no one wants to be labelled a child rapist (although that does come into it as well, I won't deny).

There are other arguments that can be used that might have less connotations. For example, taking the sacrifice of children already mentioned and saying that they do it because it seems like a fun thing to do on a Saturday night. But that might imply that someone supports killing children, and so you might object to that as well. At which point we return to my question: How can I list something morally objectionable that someone who is a cultural relativist would have to accept IN THE RIGHT CULTURE (note NOT "for the right reasons") if doing so will always bring in the potential implication that if the cultural relativist accepts that they can be judged to not necessarily oppose that morally objectionable thing?

KevLar
2008-10-28, 09:29 AM
What I find most interesting here is that you seem to be arguing that there are no moral absolutes by basically assuming one in making statements that you think people will not think are immoral.
Actually, you are correct. :smallsmile: Absolutely correct. :smalltongue:
I realized it myself a bit after posting, but didn't have the time (or heart) to fix it. Bad example, or rather wrong arguments from my part. (I'd provide the correct ones, if I wasn't in the middle of something right now. Perhaps later.)

PS- To my defense, I wasn't aiming for statements that people will think are moral or immoral, in general, but the person I was conversing with in particular. Not that this justifies anything, but it shows how I got carried away by the conversation. Thanks for pointing it out.

hamishspence
2008-10-28, 09:35 AM
yes, by old-style objectivism, you have no duty to your neighbour whatsoever. You may choose to help them, out of general benevolence. In a crisis, helping them, again out of benevolence, is reasonable- reciprocal altruism and general respect for intelligent life, You have a duty not to do evil things to them. Other than that, no restriction.

But said old-style also favours moral absolutes- some acts are evil, even if by doing so, you save others. People are not something anyone has the right to sacrifice.

Depends on your views, really.

newbDM
2008-10-28, 09:35 AM
Let me ask you this, in all honesty: how do you expect people to demonstrate that cultural relativism means that they cannot object to certain actions that we think are absolutely horrible without listing moral actions that everyone pretty much thinks ARE absolutely horrible? Why those arguments do indeed work is more that no one is willing to say that those things are morally right and so shouldn't be condemned than that no one wants to be labelled a child rapist (although that does come into it as well, I won't deny).

There are other arguments that can be used that might have less connotations. For example, taking the sacrifice of children already mentioned and saying that they do it because it seems like a fun thing to do on a Saturday night. But that might imply that someone supports killing children, and so you might object to that as well. At which point we return to my question: How can I list something morally objectionable that someone who is a cultural relativist would have to accept IN THE RIGHT CULTURE (note NOT "for the right reasons") if doing so will always bring in the potential implication that if the cultural relativist accepts that they can be judged to not necessarily oppose that morally objectionable thing?


But it is just that when you compare it to the maximum extreme, which no one can obviously argue with without be classed as a support of such things, that really isn't fair is it?

It is like that Christian guy a year back on some news channel show. A woman somewhere in a very remote area of India married a snake. So he was demanding that ALL homosexuals in the USA prove that allowing them to marry won't lead to that, before they should receive the right to be together here in the US.

I really don't care what side you are on for the whole equal rights thing. It's not the point. It is that it's an underhanded tactic for winning (or at least ending with you having the last word) an argument. I personally feel taht respecting others' beliefs and traditons is important, even if you don;t agree with them, but if I tried to argue that I would be labeled a child molester or at least someone who supports it. Much like the whole comparing the other group to a Nazi trick (I believe there is a whole internet rule for that).



Also, on that topic research the average life-span for people in 3rd and lower level countries/cultures, and then try to figure out why people don't wait until they are 18-21 to get married and have kids. You need to start early fi you only live to 26-early 30s if you are lucky.

Daimbert
2008-10-28, 09:38 AM
Actually, you are correct. :smallsmile: Absolutely correct. :smalltongue:
I realized it myself a bit after posting, but didn't have the time (or heart) to fix it. Bad example, or rather wrong arguments from my part. (I'd provide the correct ones, if I wasn't in the middle of something right now. Perhaps later.)

PS- To my defense, I wasn't aiming for statements that people will think are moral or immoral, in general, but the person I was conversing with in particular. Not that this justifies anything, but it shows how I got carried away by the conversation. Thanks for pointing it out.

I wouldn't have pointed it out at least as longwindedly as I did except that I've come across an awful lot of discussions where basically people are claiming that a stripped down version of Utilitarianism is the moral code that we should all follow ... and then in the same breath saying "See! It's not absolute!" Yeah, it's still absolute, thanks for playing.

You didn't quite go there, but I wanted to stop it before it actually did get into that.

hamishspence
2008-10-28, 09:42 AM
it might depend on what you define as harm. or how important you consider consent- if person is consenting to be what other people would call mistreated, what gives other people right to complain about it?

and then there is issue of indoctrination- if person was brought up from birth to accept something, and when adult they keep accepting it, are they meaningfully consenting?

one definition of Harm might be inflicting unnecessary, unjustified permanent physical damage on someone who is too young, or too oppressed, to consent meaningfully.

hamishspence
2008-10-28, 09:45 AM
"the good of the majority" is an interesting rule, but it seems sometimes it becomes- "no matter what, even if it involves harm to The Few."

kamikasei
2008-10-28, 09:58 AM
I think part of the issue here is that while we might say that a given act is absolutely, objectively evil and immoral, we may be reluctant to say that a person who commits or condones that act is an evil person if for them it's just a given as part of their culture and an immutable part of "the way things are". Racism, for example, is something I'm sure most here will agree is immoral and an evil, but I'm also sure many of us have elderly relatives who grew up with racist attitudes as simply a part of their upbringing and would not like to label these relatives as evil people even though we may find their views abhorrent.

With regards to the OP, I think the idea that it's "evil" to hunt animals with poison as opposed to traps, snares, weapons etc. is simply daft. Pretty much the same thing applies to using poison on humans. It's also usually a social gaffe to tell someone that their ancestors were evil people. But I can't support your general claim that you can't say some historical or current practice was or is evil simply because "it's their culture". One of the problems with relativism at that extreme is that change and reform - the end of slavery, of segregation, etc. as a classic example - is often driven by someone saying, "I think this aspect of our culture is evil" and convincing others of the same. If nothing that's part of a culture (which is everything) can be deemed evil, how can any reform ever be justified?

hamishspence
2008-10-28, 10:04 AM
I tend to the view that minor evil acts (or attitudes) don't make a person evil in D&D, it makes them Good but close to Neutral border, assuming rest of their personality is pretty strongly good.

In real world- is tricker, but am more inclined to be wary of those who prey on others in various ways. Intentionally and knowingly stealing property, and/or lives, is a pretty fair definition- virtually all cultures condemn murder and theft.

hamishspence
2008-10-28, 10:08 AM
also, there are mixtures. David Gemmell in one of his books, speaks of his stepfather, who held racist attitudes, but, had friends of that race, and was willing to help members of that race who were in trouble, at his own risks. When asked what people fitted his views, he said "The ones I haven't met"

Good people can be Flawed- Champions of Valor speaks of Bigotry as a Flaw that good aligned heroes can still have- elves vs humans, dwarves vs elves, etc.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-28, 10:11 AM
I think part of the issue here is that while we might say that a given act is absolutely, objectively evil and immoral, we may be reluctant to say that a person who commits or condones that act is an evil person if for them it's just a given as part of their culture and an immutable part of "the way things are". Racism, for example, is something I'm sure most here will agree is immoral and an evil, but I'm also sure many of us have elderly relatives who grew up with racist attitudes as simply a part of their upbringing and would not like to label these relatives as evil people even though we may find their views abhorrent.

That's a bit naive. There's not a single person on these boards - or in the world - who has not absorbed endless racist socialization throughout their entire life, and who does not manifest it on occasion in some ways.

But yeah, you don't want to call people with racist attitudes evil, because they really aren't. (And, well, you'd be calling yourself evil.) They may not even be racist themselves. That's why it's always important to know the difference between "What you are saying is racist/misogynistic/sexist/ableist/heterosexist" and "You are racist/misogynistic/sexist/ableist/heterosexist."

Whether the attitude belongs to a culture is irrelevant. Cultures that condone, say, rape and slavery are evil cultures (or, in milder cases, are cultures with evil aspects). The people who have been socialized into those cultures are probably not evil themselves, but many of them probably commit evil acts, which are not made any less evil no matter how much cultural/moral relativism is thrown at them.

Of course, none of this works in D&D, where members of evil cultures are objectively either Good, Neutral, or Evil.

hamishspence
2008-10-28, 10:16 AM
yes- given option- I tend to rule Orcs/gobliins etc have no innate predisposition toward evil, but are socialized toward it by the activities of their cultural leaders, which is why they are Usually Neutral Evil or Often Chaotic evil.

But that's my way of handling "evil species" in D&D.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-28, 10:24 AM
yes- given option- I tend to rule Orcs/gobliins etc have no innate predisposition toward evil, but are socialized toward it by the activities of their cultural leaders, which is why they are Usually Neutral Evil or Often Chaotic evil.

Much the same in my games. Orcs aren't Evil evil, they just have a culture that involves some really evil stuff (disrespect for life and autonomy, rule by strength, etc.), and an economy that relies on more evil things (raiding, slavery). For the sake of simplicity, their game-mechanical alignment is "Evil", because it would really suck if stuff that affects Evil-aligned creatures only worked on outsiders and undead or something.

(Oh, and poison isn't evil, and the Assassin PrC doesn't have an alignment prerequisite.)

hamishspence
2008-10-28, 10:27 AM
Interesting note: Fiendish Codex 2 states that actions, not thoughts, determine alignment- you can spend you whole life hating, and fantasising about doing horrible things, but if you never actually do any objectively evil acts, you are not evil by the rules.

Was this a good, bad, or indifferent idea?

kamikasei
2008-10-28, 10:31 AM
Cultures that condone, say, rape and slavery are evil cultures (or, in milder cases, are cultures with evil aspects). The people who have been socialized into those cultures are probably not evil themselves, but many of them probably commit evil acts, which are not made any less evil no matter how much cultural/moral relativism is thrown at them.

Yes, this is pretty much what I'm saying. Part of the problem seems to be that saying a particular thing is evil is taken as saying that everyone who does it is evil too.


For the sake of simplicity, their game-mechanical alignment is "Evil", because it would really suck if stuff that affects Evil-aligned creatures only worked on outsiders and undead or something.

