Making D&D morality less repulsive.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 2:36 pm

By that very definition, I'm pretty sure everyone on this board is evil.
(except the couple of vegetarians)

icyshadowlord · Post by **icyshadowlord** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 2:37 pm

What? Is it just because I'm jewish (and Finnish) that I'm also evil?

(To those of you who think I am being serious: I am just joking.)

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 2:41 pm

Sentience is the ability to feel emotions, and have experiences. Pretty much all animals have sentience.
Sapience is Human or Higher Intelligence.

And Yes, being Finnish makes you Evil.

icyshadowlord · Post by **icyshadowlord** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 2:42 pm

Whether you are sentient or sapient is not really the issue here...or is it?

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 2:43 pm

Killing Sentient Babies is Evil.. so Sentience vs Sapient does seem to be the issue.

If Sentience is the limit, then all carnivores and omnivores are Evil.
If it's Sapient, then only Cannibals, Soldiers, and Murderers are Evil.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 2:44 pm

I just want to expand on this a little more, it really does have real world applications. There is a signifiant parallel in the current juvenile justice system where it is believed that young offenders have a far better chance at "reform" than adult offenders. There is a greater tendency to "forgive" the sins of youth because they can be reformed to assume a mor proper (in other words good) attitude in society.

The same argument can be applied to orcs; it's not orcs that are evil, it's orc culture that instills evil among orcs. Remove the orc, when young enough from that environment and that orc will be free to choose good. (Mind you that ignores the potential for backlash when the orc realizes that he was taken - against his will - from his own people and then in turn abandons what he was taught for bonding with the culture he never experienced.)

The real problem is neither alignment nor free will, you can't just leave babies alone ... they will DIE (and killing wether directly or indirectly is still killing) so that now you have to care for them, as you do every prisoner of combat or everyone who you rescued in the middle of the dungeon. Not only is that a pain in the ass, it takes up a whole lot of resources. I can see why people don't want to do that.

I mean no one really wants to carry treasure ... never mind being a babysitter.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 2:46 pm

Orcs are an issue, because we know that Half-Orcs aren't necessarily Evil. And we know that there are degrees of Evil. There are Evil humans living in Lawful Good lands, and not getting slaughtered willy nilly.

But how often do adventurers go wandering into a goblin camp and go all Anakin Skywalker on it?

icyshadowlord · Post by **icyshadowlord** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 2:54 pm

I think that depends on the campaign. To me it seems that the adventurers are usually the ones being attacked when it comes to Orcs and Goblins. Last time our group was actually being the offending party was when our Chaotic Evil Dwarf shot a Lizardfolk village with a cannon...FOR THE HELL OF IT. (I did not deny him the chance to do that, because the rest of the party was either Neutral or Evil as well. Even though we agreed that alignment has no meaning)

MfA · Post by **MfA** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 2:57 pm

sabs wrote:By that very definition, I'm pretty sure everyone on this board is evil. (except the couple of vegetarians)

Sorry, guess I read too much sci-fi and not enough philosophy textbooks ... make that conscious. What exactly constitutes conscious creatures? Whatever I say it does ... reason : Because.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 2:57 pm

Is it evil to leave baby orcs to grow up and slaughter humans?

Is it evil to take a chance with human life, betting that somehow all those spared baby orcs will not grow up to become orc raiders?

MfA · Post by **MfA** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 3:05 pm

Fuchs wrote:Is it evil to leave baby orcs to grow up and slaughter humans?

The exact future is unknowable.

Is it evil to take a chance with human life, betting that somehow all those spared baby orcs will not grow up to become orc raiders?

No, regardless of the immediately visible outcome an evil act will only cause more evil in the final balance ... D&D morality has faith in the universe being on average moral.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 3:11 pm

The goblin camp is an interesting problem. First and foremost is the question of what that goblin camp is doing. The goblin camp in the abstract is not sufficient information to give you guidance one way or the other.

If that camp is actively hurting innocents, then the just war theory demands that you act to protect those innocents. If that camp is doing nothing, why stir up the hornest's nest? (Even if you kill them all, if word spread to another camp that camp may decide to take revenge for the slaughter of their own kind; thus you have caused the harm of innocents by your killing of the membes of the camp.)

Now if that camp has women and children, (and this is where it does get complicated) then clearly one needs to have other considerations in mind. It might even be possible to "reason" with them. (Although it might require a strong show of force before hand.) Remember that not all creatures "fight to the death" and that a show of overwhelming force can also make a person equally willing to negotiate as it is to commit suicide, especially if women and children are with the group.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 4:03 pm

tzor wrote:
shadzar wrote:There ya go.
There I go WHAT?

