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    Question Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    As title.
    To clarify, a person who is so obsessed with Good that they are willing to force anyone and everything to be Good. By any means necessary. Whether their acts are selfless or selfish, nice or horrifying. What would their actual alignment be? On the one hand, 'Good'... yet, on the other hand, atrocities are just evil...
    ...so basically an insane Celestial, I guess?
    Apologies for any poor wording, my brain is always broken
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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    I may not be right but I think that the alignment of a "good" person like you described is considered to be good even if they're not good people.
    A good example of this is Miko Miyazaki. She is a lawful "good" paladin but a terrible person..
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    And yet she still retains her paladin status (until later when.._
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    One could argue both ways but unfortunately in real life people trying to do good as we know might not actually be good people.
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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    In general, Evil.
    As many on this forum have pointed out, your alignment on the Good/Evil axis is less about what your intentions are and more about your willingness to perform Evil acts.
    If you're willing to kill innocents, torture, steal, etc. for your cause, then regardless of what your cause is, you're Evil.

    I mean, I hate to be the guy to invoke Godwin's Law, but look at Hitler - there's an argument to be made that he had good intentions. Completely insane, skewed and amoral views of "good", but he wanted the world - and especially Germany - to be a better place, with better people. Heck, he was very beneficial to those he considered worthy; he was among the first to institute mandatory paid vacations and overtime for all workers.
    Unfortunately he thought the only way to do this was through genocide and slavery, and he still elected to go through with it.

    Can you see why any means necessary can be considered Evil? A character like that would start looking an awful lot like Hitler, especially if he thought a certain demographic was holding the world back.
    That's all I can think of, at any rate.

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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    @Sir Toast: I'm not sure, while Miko certainly wasn't very nice and certainly not someone you should take as a example how to act as a Good aligned person I think she never commited an outright Evil act until she killed Shojo and even that was more about breaking her oath as a Paladin.

    Now Redcloak's backstory might provide a better example of "good" characters using any means necessary, but I don't know enough about that to say how it went for them.

    Anyway if the person SodaDarwin is talking about commits to many acts that are usually perceived as evil or at least not good - even if they do so in the name of "Good" it seems doubtful they would remain good aligned.

    While executing orc raiders (or halfling/elf/dwarf/human/celestial raiders) to scare off others is one thing trying to accomplish the same by wiping out their Settlements to the last newborn is at least iffy.
    The same goes for thing like the use of torture to make the evil overlord's slave soldiers change sides and/or give information.

    At least I think that the action counts more than the end goal or the target for that matter. One "iffy" act or three don't make you fall to the dark side, but is you are willing to commit atrocities to reach your Goal you have left the path of Good.
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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kantaki View Post
    @Sir Toast: I'm not sure, while Miko certainly wasn't very nice and certainly not someone you should take as a example how to act as a Good aligned person I think she never commited an outright Evil act until she killed Shojo and even that was more about breaking her oath as a Paladin.
    Well, a Paladin can't willingly commit an Evil act, or (s)he falls; thus, Miko couldn't have performed an Evil act.
    Of course, being Good doesn't mean being Nice.
    That's all I can think of, at any rate.

    Quote Originally Posted by remetagross View Post
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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    You can't answer this question without specifying what "bad" acts are being taken in the name of Good.

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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    More important than whether the cosmic forces consider the character to be Good or Evil:

    Is that character disruptive to the party?

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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    Quote Originally Posted by SodaDarwin View Post
    ...so basically an insane Celestial, I guess?
    Fallen angels and other insane celestials are generally evil. A good king is often wise and just, a tyrant who forces his people to live a certain way with (the threat of) violence is generally evil. It's the actions of a character that define it. Evil actions? Evil character. Or neutral at best, under circumstances where they resort to atrocities only when there is absolutely no other way, not just because this way is easier, and do loads of really good stuff on the side.
    Last edited by Lvl 2 Expert; 2015-10-25 at 04:52 AM.

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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    Freedom is a chaotic concept. Good does not care if people are free or not.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kantaki View Post
    While executing orc raiders (or halfling/elf/dwarf/human/celestial raiders) to scare off others is one thing trying to accomplish the same by wiping out their Settlements to the last newborn is at least iffy.
    Nah - all the noncombatants get aggressively reeducated.

