BoED Split - Defining [Good]

[Anguirus]

The easy way out of the the detect good and evil and the paladin stuff is that is they are defined relative to the person casting the spell or the deity that the paladin is representing.

It's not that they are intrinsically evil, it's that they are evil to YOU.

Of course is doesn't work with the absurd gygaxism of alignment as some sort of absolute metric, but so what? That has been absurd for 30+ years, why should we feel obliged to keep believing absurd things due to tradition, or "it is so written". It's not like it's some sort of religious obligation, is it?

I like this a lot. It seems that this would lead to thoughtful and interesting results. Don't make it detect evil but detect antagonists. Then we can totally play characters with ethically complicated positions without the do-gooders in the party murdering them outright. Yeah, moral relativism or whatever but seriously, Foucault won his debate with Chomsky.

[flare22]

id say demons/evil adventures who help each other out either do it because it furthers there own cause evil does not mean stupid and an evil adventuring party gets started because its members share similar goals and there is no reason for them not to help each other in pursuit of the those goals the difference between them and a good adventuring party really only lies with the end result were and evil party would be more willing to betray one another to increase his share of the profit

further evil does not always mean heartless so there is nothing stopping a demon or evil adventurer from considering someone a friend and if thats the case helping a friend may be a valid personal goal for an evil adventurer to persue ruthlessly at the expense of others.

[ishy]

Unless you're prepared to argue that there's no such thing as a sincere religious fundamentalist, I find this objection of yours extremely bizarre. The vast majority of revealed religions, especially Abrahamic ones, promise some kind of ridiculous reward to people who are loyal to the faith. You may have heard of a popular one: it's called 'heaven'.them better than non-believers both in this and the next world.

When you have a crazy ax murderer, who murderers anyone she comes across, and believes herself to be good because she is sending them to their proper D&D afterlife, I don't think anyone would say she is good.

But in D&D land there is an actual spell called "Detect Evil" and it shows you who is on Santa's list without any ifs or buts.

Actually it does have some ifs and buts. Neutral clerics with evil gods would ping as evil. Just like lawful good paladin succubi would.

[dkfather]

I remember I played a long campaign with a card carrying member of the CWPoA. For him evil was far different than what our female bible belt born methodist television producer. Evil thus ended up to mean demonic - from the nether world, while good was from the realm of the gods.

"How does your spell know he is evil?"

"I think it is the red skin, dripping fangs, and horns."

An Orc with larceny in his heart could not me counted as evil - only chaotic naughty.

[Lago PARANOIA]

When you have a crazy ax murderer, who murderers anyone she comes across, and believes herself to be good because she is sending them to their proper D&D afterlife, I don't think anyone would say she is good.

Then you need a goddamn better definition of good, because that is exactly the same justification that Abrahamic religions use in the real goddamn world to prosecute heretics.

Why is it so hard for people to grasp that the real world definition of good (or rather, 21st century Western society's definition to most people of it) is a bit more complex than 'goes out of their way to benefit others?'

I generally like going with alignment systems that allow for Evil groups where some members actually will make sacrifices for each other even if they'd laugh at the idea in general. It makes it easier to put together diverse dungeons and enemy factions.

Then you need to define a set of ethical axioms that you define as 'good'. Because depending on which morality system you're talking about these people would register as evil (Kantian) or they would in fact register as the purest of good in their system (tribalism).

Sincere religious fundamentalists do exist in that there are people who genuinely think Jews are inherently evil and the world will actually be better off without them, but these people are both wrong and dramatically outnumbered by the people who don't actually care whether or not Jews are evil and actually just want to kill people and take their stuff and are happy to have an excuse to do so.

I find this line of argument weird and stupid. Because it's a naked argumentum ad populum argument. That's more-or-less true TODAY but if you went back 600 or even 200 years the people arguing for religious tolerance would have been viewed as creepy and insincere. And it's especially weird and stupid in the D&D verse, where there are actual non-Abrahamic apocalypse cults.

