D&D General Worlds of Design: Is Fighting Evil Passé?

When I started playing Dungeons & Dragons (1975) I had a clear idea of what I wanted to be and to do in the game: fight evil. As it happened, I also knew I wanted to be a magic user, though of course I branched out to other character classes, but I never deviated from the notion of fighting evil until I played some neutral characters, years after I started.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.” Albert Einstein

To this day I think of the game as good guys against bad guys, with most of my characters (including the neutrals) on the good guy side. I want to be one of those characters who do something about evil. I recognize that many do not think and play this way, and that's more or less the topic of this column. Because it makes a big difference in a great deal that happens when you answer the question of whether the focus of the campaign is fighting evil.

In the early version of alignment, with only Law and Chaos, it was often Law (usually good) against Chaos (usually evil). I learned this form from Michael Moorcock's Elric novels before D&D, though I understand it originated in Pohl Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions. That all went out the window when the Good and Evil axis was added to alignment. That's the axis I'm talking about today.

This is a "black and white" viewpoint, versus the in-between/neither/gray viewpoint so common today. But I like my games to be simple, and to be separate from reality. I don't like the "behave however you want as long as you don't get caught" philosophy.

Usually, a focus on fighting evil includes a focus on combat, though I can see where this would not necessarily be the case. Conversely, a focus on combat doesn't necessarily imply a focus on fighting evil. Insofar as RPGs grow out of popular fiction, we can ask how a focus on fighting evil compares with typical fiction.

In the distant past (often equated with "before 1980" in this case) the focus on fighting evil was much more common in science fiction and fantasy fiction than it is today, when heroes are in 50 shades of gray (see reference). Fighting evil, whether an individual, a gang, a cult, a movement, a nation, or an aggressive alien species, is the bedrock in much of our older science fiction and fantasy, much less so today.

Other kinds of focus?

If fighting evil isn't the focus, what is?

• In a "Game of Thrones" style campaign, the politics and wars of great families could provide a focus where good and evil hardly matter.
• "There's a war on" might be between two groups that aren't clearly good or evil (though each side individually might disagree).
• A politically-oriented campaign might be all about subterfuge, assassination, theft, and sabotage. There might be no big battles at all.
• A campaign could focus on exploration of newly-discovered territory. Or on a big mystery to solve. Or on hordes of refugees coming into the local area.

I'm sure there are many inventive alternatives to good vs evil, especially if you want a "grayer" campaign. I think a focus on good vs evil provides more shape to a RPG campaign than anything else. But there are other ways of providing shape. YMMV. If you have an unusual alternative, I hope you'll tell us about it.

 

[Helldritch]

Is there a need to play an evil PC in your games, when your good guys are racing around engaging in flat out genocide on behalf of the forces of good?

When your 'morally good' PCs are little more than Chaos warbands engaging in wanton slaughter and genocide, I shudder to think what you consider to be 'evil'.

Again you are, as many others, applying a modern mentality to a fantasy setting. Modern morality do not apply. Real world morality do not apply either. As the only sentient species of our planet, a genocide is immediately related to humans. Humans that you can have common grounds to negociate, that can become your friends, your allies. At the very least, everyone can have redemption.

If we were not the only sentient species, it would be another thing entirely. With some species we could find some common ground but with others it might and surely would be totally impossible. The only solution would then be genocide, however distasteful it would be. Sometimes you have to use extreme solutions to extreme problems. Especially with a species that would find humans exquisitely excellent when on the menu. It would only become a matter of survivability.

As for what I consider "evil". It is certainly the same as you. It is just that I do not apply my personal morality to a fantasy setting. So rest assure that I am not a psychopath bend on killing everyone who cross my path.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Again you are, as many others, applying a modern mentality to a fantasy setting. Modern morality do not apply. Real world morality do not apply either. As the only sentient species of our planet, a genocide is immediately related to humans. Humans that you can have common grounds to negociate, that can become your friends, your allies. At the very least, everyone can have redemption.

I think is is a great way to end up with a truly horrific D&D campaign. I don't think many people agree with your position (which seems to potentially justify genocide against, say, halflings), and it's antithetical to most popular SF and fantasy works.

EDIT - I do think there was more support for this position in 1E/2E, because you had a demihuman/humanoid divide, where anything that was "decent" was a demihuman, and anything that was "bad" was a humanoid, but as 2E wore on that distinction fell to pieces (and I feel like it wasn't a distinction that existed in OD&D/B/X/BECMI either - especially given people regularly playing werewolves and vampires and stuff back in deep OD&D).