Well, that's not much of a house rule so far as I understand it. If you're evil because your society conditioned you to view evil things as normal and therefore you do evil things all the time, then your alignment is Evil and you suffer all the problems that entails when faced with a group of goody two-shoes adventurers. Now, if you're ruling that an orc, because he hails from an evil culture, has been socialized to evil and therefore is Evil in game mechanics even if he lives a blameless and good life, then you're getting in to unusual interpretation territory.

hamishspence
2008-10-28, 10:39 AM
I figure Often evil means in any village there will be Evil, some neutral, maybe a few Good, who are either very quiet about their nature, and compassionate, or on the brink of rebelling and breaking out.

snoopy13a
2008-10-28, 11:20 AM
Interesting note: Fiendish Codex 2 states that actions, not thoughts, determine alignment- you can spend you whole life hating, and fantasising about doing horrible things, but if you never actually do any objectively evil acts, you are not evil by the rules.

Was this a good, bad, or indifferent idea?

I think it is an acceptable idea. In order for one to be considered "good" they must combine actions with their beliefs. A person with good intentions who doesn't actually do anything is neutral. The converse should be true about people with evil intentions who don't actually do anything.

Additionally, evil thoughts are often thought of as "temptations". Temptations by themselves do not make someone evil, it is when they give in to them that causes the shift. There are two main reasons why someone would not give in to their thoughts and fantasies. One is that they feel it is morally wrong, the other is a fear of being caught and punished.

Those who fear being caught will likely end up committing some evil actions eventually. They may not murder someone but they may do lesser evil actions that would give them a lesser chance of being caught. For example, an evil waitress isn't going to kill a customer but she might steal tips (a crime that she could easily get away with) from a poor coworker who needs the money to feed her family.

Those who believe it is morally wrong may or not become evil. Some may hold off on evil actions forever and end up being good or neutral. Others will end up commit evil actions even if they know it is wrong and end up being evil.

kamikasei
2008-10-28, 11:25 AM
Interesting note: Fiendish Codex 2 states that actions, not thoughts, determine alignment- you can spend you whole life hating, and fantasising about doing horrible things, but if you never actually do any objectively evil acts, you are not evil by the rules.

Was this a good, bad, or indifferent idea?

I think it depends on why you don't commit any evil acts. If it's because you think they're evil and you don't want to do evil, then it seems reasonable to me that you get to be considered Good (or at least Neutral). If you just fear punishment, then I'm less sanguine about it. On the other hand, this seems pretty contrived - I mean, a person full to the brim with hate and rage is going to do some evil I'm sure. Couldn't say whether it'd be enough for Fiendish Codex's standards to flag him as evil, though.

hamishspence
2008-10-28, 11:38 AM
hatred, maybe scale down to simmering resentment. another possibility is timidity- person is just to reserved to actually do those evil acts.

I suspect most people have fantasised a time or two when cut off in traffic.

Heroes of Horror describes a cleric of Cas, God of Spite, who is this trope to a T.

Riffington
2008-10-28, 11:50 AM
And in both cases, one does oneself a disservice by accepting their writings as absolute.

I agree. They understand physics and morality, respectively better than I ever will. Yet neither is exactly correct. They do approximate absolute truths, but are only approximations.


Am I guilty of nitpicking if I point out that a duty to love is a contradiction in terms?

No, this is a common but incorrect assumption. It turns out that love is in part an act of will.

hamishspence
2008-10-28, 01:59 PM
Now I have seen arguments that fantasising about evil acts is morally equal to doing them. But I find them unconvincing.

Aquillion
2008-10-28, 02:25 PM
Let me ask you this, in all honesty: how do you expect people to demonstrate that cultural relativism means that they cannot object to certain actions that we think are absolutely horrible without listing moral actions that everyone pretty much thinks ARE absolutely horrible?That is a mischaracterization of cultural relativism, albeit a common one.

Cultural relativism is the belief that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be understood in terms of their own culture. It is not intended as a framework for moral evaluation, or as a substitute for your own framework of moral evaluation; it is, instead, a principal that anthropologists and others involved in intercultural studies use to remind themselves that the experiences, pressures, situations and realities faced by people from a different time and culture may vary wildly from those you are familiar with.

This does not mean that (for instance) you cannot judge human sacrifice, morally, or that you have to leave your own views about human sacrifice on the doorstep; what it means is that you must be mindful of the fact that an Aztec priest who performs a ceremonial sacrifice at the height of the Aztec empire is committing an utterly different and essentially incomparable act to, say, someone from New Jersey who sacrifices their neighbor in their garage.

Cultural relativism states the fairly uncontroversial fact that the anthropologist reading an account of that Aztec priest's life should not go OH MY GOD, THIS MAN IS AN INSANE MURDERER and let that color their interpretations of the rest of his life (the way you likely would when reading about the guy from New Jersey). If you were looking at the murderer from New Jersey, say, you would likely want to examine his childhood, his relations with others, and so forth to see hints of the sociopathy that no doubt led him to commit such a terrible crime; but it would likely be inappropriate (and unproductive) to try and do that with the Aztec, whose actions are the result of a completely different set of circumstances.

That doesn't mean that human sacrifice is excused (or condemned); again, cultural relativism is not a value system. It is a system for understanding people, events, and systems from other cultures, not for passing (or not passing) ethical judgment on them.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-28, 02:26 PM
Now I have seen arguments that fantasising about evil acts is morally equal to doing them. But I find them unconvincing.

Every person fantasizes about performing evil acts. I can see priests arguing something like this (since it's in the advantage of religion to make everyone feel guilty all the time about anything and nothing), but it's obviously a BS argument.

It would be even more inappropriate applied to D&D, since it'd lead to stuff like every single paladin automatically falling without doing anything.

Daimbert
2008-10-28, 02:26 PM
But it is just that when you compare it to the maximum extreme, which no one can obviously argue with without be classed as a support of such things, that really isn't fair is it?

Actually, it's quite fair, because the point of the argument is to show that if you accept cultural relativism as a moral system/code/idea, you have to accept that some things that we think of as absolutely and horrifically morally wrong aren't necessarily immoral, but that all that matters is what the culture thinks is morally right or wrong. To refuse to allow anyone to raise that sort of argument would be unfair, because it would remove the main argument against cultural relativism, which is that in at least these cases it seems that the morality of the situation does NOT depend on what the culture thinks about it.

Now, if someone simply uses that to claim that the person is immoral if they accept those consequences of cultural relativism, then that is indeed wrong and unfair. But you seemed to be challenging the examples more than the specific use of them.

To highlight the issue more, another example that is commonly used in these discussions is slavery: how can you say that a society that abolishes slavery is any better than one that maintains it if cultural relativism is true? But this could lead to the idea that someone who defends cultural relativism supports slavery, which is fairly bad in and of itself. How weak do the opponents of cultural relativism have to go before they are allowed to point out the seemingly immoral things that cultural relativism insists are not necessarily immoral?

Ultimately, if the defender of cultural relativism cannot show how their stance does NOT support considering those things not necessarily immoral, then they've probably lost without the connotations. And if they want to accept those consequences, they should just do so, and let the rest of the situation shake out if they get attacked for being immoral because of it.


It is like that Christian guy a year back on some news channel show. A woman somewhere in a very remote area of India married a snake. So he was demanding that ALL homosexuals in the USA prove that allowing them to marry won't lead to that, before they should receive the right to be together here in the US.

While in some sense the argument would be that that sort of argument is a slippery slope argument, the best way to defeat it is indeed to show that allowing homosexuals to marry will not lead to that, which can be done quite easily by showing that in the US (and other jurisdictions) marriage is a contract, and contracts by definition require the consent of those who can consent. Snakes cannot legally consent, so it is not possible that the Us will allow snakes to marry, or a woman to marry a snake.

It's always better TO address the slope than to simply dismiss the concern. Polygamy, for example, is a valid concern; since that often has religious grounding, why would it be less of a human rights violation to deny number based on religion than based on gender?


I really don't care what side you are on for the whole equal rights thing. It's not the point. It is that it's an underhanded tactic for winning (or at least ending with you having the last word) an argument. I personally feel taht respecting others' beliefs and traditons is important, even if you don;t agree with them, but if I tried to argue that I would be labeled a child molester or at least someone who supports it. Much like the whole comparing the other group to a Nazi trick (I believe there is a whole internet rule for that).

This seems to be an issue of overstatement of a position (by whom, I'm not certain [grin]); most people accept that you should respect other peoples' beliefs and traditions, but also that some things are just morally wrong and are not made morally right because it is a cultural belief or tradition. The extreme argument is raised against the latter claim, not the former. So if you wanted to say the former and come across the extreme argument, simply stating that you are not an absolute cultural relativist but that SOME things are clearly only acceptable or unacceptable based on what the culture claims and so must be respected. And then you can move on to hashing out what those specific things are.




Also, on that topic research the average life-span for people in 3rd and lower level countries/cultures, and then try to figure out why people don't wait until they are 18-21 to get married and have kids. You need to start early fi you only live to 26-early 30s if you are lucky.

I think that few will argue that age of consent laws are not culturally relative; I also think that most will argue that sex with a child who has not attained puberty is abuse.

hamishspence
2008-10-28, 02:28 PM
Unfortunately, quoting the source would break forum rules.

Are we separting cultural relativism and moral relativism here?

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-28, 02:30 PM
Cultural relativism states, essentially, the fairly uncontroversial fact that the anthropologist reading an account of that Aztec priest's life should not go OH MY GOD, THIS MAN IS AN INSANE MURDERER (the way you would when reading about the guy from New Jersey).

I'm not sure why this needs to be a cultural issue, since it can be seen within cultures a whole lot. A soldier killing an enemy soldier isn't an insane murderer either, and the morality of the act is at least theoretically unaffected. (Although someone could certainly hold the opinion that it's a different act, morally.)

Also, I think people are confusing cultural relativism and moral relativism, which aren't the same thing. (Although moral relativism isn't exactly the idea that "you can't judge things" either.)

hamishspence
2008-10-28, 02:32 PM
I've seen it argued that no act is evil in itself, since context is everything, and in the right context, any act is justifiable so not evil.

Daimbert
2008-10-28, 02:32 PM
That is a mischaracterization of cultural relativism, albeit a common one.