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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    Brainwashing someone into having Good beliefs (Helm of Opposite Alignment! Sanctify the Wicked!) is Lawful Good.

    We meant capital-G Good, by the way. Cosmic Good. A bit different from the usual meaning of "good".

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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    Quote Originally Posted by SodaDarwin View Post
    As title.
    To clarify, a person who is so obsessed with Good that they are willing to force anyone and everything to be Good. By any means necessary. Whether their acts are selfless or selfish, nice or horrifying. What would their actual alignment be? On the one hand, 'Good'... yet, on the other hand, atrocities are just evil...
    ...so basically an insane Celestial, I guess?
    If your question is "what Alignment will they be" the answer is "it's totally arbitrary and DM-dependent, because Alignment isn't defined consistently enough for there to actually be a correct answer. You can make the person's alignment be whatever you feel like and nobody could actually correct you."

    If your question is what we think about the morality of this character's actions, that's entirely different.
    Last edited by LudicSavant; 2015-10-25 at 04:54 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by ProsecutorGodot
    If statistics are the concern for game balance I can't think of a more worthwhile person for you to discuss it with, LudicSavant has provided this forum some of the single most useful tools in probability calculations and is a consistent source of sanity checking for this sort of thing.
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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    Quote Originally Posted by goto124 View Post
    Brainwashing someone into having Good beliefs (Helm of Opposite Alignment! Sanctify the Wicked!) is Lawful Good.

    We meant capital-G Good, by the way. Cosmic Good. A bit different from the usual meaning of "good".
    Wait really? Cuz' there's a line about good that says good people care about the dignity of sentient beings and work to preserve it. Not just their welfare, but dignity. Brainwashing someone would seem to violate that.
    Black text is for sarcasm, also sincerity. You'll just have to read between the lines and infer from context like an animal

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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    If you make Good a specific set of virtues that must be adhered to by all costs, you have created a Lawful Neutral character with the laws mapping mostly to good. If someone does good things because DEY ARE DA LAAAWWW, instead of because they are the right thing, that's lawful, and your aren't doing it for any Good reason.
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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    Quote Originally Posted by Mastikator View Post
    Wait really? Cuz' there's a line about good that says good people care about the dignity of sentient beings and work to preserve it. Not just their welfare, but dignity. Brainwashing someone would seem to violate that.
    This goes back to what I said in my post. D&D's alignment system is frequently vague and often outright contradictory. There's a reason why alignment threads asking "what alignment s X?" often get several different alignments as responses (sometimes all 9!): it's because each proponent of X being Y alignment can point to somewhere where the rules say that something involved in X qualifies you as Y alignment.

    They're not wrong because the line justifying their position isn't in the book. They're wrong because they assume that those lines are consistent across D&D's definition of any given alignment.

    In this case, Lawful Good has been defined to allow behavior such as brainwashing people, or even crazy stuff like slaughtering other Lawful Good people if they have ever been of any alignment besides Lawful Good, "so that they can go on to their reward before they can backslide." Or poisoning people as long as you use extra special poisons that cause more pain than regular poisons but only work on Evil people. And there are of course other sections which say that all of those things are definitely not okay if you're Lawful Good.

    It's really all over the place. Nobody can be "right" in these sorts of alignment arguments because usually the canon will respond to the same query with "Yes" on one page and "No" on another, which of course violates the Law of Non-Contradiction.
    Last edited by LudicSavant; 2015-10-26 at 08:50 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by ProsecutorGodot
    If statistics are the concern for game balance I can't think of a more worthwhile person for you to discuss it with, LudicSavant has provided this forum some of the single most useful tools in probability calculations and is a consistent source of sanity checking for this sort of thing.
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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    Quote Originally Posted by Mastikator View Post
    Wait really? Cuz' there's a line about good that says good people care about the dignity of sentient beings and work to preserve it. Not just their welfare, but dignity. Brainwashing someone would seem to violate that.
    Dignity, not freedom. The Helm of Opposite Alignment is Good. The Beer Helmet of Opposite Alignment is not.
    Quote Originally Posted by woodlandkammao View Post
    If you make Good a specific set of virtues that must be adhered to by all costs, you have created a Lawful Neutral character with the laws mapping mostly to good. If someone does good things because DEY ARE DA LAAAWWW, instead of because they are the right thing, that's lawful, and your aren't doing it for any Good reason.
    If the Law is Good, it's Lawful Good, not Lawful Neutral.
    Last edited by Hawkstar; 2015-10-25 at 05:04 PM.