The doctrine of any given cult is almost universally selfish and focuses heavily on the rewards God will give you personally for doing what he says rather than on what you can do for other people, which is why crazy New Agers who have beliefs which are inane but nonetheless genuinely want to help other people basically never become violent terrorists, and likewise why Christian denominations that put an emphasis on charity and good works do not typically join the Lord's Resistance Army.

1.) That is some major history fail. Again, are you just completely ignoring, oh, the entire history of Christian and Islamic religions? I guess the Inquisition and Crusades and 30 Years' War just never happened in your version of history. Or everyone involved were secretly Not True Scotsmen Christians even though those atrocities were entirely within the pervue of the First Commandment.

2.) You haven't realized it yet but you've just shown the bankruptness of the argument of 'good is defined as helping others'. You keep arguing and arguing like there's some standard of good that don't have axioms but all of your analyses hypocritically show that you're doing it yourself.

Hell, you're apparently not even aware that there are some ethical systems (Objectivism and Satanism) that elevate selfishness/self-interest as the highest virtue. Again, if you're going to argue that they're not 'good' you need to bring in an alternate set of ethical axioms. If you talked to someone who was raised as a Randroid their entire life and had no exposure to other ethical systems and then said 'OMG you're EVIL EVIL EVIL!!' they wouldn't cringe at some imaginary hypocrisy being exposed -- they'd be confused.

Religious fundamentalists are selfish thugs fundamentally no different from secular gangsters and their leaders are just power-mongers who use the promise of great reward to motivate their minions to do terrible things and then foot the bill for the actual rewards to God. Whether or not they believe that God will actually pay that bill doesn't really matter, because the point is that at no stage do they actually want to improve the world, they just want to be wealthy and powerful and are either lying or deluding themselves into thinking that the best method of improving the world just so happens to be the one that involves giving them tons of wealth and power.

I find this argument even more weird and stupid. What exactly, from a materialist perspective, did the Heaven's Gate cult or Aum Shurinko get out of their fundamentalism? I mean, shit, Hale Boppers. When you're cutting off your own nuts for the sake of the world I think people should think long and hard before accusing them of being insincere or secretly cupid.

[Chamomile]

I guess the Inquisition and Crusades and 30 Years' War just never happened in your version of history.

Every single one of these had very obvious political motivations backing them. The Crusades were primarily about the fact that the Byzantine Empire was getting cut to pieces by various Muslim factions and the Pope wanted an enemy to point a heavily militarized Europe at now that viking attacks were dropping off, while individual crusaders made their intention pretty damn clear when they started carving out their own personal kingdoms in the holy land. The Inquisition was the Catholic Church attempting to root out and destroy people whose actions were undermining the propaganda machine that was very nearly the entire sum of their political influence over Europe. The fewer people believe the Pope speaks for God, the less influence the Pope and people who derive power from the Pope have, which leaves the Inquisition with an extremely obvious motivation that has nothing to do with a sincere belief in the necessity of stopping heretics, although that said they probably were motivated by an equally selfish but also incidentally false belief that the heresy would bring about God's wrath on all of Christendom including them. The motivations behind the Thirty Years' War is a tangled mess but is deeply tied to political motivations on one level and the exact same tribalism that has fueled primarily secular conflicts like the Kosovo War.

Simply put, religious conflicts are identical to secular ones except in the words spoken by the people fighting them and the fact that a certain amount of the material used to fight the war is expected to be donated by God, resulting in disaster for whichever side was relying on this. The behaviors of both sides remain the same and thus I remain entirely unconvinced that either side is fighting because of a desire to do good rather than using a belief in religion as an excuse to accomplish some other, typically more selfish motive, including "fight God's wars so that he will give me 72 virgins."

You haven't realized it yet but you've just shown the bankruptness of the argument of 'good is defined as helping others'. You keep arguing and arguing like there's some standard of good that don't have axioms

We could get into a big huge argument about how right and wrong are ultimately arbitrary concepts, but all that means is that basically everyone detects as Good and basically nobody detects as Evil and then half the Paladin's class features just go right out the window.

