BoED Split - Defining [Good]

[Winnah]

Simple, requires a Good DM (alignment wise) for it to work though.

What the fuck?

Get your fucking head examined. Seriously. Categorising real people according to ham-fisted game morality is not healthy.

[flare22]

ill say it again good and evil as well as ethics and morals in general are completely relative to the time place an culture you are residing in.

in dnd there are plenty of people who worship evil deities and they do not believe themselves evil and there are those who go around grave robbing and using murder and mayhem as a catch all solution for there problems yet are considered good. the only true tangible difference is wether or not you can channel positive or negative energy and even that

but since DND demands a textbook definition for good and evil in order for its rules to work the best way to define it is to do it by using words that are not tied in ethical or moral ways IE words like help or conflict

conflict is bad by definition even if the causes of conflict vary from culture to culture likewise helping people is good by definition even if what constitutes help varies from culture to culture so

people who help others whenever possible are good people who do not help unless it benefits them are evil people who help only when its convenient or when it benefits them are neutral

people who seek conflict or use to get what they want only avoiding it when they cost of conflict is to high are evil people who avoid conflict at all costs and only use it as a last result are good people who do not seek conflict but are not above using it when the cost of avoiding it is to high are neutral.

[Slade]

Simple, requires a Good DM (alignment wise) for it to work though.

What the fuck?

Get your fucking head examined. Seriously. Categorising real people according to ham-fisted game morality is not healthy.

Get yours first:
We just defined good as "GOOD means you go out of your way to help out others. "

If you have a DM who who will go out of your way to help you, then you have a Good DM.

How are you defining Good?

[Winnah]

I don't ascribe game mechanics to real people.

[PoliteNewb]

Oh, I totally agree, I was just pointing out that arguing over the 'true meaning of Good' isn't going to get us anywhere. For the purposes of D&D its important to remember that morality and alignment are Objective not Subjective. Clerics of Hextor and Pit Fiends detect as Evil regardless of their feelings on the matter, and Paladins can fall even if they think their actions were justified. Alignment change happens because the actions you take match up to a differing moral framework than the one you used to follow, and that isn't coloured by your interpretation of what that framework allows.

100% Agreement.

Although that is something that has always bothered me. In the real world every group likes to claim it is the good guys and the other team are the bad guys, so how does that work in a world where you are literally told that your God is Evil, he radiates detectable Evil particles and all his followers are Evil? Seems like that would be a hard sell on new recruits.

I think this is due to some language association...some people like to use "good" to mean what they think is "right"...and that's not the same thing. Evil people can totally believe that slaughtering innocents is evil...they just also think it is perfectly okay and justifiable.

If you worship an evil god, it's because you believe the things that are defined as "evil" (both objectively and by most societies) are totally cool. Basically, you believe there's nothing wrong with being evil. Paladins and moralizers will say "you serve the forces of EVIL!" and you're just like "meh".

It's a language issue clouded by translation convention.

In English, and presumably Common, the word for the objectively measurable magic radiation that matches the magic radiation found in Elysium is the same as the word for morally correct and as a word for desirable. The word for the objectively measurable radiation that most closely matches that found in Hades is the same as the word for morally incorrect.

However, there is no reason why they have to be. Good and Evil are nouns that refer to objective things while good and evil are subjective adjectives. You could just as easily call the Upper Plane radiation Spoo and call the Lower Plane Radiation Felddrop, after the wizards who first discovered them.

Things would honestly be better for the game is you did call them "spoo" and "felddrop". Or "Celestial" and "Fiendish". Or anything except good and evil.

Good and evil have been used by human beings for centuries to refer to morality. Expecting people to ignore that usage and try to use them for stuff like "cosmic radiation" is shortsighted. It's not going to happen. Instead of making that juxtaposition an in-game conceit (which is just going to confuse the shit out of everybody, players and characters alike), just stop fucking doing it.

[Chamomile]

Celestial and Fiendish probably are better words for it. Maybe Holy and Profane instead, since those are existing game terms that are nearly synonymous with the game meanings of Good and Evil already.

[PoliteNewb]

Celestial and Fiendish probably are better words for it. Maybe Holy and Profane instead, since those are existing game terms that are nearly synonymous with the game meanings of Good and Evil already.

Why do you think that is a good idea? The whole point is to disassociate "good/evil" from "team A/team B".

If you want to play a nice guy devil, you want him to have the "good" tag. But because he's a devil, you also want him to have the "fiendish/devil/hornsclawstail" tag. If you make the latter "profane", then you have a profane good guy...which is a little weird. And contrariwise, you also have "holy" dickheads.

If you enjoy this juxtaposition, knock yourself out, I guess. I don't fap to how "holy" people are all asshole hypocrites, so I would rather make "holy" actually associated with good, if I used it at all...since that's how most people who use the english word "holy" see it.