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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hawkstar View Post
    If the Law is Good, it's Lawful Good, not Lawful Neutral.
    We usually see Judge Dredd or Batman as the epitomes of LN. And the law they follow is generally considered to be the good guys. If the definition of 'Lawful' is 'Good', then that's kinda missing the point of the alignment system. It's all about WHY they do what they do.

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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    I've actually had a pretty big discussion about this exact topic. Check it out.

    http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...e-greater-Good

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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    Willing to take any action necessary for the greater good? You are The Operative from Serenity. You are Evil. And you should know it.

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    The Operative: I'm sorry. If your quarry goes to ground, leave no ground to go to. You should have taken my offer. Or did you think none of this was your fault?
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    Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Why? Do you even know why they sent you?
    The Operative: It's not my place to ask. I believe in something greater than myself. A better world. A world without sin.
    Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: So me and mine gotta lay down and die... so you can live in your better world?
    The Operative: I'm not going to live there. There's no place for me there... any more than there is for you. Malcolm... I'm a monster.What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it, but it must be done.

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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    Quote Originally Posted by woodlandkammao View Post
    We usually see Judge Dredd or Batman as the epitomes of LN. And the law they follow is generally considered to be the good guys. If the definition of 'Lawful' is 'Good', then that's kinda missing the point of the alignment system. It's all about WHY they do what they do.
    No we don't. Batman defies alignment (as the chart so handily shows), though tends to be an 'edgy' enforcer of only just laws (I don't think I've seen him take down anyone trying to defy a Homeowner's Association), and Judge Dredd enforces unjust law just as impartially as he enforces just law.

    Alignment isn't motivation. Alignment is who your cause is literally aligned with.

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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    Quote Originally Posted by SodaDarwin View Post
    As title.
    To clarify, a person who is so obsessed with Good that they are willing to force anyone and everything to be Good. By any means necessary. Whether their acts are selfless or selfish, nice or horrifying. What would their actual alignment be? On the one hand, 'Good'... yet, on the other hand, atrocities are just evil...
    ...so basically an insane Celestial, I guess?
    Disclaimer: This post presumes a D&D-esque alignment grid. That's grid, not spectrum, we don't think in a linear fashion where I come from.

    It depends. As others have mentioned, there are effects, such as the Helm of Opposite Alignment and Sanctify the Wicked, which alter your alignment and are not inherently Evil. (In fact, StW is explicitly and extremely Good by definition.) So we know that, in essence, brainwashing is at worst a Neutrally-charged act. Free will is not a Good value, is the point.

    The question is the nature of the "atrocities" you mention. Altering someone's brain directly is not Evil. Torturing them, on the other hand, is. Slavery or forced labor is. All sorts of uses of force could be considered Evil.

    But here's another wrinkle. A lot of those rules go out the window when dealing with inherently Evil beings, such as Outsiders. Straight-up murder of them, by some sources, is considered a Good act. Having the (Evil) subtype, again according to some sources, grants others carte blanche to do basically whatever the crap they want to you. This seems, and is, somewhat contradictory, in that one would think that it's the actions, and not the targets, that define the alignment result, but that's logic, and this is RAW.

    So, long story short? It depends.
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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    Quote Originally Posted by Red Fel View Post
    there are effects, such as the Helm of Opposite Alignment and Sanctify the Wicked, which alter your alignment and are not inherently Evil. (In fact, StW is explicitly and extremely Good by definition.) So we know that, in essence, brainwashing is at worst a Neutrally-charged act. Free will is not a Good value, is the point.

    The question is the nature of the "atrocities" you mention. Altering someone's brain directly is not Evil. Torturing them, on the other hand, is. Slavery or forced labor is. All sorts of uses of force could be considered Evil.
    Red Fel!

    *cough*

    Could I say that Sanctify the Wicked is Lawful Good? Rather extreme on the Lawful side, probably.