Cultural relativism is the belief that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be understood in terms of their own culture. It is not intended as a framework for moral evaluation, or as a substitute for your own framework of moral evaluation; it is, instead, a principal that anthropologists and others involved in intercultural studies use to remind themselves that the experiences, pressures, situations and realities faced by people from a different time and culture may vary wildly from those you are familiar with.

You are confusing the anthropological usage of the term with the ethical usage of the term. In anthropology, you are correct, but it is more about leaving your own preconceptions at the door and not imposing a) your own interpretations on a culture that doesn't work in that way and b) not judging the culture inferior because it is, say, "primitive" to yours. It says nothing about right and wrong.

Ethically, however, cultural relativism in ethics takes that a step further and -- in line with what the OP said -- states that you cannot judge an action as morally wrong since morality depends on the culture that defines it. So I'm using it in the sense that it is being used in the thread, it seems.


This does not mean that (for instance) you cannot judge human sacrifice, morally, or that you have to leave your own views about human sacrifice on the doorstep; what it means is that you must be mindful of the fact that an Aztec priest who performs a ceremonial sacrifice at the height of the Aztec empire is committing an utterly different and essentially incomparable act to, say, someone from New Jersey who sacrifices their neighbor in their garage.

Cultural relativism states, essentially, the fairly uncontroversial fact that the anthropologist reading an account of that Aztec priest's life should not go OH MY GOD, THIS MAN IS AN INSANE MURDERER (the way you would when reading about the guy from New Jersey).

This is getting further into psychology; the person should not assume that they have the same motivations (the insane part), but can certainly call them both murderers. Well, actually, he can't, because murder is defined as unlawful killing and the Aztec is not committing a crime, but you can translate that to morality and get what I mean [grin].


That doesn't mean that human sacrifice is excused (or condemned); again, cultural relativism is not a value system. It is a system for understanding people, events, and systems from other cultures, not for passing (or not passing) ethical judgment on them.

Unless, of course, we're talking about the ETHICAL theory of cultural relativism, which we seem to be in this thread.

hamishspence
2008-10-28, 02:34 PM
I think someone said Murder is only Unjustified killing, the legal definition is completely irrelevant. I argued an act has to be neither Unlawful killing, nor Unjustified killing, to count as Not Murder.

Daimbert
2008-10-28, 02:35 PM
Unfortunately, quoting the source would break forum rules.

Are we separting cultural relativism and moral relativism here?

Moral relativism is either the umbrella term for the relativisms, or if in the specific sense is the term for morality depends on the individual.

That being said, cultural relativism is indeed a technical term in anthropology, and the poster that corrected me is indeed generally correct about it. That's just not what it means in ethics [grin].

EDIT: And let me add one thing: as stated, it is the case that it doesn't really say that you CAN'T judge others' morality, just that that is nothing more than a personal opinion and that they have no need to care about your opinion.


I think someone said Murder is only Unjustified killing, the legal definition is completely irrelevant. I argued an act has to be neither Unlawful killing, nor Unjustified killing, to count as Not Murder.

I was just using the dictionary definition, which is indeed that. Morally, as I said, it's used slightly differently.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-28, 02:36 PM
I've seen it argued that no act is evil in itself, since context is everything, and in the right context, any act is justifiable so not evil.

It's certainly an argument, although I don't see how it follows that if X isn't evil in situation Y, it's never immoral. And I'd be interested in what realistic circumstance someone could come up with where rape, domestic violence, slavery, or murder isn't evil. (Without resorting to semantics and generalizing along the lines of murder -> killing.)

And it doesn't automatically follow that if something evil can be justified, it's not evil anymore.

Krrth
2008-10-28, 02:40 PM
It's certainly an argument, although I don't see how it follows that if X isn't evil in situation Y, it's never immoral. And I'd be interested in what realistic circumstance someone could come up with where rape, domestic violence, slavery, or murder isn't evil. (Without resorting to semantics and generalizing along the lines of murder -> killing.)

And it doesn't automatically follow that if something evil can be justified, it's not evil anymore.
....I invite you to check out some of the [3E] Paladin threads on falling then. Some of the more vocal opinions stated just that. For that matter, check out the Assassin thread for murder=! Evil.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-28, 02:44 PM
Oh, I should assume that in D&D, killing isn't evil, because if it is, there's no such thing as a Good-aligned PC, and definitely no paladins. (Except the two guys in the history of the game who only dealt subdual/nonlethal damage.)

D&D ethics have nothing at all to do with real-world ethics. The very basis is entirely different - Good and Evil are manifest metaphysical forces in the universe, with absolute and objective natures.

hamishspence
2008-10-28, 02:47 PM
the classic Murder Is Not Evil one is when one innocent life has to be sacrificed to save many. A favourite in paladin falling dilemmas. And very commonly, people insist that its not evil to murder one person to save many.

I've even seen it argued that if two men are in lifeboat- only enough food for one to survive to reach shore, sudden unprovoked attack on other, killing them, is not Evil, because its done to survive.

The rape one usually goes: animals are always neutral, some animals force intercourse on other members of their own species, therefore by BoVD commiting evil act, yet since All Animals are Neutral, that would break that rule,.

Krrth
2008-10-28, 02:50 PM
Oh, I should assume that in D&D, killing isn't evil, because if it is, there's no such thing as a Good-aligned PC, and definitely no paladins. (Except the two guys in the history of the game who only dealt subdual/nonlethal damage.)

D&D ethics have nothing at all to do with real-world ethics. The very basis is entirely different - Good and Evil are manifest metaphysical forces in the universe, with absolute and objective natures.
To you and I maybe. That's why any thread that deals with alignment gets nasty quickly. A lot of people keep bringing real world situations, as well as situational ethics, into the mix. You know, along the lines of "While this act is normally Evil, in this situation it is really Good."
It is usually countered with "No, it is the lesser of the Evil's, but is still Evil".
....I guess this is my strange way of saying that today's modern society is getting more and more realitivistic in ethics, and seems reluctent to judge anything as truly "Evil". This bleeds over into RPG's in general. D&D is especially weak against this because it does have moral and ethical absolutes, whereas the real world may or may not have.

kamikasei
2008-10-28, 02:54 PM
The rape one usually goes: animals are always neutral, some animals force intercourse on other members of their own species, therefore by BoVD commiting evil act, yet since All Animals are Neutral, that would break that rule,.

"Usually"? As in, this argument has actually been made? It's absurd. Exactly the same argument could be made for murder. Animals are not moral agents and can do things to one another that would be evil if done by one human to another, yet remain neutral because morality simply doesn't apply to them.

hamishspence
2008-10-28, 02:56 PM
EDIT: sorry, wrong person

I've also seen "Lesser of two evils is Good, not evil" and "Neccessary Evil is a contradiction in terms, if its necessary, its not Evil" from others.

Krrth
2008-10-28, 02:57 PM
"Usually"? As in, this argument has actually been made? It's absurd. Exactly the same argument could be made for murder. Animals are not moral agents and can do things to one another that would be evil if done by one human to another, yet remain neutral because morality simply doesn't apply to them.

If you want to see this stuff in action, check out alignment threads. If you really want to see extremes, look for the umpteen billion "Belkar isn't evil" threads in the OOTS section. People actually argued that one even after The Giant came out and said Belkar is evil.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-28, 02:59 PM
"Usually"? As in, this argument has actually been made? It's absurd. Exactly the same argument could be made for murder. Animals are not moral agents and can do things to one another that would be evil if done by one human to another, yet remain neutral because morality simply doesn't apply to them.

That's pretty much the key point. If it's not a moral agent, it cannot be evil or good regardless of whether it's actions are evil or good. (The argument would also demolish pretty much every good and evil action in D&D when followed through with, anyway.)

At least that's a "within D&D" argument. I would be sickened beyond belief by anyone arguing in a real-world context that because animals do and will rape each other, it's not evil.

hamishspence
2008-10-28, 03:04 PM
I might have to backcheck, see what context it was in.

kamikasei
2008-10-28, 03:05 PM
I would be sickened beyond belief by anyone arguing in a real-world context that because animals do and will rape each other, it's not evil.

It's probably been done. Naturalistic fallacy.


I've also seen "Lesser of two evils is Good, not evil" and "Neccessary Evil is a contradiction in terms, if its necessary, its not Evil" from others.

I can see the point there. Depending on how you regard good and evil, taking the best available option is necessarily good, and never evil.

hamishspence
2008-10-28, 03:28 PM
depends how bad "the best available option" is. If you believe that it's never Evil, you end up saying paladins could be Inquisitors in 40K, since sometimes scorching a planet of several billion is the best available option.

Dervag
2008-10-28, 03:37 PM
Talk about an insensitive post! :smalltongue:You're absolutely right. By the looks of it, that beholder will never sense anything again...


Bah, he should use Tabacco, a natural bug killer.OK, assume he uses tobacco.

Curare is naturally occuring too. Why is it right to use tabacco as a poison and not curare?
__________


I disagree. There are no moral absolutes.I would argue that there are moral absolutes, but that identifying them is difficult because life is complicated. They probably won't take the form of specific things we are required to always do or to never do, because there are situations where any conceivable action would be nonsensical.

As a slightly facetious example, we could have a rule "never eat bacon." But that leads to the result of people starving to death in the middle of big piles of bacon. Which is absurd. If it's a matter of bacon or death, you should choose bacon.

But this does not mean that there are no moral absolutes. It only means that there are no (or very very few) absolute prescriptive rules that can tell you about an action you should always perform no matter what, or never perform no matter what.
__________


If you rule that poisons are evil, then using acid is also evil, because it produces poison; it'd be like a Paladin wielding a sword that eats a baby for every attack you make with it.

Or something. I don't know, I'm not good with analogies.:smalleek:

That's a scary analogy.

hamishspence
2008-10-28, 03:45 PM
One I saw was- never initiate violence- must be self-defence only. Pre-emptive self defence works if threat is clear and immediate. This is at individual level.

At group level- retaliatory violence only- again, plus self defence- Country attacks yours- you may return violence until attacker is no longer a threat.

This may extend to defending other countries from those who initiate violence.

Devils_Advocate
2008-10-28, 06:38 PM
Whether morality is relative or absolute is a semantic question. It depends entirely on what is meant by "morality". Or at least I have a hard time seeing how giving a coherent definition wouldn't answer the question. Some meanings of "morality" may refer to something subjective, and some may refer to something objective. One objective meaning of "morality" may differ from another objective meaning, and one subjective meaning of "morality" may even differ from another subjective meaning. Some of these meanings may have a lot of overlap, but that doesn't make them the same.