You should learn to read words, Lago. Since apparently it wasn't direct enough the first time, my goal is to take a set of moral axioms which allow the existing alignment mechanics of D&D 3rd edition to function, especially with regards to important class features that interact with alignment as with the paladin, and which are fairly common amongst D&D players. The fact that these moral axioms cannot be objectively determined to be any more correct than any other moral axioms (even ones that sound totally inane like "even numbers are superior to odd") doesn't particularly matter because while that is true it is not actually helpful to the discussion at hand at all.

I find this argument even more weird and stupid. What exactly, from a materialist perspective, did the Heaven's Gate cult or Aum Shurinko get out of their fundamentalism? I mean, shit, Hale Boppers. When you're cutting off your own nuts for the sake of the world I think people should think long and hard before accusing them of being insincere or secretly cupid.

My mind boggles at the inanity of your post. The Heaven's Gate cult was founded on the false assumption that suicide was the only way to vacate a planet that was about to be recycled, and thus is an elaborate series of mental gymnastics culminating in killing yourself in order to survive. This is obviously insane, but preserving your own life is clearly not a selfless motivation. Likewise, the cult's self-mutilation and ascetic lifestyle were undertaken because they believed, rightly or wrongly, that living this lifestyle would be beneficial to them, and prior to getting themselves killed on a delusion it might have even been effective in making them happier. Either way, the ascetic lifestyle was very explicitly something they did because they thought it would be beneficial to them. For that matter, the Heaven's Gate cult totally could detect as Good and it wouldn't throw the average person too much, because while they were ultimately deluded they didn't hurt anyone but themselves.

Aum Shinirikyo is likewise structured around the idea that an elite few shall conquer/outlast the rest of the world and reap incredible benefits for it. Their doctrines aren't exactly shy about promising wonderful rewards to the elite few who sign up with them before it's too late, and gassing civilian subways because a supernatural dictator offered you bennies for doing so is not exactly selfless.

You're providing a whole list of people who joined religions and did terrible things for selfish reasons, and then telling me it's a rebuttal to my argument that people who join religious and do terrible things almost always do so for selfish reasons. I kind of have to wonder if you're even aware of what my argument actually is, because the examples you are providing do not do any damage to my position whatsoever. In fact, most of them are textbook examples in support of it.

Also the way that paragraph is structured seems to imply that Hale Boppers and Heaven's Cult are different organizations. Just for reference, they're not.

[Winnah]

'Good' is adherence to whatever set of behaviours a society deems virtuous.

In D&D, there can be no coherent definition, due to numerous potential (demi)human societies, numerous alien species with their own societies, plus a large number of powerful entities extoling a portfolio of cosmic virtues.

You can pick one segment, use it's morality as a reference point for 'Good,' but attempting to balance all possible segments against some supernal ideal is impossible.

And because someone brought up Ayn Rand:

Ayn Rand: Knock knock
Rob Delaney: Who’s there?
Ayn Rand: John
Rob Delaney: John who?
Ayn Rand: John Galt.
Rob Delaney: I don’t get it.
Ayn Rand: John Galt! Hah!
Rob Delaney: Just because you said it twice . . .
Ayn Rand: He would never knock. If he wants to come in, he opens the door. He is a man.

[FatR]

Me, personally, here's what I value as 'good':

[*] Maximizing the number of meaningful distinct choices everyone both in the present and future will have. Hell, if someone asks what freedom means to me that's the definition I give.
[*] Preserving and promulgating the truth behind any event or thought made in the past as-is. As in, I find the Internet ruthlessly recording and preserving every event no matter its level of triteness one of the coolest things in human history.

Those are about the only parts of your definition of good that I can't see an aspiring tyrant intent on total subjugation of everyone everywhere to his will honestly promoting.

In order:

[*] Increasing the health of as many people as possible.

Increasing the health of subjects is just fucking common sense for a ruler.

[*] Increasing the efficiency and satisfaction organizational structures like governments and businesses provide. I personally believe that eusociality is generically superior in both a biological and sociological sense to other forms of creature interaction, though I am willing to be shown otherwise.

A society of perfectly content workdrones, i.e., slaves that love slavery? Fuck yeah, every evil overlord's wet dream.