    Quote Originally Posted by Red Fel View Post
    A lot of those rules go out the window when dealing with inherently Evil beings, [snip] This seems, and is, somewhat contradictory, in that one would think that it's the actions, and not the targets, that define the alignment result, but that's logic, and this is RAW.
    Beings made of literal Evil commit lots of despicable and Evil acts (and probably killed plenty of people), thus they have revoked their right to live. Okay, that may not make much sense either, especially with alignment systems (I really hope this is RAW somewhere, as opposed to being a ruling/houserule that other players use) that say you have to wait for actual evidence that whoever you want to kill actually did something worthy of death (or lose your Good alignment).

    What books are we going off, by the way?
    Last edited by goto124; 2015-10-26 at 08:54 AM.

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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    Quote Originally Posted by Red Fel View Post
    But here's another wrinkle. A lot of those rules go out the window when dealing with inherently Evil beings, such as Outsiders. Straight-up murder of them, by some sources, is considered a Good act. Having the (Evil) subtype, again according to some sources, grants others carte blanche to do basically whatever the crap they want to you. This seems, and is, somewhat contradictory, in that one would think that it's the actions, and not the targets, that define the alignment result, but that's logic, and this is RAW.

    So, long story short? It depends.
    Yeah.

    I would say that it's more Red vs Blue than Good vs Evil or Law vs Chaos, but even that is too generous, because I often have no way of actually telling whether someone is on the Blue or Red side by pointing to the canon sources. For example, we're told that Mialee is Chaotic because she's devoted to mastering her art, but that Ember is Lawful because she's devoted to mastering her discipline. Those are the same things, PHB!
    Last edited by LudicSavant; 2015-10-26 at 09:05 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by ProsecutorGodot
    If statistics are the concern for game balance I can't think of a more worthwhile person for you to discuss it with, LudicSavant has provided this forum some of the single most useful tools in probability calculations and is a consistent source of sanity checking for this sort of thing.
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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    Quote Originally Posted by goto124 View Post
    Beings made of literal Evil commit lots of despicable and Evil acts (and probably killed plenty of people), thus they have revoked their right to live.
    Not if they're freshly formed. I think, though, it hits a "These things Must be removed from the world by any means neccessary"

    also - Killing is not evil in any statement of RAW (It's explicitly stated to be nonevil multiple times, though it is implied by Evil)
    Last edited by Hawkstar; 2015-10-26 at 09:04 AM.

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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    Quote Originally Posted by LudicSavant View Post
    For example, we're told that Mialee is Chaotic because she's devoted to mastering her art, but that Ember is Lawful because she's devoted to mastering her discipline. Those are the same things, PHB!
    And what do those does that have anything with the Law/Chaos axis?

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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    Quote Originally Posted by goto124 View Post
    And what do those does that have anything with the Law/Chaos axis?
    Well, it's from the PHB section on defining alignment.

    Lawful Neutral, "Judge": Ember, a monk who follows her discipline without being swayed either by the demands of those in need or by the temptations of evil, is lawful neutral.
    Neutral, "Undecided": Mialee, a wizard who devotes herself to her art and is bored by the semantics of moral debate, is neutral.
    So, both are unswayed by moral debate, so that's the same. And both are devoted to getting better at a skill, so that's the same. So why does this establish why Ember is Lawful and Mialee is Not-Lawful? I have no idea.

    That's the tip of the iceberg though. For example, we're given all these adjectives which supposedly describe Law and Chaos, and few of them actually contradict each other. You can be honorable and love freedom. You can be adaptable and trustworthy. You can be closed-minded and reckless. You can resent authority and be obedient to authority. These things are neither opposed nor even usually found in different people. Closed-mindedness tends to beget recklessness. Obedience often breeds resentment. Respecting freedom is honorable. Being adaptable makes you more worthy of trust.

    And then there's stuff like Good and Evil. A Lawful Good character is described as acting as a person is expected or required to act, but fighting their enemies without mercy. A Lawful Evil person is described as playing by the rules, but without mercy.

    And then we get things like the Book of Exalted Deeds, or quotes from Gygax himself about how Lawful Good people should slaughter women and children of the losing side because they might grow up to be Evil, and execute prisoners who convert to Lawful Good so that they can go onto their reward before they backslide.
    Last edited by LudicSavant; 2015-10-26 at 10:08 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by ProsecutorGodot
    If statistics are the concern for game balance I can't think of a more worthwhile person for you to discuss it with, LudicSavant has provided this forum some of the single most useful tools in probability calculations and is a consistent source of sanity checking for this sort of thing.
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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    Quote Originally Posted by LudicSavant View Post
    Well, it's from the PHB section on defining alignment.
    Of which edition of DnD?