Long story short...if you want asshole 'paladins' to be evil, don't give them the "holy" tag just because they work on the same side as shiny guys with feathered wings. There's no point to it except to highlight religious hypocrisy...which, I guess could be your deal.

[Chamomile]

"Holy" and "profane" are just damage types to me. Also aesthetic styles, I guess, in that I tend to think of white-washed cathedrals for "holy" and twisted black spires for "profane." Since you're going to have gods who are profane and then gods who are also holy, however, the religious connotations aren't supported mechanically and, at least in the groups I play with, don't really have any moral connotations at all. Japanese video games love to make the Catholic church expy the bad guy as their "big twist" while the four nature spirits who have all but faded inevitably prove to be the good supernatural entity, so "holy=morally correct" doesn't have a whole lot of traction with large chunks of the gamer population. If you're playing with active practicing Christians of most denominations, your mileage may vary. On the other hand, if you're playing with active practicing Mormon Christians, celestial and holy are recognizably synonymous anyway.

[PoliteNewb]

"Holy" and "profane" are just damage types to me. Also aesthetic styles, I guess, in that I tend to think of white-washed cathedrals for "holy" and twisted black spires for "profane." Since you're going to have gods who are profane and then gods who are also holy, however, the religious connotations aren't supported mechanically and, at least in the groups I play with, don't really have any moral connotations at all.

Fair enough. Probably should have added a YMMV...guess I was coming from a pretty christian-america biased view there.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Regarding good being the maximization of happiness:
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db ... 2569#comic

[Chamomile]

It irritates me when that comic gets brought up in the context of utilitarian ethics, because the feedback loop it describes is actually insane. When someone is already super happy, additional things going well won't make them as happy as compared to someone who's having a harder time, so rather than Felix getting a feedback loop, Felix would instead hit diminishing returns. Of course, the idea that someone so much more capable of happiness as Felix could actually exist is also bizarre, but that's the premise of the comic, so whatever.

It occurs to me that the computer is probably glitching up, and isn't stacking happiness from multiple sources, so instead of maximizing total happiness, it's instead trying to squeeze the most happiness possible out of any single human being. Which, as far as rogue AIs go, is one of the more plausible glitches, as opposed "spontaneously develops human need for self-actualization and goes rogue," "inexplicably goes mad with power like a human would despite having none of the 'acquire more power' priorities humans have," or "decides humanity is a threat to its ongoing survival and best option is to murder everything."

[Avoraciopoctules]

Substitute "mad archon" for "crazy AI", and you can actually make a D&D adventure hook out of the comic.

[Prak]

If you worship an evil god, it's because you believe the things that are defined as "evil" (both objectively and by most societies) are totally cool. Basically, you believe there's nothing wrong with being evil. Paladins and moralizers will say "you serve the forces of EVIL!" and you're just like "meh".

This.
"You revere demons!"
"Meh. They represent traits I find admirable."
"You dehumanize people with your view that they're just machines full of chemicals."
"Meh. They are."
"You're eating a baby, right now!"
"Meh. It died a natural death."
"You deny the existence of my god!"
"Meh. He denies the existence of my rights."

If you make the latter "profane", then you have a profane good guy...which is a little weird. And contrariwise, you also have "holy" dickheads.

...I see nothing wrong with this set up...

[Chamomile]

Prak, conflating D&D Good with real world Christianity is exactly as irritating when you do it as when the guy who wrote Book of Exalted Deeds did it. Cut that bullshit out.

[Prak]

That's Fred Phelps. He is a dickhead, who is aligned with the most socially acceptable religion, and thus easily considered "holy". What is the issue here?

[Avoraciopoctules]

The issue is probably that you are latching onto D&D demons and, primarily because they are called demons, are whitewashing them into fitting with your religious views.

This may or may not be linked to the thread where you got upset over D&D Baphomet turning out not to fit with your idea of what Baphomet was.

[Prak]

The Baphomet thing is an old irritation, from when Dragon was around. He was one of their Demonicon entries, each of which had some sidebar about the background of the figure, often talking about their use in real world folk lore. I was a much more reactionary Satanist at that time, being 18 and newly using the label, so when it completely ignored the fact that Baphomet is literally on the main symbol of Satanism (which is even named after him), I was pissed. The fact that they dumbwashed a hermetic figure of enlightenment still pisses me off, like how Bane keeps getting portrayed as just a brute in Batman works outside of the comic (this is part of why I liked TAS and DKR, because they portrayed him correctly).

Also, I'm not exactly whitewashing demons to fit my religious views. I will point out that the idea of animalistic divine figures only being evil is almost unique to the Abrahamics. I will also point out that demon is more of a neutral term to denote "magical spirit" outside of the Abrahamics.