There you go the quote form the PHB so you didnt have to wait to get home you cum guzzling douchebag!

Try reading the post you respond to if you have the ability to fucking read, then you will know what it is about.

Maybe at work you should try doing your job, then you wouldn't fuck up reading a forum, but also wouldn't fuck up your job as well.

You got the paladin quote from the PHB by now, so fuck you.

Funny thing is, you still never used the PHB quote you so badly needed to show it didnt connect paladins to religion but alignment as your initial want to do was.

PoliteNewb · Post by **PoliteNewb** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 4:07 pm

Fuchs wrote:Is it evil to leave baby orcs to grow up and slaughter humans?

No. Not unless those orcs are predestined to grow up and slaughter humans...in which case, your PC was probably predestined to slaughter them or not.

Once you bring predestination into it, all moral arguments are stupid. The only time a moral choice makes any sense is if people have meaningful choices, and if they do, killing babies (of any intelligent race) is wrong.

People should be killed because of past actions or highly predictable future actions (said predictions based on past behavior). Babies have not taken any actions, and have no predictable basis for future behavior. They are literally blank slates.

Plebian · Post by **Plebian** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 6:09 pm

to be fair D&D has the absolutely idiotic tendency to classify entire races of sapients as various flavors of evil, which leads to the whole justifying-genocide thing

Gods_Trick · Post by **Gods_Trick** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 9:19 pm

MfA wrote:
Gods_Trick wrote:Alright, retarded by standards of real world ethics. I demonstrate thusly: Is killing baby orcs Good or Evil?
I'll bite, unprovoked killing and killing of defenceless sentient beings is evil.

Reason : Because.

Because what man? I'll tell you the cynical answer, because we fucking wouldn't want it to be applied to us, or our babies if we were under the knife.

Well done Tzor, you anticipate my argument. Free will is what spoils the feasibility of Alignments.

We have half orcs, hell we full out orc heroes. Genetics does not predicate morality in most cases? We cool, or you guys want to fight this one?

So baby orcs aren't evil or good. They might be predisposed to be more violent and rash lets say, but lots of CG heroes suffer from those afflictions.

So why are Orcs evil? Because they take our stuff with violence. Guys, I don't know about you, but if my major abilities were being strong and tough, and I was hungry all the time and lived in a dump, yeah, don't walk by me with your iPhone and designer Nikes. If my future was locked into lower class welfare/poverty, and i lacked the training and abilities to better myself, I'll go with the strengths I have.

Orcs are Evil because of social forces, and because we need a punchclock mooks in a combat game.

Back to baby orcs. Killing their parents is fine if they're a threat. But killing the kids is moral neglect. Instead of adopting them or finding an orphanage, its easier to kill them. Its lazy. Good & Evil become a narrative excuse to not live up to consequences of wiping out a village of orcs.

D&D alignment is retarded because its a cardboard cutout of ethics in a static universe where consequences are the exception. You either accept that and roll with it, OR play in a setting where you accept D&D's idea of alignment is clumsy and heavyhanded, and best ignored.

Anyone who disagrees, counter the argument. I'll ignore herp derp and shifting the goalpost.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:52 pm

My characters can live with the consequnces of wiping out an orc village or two. It means less enemies trying to avenge their parents later, even if the orcs wouldn't go all evil anywa,y worshipping their dark gods.

In a world with monsters such as D&D, making sure your species survives is good.

Gods_Trick · Post by **Gods_Trick** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 11:00 pm

Fuchs wrote:My characters can live with the consequnces of wiping out an orc village or two. It means less enemies trying to avenge their parents later, even if the orcs wouldn't go all evil anywa,y worshipping their dark gods.

In a world with monsters such as D&D, making sure your species survives is good.

And theres your cardboard morality world. Total war, and forget free will. Very Iron Age hero, there are no consequences to wiping orc villages because the most that will happen is more orcs come *shrugs*, you'll always meet CR appropriate enemies.

Good and Evil alignments work perfectly well in that world.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:36 am

Ugh, you guys are forgetting everything.

Alignment means what side your working for. Not what you yourself actually are, or what you will do or not do.

The Lawful Evil Overlord seriously can have minions that they treat with respect, and a whole family that lives with them, and it's not like they still can't go and cut the hearts out of other people to their evil master deities; or even have a whole culture that preys on other species, and is actually pretty good at organizing themselves, and taking care of the health and well being of their own people.

They all just proscribe to the notions that Law is important, and that Committing Evil is how they want to go to the afterlife, hopefully becoming evil fiends. The dretches and lemures are the low CR creatures that didn't make it. However, even Maglubyiet and Gruumsh will take any and all of their kind, Goblinoid and Orc, respectively. Which basically means that Goblins and Orcs are waging war all Populous style, on behalf of people that can raise/lower the land, or set it on fire.

