Pathfinder Is Still Bad

[deaddmwalking]

I think there is generally agreement among non-incel, non-sociopathic RPG players that killing orc babies is "probably not good", at the very least. Maybe this is just a problem for you and the weirdos you play with.

I don't think incel means what you think it means. In any case, we don't kill orc babies. We also don't use alignment. We never have to debate whether an action is 'allowed' because of alignment or 'demanded' because of alignment. We play our characters the way we think we should and we generally play them as 'generally good', though we've also used the term 'maliciously neutral' for certain parties that didn't like letting defeated villains go.

But hey, since we're having an alignment debate, you can answer this one. You invade an orcish encampment for generally good reasons, like they kidnapped someone important to you and you intended this as a rescue mission. The orc warriors fight against you and are slaughtered to the last. There are 'innocents'. What do you do? If you leave them be they'll almost certainly die because they no longer have warriors to defend them from the dangers of the wild. If they don't die they may prey upon anyone they find weaker than themselves - starvation and desperation will do that. So even if you accept that killing all the orc babies is an EVIL act, what are your options that are actually 'good'. And do you and your players do that?

[Pariah Dog]

Grek: Such as a watery tart lobbing a scimitar at him?

ISP: First you're throwing around the word incel incorrectly, it has nothing to do the argument you're making, like when the internet discovered the word cuck last year. Also throwing racist in there too for more virtue signaling. Do better.

But since you're basing your premise on the babies being innocent and the "Usually CE" ok, lets take it a step further to remove that ambiguity, baby Rakshasa. 3.5 SRD lists Rakshasa alignment as Always Lawful Evil. PF one has a TL;DR article about Rakshasa and then half a dozen or so subtypes.

Either way the point is as Frank said, not clear and thus poorly written out. The Tome paladin here is a better example of how to do
a paladin code of conduct http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=464966 as compared to the turning the table into a discussion on philosophy and ethics (which admittedly could be a better use of the time than playing pathfinder)

At some tables such as yours this would be an evil act and thus cause the fall of the paladin. At others putting down helpless members of Team Evil would not be. Then theres the insanity Grek and Erik suggest that good is evil and evil is good with their Orcus/Joyfarm ad absurdium.

Edit: Beaten to a lot of this by DeadDM. Frank's tomes even mention that isn't a good or evil act but a FUCKED UP act that would cause teams good and evil to (theoretically) abide by a temporary truce long enough to hunt down and murder you.

[Grek]

It's not insanity if the setting actually makes that the correct answer. It's shitty worldbuilding.

[Koumei]

Grek: Such as a watery tart lobbing a scimitar at him?

Well that normally would be a Chaotic act except of course that we assume someone like King Arthur is a player character (or at least, is a hero and a "good guy", the protagonist of most stories that include him that aren't written by the French, and is probably going to help the PCs out) so the scales are flipped and it definitely makes him Lawful.

[Kaelik]

ISP: First you're throwing around the word incel incorrectly, it has nothing to do the argument you're making, like when the internet discovered the word cuck last year. Also throwing racist in there too for more virtue signaling. Do better.

ISP is of course, morally terrible. But you are also terrible.

[Pariah Dog]

Coming from you, thats a compliment.

[Username17]

The bottom line is that alignment is gibberish all the way down. The core book does not give definitions of Law and Chaos or even Good and Evil that are mutually incompatible. Let alone recognizable as opposed forces. Other supplemental books have tried at various points to expand on those definitions to answer any of the myriad questions you would be left with were you to try to puzzle this shit out - and they have not answered those questions in any kind of consistent or comprehensive fashion.

Books like the Book of ED present Good as being extremely horrible with the "good guys" literally using rape torture of people guilty of thought crimes. Books like the Book of VD present Evil as being an odd mashup of people who regularly commit crimes that would fill tabloids for decades and people who just have aesthetic choices the author disagrees with.

The core issue is that while Christianity formally defines good and evil as qualities that people intrinsically possess, modern secular morality does not and cannot support a system of justice that operates like that. You are guilty and deserving of punishment if and only if you have actually done some actual thing that is actually wrong. Opinions differ about the nature of forgiveness and the ability to make up for past misdeeds, but the idea that people should be pre-punished for crimes they might do in the future is generally regarded as immoral and also insane. And yet, if you accept that people are good or evil rather than that people do good and evil things, you pretty much have to subscribe to the notion that an evil-doer is actually already evil before they've really done any evil. That's morally indefensible.