You'll notice that for the Profane Good Guy, I didn't use a demon. I did not use Spawn, Lucifer (From Sandman/Lucifer, Demon the Fallen, or anything else), Etrigan, Ghost Rider (though, damn, that'd be a good fit), or even Angel or Spike from the Whedonverse. I used a perfectly mundane good guy who is literally mundane, in that he swears constantly. He also has something of a fecal fascination, and is misanthropic. He also, however has a veritable "heart of gold" and does good. For the Holy Dickhead, I refrained from the easy Pope picture (especially since I'm really not sure I'd consider Ratzinger to be actually dickish, even with hitler youth-ism and moving around child molesters). I used a guy who cloaks himself in the garb of "holiness" but is an indisputable dick.

But, sure. I'm pissed that all the guys with horns and claws and functional pragmatism are constantly put in the light of "they're evil, and because they're evil they probably rape, murder, and eat babies. Lets go kill them all! How do we know they're evil? Um... because they're ugly!"

[Chamomile]

So, what, you're a moral hipster? The problem with Fred Phelps isn't that his viewpoint is too mainstream, the problem is that he completely disregarded existing D&D cosmology to try and shove his worldview down other people's throats, which is exactly what you're doing. D&D demons do not represent the same traits as LaVeyean Satanism or any of its branches. The existence of D&D gods is not reasonably debatable within the game world, it is an immediately obvious fact to anyone who sees Contact Other Plane with any sort of regularity, or who has planeshifted over to Hades and watched Nerull take his evening stroll through the graveyards.

The Evil D&D gods are described as "delight[ing] in panic in slaughter," "call[ing] on his followers to cull the weak from their numbers, and to take all the territory that [he] thinks is rightfully theirs (which is almost everything)," or as being patrons to "all those who seek the greatest evil for their own enjoyment and gain." Good gods are said to "promote justice, valor, chivalry, and honor," "watche over all good people who live in theforest, love the woodlands, or make their livelihood there," or "a supporter of those in need." If you look at these two and say that the Good ones are the ones who are denying any rights, you are either deluded or the sort of GOP asshat who thinks he has the right to oppress other people for his own benefit.

Demons are described as being "cruel and bestial," "the patron of tyrants, despots, and all those who rule by force," "the patron of...Those who would use their beauty and magic charms to control and ruin those around them," "savage and ruthless," "command[ing] the servitude of all gnolls through the subjugation of the demonic King of the Gnolls," and being "behind far more of the world's ills than one might guess," and a follower of one demon is described as "causing chaos and woe for its own sake, in the name of the demon she reveres." Multiple of these are explicitly in favor of stomping on other people's rights, whereas the gods of Good are generally not.

In RAW, that is what demon worshipers and worshipers of Evil gods in D&D are on board with. When someone Good walks up to an Evil person, they are decrying them for being imperialist slavers and rapists. Now, where that falls down is that you can also detect as Evil for cannibalism, which may not be wise but isn't especially immoral, or for being a BDSM enthusiast or for making robots out of corpses (unless those robots aren't healed by Negative Energy in which case it's totally okay for some reason) or for using spells that look icky but whose end results are no worse than, say, Lightning Bolt, or for a half-dozen other things which are stuck under the [Evil] tag apropos of nothing. And that's dumb, and we should change it, but none of that makes conflating Christianity with D&D Good any less stupid regardless of what your reasons are for doing so, because you can go to the actual books and read the actual text and it is very obviously clear that D&D Good bears very tangential connections to Christianity.

[icyshadowlord]

Outside D&D, I put demons and devils as separate beings. This thread just proves why it's a good idea.

Demons are only "Always Chaotic Evil" in D&D, but the original Daemons (Daimons?) of myth could be good or evil.

[hyzmarca]

It's worth noting that in Gygax's Greyhawk novels, Good isn't a significant part of Team White Hat. Team White Hat is called Balance and is comprised mostly of True Neutrals, with a few hangers on of other alignments.

It's also worth noting that a great many classic D&D White Hat parties contain Evil characters. Robilar is one of then iconic Greyhawk adventurers, and he's Lawful Evil. Assassin exists as a PC class, must be Evil, and are part of some iconic White Hat parties.

The D&D Alignment system borrows heavily from Moorcook. One of the things that it borrows is that victory by any one alignment would effectively destroy the universe. Evil in excess is bad, but evil in moderation is necessary. "Balance" translates to "you can't destroy the universe for moral reasons and/or the lulz, it's where we keep all our stuff."

Likewise, gods and champions of Good and Law are just as prone to excess as those of Evil and Chaos are, and their excesses are just as bad.