Can two forces be in conflict, both believing themselves to be good?

[Dannyalcatraz]

An evil necromancer has been captured. He has recently enacted an elaborate ritual that on the next new moon will cause every corpse for 10,000 miles to animate. The death toll will be in the thousands or possibly tens of thousands, expecially among the common peasantry and townfolk.

The ritual can be stopped but only by some secret method known to the necromancer.

The local Paladin order opposes torture at all times and no matter the reason. They would rather see thousands die at the hands of the rising dead instead of beat the answer out of the necromancer.

When your moral code is more important than the lives of innocent people that is evil.

1) In a world with actual necromancers, there are probably also actual diviners, and torture is unnecessary and unreliable in comparison to divination magic.

2) there are also likely to be mind altering magics that would make the malfeasor confess because he now believes his actions to be wrongnor that the interrogator is his ally, e.g. Helm of Opposite Alignment and various charm spells. Torture is unnecessary and unreliable in comparison.

I could go on, but I have a RW appointment to drive to.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

1) In a world with actual necromancers, there are probably also actual diviners, and torture is unnecessary and unreliable in comparison to divination magic.

2) there are also likely to be mind altering magics that would make the malfeasor confess because he now believes his actions to be wrongnor that the interrogator is his ally, e.g. Helm of Opposite Alignment and various charm spells. Torture is unnecessary and unreliable in comparison.

I could go on, but I have a RW appointment to drive to.

1) If said necromancer can really raise that many undead his isnt a 5th level schmuck, he might even be some sort of undead himself. Simple divination is unlikely to grant answers and questioning him magically will be equally spotty.

2) Mental abuse is as much abuse as physical abuse is. Rewriting someones mind to what you want can easily be considered just as much torture as ripping fingernails out one by one.

 

[Mark CMG]

Can two forces be in conflict, both believing themselves to be good?

Sure, one could envision a scenario where two groups can believe that their own idea of what constitutes "good" is the only possible "good" and that any other, or specifically the "good" of the other group, is destined to allow "evil" or "badness" to reign, and thus must be stopped at all costs. Both could also feel that combat in defense of their beliefs is honorable and thus justify all sorts of (of what others might see as) atrocities for what they believe to be the greater "good."

 

[cattoy]

To return to the original post: obviously yes.

I mean, let's just take a quick gander at the real world.

We have situations where forces that worshiped the same god went to war. I'm guessing that both sides believed that god was on their side.

We have had situations where two schools of thought within the same religion went to war. (It has been claimed that every succession of leadership within Islam has been resolved through bloodshed but I am not a scholar of Islamic history)

To put an alternate spin on the original question:

Can anyone think of a war where each side did not believe that they were in the right? I am having a hard time thinking of any war in which one or multiple participants fought, believing their cause to be unjust, evil or wrong.

 

[Alexander123]

An evil necromancer has been captured. He has recently enacted an elaborate ritual that on the next new moon will cause every corpse for 10,000 miles to animate. The death toll will be in the thousands or possibly tens of thousands, expecially among the common peasantry and townfolk.

The ritual can be stopped but only by some secret method known to the necromancer.

The local Paladin order opposes torture at all times and no matter the reason. They would rather see thousands die at the hands of the rising dead instead of beat the answer out of the necromancer.

When your moral code is more important than the lives of innocent people that is evil.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

 

[Alexander123]

I think it is a prerequisite for any sort of conflict whether an actual physical war or a war of ideas so the question arises should churches in D&D be modified so that evil gods and their servants trick people into believing that what they preach is right and moral. Otherwise it would be very unrealistic since every force in the real world fights with the explicit belief that they are right and moral. And just as in the real world it would be unrealistic for an evil force to fight believing that it was evil and unjust shouldn't it be the same for D&D?

 

[Alexander123]

Just a question on torture. Do evil persons torture or do they consider torture to be militarily ineffective also?

 

[Krensky]

Just a question on torture. Do evil persons torture or do they consider torture to be militarily ineffective also?

People who torture are committing an evil act. No matter the circumstances, motivation, or outcome. While good might, in theory, come from an evil act, it is still an evil act.

Frankly, I'm surprised and saddened we're even having this conversation on E.N. World.

 

[Sunseeker]

I think, as mentioned earlier, the biggest problem with D&D is going to be the fact that it contains active, well-defined gods, who often interact with players, NPCs and the world in general. On the whole, this forces at least one side to be, at best, deluded, misinterpreting some event, or misremembering the words of the god in question. Problematically, they would be unlikely to amass a large force around this mistake simply because the god in question intracts with the world enough for people to, on the whole, know what the god does or does not want.

To get this trick to work, your best bet would be to have two opposing forces represented by a god(or gods) that don't interact with the world as directly as others. Or, you could set up a world which, for some reason, is largely ignored by the gods, or shielded in some manner from their concrete influence. IE: the Raven Queen may still hold sway over the forces of life and death, but she's not very accurate, when she decides it's someones time to die naturally, they instead die from a plague, which subsequently kills a few hundred other people.

Most "good vs good" battles turn out to be the former. Someone is confused or misguided and misunderstood a god's message, and spreads the word enough to amass a force as to create a good-on-good battle.

Personally, I try to strive for the latter, because I like the idea that there can be vastly different ideas of what good are without delving into making one definition of good something like, eliminating all the Tieflings.

 

[Alexander123]

So you are saying that torture is effective but you don't do it because it is evil and you put morality above practicality? And evil persons do it because they put practicality above morality? I think the question of whether evil persons torture or whether they consider it militarily ineffective is very important.

"Do enough digging, and you may even be able to find the data showing a decline in the incidence of false confessions since the US made physically coercive interrogation illegal decades ago"

Perhaps we should suggest this to evil persons who do use torture because I am sure evil persons will want to have the most up-to-date interrogation methods.

Why may I ask sir or miss are you saddened? We do after all have the right to hold different opinions.