So to the extent that D&D morality is based on anything, it's based on a medieval concept of the moral universe that modern society has roundly rejected. People who play D&D do not actually subscribe to the basic tenets of a moral philosophy required to make any part of the D&D alignment system work. So answering moral questions in that framework is pretty much impossible for everyone. Especially the actual authors, who mostly don't even realize that they are dealing with a system that is at best 2 parts Crusader morality and 3 parts Saturday morning cartoon.

-Username17

[RobbyPants]

But hey, since we're having an alignment debate, you can answer this one. You invade an orcish encampment for generally good reasons, like they kidnapped someone important to you and you intended this as a rescue mission. The orc warriors fight against you and are slaughtered to the last. There are 'innocents'. What do you do? If you leave them be they'll almost certainly die because they no longer have warriors to defend them from the dangers of the wild. If they don't die they may prey upon anyone they find weaker than themselves - starvation and desperation will do that. So even if you accept that killing all the orc babies is an EVIL act, what are your options that are actually 'good'. And do you and your players do that?

My guess is most players will treat this the way a lot of people treat the trolley problem. Many people find it preferable to let circumstance kill five people rather than take action themselves and be responsible for the death of one. The conscious decision to act is seen as bigger than the utilitarian trade off of life. Of course, the conscious decision to not act isn't considered the same way.

I imagine most people at the table would just leave the situation as is, walk away (and not directly observe the outcome), and deal with any fallout later as deemed appropriate.

[deaddmwalking]

Probably right, and those people are held up as examples of virtue and champions of good. Crazy.

[infected slut princess]

I don't think incel means what you think it means.

Ah, touchy subject I see.

But hey, since we're having an alignment debate, you can answer this one. You invade an orcish encampment for generally good reasons, like they kidnapped someone important to you and you intended this as a rescue mission. The orc warriors fight against you and are slaughtered to the last. There are 'innocents'. What do you do? If you leave them be they'll almost certainly die because they no longer have warriors to defend them from the dangers of the wild. If they don't die they may prey upon anyone they find weaker than themselves - starvation and desperation will do that. So even if you accept that killing all the orc babies is an EVIL act, what are your options that are actually 'good'. And do you and your players do that?

Since you're asking we can presume you;ve basically given up on your claim that the D&D idea of "good" endorses killing orc babies. All we seem able to confirm is that D&D implies some kind of moral realism but an objective and comprehensive system of ethics has not been provided by the writers of D&D games, that destroying innocent life is evil, and that orc babies might count as innocent. But that is different than your claim that D&D says killing orc babies is "good", which is basically somethign you just made up. That's fine and all, you obviously have to fill in the blanks in some cases. But just because deaddmwalking fills in the blank with "killing orc babies is good" doesn't mean D&D said "killing orc babies is good." And y'know we can also fill in the blanks with something of a "normal" moral intuition (i.e. not deaddmwalking's incel morality) and ignore your silly arguments about how killing orc babies "reduces evil in the world."

As for your scenario, there are a lot of missing details, IMPORTANT details, and that makes it difficult to address in the way you've described. But seriously wtf kind of D&D games are you playing. James Bond doesn't worry about the sad widows and the orphans when he kills bad guys who are doing bad stuff. As with an action movie, that stuff gets truncated in your average RPG game. And that's generally ok for the purposes of the game. But if James Bond was actually shooting the orphans and widows in the face with his PP7 that would probably count as "not good".

[maglag]

The bottom line is that alignment is gibberish all the way down. The core book does not give definitions of Law and Chaos or even Good and Evil that are mutually incompatible. Let alone recognizable as opposed forces. Other supplemental books have tried at various points to expand on those definitions to answer any of the myriad questions you would be left with were you to try to puzzle this shit out - and they have not answered those questions in any kind of consistent or comprehensive fashion.

Books like the Book of ED present Good as being extremely horrible with the "good guys" literally using rape torture of people guilty of thought crimes. Books like the Book of VD present Evil as being an odd mashup of people who regularly commit crimes that would fill tabloids for decades and people who just have aesthetic choices the author disagrees with.

The core issue is that while Christianity formally defines good and evil as qualities that people intrinsically possess, modern secular morality does not and cannot support a system of justice that operates like that. You are guilty and deserving of punishment if and only if you have actually done some actual thing that is actually wrong. Opinions differ about the nature of forgiveness and the ability to make up for past misdeeds, but the idea that people should be pre-punished for crimes they might do in the future is generally regarded as immoral and also insane. And yet, if you accept that people are good or evil rather than that people do good and evil things, you pretty much have to subscribe to the notion that an evil-doer is actually already evil before they've really done any evil. That's morally indefensible.