Exacerbating the problem is that there's a bunch of words -- "good", "moral", "evil", "should", etc. -- that people define in terms of each other. So two people can agree on how these words work in relation to each other and wind up thinking that they're agreeing about what the words actually refer to. But of course the real question is what sets of things in the actual world those words are being used to refer to, not how they relate to each other.

Now, once you're actually talking with someone about a particular thing, then you can bring in factual beliefs e.g. about whether Moloch exists.

But it's pretty clear that the problem in most of these discussions isn't a dispute over facts, it's a lack of a clear idea of what's even being discussed. No amount of hard facts will settle a definitional dispute. Facts serve to settle factual disputes; definitions settle definitional disputes.

And no, I'm not suggesting looking things up in the dictionary, which will often describe a set of related words in the circular fashion I mention above. I'm not even suggesting an attempt to achieve a consensus on which definitions to use, because that's probably not gonna happen.

What I suggest is simply avoiding vague and ambiguous terms to the extent possible and using more precise words instead. Do your best to select words that clearly mean what you want them to mean. Employing a bunch of ambiguous words in a way that someone else disagrees with will make it hard for them to follow what you're saying even if you explain what you mean, and probably annoy the other person, who will likely regard your language as disingenuous.

This is why Benevolent, Malevolent, Conformist, and Individualist would be better alignment names than Good, Evil, Lawful, and Chaotic. It's not easy for people take words with loads of real-world meanings and connotations and start rigidly using them in a specific way. It's far better to pick words that already match as closely as possible the meanings you want.

Riffington
2008-10-28, 07:03 PM
It's not easy for people take words with loads of real-world meanings and connotations and start rigidly using them in a specific way. It's far better to pick words that already match as closely as possible the meanings you want.

But you may want those connotations. It is a long logical train to connect poison-usage with animating corpses. But in many campaigns, the players do want to connect those two things, via the connotation-laden, logically-ambiguous concept of "villainy". It's a really useful word, and a really useful linkage for many purposes.

When playing a game, it's often fun to distinguish evil villains from decent people who happen to be on the other side. When talking about real life, it's important to be able to say "No, begging for a handout isn't theft" rather than "Oh, given your definitions, I guess that guy just robbed you".

snoopy13a
2008-10-28, 07:25 PM
I've even seen it argued that if two men are in lifeboat- only enough food for one to survive to reach shore, sudden unprovoked attack on other, killing them, is not Evil, because its done to survive.



Here's an actual account of a lifeboat scenario:

http://www0.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A671492

Note that they:

1) Rationed all food equally even though it wasn't enough
2) At first, they buried the dead at sea
3) Later on, they resorted to cannibalism of dead crew
4) At the very end, one boat drew straws to see who would be killed and ate

So, even in the lifeboat scenario, unprovoked killing the other person would be evil. In an actual example, they exhausted every other possiblity before drawing straws at the end.

EvilElitest
2008-10-28, 09:20 PM
No, they don't.

BoED, BoVD, Fiendish Codex II, ect ect, they go into plenty of detail. Ok, there are some annoying inconsistencies, but...



Consider the issue of how and whether a person's beliefs determine the alignment of his actions. The Book of Vile Darkness addresses the example of someone poisoning a town's water supply, believing the town's inhabitants to be demons. And it says both that this act is Evil and that it's probably not! Apparently, it's Evil when done by "a maniac", but probably not Evil when the character was tricked into this belief by someone else.

That isn't that hard. If the person is doing it to harm people, for what ever reason, he is evil. A maniac isn't following a logical train of thought, but he is still deilberatly hurting innocent people. A normal person who is simply tricked isn't hurting people on purpose. For example, if i pull a lever in a tomb, not knowing what it does, and ten prisoners are killed because of it, am i evil? no, i just pulled a level. If i knew and pulled the lever, regardless of my motivations, i'm being evil. insane people cannot think rationally to an extent, but they are still commiting an evil action, while the good person is just being tricked.


So... What the hell? What makes the guy in the first case more Evil than the guy in the second? Is it that if you're just doing what the voices in your head tell you, you're still fully responsible for your actions, because the cause is still fully within you? If so, would it be not Evil if a telepath put the voices in your head, instead of them occurring due to natural insanity? Or is the standard here that actions should be judged based on what a "reasonable person" would think... even if the reasonable person would be wrong?

Because the first person knew he was hurting people who were innocent, while the second guy was just being tricked. The second guy is gullible, but he isn't actually aware of waht he is doing, while the first one is. Ok, he is insane and is delusional, but he is still commiting an evil action by knowenly killing these people, which is murder, while the other guy is unknowingly killing innocent people. Its a crappy example yeah, but the point still is valid, accidental murder vs. deliberate murder.



I don't know. And the book certainly doesn't tell me. It doesn't lay out a clear standard by which they're distinguishing between the two cases, so if I want to know what standard they're using, I pretty much have to guess.

The section on ravages in the BoED is another example of this. If ability-damaging poison causes "undue suffering", does that mean that it's worse than being stabbed or set on fire? Or are do those cause equally bad or worse suffering that's somehow "due"? Or are those more standard means of attack also evil? Do ravages not cause as much suffering as poison? If they do cause just as much suffering, is using regular poison on Evil creatures also non-Evil? If not, why are ravages less Evil to use against Evil creatures than poison?
as i said, there are few inconsistencies. The system as a whole is actually pretty sound, but there are a few silly things. Like ravages, or poison altogether, its a bad idea. So is necromancy and mind control. But they area few problems in an other wise good system. That doesn't change the fact ravages are retareded, but its just a few kinks in a sound system



I don't know. And the reason that I don't know is that there's no clear basis on which some acts are distinguished as Evil. If there were such a basis, everything else would presumably fall into place. But it's not even clear whether there was meant to be a basis, or just an Official List of Evil Acts. If the latter, they really should have just made simple chart listing all of the deeds that are always Evil no matter what. That would clarify things a lot.
That would a little too simplistic, and it kinda is redundent. your right, presentation is crap, but there is a general idea of waht is evil and what is not

Rape is always evil
Murder is always evil
Torture is always evil
Demon/devil worship is always evil
Uwe Boll is always evil
FATAL is always evil
Dominic Degan is evil
Wait, i lost it there

point is, there is an established standard, its just takes a lot of heavy reading to figure it out. Which is why i don't get good math grades



No, it doesn't.

The Book of Exalted Deeds explains that a Good character must accept surrender, no matter how often villains escape from captivity to continue their misdeeds. So if you've got a horrible mass murderer on your hands, and he's somehow escaped you and gone on murdering people several times in the past, and you have every reason to believe that this will happen again... a Good character will not just kill him. There is explicitly no exception for this situation.
Um, yeah, that makes perfect sense. Killing prisioners is an extremly foul, vile and evil deed regardless of the situation (except being if he is something like a demon or devil of course). Now you can lawfully execute somebody, but all people are still people and you need to respect their lives if they give up. that doesn't mean you have to be moronic and not be careful, i'd knock him out (can't get brain damage in D&D:smallwink:) again and again until we can be sure he won't escape. But when a man asks for mercy, part of being good is being able to accept it.


Under other circumstances, it is acceptable for Good characters to kill Evil characters in order to protect innocents. But once the Evil characters are no longer resisting arrest, apparently it's not. And this is explicitly not because they're no longer a threat. Good characters, apparently, have a code of conduct that they value more than the lives of innocent people.


Good people can kill people when they are fighting back and don't have any other choice. When they surrender, they are affectivly putting their lives in your hand, and it is your duty to respect that. Good is honoring the sancity of life, mercy and forgivness are part of good, other wise you are little better than they are. And hwo says they don't care about innocents. Of course they do, that is why they will try their very best to make sure they aren't a threat. But that doesn't justify murder


That doesn't make any sort of sense. It's nonsensical, counterintuitive, and frankly pretty bloody stupid. "Let justice be done, though the heavens fall!" makes far more sense as a LN thing, at least by default.

no its not, its respect for human life and understanding of mercy. There is a reason why the Geneva convenction is against killing prisoners.





Well, here's the thing. "Killing" and "protecting innocents" may describe the same physical act: bringing your sword down into the flesh of the evil goblins. The act has multiple consequences (the goblin dies, the goblin doesn't kill innocents, etc.), and can be described in terms of any of them, but the same actual deed is being referenced in both cases. A more complete description of the act than either of the preceding ones would be "protecting innocents by killing".
The idea is that you only kill when you have no other choice. The act of killing can never be good. Protecting innocents is good. Protecting the innocent is stopping the Goblin threat, methods don't matter. Killing is a specific action used to protect innocents, it isn't the action itself. If the situation can be solved non violently, all the better



Right. If people in the game world call something "good" or "evil", that's more of an indication that it's Lawful or Chaotic respectively, if they're using those words the way they're used in the real world. Lots of things that official material associates with Good and Evil would make more sense to associate with Law and Chaos, and it would be best to rename the Good and Evil alignments Benevolence and Malevolence or something for clarity, since the terms they chose for them have so many potentially misleading connotations.
again, good and evil are difference from right and wrong



I foresee that you and EE will get along well.

(Good luck, btw. I'm on your side with this one.)
eh?

wait a second Morloch was a real god? I thought it was myth?

from
EE

horseboy
2008-10-28, 10:54 PM
Chiming in on the topic in general, I generally tell people to deal with it and grow a thicker skin.

It takes two people to be offended - one person to say something, and the other person to choose to be offended.
+1 to this. Of course, we're from the generation where Pollock jokes were considered "good, clean fun." I'll leave it to individuals as to which group is better off.
Also, on that topic research the average life-span for people in 3rd and lower level countries/cultures, and then try to figure out why people don't wait until they are 18-21 to get married and have kids. You need to start early if you only live to 26-early 30s if you are lucky.3rd world? You can marry a girl that's 15 in Arkansas, pretty sure Kansas is 14.

As far as eating poisoned things go, I'm surprised no one (that I saw) brought up what's poison for one species isn't necessarily poisonous to others. Chocolate, Onions, Garlic are all poisonous to canines, but beneficial to humans.