[*] Increasing the amount of empiricism into every aspect of life. If empiricism is replaced by a superior epistemological method, then let's do so.

Whether we use that to teach that ethics are constructs of society (and we're now going to reconstruct them), or just follow the example of about every communist regime ever and create a cult of reason, built along the lines that suits us, possibilities for making the spread of empiricism serve our goals are endless.

[*] Intellectual uplift of as many sapient and near-sapient creatures (like apes) as possible.

Does our evil empire need an orc-equivalent? Yes, it does.

[*] Interdependence between as many sapient and near-sapient creatures as possible.

Making our loving slaves narrowly specialized, helpless outside of their intended function, and absolutely needing other breeds of our loving slaves to survive (interdepence at maximum) is just common sense - this way won't get funny thoughts of living outside of our empire even if their conditioning is imperfect.

[*] Falling under the above caveat, maximizing the happiness and potential happiness of creatures both in the present time and future under the assumption (unless proven otherwise) that civilization is immortal. So no turning the landscape into a blasted hellscape to make everyone currently living insanely happy if it will make the next 10,000 generations who don't exist yet miserable.

Of course we want to maintain or rule if not forever (our universe's lifespan is most likely limited, even if we overcome all other difficulties) then as long as we can. As about happiness of creatures, if our drones are not ultra happy, that's just a (temporary) failure of our engineering.

[*] Increasing and preserving intellectual and physical diversity between sapient creatures subject so that it doesn't contradict the other axioms of good. So no deliberately inflicting Tay-Sachs onto those that don't have informed consent just because it's about to disappear.

Of course our slaves will be intellectually and physically diverse, as noted above we want them narrowly specialized, and we want highly varied degrees of intelligence in our Brave New World.

Your definition of "good" seriously scares me, considering how many parts of it don't even need to be subverted before someone like Asmodeus would consider them desirable goals. Had I saw it posted anonymously, I'd think the poster is trolling.

[Red_Rob]

'Good' is adherence to whatever set of behaviours a society deems virtuous.

Basically this. The universe doesn't have morals, they are something invented by humans and are part of our innate social awareness. When you get right down to it 'Good' as a moral construction means 'Whatever behaviours benefit society'. A society rewards acts that help keep it together by referring to those acts as Good and heaping praise and status on the members of that society that perform them. Anyone acting in a 'Good' way is acting in a way that will promote and maintain social cohesion.

So really, when you look at it, Good and Lawful mean the same thing.

[PoliteNewb]

Lago, you need to make up your mind if you are talking about objective good or subjective good.

You are shooting down other people trying to define shit by saying, "well, from a certain POV, murdering and torturing people are good". Yeah, NO SHIT. From a certain POV, almost anything can be considered "good". Because "good" is just a goddamned word, and if you are allowing subjective good, it can literally be whatever you want to define it as.

But because making good/evil definitions subjective completely ruins the entire point of having good and evil in D&D, that's stupid...so you don't do it. You instead define an objective definition of good, where it isn't good to torture and murder people (where, in fact, that is EVIL.

The Taliban is a branch of right-wing Abrahamic fundamentalism. This religion is extremely obsessed with hierarchy, groupthink, martyrdom and faith and states that these features are what makes them better than non-believers both in this and the next world.

And they're wrong. And since the whole point of this is defining good/evil, you just define them to be wrong...those features do NOT in fact make them better than anyone. Why is that so difficult?

If you're trying to say that we need a better objective definition of what it means to "help" or "benefit" someone, okay...just say that.

My summary:

If you want subjective morality, you should just leave it out of the game...let people believe whatever the fuck they want. This is the only 'realistic' way to do good/evil in a game.

If you want objective morality, you are going to need to take a fucking stand and say what you think good and evil should be. You are not going to prove your definition is right...people have been trying to do that shit for centuries, and there is still considerable arguing (as evidenced on these very boards). So you are going to have to accept that defining objective morality is a statement of your own personal beliefs on good/evil.