So to the extent that D&D morality is based on anything, it's based on a medieval concept of the moral universe that modern society has roundly rejected. People who play D&D do not actually subscribe to the basic tenets of a moral philosophy required to make any part of the D&D alignment system work. So answering moral questions in that framework is pretty much impossible for everyone. Especially the actual authors, who mostly don't even realize that they are dealing with a system that is at best 2 parts Crusader morality and 3 parts Saturday morning cartoon.

-Username17

But Frank, D&D is supposed to happen roughly in the Crusades age.

Except that the gods are explicitly real and have explicit powers to reward you for going in the crusade and punish you if you don't support the crusade. It was in 2e I believe that alignment was simply which god group you followed.

Not only that, in D&D divination magic is quite real. You can ask the cosmos itself if murderizing that orc village will prevent the world from being destroyed and the cosmos will answer.

As for Saturday morning cartoon bit, at the end of the day D&D's supposed to be a game, not a political philosophy exercise. When the orc army is at the border, most players don't want to spend years/decades in negotiations. They want to go personally facestab some orcs. Modern morality is all fine and dandy-for the modern world with proper nation states and laws and police and social services and gods being considered a hobby and afterlife being a delusion. But in D&D you get Pelor asking you to purge the approaching undead with holy fire, and you can't exactly pick up a phone and call the country's police to save you from the undead horde-because there are no phone lines and no organized country-wide police, there is probably no organized country point and you need to solve the undead horde problem now with only the nearby resources. And you can worry about leaving the necromancer's family starving later. Or never because the DM may not even have bothered to give the necromancer a family.

This is, when exactly was the last time you saw a published adventure mention "after you kill the bad guys and start looting their base, you find their innocent defenceless children. Decide what to do with them"? At best you get "after you kill the adult mind flayers, you find the pool filled with their young larvae that can only mature by eating somebody else's brain to take over their body."

[virgil]

I don't think incel means what you think it means.

Ah, touchy subject I see.

Yeah, people tend to get touchy when words are misused, repeatedly.

[erik]

This is, when exactly was the last time you saw a published adventure mention "after you kill the bad guys and start looting their base, you find their innocent defenceless children. Decide what to do with them"?

Sunless Citadel. Now, they don't make any value judgments, just that you get no XP for killing them, and if you interrogate them they give you some information you could have gotten from another NPC.

[deaddmwalking]

I don't think incel means what you think it means.

Ah, touchy subject I see.

Not for me, personally. You see, I remember you trying to use 'virgin' as an insult previously. I am the father of three children so an accusation that I'm a virgin is tone deaf at best. However, I think that it's important to have standards and trying to lose one's virginity without regard to with whom is unwise. I also know people that are asexual and I don't think that's a problem. And finally, people who use the term 'incel' claim it as an identity, which makes it hard to make it an insult. If you say 'you're an incel' and they say 'yes, I've spent thousands of hours posting on reddit on how I am, in fact, an incel' it misses the mark. That same group apparently uses 'Chad' and 'Stacy' as insults. But sure - you can keep using it as an insult and everyone will keep recognizing that you're an idiot and refuse to take you seriously. So, good?

Since you're asking we can presume you;ve basically given up on your claim that the D&D idea of "good" endorses killing orc babies.

I think you're guilty of a reading fail. So I'll explain this for you in baby-steps so you don't miss it again.

You were completely wrong regarding 'justified homicide' because you have trouble with the definition of words (see: incel; see: murder). You attempted to claim that the game rules 'provide a non-legal standard for whether the Paladin is murdering if he decides to start stabbing little kids'.

Up to this point in the conversation, everyone that was not you recognized that the alignment system in D&D means nothing. It is neither internally consistent nor useful in predicting what behaviors are or are not allowed. It is CERTAINLY TRUE that killing evil creatures is generally considered a good act in D&D, regardless of whether I find the citation. I may be guilty of hyperbole because the justification for killing beholders and ghouls may not apply to 'helpless' creatures, even if they are evil, but that's the result of inconsistent application of alignment.

Ultimately, you took my supposition - that killing orc babies as a good act - as my personal belief that I feel is justified by a reading of the rules. Again, if you had been paying attention up to that point, you'd realize that I previously indicated that any action can be 'justified' by playing your alignment. If you are a Paladin and you argue that killing everyone that detects as evil is a good thing, even if you're pulling that argument out of your ass, THE RULES don't contradict it.

Now, you're trying to claim that 'even if the rules don't say killing orc babies is evil, it totally is and every reasonable person should recognize that'. And I'm saying that reasonable people disagree about interpretations all the time. If you and your GM are in agreement, there's no problem, but if you're not, there is.