Dervag
2008-10-29, 12:58 AM
As far as eating poisoned things go, I'm surprised no one (that I saw) brought up what's poison for one species isn't necessarily poisonous to others. Chocolate, Onions, Garlic are all poisonous to canines, but beneficial to humans.Yeah, like how tobacco poisons bugs but not humans... wait, nevermind. :smallconfused:

Avilan the Grey
2008-10-29, 02:27 AM
My $45 (or something)

This whole can of carrion crawlers is one of the reasons that D&D remains such a love-hate thing for me.

Anyway, over the years I have only played one game with a DM that practiced the Good-Evil thing as (some of) the book(s) say. Because it doesn't work.

There are so many variables:

First of all there is the quite significant difference between Evil and evil, Good and good, Law and law and (you guessed it) Chaos and chaotic. The capital letter ones are the divine absolutes. Only a god or other extraplanar being could be expected to be a moral absolute. People (and orks) are evil. Bhaal is Evil. A paladin can never be Good, but he better try his best to be good. The laws laid down by man or humanoid is never the same as Law.

Second is the cultural and historical differences, as has been argued so interestingly above: There were a few states in the US, if I remember correctly that only 100 years ago allowed marriage at the age of 7 (at least for girls). That's how quickly our moral compass is shifting. It was only 40 years since the Civil Rights movement. There are still people hating others for the color of their skin. Sometimes our moral compass is not shifting fast enough...
I remember reading The Deeds of Paksenarrion and thinking that according to modern values, Paks would never have become a Paladin: The most glaring example is her acceptance (and part-taking in) of Plunder of a fallen city, something that we do not accept as even remotely "good" thing these days.But in the semi-medieval time that the books are set, it makes perfect sense, as long as the plunder does not go overboard and is sanctioned by the commanding officer of the conquering army. It was, after all, one of the accepted ways to feed and support your army.
If you set a D&D campaign in a Roman- or Greek like world, slavery will be a neutral thing, not an evil thing, or everyone will be evil. You will have to adjust the alignment scales to fit the world you are playing (unless you want to play GRIMDARK obviously).

Anyway, the way we usually played was much more dependent on the Gods, and their views. Yes there were not huge differences (No paladin could serve a god that ate babies :smallwink:) but there were some in-party arguments between the Paladin serving the Lawful Good god of Protection, which favored fidelity, life long marriages etc) and the Paladin that served the Lawful Good Goddess of Love, who's temples also were well, bordellos, where you could enjoy yourself for free but were encouraged to leave a donation when you left, etc.

Laurellien
2008-10-29, 03:53 AM
(Oh, and poison isn't evil, and the Assassin PrC doesn't have an alignment prerequisite.)

WOAH!!!! Hold up there little buddy, but I'm afraid that you are...



Requirements
To qualify to become an assassin, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.

Alignment
Any evil.

...WRONG...



Using
poison that deals ability damage is an evil act because it causes
undue suffering in the process of incapacitating or killing an
opponent. Of the poisons described in the Dungeon Master’s
Guide, only one is acceptable for good characters to use: oil of
taggit, which deals no damage but causes unconsciousness.


WRONG!

I'm afraid that without specifically including a sidebar that says



Tsotha-lanti is WRONG!


then you couldn't be more wrong by RAW.

EDIT: Apparently, neither could I... I took the fact that it was in brackets and in a different paragraph with a lot of white space between it and the previous statements to mean that it was a proper statement. My apologies over the confusion.

kamikasei
2008-10-29, 03:59 AM
Laurellien,


Much the same in my games...
(Oh, and poison isn't evil, and the Assassin PrC doesn't have an alignment prerequisite.)

He was describing how he plays, not the RAW.

Laurellien
2008-10-29, 04:18 AM
Laurellien,



He was describing how he plays, not the RAW.

I took the fact that it was in brackets and in a different paragraph with a lot of white space between it and the previous statements to mean that it was a proper statement. My apologies over the confusion.

Although, I hope he removes the part about killing to get into the assassins.

In reparation, I offer Tsotha Lanthi goods and services amounting to two internet cookies and an internet.

Oh, and a basket full of itteh bitteh kittehs.

http://kiheiveterinary.e-siteworks.com/nss-folder/pictures/img_kitten-basket_02.jpg

Tengu_temp
2008-10-29, 04:24 AM
wait a second Morloch was a real god? I thought it was myth?


Depending on the perspective, each and every god in human history can be either a myth or real.

Mandatory Wikipedia link. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch)

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-29, 04:42 AM
Man, that BoED quote sucks so hard. Did they not notice drow poison in the DMG? I could swear that stuff is in there.

kamikasei
2008-10-29, 04:53 AM
Man, that BoED quote sucks so hard. Did they not notice drow poison in the DMG? I could swear that stuff is in there.

Two possibilities. Drow poison doesn't deal ability damage, so while they erred in their "only one poison is acceptable" comment, it's still non-evil by the first part of the quote. Alternatively, the quote is intended to apply to ingested/inhaled rather than injury poisons.

Laurellien
2008-10-29, 04:54 AM
Man, that BoED quote sucks so hard. Did they not notice drow poison in the DMG? I could swear that stuff is in there.

Yeah, but Drow knockout poison is just that, knockout poison, which the quote says is alright to use. In fact...


Ironically, the poison favored by the evil drow, which causes unconsciousness as its initial damage, is also not inherently evil
to use.

Tengu_temp
2008-10-29, 04:58 AM
The irony here is that they expect us to buy a subversion of Hitler Ate Sugar (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HitlerAteSugar) as ironic.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-29, 08:26 AM
They don't know what "ironic" means, either. I despair.

hamishspence
2008-10-29, 08:33 AM
Moloch in D&D was an Archdevil, betrayed by his consort and kicked out of his layer of the Nine Hells.

paddyfool
2008-10-29, 09:08 AM
Hm. Going back to the poison dart frogs, if you were a D&D DM, and had a player who wanted his Paladin to use a poison with fluff and mechanics that made it vaguely like Epibatidine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epibatidine) (a highly effective poison that is also a highly effective painkiller) when he was sure he had to kill his opponent, and which would both make his weapons more effective at killing his opponent and reduce their suffering in the process, would that not be OK? Alternatively, they could also use Batrachotoxin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batrachotoxin) to ensure that the target is almost immediately paralysed to prevent them doing any harm, and then dies very quickly afterwards to prevent them suffering. A further ethical note on Batrachotoxin is that you can harvest it without killing the frog...

Some further D&D notes: What if you had a bit of a munchkin of a Paladin who wanted to use Detect Evil on food to check it for Poison? And what if they used the ability on someone who had been injecting Botox to poison the muscles in their face so that they can't wrinkle it up? Would the face register as Evil? :smallwink:

hamishspence
2008-10-29, 09:10 AM
Poison doesn't actually detect as evil. some objects might (Life-stealer swords: "This sword is evil") but not, usually, poison.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-29, 09:27 AM
Yeah, it's not like poison itself is evil, it's the use of poison. Out of object, only magic items can detect as an alignment, generally.

hamishspence
2008-10-29, 09:36 AM
Though in Vile Darkness, objects exposed to catastrophic evil acts may take on evil themselves.

Xykon's Crown may be a case in point.

Starbuck_II
2008-10-29, 09:45 AM
Yeah, it's not like poison itself is evil, it's the use of poison. Out of object, only magic items can detect as an alignment, generally.

But like Coatl are Lawful Good and they use poison (from their tails).

So unless BoED says, " use of manufactored poison is evil", they are smoking something.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-29, 09:50 AM
But like Coatl are Lawful Good and they use poison (from their tails).

So unless BoED says, " use of manufactored poison is evil", they are smoking something.

Y'honor, I believe the weight of the evidence will clearly show that the writers of this so-called Book of Exalted Deeds had no idea what was written in any of the three core D&D rulebooks. [/southern drawl]

hamishspence
2008-10-29, 09:56 AM
Once in, for paladins at least, its stuck- Sandstorm- paladins who become Ashworm Dragoons are required to remove their mount's poison stinger, "with cure spells to ensure the ashworm doesn't suffer" which grants the ashworm all the benefits of being a Paladin's Special Mount.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-29, 10:36 AM
Once in, for paladins at least, its stuck- Sandstorm- paladins who become Ashworm Dragoons are required to remove their mount's poison stinger, "with cure spells to ensure the ashworm doesn't suffer" which grants the ashworm all the benefits of being a Paladin's Special Mount.

That hurts my brain.

hamishspence
2008-10-29, 10:55 AM
though, later books which list evil acts, list them entirely from Vile darkness, poison not included, and Sandstorm simply says "paladins forswear the use of poison"

Problem is, the list didn't mention that some acts are just extremely morally risky rather than evil- vengeance, lying.

horseboy
2008-10-29, 12:12 PM
Yeah, like how tobacco poisons bugs but not humans... wait, nevermind. :smallconfused:Well, one of the origins of all the carcinogens in cigarettes are pesticides to stop "tobacco bugs" from eating the plant. :smallwink:
So, I'd think you're better off with marigolds.

Tengu_temp
2008-10-29, 03:56 PM
But like Coatl are Lawful Good and they use poison (from their tails).

So unless BoED says, " use of manufactored poison is evil", they are smoking something.

The act of manufacturing is evil! Don't you see? DND claims that technological progress is evil, and the good people live in hippy communes, united with nature, singing with wild animals and all that stuff!

hamishspence
2008-10-29, 04:18 PM
apart from BoED, later books have favoured simply Paladins aren't allowed to use it. Ever. Not even from mount.

No limits on Cohorts, though maybe "repeatedly offending against his ethics" will cause paladin to dump said cohort.

So, a Paladin with Leadership and a Couatl Cohort will end up sniffily complaining each time it stabs something with venom, and eventually asking it to leave. Ouch.

Asbestos
2008-10-29, 07:47 PM
Well, one of the origins of all the carcinogens in cigarettes are pesticides to stop "tobacco bugs" from eating the plant. :smallwink:
So, I'd think you're better off with marigolds.

"Organic" Tobacco would still be poisonous for a lot of things (except the well adapted Tobacco eating insects) because of its active ingredient, nicotine, not because it'll give them cancer. It only takes... 50mg (If I remember correctly) to kill an adult human. That's pretty darn toxic. Oh, and its a contact poison, very readily absorbed by the skin.

Aquillion
2008-10-30, 04:37 AM
apart from BoED, later books have favoured simply Paladins aren't allowed to use it. Ever. Not even from mount.I see nothing wrong with that... in fact, it makes perfect sense to me. It's just a vow Paladins take, no different from (say) the Druid prohibitions on armor.

hamishspence
2008-10-30, 08:22 AM
the moral iffiness comes from forcibly depriving said mount of its ability to poison.