MfA · Post by **MfA** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:05 am

Gods_Trick wrote:Because what man?

Ultimately there is no what, I'm a romantic ... I know when to abandon rationalism ... and in D&D I do it very quickly where alignment is concerned.

In D&D I can just declare an act evil on the "I know it when I see it" basis without worrying about the consequences. In D&D liberal feel good ethics and pragmatist/utilitarian ethics are one and the same, there truly is a greater good and it is served by objectively good acts ... makes life so much easier.

In D&D it is the people who want to examine the immediate outcome of the acts to judge them good or evil who end up becoming evil ... because they refuse to see the big picture. In the end all you tried to accomplish will go to dust and all that will be left is a universe with more evil in it because of an evil act. Of course there is allure in thinking you know better than the universe, the allure of the dark side

PS. this is the Book of Exalted Deeds view of D&D alignment.

Gods_Trick · Post by **Gods_Trick** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:22 am

Gods in D&D are an evil pile of steaming shite IMO, which is part of the problem. The nature of how Alignment works or how specifically BoED deals with it does nothing to address the carboard ethics versus, how did you put it, liberal feel good ethics.

Personally I prefer to play LE sociopaths who do the most terrible means for the noblest ends. Its my thing. Its either that or Vash, and its damn hard to play Good in a D&D setting thats given up Alignments.

@JE - how you behave has nothing to do with how you identify yourself unless you choose to conflate that. Your struggle could be Evil vs Chaos or Green vs Loud and still require the same behaviour of the participants.

MfA · Post by **MfA** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:38 am

I was promised fallacies, not adjectives.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 3:16 pm

Gods_Trick wrote:Well done Tzor, you anticipate my argument. Free will is what spoils the feasibility of Alignments.

I would argue that it does not spoil the "feasibility" of alignments, but it does spoil the ridigity of alignments. Baring epiphanies, the alignments of those with free will wander around over the time, but they do not jump. The sweet kindly little old lady who helped everyone throughout her life isn't going to suddenly go postal at the orphanage in order to gain immprtality.

So why are Orcs "evil." Well, the dumb answer is "the book says so." (There were times in the history of D&D when they were "mostly evil.") You have to come up with your own reason why orcs are evil, and since there is no common "by the book" reason, it's hard to discuss it.

Judging__Eagle wrote:The Lawful Evil Overlord seriously can have minions that they treat with respect, and a whole family that lives with them, and it's not like they still can't go and cut the hearts out of other people to their evil master deities; or even have a whole culture that preys on other species, and is actually pretty good at organizing themselves, and taking care of the health and well being of their own people.

D&D rules generally talk in absolutes; they literally don't cover the case of myoptic morality (I like A / I hate B). Myoptic morality literally puts polar opposite forces in the same person. Ideally, the "Evil Overlord" you cited might be "Neutral with evil tendencies" because he is good to some and "evil" to others. More over, it gets really complex. Why is he cutting out the hearts of other people? Personal gain? Obedience to a superior? The first is a motive of EVIL, the second a motive of LAW. Both could be the case, by the way (and need to be the case for the really lawful evil).

It's easy to see how evil corrupts good; it's harder to see how good corrupts evil. If you really like your family, and you really start to like your son, it's only a matter of time until you will actually put yourself in mortal danger (swimming in a sea of force lightning) to throw your superior down a pit of death because he wanted to kill your son. There goes law and evil right out the window.

Alignment does not mean what side you are working for. Alignment is your attidute towards everything. That attitude is like oil and water; that is the only reason why alignments of similiar nature associate with each other.

Gods_Trick · Post by **Gods_Trick** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 5:06 pm

MfA wrote:I was promised fallacies, not adjectives.

Uggh, you want a classical argument. Alright, give me a bit though, writing a cogent analysis of Alignment will take awhile.

Tzor, free will spoils the feasibility of keeping alignments square. Do A get B. Kill orcs, if good. But when exceptions to the rules start happening, they lampshade the flaws in the system.

Anecdotal experience. In a RP heavy campaign the villain was basically the CEO of D&D Coke. Did things completely legally, but he was legally making the world a worser place.

Paladin decides screw the laws and screw proof, Detect Evil was all the evidence he needed.

The game wasn't ruined by any means, but it certainly highlighted the assumptions built into alignment and paladins.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 5:08 pm

Shouldn't that paladin end up with a crisis of conscience? Paladins are not Chaotic Good, or Neutral Good, they are LAWFUL Good.