So, in ISP's game, a Paladin killing orc babies is grounds to lose all of their Paladin abilities. In other games with a 40k ethos, 'suffer not the abomination to live' would be the order of the day and you could seriously lose your Paladin powers for NOT killing the evil races in whatever manner you find them. ULTIMATELY, the fact that the rules don't define these well enough to eliminate any misunderstanding IS ITSELF a problem.

You have failed to realize that you have been pwned for the last 2 pages because your argument boils down to 'D&D morality SHOULD MEAN SOMETHING' and nobody disagrees with that, but it DOESN'T ACTUALLY MEAN ANYTHING.

Let's start with this sentence:

"Good characters and creatures protect innocent life."

Good character is defined in game terms. We know that someone is good because they write 'Good' on their character sheet. Now, where is 'innocent' defined? Are orc babies innocent? How do we know?

If you let an orc baby grow to adulthood and it is part of a war party that sacks a human village (that includes children who are not 'often chaotic evil') did you fail to protect innocent lives? Or by killing orc babies did you fail to protect innocent lives? Regardless of how you answer that question, where do you validate it with the rules? If you disagree with your table, how do you decide who is right?

All we seem able to confirm is that D&D implies some kind of moral realism but an objective and comprehensive system of ethics has not been provided by the writers of D&D games, that destroying innocent life is evil, and that orc babies might count as innocent. But that is different than your claim that D&D says killing orc babies is "good", which is basically somethign you just made up. That's fine and all, you obviously have to fill in the blanks in some cases. But just because deaddmwalking fills in the blank with "killing orc babies is good" doesn't mean D&D said "killing orc babies is good." And y'know we can also fill in the blanks with something of a "normal" moral intuition (i.e. not deaddmwalking's incel morality) and ignore your silly arguments about how killing orc babies "reduces evil in the world."

Again, you could if you had a basis in rules. Now, you've already stated that the Book Of Exalted Deeds is not part of the SRD and not a common part of the rules, but you'll be happy to know that it does support your position. On page 9-10 it specifically calls out murdering orc babies as evil, but it doesn't go as far as you would probably like. It certainly implies that killing the young of SOME races is a good act.

To quote the section on Violence:

Violence is a part of the D&D world, and not inherently evil in the context of that world... A paladin smiting a blackguard or a bule dragon is not committing an evil act: the cause of good expects and often demands that violence be brought to bear against its enemies... There are certain limits that good characters must observe. First, violence in the name of good must have a just cause which in the D&D world means primarily that it must be directed against evil. The second is that the violence should have good intentions. Launching an incursion into orc territory is not a good act if the primary motivation is profit... The third consideration is one of discrimination. Violence cannot be considered good when it is directed against noncombatants (including children and females of at least some races and cultures.

So, since you struggle with reading comprehension, while you claim vindication I will point out that this doesn't really solve anything at all. Orcs, specifically, are protected from being slaughtered and you weren't able to find anything in the core rules to that effect. And even in these passages, it doesn't define what young SHOULD be killed on sight, if any. Clearly the game presents 'wyrmling' dragons as opponents to be killed, so again, CLEARLY, the directives of a good alignment are vague and subject to personal interpretation.

Which ultimately means that they're not making the game better. You can 100% strip them out and the only thing that changes is nobody argues about whether an action is permissible or forbidden. Or whether a character would know before their deity punishes them.

You know - what was originally asserted before this whole aside. Killing orc babies is monstrous regardless of whether your GM thinks it is evil or good. Not having to argue it is an improvement. Like, obviously.

[infected slut princess]

Not for me, personally. You see, I remember you trying to use 'virgin' as an insult previously. I am the father of three children so an accusation that I'm a virgin is tone deaf at best. However, I think that it's important to have standards and trying to lose one's virginity without regard to with whom is unwise. I also know people that are asexual and I don't think that's a problem. And finally, people who use the term 'incel' claim it as an identity, which makes it hard to make it an insult. If you say 'you're an incel' and they say 'yes, I've spent thousands of hours posting on reddit on how I am, in fact, an incel' it misses the mark. That same group apparently uses 'Chad' and 'Stacy' as insults. But sure - you can keep using it as an insult and everyone will keep recognizing that you're an idiot and refuse to take you seriously. So, good?

Yeah... definitely a touchy subject. I mean, you react to what is obviously a frivolous insult with the apparent need to write up 150+ words justifying your existence. That's really sad.

Anyhow, if what you say about your life is true, then congratulations on not being incel your whole life.

But it is sad and/or hilarious that you now struggle with being an incel like Kaelick.

You attempted to claim that the game rules 'provide a non-legal standard for whether the Paladin is murdering if he decides to start stabbing little kids'.