On the other hand, people don't complain much about snake charmers drawing the fangs of cobras they keep as pet performers, feeding them rather than expecting them to catch food.

Devils_Advocate
2008-10-30, 06:41 PM
A maniac isn't following a logical train of thought, but he is still deilberatly hurting innocent people. ... Because the first person knew he was hurting people who were innocent, while the second guy was just being tricked. The second guy is gullible, but he isn't actually aware of waht he is doing, while the first one is. Ok, he is insane and is delusional, but he is still commiting an evil action by knowenly killing these people, which is murder, while the other guy is unknowingly killing innocent people. Its a crappy example yeah, but the point still is valid, accidental murder vs. deliberate murder.
NO. In both cases, the individual genuinely believes that the townsfolk are demons. They're both acting on the same belief, they just hold that belief for different reasons. This is how the book presents the scenarios, and how I reiterated them.


That would a little too simplistic, and it kinda is redundent.
Hardly. If you do decide, for some damn reason, to break Evil down into a bunch of special cases, instead of one general rule, then it's helpful to give a handy reference chart, as with AoOs.


your right, presentation is crap, but there is a general idea of waht is evil and what is not
No, there's a bunch of specific cases, and little general idea. That's the problem. There are still a bunch of holes left that a DM has to decide how to fill.


Rape is always evil
Murder is always evil
Torture is always evil
Demon/devil worship is always evil
The problem is that it's unclear whether these even are supposed to be individual applications of a single standard, and if so what that standard is. E.g. Are other forms of violence less evil than torture? If so, why?


Um, yeah, that makes perfect sense. Killing prisioners is an extremly foul, vile and evil deed regardless of the situation (except being if he is something like a demon or devil of course).
How so?


Now you can lawfully execute somebody
How does this not directly contradict what you said above?


Good people can kill people when they are fighting back and don't have any other choice.
Unless you're being irresistibly compelled against your will to kill someone, you can choose not to.

But of course, "having no choice" is commonly used to really mean lacking an acceptable alternative to some action. Glossing over the unacceptable options in turn glosses over any question of just what and what isn't acceptable, by treating the issue as already being resolved without it ever being discussed.


The act of killing can never be good. Protecting innocents is good. Protecting the innocent is stopping the Goblin threat, methods don't matter.
EE, lopping a goblin's head off is an excellent method of killing him and of ensuring that he doesn't harm innocents in the future. And the latter effect happens by way of the former, in this case.

So either protecting innocents by killing is Neutral instead of Good, in which case methods do matter, or it's Good, in which case killing can be Good, or maybe it depends. But it can't be both Good and not Good.


Killing is a specific action used to protect innocents, it isn't the action itself.
I have no clue what you mean here, unless it's that protecting innocents doesn't have to involve killing... in which case, duh. But sometimes it does involve killing, which is my point.

Look, do you disagree a goblin dying and innocents not dying can both be consequences of the same act, e.g. stabbing the goblin? Do you disagree that the act must be exactly one of Good and not Good, i.e. it can't be both or neither?


If the situation can be solved non violently, all the better
Notably, this is one of things that the BoED actually gets right. Disturbingly, some players seem to think that it should be considered good to do bad things to bad people. That's an appalling attitude, and it is fortunately in no way endorsed by any official material. Lawful Good characters may "hate to see the guilty go unpunished", but that's because they see punishment as important in preventing future wrongdoing. Seeking vengeance for the sake of vengeance is never Good; and even if the lives of the wicked are intrinsically worth less, that doesn't mean their lives are worthless.


again, good and evil are difference from right and wrong
Well, those words are commonly used to refer to the same things in real life. D&D doesn't have official Right and Wrong, but I do agree that Good and Evil should be considered separate from cultures' value systems, which would be covered by Law and Chaos.


wait a second Morloch was a real god? I thought it was myth?
What's the difference? Eh, on second thought, let's not start an actual religious discussion; those are against board rules.


But you may want those connotations. It is a long logical train to connect poison-usage with animating corpses. But in many campaigns, the players do want to connect those two things, via the connotation-laden, logically-ambiguous concept of "villainy". It's a really useful word, and a really useful linkage for many purposes.
Such obfuscating terminology is indeed highly useful to those who wish to disingenuously conflate disparate activities, and consequently I hold it in rather low regard. As do others, and quite reasonably so. Officially labeling merely disdained acts "evil" just makes this worse by dragging depressingly familiar real-life moralizing straight into the system as well as the setting. When and if the "villians" merely do things which are frowned upon, instead of actually harmful, the story becomes not a stark black-and-white conflict between kindness and malice, but a struggle over societal standards and individual freedom. And if that stuff isn't covered by the Law/Chaos axis, what the hell is it even there for? It's awfully disingenuous to have that but then pretend that it doesn't exist and isn't distinct from the Good/Evil axis.

Frankly, I'm inclined to disapprove of the notion that labeling anything "evil" makes it OK to treat people who do it as bad guys, in any context. Doing this in D&D prevents me from admiring "Good"-aligned characters with little reservation, because things have been set up such that Team Good is actually rather morally ambiguous (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LightIsNotGood). In addition, saying that this sort of low-cohesion laundry-list morality is actually directly associated with fundamental cosmic forces distinct from mortal convention demolishes my suspension of disbelief.


When playing a game, it's often fun to distinguish evil villains from decent people who happen to be on the other side. When talking about real life, it's important to be able to say "No, begging for a handout isn't theft" rather than "Oh, given your definitions, I guess that guy just robbed you".
I'm not sure I'm following you. Are you saying that a game can be improved by being willing to treat beggars as evil muggers? That seems, um, questionable.

Riffington
2008-10-30, 07:53 PM
Such obfuscating terminology is indeed highly useful to those who wish to disingenuously conflate disparate activities, and consequently I hold it in rather low regard. As do others, and quite reasonably so.


Disingenuous is a strong word. Every action every person takes is different from every other action, but it's important to have categories. And it's often helpful to use moral intuitions to inform those categories. For example, which means of obtaining property are "theft"? The morality of the action provides a good clue. Your impulse right now must be to say "aha, but we can define theft according to legality". But that approach won't work if the question is "what is rape"? After all, in many states women cannot legally rape men. Our moral intuition says they can, and this is far more useful than a strictly legal definition.



When and if the "villians" merely do things which are frowned upon, instead of actually harmful, the story becomes not a stark black-and-white conflict between kindness and malice, but a struggle over societal standards and individual freedom. And if that stuff isn't covered by the Law/Chaos axis, what the hell is it even there for? It's awfully disingenuous to have that but then pretend that it doesn't exist and isn't distinct from the Good/Evil axis.

I am not sure what you are talking about. Obviously there are nonevil things which are frowned upon - failure to bow to the king, polyamory, hustling pool, etc.
On the other hand, raising the dead as one's slaves, poisoning the king's food, and killing prisoners aren't so much chaotic as evil.
It looks like you now agree that there is a Good/Evil axis as well as a Law/Chaos axis. If so, then why not call evil things evil?



Frankly, I'm inclined to disapprove of the notion that labeling anything "evil" makes it OK to treat people who do it as bad guys, in any context... Are you saying that a game can be improved by being willing to treat beggars as evil muggers? That seems, um, questionable.

I am saying that real life is improved by not treating beggars as evil muggers. By having a distinction between evil and non-evil, I can easily avoid doing so. If you avoid calling evil evil, then you will run that risk.
"Those who are kind to the cruel will end up becoming cruel to the kind".

EvilElitest
2008-10-30, 10:40 PM
NO. In both cases, the individual genuinely believes that the townsfolk are demons. They're both acting on the same belief, they just hold that belief for different reasons. This is how the book presents the scenarios, and how I reiterated them.

And in one case he is justify in being delusional. He believes in a reason but he has no true reason. the other person is honestly being tricked. As good and evil are absolute, they know the difference between murder and trickery. The insane man believes based upon his own broken logic. While the other man has no real of knowing


Hardly. If you do decide, for some damn reason, to break Evil down into a bunch of special cases, instead of one general rule, then it's helpful to give a handy reference chart, as with AoOs.

as i said the presentation is bad, but a simply list without reasons are no explantion would be just as bad as the current system


No, there's a bunch of specific cases, and little general idea. That's the problem. There are still a bunch of holes left that a DM has to decide how to fill.

There are some inconsistencies, but besides that they are pretty well established.


The problem is that it's unclear whether these even are supposed to be individual applications of a single standard, and if so what that standard is. E.g. Are other forms of violence less evil than torture? If so, why?

They go into some detail when that is justified. For example, killing in self defense is less evil than torture, but murder is about the same. The thing is, it doesn't need to act on a scale of "more evil' or "less evil" it just needs to work on the basis of evil actions condemning the good people who commit them.


How so?

because that is murder. your a killing a helpless person who has put their life at your disposal. Mercy is a virtue of good, brutality is the belief of evil. The very act of murdering somebody who has given themselves to you, you are proving yourself no better than those you fight against. Everybody deserves a chance to to redeem themselves and a chance to present their case to a fair trial.

Again, there is a reason why the Geneva Convection condemns the murder of prisoners

How does this not directly contradict what you said above?

Because the people have been rightfully tried and convicted, they have been given a fair chance to defend themselves, and present their chance. They aren't simply slaughtering somebody, they are executing them. Justice in D&D is an absolute concept


Unless you're being irresistibly compelled against your will to kill someone, you can choose not to.
But when no other solution is possible, killing is considered a neutral action.


But of course, "having no choice" is commonly used to really mean lacking an acceptable alternative to some action. Glossing over the unacceptable options in turn glosses over any question of just what and what isn't acceptable, by treating the issue as already being resolved without it ever being discussed.


What isn't acceptable are evil solutions, or solutions that wil hurt other people in the process. Killing in D&D isn't evil when justified, and is an acceptable solution



EE, lopping a goblin's head off is an excellent method of killing him and of ensuring that he doesn't harm innocents in the future. And the latter effect happens by way of the former, in this case.