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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    Quote Originally Posted by goto124 View Post
    Of which edition of DnD?
    3.5e for the Mialee/Ember thing.

    I can address 5e's as well (though for 5e I only have one book: The PHB). 5e's descriptions are short and vague (the whole thing is about half a page, maybe there's more in other sources besides the PHB?), encouraging players to fill in the blanks themselves.

    "Lawful Good creatures can be counted on to do the right thing as expected by society." That's the entirety of the description we get in the alignment section.

    Maybe "society" expects that brainwashing is the wrong thing. Maybe it expects it's the right thing (brainwashing the Geth was Paragon in Mass Effect 2!). More realistically, parts of society will think it's the right thing and other parts will think it's the wrong thing. And different societies will have wildly different values, which raises the question of how the heck you can have a single cosmic alignment dedicated to conforming to societal expectations in the first place. I can't wander from medieval Italy to the Trobriand Islands and have the same attitudes about relationships or eating habits and be considered a decent person by both societies.

    There's an argument to be had on "is this person doing the right thing." There isn't really an argument to be had on "is this person X alignment" because everyone has to interpret the alignment system and fill in the blanks (or, as the case may be, selectively filter out the contradictory bits), and how those blanks are filled in is relevant to the answer.
    Last edited by LudicSavant; 2015-10-26 at 10:42 AM. Reason: Elaboration
    Quote Originally Posted by ProsecutorGodot
    If statistics are the concern for game balance I can't think of a more worthwhile person for you to discuss it with, LudicSavant has provided this forum some of the single most useful tools in probability calculations and is a consistent source of sanity checking for this sort of thing.
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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    Quote Originally Posted by SodaDarwin View Post
    As title.
    To clarify, a person who is so obsessed with Good that they are willing to force anyone and everything to be Good. By any means necessary. Whether their acts are selfless or selfish, nice or horrifying. What would their actual alignment be? On the one hand, 'Good'... yet, on the other hand, atrocities are just evil...
    ...so basically an insane Celestial, I guess?
    As has already been demonstrated in the thread and throughout history, "good" is a nuanced, contentious issue and open to myriad interpretations.

    Personally, the person would be classified as Evil working for Good. That person is not moral if they commit Evil, especially at the cost of others, even for the sake of Good. How Evil would depend on the extremes of the atrocities that person is willing to commit. Being "Good" isn't simply about who you align to, but the conduct and adherence to the morals of the society the person aligns with. Bringing in societies with conflicting morals vastly complicates the matter. Most RPGs assume one predominant society's morals as the baseline to which all other societies in that game are compared to.

    Therefore, instead of opening the question to modern world morals and what would invariably end up being unresolved, I would have to ask: Does your game's predominant society view that person's actions as morally acceptable or deviant?
    Bringing in the moral compass of anyone else, including your own, complicates the decision. Heck, even if you take your own real life society's moral compass and compare it to your society's moral compass from one or two hundred years ago you'll find discrepancies. Perhaps they won't be extreme discrepancies but they will be there.

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    SwashbucklerGuy

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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    Oddly enough the Star Wars EU has a pretty good quote for this sort of thing:

    "There are times when the end justifies the means. But when you build an argument based on a whole series of such times, you may find that you've constructed an entire philosophy of evil."

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    ElfRangerGuy

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    Default Re: Good, by any means nessecary? Alignment question.

    Quote Originally Posted by Chijinda View Post
    Oddly enough the Star Wars EU has a pretty good quote for this sort of thing:

    "There are times when the end justifies the means. But when you build an argument based on a whole series of such times, you may find that you've constructed an entire philosophy of evil."
    Nice.

    Yeah, my view (and I stress this because people have differing views of alignment) is that "by any means necessary" cannot be a Good philosophy in D&D for the simple fact that including Evil means will eventually and inevitably corrupt the doer.

    I'm not saying that an Evil act can never be done for Good, but almost anyone who lives their life that way will gradually lose sight of the truth of their actions, the justifications giving way over time to delusions.

    Just look at fictional characters in the media. There are many, many examples of villains with good intentions; what makes them villains are the things they do to reach their vaunted goals.
    "Nothing you can't spell will ever work." - Will Rogers

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