If you don't want to define morality by your own personal thoughts/feelings on the matter, and you don't want to define it by vox populi, then I don't know how the fuck you want to define it...and you should give up and accept subjective morality.

'Good' is adherence to whatever set of behaviours a society deems virtuous.

Basically this. The universe doesn't have morals, they are something invented by humans and are part of our innate social awareness. When you get right down to it 'Good' as a moral construction means 'Whatever behaviours benefit society'. A society rewards acts that help keep it together by referring to those acts as Good and heaping praise and status on the members of that society that perform them. Anyone acting in a 'Good' way is acting in a way that will promote and maintain social cohesion.

So really, when you look at it, Good and Lawful mean the same thing.

If you take this stance (that good and evil are just social constructs, defined by society), then you should not have good and evil in your game. Because unless your game is simple and dumb, it will have multiple societies, all of whom will define "good" differently. There are many different ways to "maintain social cohesion"...many of them that some people would define as "evil". So there is no definition, and the "good" tag is meaningless. So why have it?

If you want to put an alignment system in your game, that is a de facto statement that you want there to be universal morals that are exterior to human societies. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

[Avoraciopoctules]

[Avoraciopoctules]

I generally like going with alignment systems that allow for Evil groups where some members actually will make sacrifices for each other even if they'd laugh at the idea in general. It makes it easier to put together diverse dungeons and enemy factions.

Then you need to define a set of ethical axioms that you define as 'good'. Because depending on which morality system you're talking about these people would register as evil (Kantian) or they would in fact register as the purest of good in their system (tribalism).

The bad guy team-up is a sinister sorcerer who shouts "Submit to the DAAARKNESS" in battle between shooting Doombolts from her hands, a knight who slaughters peasants to recharge his Ghost Shield because humanoid spirits make for a marginal improvement over animals, and a demon who tortures prisoners for fun.

All of them act gratuitously dickish a noteworthy amount of the time, so they register as evil on sensors.

There may also be room for a Nightblade who gives half his money to orphanages full of children with cancer. He feels guilty about betraying the nefarious ideals of his team, and he eats a Crunchy Chick every weak to make sure he doesn't stop glowing red when the sorcerer casts [Alignment] Might, Mass.

[hogarth]

I define the Good-Evil divide in D&D pretty simply.

GOOD means you go out of your way to help out others.
EVIL means you go out of your way to hurt others.

Same here, although I'd probably phrase it as "good people are merciful and evil people are cruel".

Of course, that just punts the task of defining good and evil to the task of defining merciful and cruel.

[zugschef]

for what it's worth: http://scienceblogs.com/primatediaries/ ... ir-play-o/

[Prak]

The Nightblade who donates to charity reminds me Mirror Master II, from The Flash's rogues gallery, who once stays out of a fight because Batman makes a large donation to the orphanage MMII grew up in.

I think it honestly hurts stories to say that "people who help others are good, and people who hurt others are evil," at least so absolutely. I like loyal villain teams and English heroes. Maybe it's because everything I personally align myself with is considered evil by the culture I grew up in, and consider a lot of attributes of that culture's big good to be dickish, and thus often ascribe more admirable qualities (tolerance, pragmatism, intelligence) to characters worlds would consider evil, especially since it's a lot easier to say "demons have no problem working together and can even form real friendships" and get people to play along than to say "in my world, team good have a wide array of animalistic and savage forms, from spiky, armour rending spider beasts, to beautiful bat-winged women, to fire breathed bull-men, and team evil is primarily represented by self-righteous, vain figures of humanoid beauty perfected."

[hyzmarca]

I actually like the "Because I Said So" definition of "Good", as it allow you to maintain moral ambiguity despite the fact that one team is literally defined as "Good" and the other "Evil."

If Good is defined as righteous glowing holy energy, then Good is basically insane and you can have things like Rape Paladins who 'redeem' succubi with the power of their mighty spears and Redeemed Mind Flayers who only eat the brains of 'Evil' people.

When Team Good is defined as a bunch of crazy Taliban-like fundamentalists, it greatly reduces the utility of the Detect Alignment spell in determining whom you should trust.