But they are two seperate actions. Talking the goblin into surrendering is also saving innocents. Killing the goblin is the immediate action, while saving the innocent is the action that comes from that. They are separate actions, actually one is a neutral action to achieve a good result


So either protecting innocents by killing is Neutral instead of Good, in which case methods do matter, or it's Good, in which case killing can be Good, or maybe it depends. But it can't be both Good and not Good.

killing is neutral. Saving innocents is neutral. So the result (saving innocents) is good because you used a non evil method (justified murder)




Notably, this is one of things that the BoED actually gets right. Disturbingly, some players seem to think that it should be considered good to do bad things to bad people. That's an appalling attitude, and it is fortunately in no way endorsed by any official material. Lawful Good characters may "hate to see the guilty go unpunished", but that's because they see punishment as important in preventing future wrongdoing. Seeking vengeance for the sake of vengeance is never Good; and even if the lives of the wicked are intrinsically worth less, that doesn't mean their lives are worthless.
pretty much . And i like how they make it clear that vengeance is evil (we all learned something from Titus i hope) because its just rage.


Well, those words are commonly used to refer to the same things in real life. D&D doesn't have official Right and Wrong, but I do agree that Good and Evil should be considered separate from cultures' value systems, which would be covered by Law and Chaos.

Basically in D&D, good and evil are active forces, living energy forces. Weather these are "right' or "wrong" are subjective. Personally i like most of the things about good, with a few exceptions (poison, necromancy) but that is just me. Somebody from say, Ancient Rome would find it absurd.


What's the difference? Eh, on second thought, let's not start an actual religious discussion; those are against board rules.


I'll rephrase that, i'm aware taht came out right. I"m an atheist , but i'm not asking about believing in him, i'm asking if people really sacrificed babies to him and all that jazz, or if taht was just a myth
from
EE

Raum
2008-10-30, 11:05 PM
Disingenuous is a strong word. Every action every person takes is different from every other action, but it's important to have categories. And it's often helpful to use moral intuitions to inform those categories. For example, which means of obtaining property are "theft"? The morality of the action provides a good clue. Your impulse right now must be to say "aha, but we can define theft according to legality". But that approach won't work if the question is "what is rape"? After all, in many states women cannot legally rape men. Our moral intuition says they can, and this is far more useful than a strictly legal definition.Do you really equate theft with rape? If so...ehh, - well frankly I don't know how to respond except to state I see a major ethical difference between the two. After all, one is directed at property and the other at individuals.

Riffington
2008-10-31, 08:09 AM
Do you really equate theft with rape?

Not at all. I don't think I said anything of the sort. Both are, however, immoral. (And often illegal - but immoral even if they are legal).

Also, theft can rarely be justified (to save a life, for example). Rape can never be.

Starbuck_II
2008-10-31, 09:16 AM
The act of manufacturing is evil! Don't you see? DND claims that technological progress is evil, and the good people live in hippy communes, united with nature, singing with wild animals and all that stuff!

You know, I think you might have a point.

JBento
2008-10-31, 09:33 AM
Do you really equate theft with rape? If so...ehh, - well frankly I don't know how to respond except to state I see a major ethical difference between the two. After all, one is directed at property and the other at individuals.

I would like to take this opportunity to point out that, in 3.X, there was a (good-aligned) belief system in FR that said EXACTLY THAT. Actually, it said that the only crime was theft, it just varied on the thing, er, "thieved."

Also, EE, you talked about subduing a prisoner by knocking him unconscious whenever he wakes up is not Evil. You also support the BoED. This is incompatible, because the BoED reads: (AFB now, so I can't give you a direct quote, but it's there):

"knocking a prisoner unconscious whenever he wakes up amounts to torture, and is therefore Evil."

Can some1 with book access provide a more accurate quote?

snoopy13a
2008-10-31, 09:35 AM
Do you really equate theft with rape? If so...ehh, - well frankly I don't know how to respond except to state I see a major ethical difference between the two. After all, one is directed at property and the other at individuals.

I believe he was making a point that just because something is illegal doesn't necessarily make it immoral and just because something is legal doesn't make it moral. For example, many people do not believe that stealing (from those who can afford it) in order to feed one's family is morally wrong. Nor, do they call Robin Hood a villian despite his thieving ways as he steals from the rich and gives to the poor. Conversely, most people would agree that infidelity is immoral yet it is not crime in most societies.

JBento
2008-10-31, 09:35 AM
You know, I think you might have a point.

Indeed he does. That's why (bleargh) elves and (shudder) gnomes are Good. That's EXACTLY what they do. Dwarves are the exception, and only because Gimli worked with the Fellowship. :smallwink:

hamishspence
2008-10-31, 10:40 AM
According to one argument, all evil is theft.

Fraud is theft by deception- you don't know you've been robbed, till later.

Rape is theft of one's dignity, one's right to choose one's own partners, etc.

Murder is theft of one's life.

Violence is theft of one's physical wellbeing. (rape may sometimes be considered a form of violence)

Slavery is theft of one's freedom, one's right to choose own actions.

Mind control is theft of one's autonomy.

Powers like Mind Seed represent theft of your personality from your body- everything that makes you, you.

And creating undead may, because of inability to be ressurected while the undead still exists, be a theft of a big chunk of your soul.

How does this sound?

The Glyphstone
2008-10-31, 10:51 AM
Don't forget lying as a theft of someone's right to the truth.

hamishspence
2008-10-31, 11:16 AM
Nah, anyone has right to say what they want, depending on whether what they say violates rights of others or not, and lying might not always do that.

Initiating violations of rights of others was one author's definition of evil- defence allowed, and retaliation allowed (must be authorized by an authority that is aware of the violation)

It also said, at international level, a routine violator of the rights of others is an outlaw- while nation is not morally obliged to attack them, in this case, no culpability for doing so (but retaliation rights don't grant you right to start more violations)

Translation- at international level, you are attacked- you may defend, and retaliate till attacker is no longer a threat, but you may not enslave the attacker.

You may choose to attack an outlaw but again, not enslave them.

By contrast, at intdividual level, no right to retaliate, only defend, retaliation is reserved for the law to initiate. Defence may be to the death, if it comes to that, though.

Interesting authorial theories, from the sixties.

Devils_Advocate
2008-10-31, 06:49 PM
(Utilitarianism, BTW, has much more serious problems that get it rejected as a moral code, even though it and derivatives of it seem to be in vogue at the moment).
What problems are you referring to?


Disingenuous is a strong word. Every action every person takes is different from every other action, but it's important to have categories.
Not all categories are equally good. (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/02/where-boundary.html) Some may encourage incorrect inferences or subtly insinuate non-existent similarities. This may be as much a result of how human minds use categories as it is a result of the categories themselves. Still, within the context of the human mind functioning as it does, it seems appropriate to me to put categories that lend themselves to illogic in the "bad" category. :smalltongue:


And it's often helpful to use moral intuitions to inform those categories.
If two individuals with conflicting intuitions base their categories on those intuitions, and then base their language on those categories, that's very probably going to inhibit their ability to communicate with each other effectively. Categories based on things that the communicating parties already agree on are more conducive to clear communication.


For example, which means of obtaining property are "theft"? The morality of the action provides a good clue. Your impulse right now must be to say "aha, but we can define theft according to legality". But that approach won't work if the question is "what is rape"? After all, in many states women cannot legally rape men. Our moral intuition says they can, and this is far more useful than a strictly legal definition.
I'd say that those categories are excellent examples of what I'm talking about. Defining rape as non-consensual sex makes it pretty clear-cut as to what is rape and what isn't. A definition of rape as immoral lends itself to heated, long-running arguments which will not be resolved because the participants have different standards of what constitutes a "right" answer. This problem is likely exacerbated by a general lack of acknowledgment that different unstated standards are the source of the argument.

I suspect that if one were to argue that the use of the word "rape" in conversation should be based on legal texts, this assertion would actually be far less contentious, in that a clear majority would disagree with you.

Defining theft as the immoral acquisition of another's property will be even more contentious, because moral intuitions about property rights differ even more from person to person than moral intuitions about rights to sovereignty over one's body.


I am not sure what you are talking about. Obviously there are nonevil things which are frowned upon - failure to bow to the king, polyamory, hustling pool, etc.
On the other hand, raising the dead as one's slaves, poisoning the king's food, and killing prisoners aren't so much chaotic as evil.
Are these things reliably more evil than killing? If so, how so?


It looks like you now agree that there is a Good/Evil axis as well as a Law/Chaos axis. If so, then why not call evil things evil?
I feel that evil things and only evil things should be called Evil. Non-evil things -- things that don't hurt, oppress, or kill others -- shouldn't be called Evil. Things should be treated as always Evil only if they always are evil -- i.e. always hurt, oppress, or kill others -- and things shouldn't be treated as especially Evil unless they're especially evil -- especially hurtful, oppressive, or deadly.

And if something is condemned by society despite not being evil, or in addition to being evil, or despite being Good... well, that's what the Chaotic alignment is for.

Although that really depends on the society in question. So you could have culture of Lawful Good creatures who use reanimated corpses for manual labor (probably because they'd rather not have to do it while they're alive).


I am saying that real life is improved by not treating beggars as evil muggers. By having a distinction between evil and non-evil, I can easily avoid doing so. If you avoid calling evil evil, then you will run that risk.
No, you run that risk by calling non-evil evil. <- (one of) my point(s)


"Those who are kind to the cruel will end up becoming cruel to the kind".
This strikes me as extremely specious as a general heuristic for dealing with the cruel. Replace "will" with "may" and it's not nearly so dubious.

Nevertheless, I do strongly prefer that the difference between Good and Evil be something quite like the difference between kindness and cruelty. (I would rather make it a matter of choices than motives, though.)


And in one case he is justify in being delusional. He believes in a reason but he has no true reason. the other person is honestly being tricked. As good and evil are absolute, they know the difference between murder and trickery. The insane man believes based upon his own broken logic. While the other man has no real of knowing
OK, EE, I'm gonna be frank: You're not talking sense here. Maybe you're just expressing yourself poorly, so let me lay out my problems with the above:


And in one case he is justify in being delusional.
Obviously you don't think that being delusional actually justifies his actions, as you're maintaining that he's still Evil. I'm guessing that what you mean is "His only reason for his action is his own delusion." Is that right?


He believes in a reason but he has no true reason.
What do you mean by "true reason" in this context? Is the deceived man's reason "true", and if so, in what sense? If an insane man correctly concluded, by sheer coincidence, that everyone in a town was a demon, would his reason for believing this be "true" or "false"?

