D&D General The Problem with Evil or what if we don't use alignments?

[Flamestrike]

So killing someone in defence of others is evil then? And even if we accept that directly protecting others from an aggressor justifies hurting said aggressor, we're still not in the clear. Was every military operation that resulted any collateral civilian casualties evil? Even if that was done to stop genocidal fascist dictatorship and thus save countless more lives? Also, you skipped my lesser harm example earlier. Are Covid restrictions evil? They definitely harm a lot of people financially and psychologically and those people are pretty 'innocent' to the situation. These things are far from clear cut.

Deliberately targeting civilians is evil..

No screw this. You use your definition of evil and ill stick to the commonly accepted one. We can call it a draw.

 

[lingual]

The worthwhile element.

Like we could be talking pretender gods and faithless clergy and other interesting things that would serve the game, but instead we're talking about alignment.

I think it is useful for "one size fits all" one-dimensional NPCs. Every game needs multitudes of these types of characters. And could be generally useful as a one term description. But it is when we go deeper into "personality" that the system fails. I don't think it was ever meant to really encompass all of a character's motivations, behavior, etc.

 

[Flamestrike]

But that's what the existence of alignment does. It makes every discussion about potentially interesting and complex moral problems collapse into inane debate about two letters.

There is no debate.

The DM says this is evil and this isn't. Don't like it there's the door.

Where is the debate?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Its always the same small number of people who want to try and assert murder and genocide as being morally acceptable when done for a 'greater good.

No one has done that.

 

[Flamestrike]

Nope. I'm sucked in again.

Im out.

 

[Maxperson]

No, I don't want to assign them any alignment. I want to understand their beliefs and motivations and assigning alignment is counterproductive for that.

No it isn't. It's an aid to understanding those things, but it's not all that's necessary. Alignment is a tool to use or misuse(or it was in past editions anyway).

 

[Mirtek]

Even in 3E there were feats that let you totally stray from your church's alignment wasn't there?

I remember at least one, yes. But that still means that deities were at least superficially checking every follower requesting spells. Because clerics without that feat would be denied refreshing their repertoire as soon as they change to a wrong alignment.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Deliberately targeting civilians is evil..

What's deliberate? Should the Allies just have let the Nazis take over the Europe because fighting them would inevitably cause civilian casualties?

 

[Vaalingrade]

But that's what the existence of alignment does. It makes every discussion about potentially interesting and complex moral problems collapse into inane debate about two letters.

Kind of by design.

People don't want to admit it but the concept started as team jerseys for a wargame like 'Skaeven' or 'Zerg' before graduating to a means of telling the people who wanted to stop and ponder on why you were committing all these home invasions for gold to relax and shut up because the victims a 'evil', so it's okay in the same way that a movie will have the fiancé of the love interest slap a baby so you're okay with the impending infidelity.

It's meant to shut down nuance and contemplation.

 

[Maxperson]

People have historically thought a lot of harmful or useless things provided benefits when they in fact did not.

And alignment is not one of those instances. It's a False Equivalence to label it like that. I've watched the very real benefits of alignment time in and time out for decades. Nothing you can say or do can change that.

See also medicinal carbonated beverages, revitalizing uranium or a drop of arsenic in a ten thousand gallon jug.

See also False Equivalence.