Unfortunately, I don't think that the BoED was being ironic in it's pushing of divine command theory.

For the purposes of a DnD game, I actually like the above. So Evil characters are wreathed in shadow and their weapons infused with a terrible, numbing cold and Good people glow with a holy light from within and their weapons are on fire for great justice. Paladins come from any god you can name and have a (Whatever) Stupid alignment because they have to keep picking the conversation option that gives them brownie points, like my Paragon in Mass Effect. And the whole thing is thinly veiled moral commentary.

So we start with the Great Wheel cosmology, since most D&D uses it and it is fundamental to the alignment debate, and declare that Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos are really the Holy Force, the Unholy Force, the Orderly Force and the Entropic Force. These forces originate in the Cardinal Outer Planes, and are themselves completely amoral, but are associated with moral concepts and given moral weight by intelligent species.

Having an Alignment other than True Neutral is a result of an imbalance of forces within your soul, and is one of the most common but least treatable mental illnesses.

[hyzmarca]

I actually like the "Because I Said So" definition of "Good", as it allow you to maintain moral ambiguity despite the fact that one team is literally defined as "Good" and the other "Evil."

If Good is defined as righteous glowing holy energy, then Good is basically insane and you can have things like Rape Paladins who 'redeem' succubi with the power of their mighty spears and Redeemed Mind Flayers who only eat the brains of 'Evil' people.

When Team Good is defined as a bunch of crazy Taliban-like fundamentalists, it greatly reduces the utility of the Detect Alignment spell in determining whom you should trust.

Unfortunately, I don't think that the BoED was being ironic in it's pushing of divine command theory.

For the purposes of a DnD game, I actually like the above. So Evil characters are wreathed in shadow and their weapons infused with a terrible, numbing cold and Good people glow with a holy light from within and their weapons are on fire for great justice. Paladins come from any god you can name and have a (Whatever) Stupid alignment because they have to keep picking the conversation option that gives them brownie points, like my Paragon in Mass Effect. And the whole thing is thinly veiled moral commentary.

So we start with the Great Wheel cosmology, since most D&D uses it and it is fundamental to the alignment debate, and declare that Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos are really the Holy Force, the Unholy Force, the Orderly Force and the Entropic Force. These forces originate in the Cardinal Outer Planes, and are themselves completely amoral, but are associated with moral concepts and given moral weight by intelligent species.

Having an Alignment other than True Neutral is a result of an imbalance of forces within your soul, and is one of the most common but least treatable mental illnesses.

[Avoraciopoctules]

I think that could make for a pretty cool alignment system, hyzmarca. I'd probably go with something like that if I didn't usually go with alignment as a vague and fluid force that might look different in one person from month to month. If you don't want people injecting themselves with serums and eating certain things to artificially change their alignments (and not going super crazy in the process), sounds very workable.

[PoliteNewb]

The Nightblade who donates to charity reminds me Mirror Master II, from The Flash's rogues gallery, who once stays out of a fight because Batman makes a large donation to the orphanage MMII grew up in.

I think it honestly hurts stories to say that "people who help others are good, and people who hurt others are evil," at least so absolutely. I like loyal villain teams and English heroes. Maybe it's because everything I personally align myself with is considered evil by the culture I grew up in, and consider a lot of attributes of that culture's big good to be dickish, and thus often ascribe more admirable qualities (tolerance, pragmatism, intelligence) to characters worlds would consider evil, especially since it's a lot easier to say "demons have no problem working together and can even form real friendships" and get people to play along than to say "in my world, team good have a wide array of animalistic and savage forms, from spiky, armour rending spider beasts, to beautiful bat-winged women, to fire breathed bull-men, and team evil is primarily represented by self-righteous, vain figures of humanoid beauty perfected."

Wouldn't it be simpler to just not have "team good" and "team evil", and just let people (players and characters) judge each by their own standards and view of the character's actions?

Nothing's stopping you from having "team angel" and "team devil" in an alignment free world. Why is it important to define devils (and their associated traits, like tolerance, pragmatism and intelligence) as good/evil? Honestly, I don't find the traits you espouse to be associated with good or evil. I know people who are smart, dumb, pragmatic, and idealistic, and they run the full gamut from nice guy to total douchebag.