Beliefs themselves are false or true. I don't know what it would mean to label the causes of beliefs true or false. You should use different words to talk about things that aren't propositions.


the other person is honestly being tricked.
...

That's a contradiction in terms! He's not honestly being tricked, he's deceptively being tricked!

What, if anything, do you actually mean here?


As good and evil are absolute, they know the difference between murder and trickery.
Are you claiming that the absolute nature of good and evil impart knowledge? If so, what are you claiming that each man knows here? I'm guessing that you don't actually mean that either knows the difference between tricking someone and murdering someone, though that's what you say.


The insane man believes based upon his own broken logic. While the other man has no real of knowing
Just... huh? Do you accept that the insane guy isn't mentally capable of reaching the correct conclusion, or don't you?

You sound like maybe you're saying that the insane guy knows that he's murdering people, despite believing otherwise. I guess that if he were insane enough, maybe he could hold contradictory beliefs. But what if he believes that the townsfolk are demons and not people, and doesn't believe they are people, and doesn't believe they aren't demons, so he doesn't know that he's murdering people?

Are you claiming that some sort of cosmic force prevents people from harming innocents based on faulty reasoning, but not based on bad evidence?


as i said the presentation is bad, but a simply list without reasons are no explantion would be just as bad as the current system
How is an unexplained list of designated Evil (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DesignatedEvil) acts as bad as a bunch of unexplained designations of acts as Evil that you have to hunt through piles of text to find?


There are some inconsistencies, but besides that they are pretty well established.
Are you saying that official writings on alignment clearly establish basic moral principles that serve as a basis for the alignments of specific acts? If so, what are these principles, and where are they established? If not, what are you saying here?


They go into some detail when that is justified. For example, killing in self defense is less evil than torture, but murder is about the same.
But is there a reason why, or is this low-cohesion laundry-list morality?


The thing is, it doesn't need to act on a scale of "more evil' or "less evil" it just needs to work on the basis of evil actions condemning the good people who commit them.
Is this condemnation an "Every time you cast deathwatch it kills a puppy" type of thing?


your a killing a helpless person who has put their life at your disposal.
This is no less true of a government that decides to execute a surrendered criminal.


Everybody deserves a chance to to redeem themselves and a chance to present their case to a fair trial. ... Because the people have been rightfully tried and convicted, they have been given a fair chance to defend themselves, and present their chance.
In a case where an accused criminal's guilt is in doubt, a trial may help to sort out whether he is guilty and ought to be punished. This is why we have trials.

However, if you personally saw someone mowing down loads of innocent civilians right before you caught him, his guilt really isn't in doubt.

Saying that an evil murder deserves a chance to go free because the prosecution couldn't come up with enough evidenced is, not to put too fine a point on it, completely retarded. Either he's enough of a threat to justify killing him, or he isn't! If he is, letting him go free is a bad thing, and a chance of him going free is therefore a bad thing, albeit not as bad as the certainty of him going free.

Accused criminals are given trials to prevent people who aren't guilty from being punished. When there's no chance of that happening, because you know that you've got an actual criminal who is in fact guilty, a trial can no longer serve that function.

It seems pretty obvious to me that giving potentially innocent people a chance to be exonerated is morally different from giving people known to be guilty a chance to be exonerated.


They aren't simply slaughtering somebody, they are executing them.
There are forms of execution which could certainly be accurately described as "slaughter". Decapitation, for instance.

Taking someone into custody, trying him, and then executing him is certainly less simple that just lopping his head off right away, but I don't see how that makes it any less evil.


Justice in D&D is an absolute concept
Do the rules lay out a specific concept of justice? For example, do they say what constitutes a "fair trial"?


But when no other solution is possible, killing is considered a neutral action.
Again with the glossing. :smallsigh: Solution to what problem? If killing is the only way to get all of a dude's shiny, shiny gold, does that make it Neutral? I'm pretty sure that there's a fair amount of dispute amongst players on the answers to this and similar questions, so don't dismiss this one as having an obvious answer.


What isn't acceptable are evil solutions, or solutions that wil hurt other people in the process. Killing in D&D isn't evil when justified, and is an acceptable solution
But what justifies killing? How and why?


But they are two seperate actions. Talking the goblin into surrendering is also saving innocents. Killing the goblin is the immediate action, while saving the innocent is the action that comes from that. They are separate actions, actually one is a neutral action to achieve a good result
Stabbing the goblin is one action. The goblin dying and innocents not dying are separate consequences of that action, if killing the goblin prevents the deaths of innocents. The action of stabbing the goblin is still either Good or not Good; it can't be both.

Neither the goblin's death nor any lack of innocent deaths is an action performed by any character, they're consequences of an action. They're separate consequences... but they're the result of the same actual act. And that act is either Good or not Good. The possibility of talking the goblin into surrendering either makes the actual violent act not Good, or it doesn't.

So, in a case where killing a goblin will prevent it from harming innocents, is stabbing the goblin Good? If this depends on other factors, what are they and how does it so depend?

If there actually are two separate actions referred to by "killing the goblin" and "saving innocents" in this case, what are they? By separate actions, I do mean two distinct, physical actions, not just different consequences of the same act.


killing is neutral. Saving innocents is neutral. So the result (saving innocents) is good because you used a non evil method (justified murder)
I thought that murder was evil.

Why would accomplishing otherwise Neutral ends through non-Evil means make those ends Good? That would seem to make e.g. walking to the library a Good act. (If we're willing to assume, for the sake of argument, that getting to the library is Neutral, and walking is non-Evil. :smallwink:) I'm pretty sure you're failing to talk sense here again...

hamishspence
2008-10-31, 07:06 PM
I tend to view that Violence is neutral, depending on aggravating an mitigating factors.

Initiation- in the absence of any context the initiator of the violence is evil.

Just cause- one possible context- very hard to define.

EE is right about one thing- evil alignment alone does not constitute Just Cause.

Menace to self or others- the target of the violence is menacing other with violence, who do not fit any of the justifying factors "innocents" if you prefer.

In which case, whatever level of violence will end the menace is considered just.

Note that using more violence than necessary, may not be just. a man is punches another man with no justifiable reason. However while other man is in danger of injury, he is not in immediate danger of death. Shooting tha attacker to end the violence is clearly unjustified.

A point to remember- killing someone for reasons other than self-defence or defence of others is a major act. It may require a more rigorous definition of "just cause"

My view is that unsanctioned retaliatory violence is extremely morally dangerous. You witness a murder a bit too late, and see the murderer walking aware, unaware of witness. You sneak after him, unseen, till you arrive at his home.

Is going in and killing him as retribution for the murder you witnessed him do, Chaotic? Or is it Evil?

EDIT: Most lawyers would say trials are because everyone, the guilty and innocent alike, deserve to have their guilt or innocence proved.

stainboy
2008-10-31, 08:35 PM
Getting back to the OP's comments about poison in D&D:

Poison being evil in D&D doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense. I see no reason why applying poison to a weapon is evil, but casting the druid spell Poison (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/poison.htm) on someone is not.

I assume the problem started as follows:

Sometime in the 70's, Gary Gygax or somebody was running a D&D game. The party killed a monster that had a poison attack. One of the players declared he was going to extract the monster's venom and smear it on one of his weapons.

That was the first time it had come up, and it created a serious balance problem. The game had, previously, been balanced on the assumption that PCs were not poisoning their weapons. PCs gain an advantage by poisoning their weapons, and there's no downside to doing so. Poisoned weapons are always better than unpoisoned weapons. (In fact, at the time they were much better, because virtually all poisons were save-or-die.) It also doesn't make much sense thematically for every PC to run around with poisoned weapons. Aragorn never poisoned his sword.

So, in an effort to head off a balance problem and get on with the game, Gary Gygax or whoever proclaimed, "using poison is evil, if you do it you'll suffer the XP penalty for acting out of alignment, and your Fighting Man can't become a paladin at 9th level." That was the end of that, and it made it into the books.

Aquillion
2008-10-31, 11:33 PM
To be fair, almost every knightly order and nearly every military code of honor has rules against poison. It's not universal against cultures, no, but it's pretty common (certainly it's forbidden in warfare today.) I'm not saying it's actually evil, but it's easy to see where the concept comes from.

The problem is that D&D's definition of "evil" has historically not been the all-encompassing moral compass that we like to argue over here. It primarily evolved as very limited set of rules intended to govern the situations of mostly Western European-themed adventurers going on, primarily, chivalrous knights-and-dragons adventures through caves and dungeons. Other things have been added over time, but that was the original base.

Within that context, saying that poison is 'evil' makes sense. An evil alignment doesn't really mean that you're a cross between Hitler and Skeletor, or even that you're just the guy who cheats on his taxes; it means, much more specifically, that you're a blackguard (not in the class-sense), a knave -- the heel of the show, the one the crowd hisses at every time you walk onto the stage. While the game has slowly moved away from the trappings of that original setting as it expands its scope, many things still remain; and the concept of poison being the weapon of a "cowardly knave" (and hence evil) remains.

RPGuru1331
2008-10-31, 11:57 PM
I see where you're coming from, Aquilion, but if the idea of evil, per RAW, is closer to meaning that closest you can come to knighthood is to be a black knight, why is it almost everything that's evil in the books is more like puppy kicking or baby eating, rather then being the heel?

horseboy
2008-11-01, 01:43 AM
You guys wanna see something funny?


Ninja
Can a good-aligned ninja use poison without violating her
alignment? In other words, is using poison considered an
evil act?
Nothing in the alignment information in the PH or the
poison entry in the DMG specifically describes the use of
poison as an evil act. Of course, the purpose to which you put
the poison might well be an evil act: Using poison to murder
the local constable is just as evil as knifing him in a back alley.
It’s possible that using poison might violate a character’s
personal moral code, or the moral code of his faith or cause.
For example, if local laws restrict the use of poison, its use
would be considered an unlawful act, which would violate a
D&D FAQ v.3.5 22 Update Version: 6/30/08
paladin’s code (which includes “respect [for] legitimate
authority”). The DM is the ultimate arbiter of what is or isn’t
legal in his campaign.

Aquillion
2008-11-01, 06:46 AM
I see where you're coming from, Aquilion, but if the idea of evil, per RAW, is closer to meaning that closest you can come to knighthood is to be a black knight, why is it almost everything that's evil in the books is more like puppy kicking or baby eating, rather then being the heel?Because its meaning has mutated over time, and has meant different things in different publications.