Not exactly. I said they probably intend for there to be some kind of objective standard, but they don't provide it in a very clear, comprehensive way. And I think that's ok. They probably shouldn't, because it's an RPG not a treatise on moral philosophy. I know we are all nerds and it's fun to argue over stupid stuff like this, but for the most part you just don't need to worry about it that much. You can apply a "reasonable person" (i.e. non-incel) test and that works ok for a goddamn RPG about elves and wizards and dragons and you can kill the orc warriors who are attacking you without worrying about the orc widows and orc orphans back home in Orcville who will be sad and perhaps face significant hardship.

It is CERTAINLY TRUE that killing evil creatures is generally considered a good act in D&D, regardless of whether I find the citation.

No it's not "certainly true." Non-incel people come to this issue with a sense of proportionality.

Good character is defined in game terms. We know that someone is good because they write 'Good' on their character sheet. Now, where is 'innocent' defined? Are orc babies innocent? How do we know?

"Innocent" is not defined. It doesn't define "protect" or "life" either. But that's not necessarily a big deal. The game does not define every regular English word it uses. There are some tricky situations in life, but most of the time normal people can figure out who is the innocent victim in a situation and who is the aggressor, and amazingly we do this without needing a D&D book to tell us what 'innocent' means. Generally this is only a problem for incels who hate themselves and everyone else.

Here, I happen to have a stupid Robotech RPG (Palladium) book neearby. Let's look at their alignment section. Oh look, the "principled" and "scrupulous" alignments say "never harm an innocent." And lo and behold, it does not anyhwere define "innocent" and yet non-incels shouldn't have too much trouble figuring out who is innocent and who is not 99.9% of the time while playing the stupid game (which you probably should not do in the first place because it's a pretty bad game).

If you are a Paladin and you argue that killing everyone that detects as evil is a good thing, even if you're pulling that argument out of your ass, THE RULES don't contradict it.

Again, this is you projecting. I hesitate to call it "rules", but the discussion about alignment, as flawed as it is, might actually contradict it if you use the regular meanings of words and you don;t play with retarded incels who engage in deranged sophistry about you have to kill orc babies to perhaps maybe possibly stop Orc Hitler Neo Prime in the future.

I mean, your quote from Book of Exalted Dongs is basically irrelevant, to be honest. Normal people aren't so autistic and incel as you that they need an RPG book to provide a full of list of "what young should be killed on sight." You really are an idiot.

If you disagree with your table, how do you decide who is right?

The incel is always wrong.

[virgil]

incel

[infected slut princess]

^ another incel right there.

[virgil]

^ another incel right there.

Please explain how you came to this conclusion. Use small words for me.

[infected slut princess]

well lets see... you have more than 6000 posts on an RPG gaming forum.

Case closed.

[virgil]

well lets see... you have more than 6000 posts on an RPG gaming forum.

Case closed.

Disregarding the obvious kettle analogy, incel is intrinsically (causally, even, by your wording) linked with a presence on a gaming forum?

[Mistborn]

So what do you guys think isp's deal is? Why is he this way, because for the life of me I can't think of a reason. Who is the hell is he trying to convince and of what?

Seriously isp mah dude you are not winning here, whatever validation you seek here you will not find it. Your antics aren't convincing anyone here that you're some kind of successful coolguy. Rather they paint a picture of an extremely lame guy grasping at straws.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Why is a hole with no bottom. Is ISP emotionally immature and acting out for attention? Is he projecting his insecurities on others? Is he in grade school and just spamming the newest insult he's learned?

The answer is: who fucking cares? He's never posted anything worth reading anyway. Hit ignore and move on, life richer for it. Then I won't have to read his inane shit when you quote it.

[nockermensch]

^ another incel right there.

Please explain how you came to this conclusion. Use small words for me.

Here's a small word for you, my dude:
C U C C

There: I'm better than ISP at being ISP. Case closed.



Seriously now: ISP, just stop. You're not being novel, clever or transgressive coming with insults like these. Argue in good faith or go away.

[RobbyPants]

So what do you guys think isp's deal is? Why is he this way, because for the life of me I can't think of a reason. Who is the hell is he trying to convince and of what?

I had him on ignore for something a while ago, but I couldn't remember what. I was just reminded, today.

He's never posted anything worth reading anyway.

Ultimately, it's this. I can't think of a single thing he's posted where I thought "how insightful" or even "how interesting". He bitches about some of the things we bitch about, and other than that... he's just busy being ISP. He just alternates between inanities and shitposting.

[Zaranthan]

I keep finding myself saying "aw man, is this the new shadzar? Do I have to put everybody who talks to ISP on ignore, too?" Then I realize it's just this topic.