[Fuchs]

I think it honestly hurts stories to say that "people who help others are good, and people who hurt others are evil," at least so absolutely.

I think the important qualifier is "who go out of their way to hurt others".

[Red_Rob]

If you want to put an alignment system in your game, that is a de facto statement that you want there to be universal morals that are exterior to human societies. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

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.

Now, this means that each of the alignments needs to have actual guiding principles and they need to be mutually exclusive, which unfortunately isn't how the game is set up at the moment. But all this wanking that you have to feel in your heart you are a bad person before you detect as Evil just isn't going to fly.

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.

[Chamomile]

That's easy, in D&D Land "Evil" means something like "a loose political alliance between cosmic powers who agree on first principles that compassion is kind of dumb" (or whatever definition you're giving to D&D's objective capital-E Evil) not "things which people ought not do." So you can say that Evil is morally correct and while you might not be very popular with the dirt farmer demographic you are not contradicting yourself.

[hyzmarca]

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.

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.

In the Drow language, "Lower Plane Radiation" and "morally incorrect" are not referred to using the same word. Lower Plane Radiation corresponds to things that the Drow like, such as spiders and brutal social darwinism. As far as they associate it to morality at all, they associate it with being morally correct.

When the Drow priestess proudly proclaims that she is Evil, she is not proclaiming that she is immoral. She is proclaiming her alignment with a force that she considers to be morally correct. Her words are merely distorted shitty by translation into a language that lacks the necessary nuances to capture her actual meaning.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Yes, and even in the Abyss you have prison demiplanes where the demons seal those among their number who were such assholes that even other Tanar'ri didn't like them.

Even beings who are substantially composed of Alignment energy aren't necessarily going to embody all of its principles.

[Slade]

Increasing the health of as many people as possible.

Your definition of good is happiness? Why?
Demons are happy when they create chaos and slaughter. There are a million of them at minium (since infinite planes), so letting them slaughter people would be good?

Increasing the efficiency and satisfaction organizational structures like governments and businesses provide. I personally believe that eusociality is generically superior in both a biological and sociological sense to other forms of creature interaction, though I am willing to be shown otherwise.

Lawful is not good. It is just Lawful.

Increasing the amount of empiricism into every aspect of life. If empiricism is replaced by a superior epistemological method, then let's do so.

Again Lawful.

Intellectual uplift of as many sapient and near-sapient creatures (like apes) as possible.

Neutral.

Interdependence between as many sapient and near-sapient creatures as possible.

Why?

Maximizing the number of meaningful distinct choices everyone both in the present and future will have. Hell, if someone asks what freedom means to me that's the definition I give.

Freedom is Chaos.

Falling under the above caveat, maximizing the happiness and potential happiness of creatures both in the present time and future under the assumption (unless proven otherwise) that civilization is immortal. So no turning the landscape into a blasted hellscape to make everyone currently living insanely happy if it will make the next 10,000 generations who don't exist yet miserable.

Increasing and preserving intellectual and physical diversity between sapient creatures subject so that it doesn't contradict the other axioms of good. So no deliberately inflicting Tay-Sachs onto those that don't have informed consent just because it's about to disappear.

Preserving and promulgating the truth behind any event or thought made in the past as-is. As in, I find the Internet ruthlessly recording and preserving every event no matter its level of triteness one of the coolest things in human history.

None of that is good. It may agree with what you like, but pleasure does not equal good.
Again, million demons here want to slaughter. They are pleasured by doing so. This should not be a Good thing.

Avoraciopoctules:

GOOD means you go out of your way to help out others.
EVIL means you go out of your way to hurt others.

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

Some of Taliban are just following orders. They are taught a certain sect of text is correct and the rest are wrong and believe the leaders.

Heck, 99 Virgins isn't actually the text. It is up to 2 wives and up to 97 concubines all restored to be pure.
Heck, Suicide disqualifies you from paradise.

Apparently, they assume that killing "infidels" bypasses this restriction.