Not sure about you, but If you just met someone at a tavern and they then proceeded to ruthlessly kill someone we had just subdued in a fight without blinking or any hint of remorse, I wouldnt want to hang out with that person anymore (to say the least!). I'd instantly write them off as a dangerous psychopath.

My experience is that sort of thing usually happens about three sessions in or more when the PCs have fought their way together through a bunch of stuff. So they've all killed people in front of each other, and likely whilst some of those people are hit by Hold Person or even Sleep (and thus arguably "subdued" or certainly akin to it). Thus it's harder to have "Well, killing those guys in a fight was right but killing the one we cornered is wrong!" reactions be so obvious. That said, some people have harder morality than others - you can see this even in modern warfare. If a popular guy kills a captured enemy or the like, some of the combatants will rally behind him, with justifications of necessity or inevitability or practicality or emotionality, whereas others will immediately see it as evil and wrong. The more combat has been going on, the more losses, the less likely it seems people will see that as evil. But that's a whole other discussion I guess.

Personally I've seen a few PCs over the years who had a "kill the one we captured!" general attitude, but the party typically didn't let them actually do it.

 

[jgsugden]

You know, hundreds of generations have spent hundreds of thousands of lifetimes exploring what is good, evil, moral, immoral, just, injust, and all the other abstract concepts we banter about here. And there isn't a lot of agreement in the end.

My suggestion remains: Don't tell your players what is good, evil, morale, immoral, just or injust. Let the NPCs in your world convey their own concepts of these things to the PCs. Let there be conflict between the NPCs. Avoid absolutism. Let the Gods of redemption and vengeance find conflict, even if they both consier themselves good. Let some of them believe their definitions are the only ones that matter, while others consider the views of all others. In short, let your fantasy world be as interesting as the real world.

 

[Flamestrike]

Again you are, as many others, applying a modern mentality to a fantasy setting. Modern morality do not apply.

Got a source for that?

Because unless you can find such an authority, I'll continue to presume that when the game uses terms like 'good' or 'evil' or 'morality' that those words have the context I am familiar with and am expected to understand them in. You know; a contemporary context.

As for what I consider "evil". It is certainly the same as you. It is just that I do not apply my personal morality to a fantasy setting.

When you watched LoTR, did Gandalf, Aragorn, Gimli or Legolas strike you as adhering to a different morality to our contemporary one?

Would you describe all the Companions as Good aligned (even Boromir; notwithstanding his corruption by the Ring, he still managed to die a hero)?

Did you see any of the Companions engaged in a war of Genocide against Orcs or any other dark folk, or did you only ever see them fight when they had to, and only in self defence?

Would you describe Sauroman, Sauron, the Nazgul and the Uruk Hai as evil? If so, why would you describe them as such? What actions (i.e. wars of aggression, killing, harming and opressing others) did you see to come to your conclusion they were evil?

How about when you watched Game of Thrones? Do you have any doubts about Eddard, Rob, Samwell and Jons Good alignment, or Roose, Ramsay, Clegaines, Jofferey etc's evil alignments?

You're asserting evil stuff wasnt evil simply due to its occuring in a fantasy setting. Murder, genocide, rape, harming others etc is evil whether it happens in Mordor, Westeross, Faerun or down your local grocery shop!

If I were to accept your proposition that 'mass slaughter and slavery were accepted back then' then slavery, torture, rapine, murder and so forth are morally good simply because they're common place. They're not acceptable then, and they arent acceptable now - its just there was a lot more evil around (and a lot less enlightenment) when they were!

 

[Flamestrike]

My experience is that sort of thing usually happens about three sessions in or more when the PCs have fought their way together through a bunch of stuff. So they've all killed people in front of each other, and likely whilst some of those people are hit by Hold Person or even Sleep (and thus arguably "subdued" or certainly akin to it). Thus it's harder to have "Well, killing those guys in a fight was right but killing the one we cornered is wrong!"

I've been to war IRL. I can assure you there is a world of difference between killing in a fight and shooting prisoners after the fact.

That said, some people have harder morality than others - you can see this even in modern warfare. If a popular guy kills a captured enemy or the like, some of the combatants will rally behind him, with justifications of necessity or inevitability or practicality or emotionality, whereas others will immediately see it as evil and wrong. The more combat has been going on, the more losses, the less likely it seems people will see that as evil. But that's a whole other discussion I guess.

Just because people like the murderer, doesnt make the murder less evil, or reduce his culpability for it.

And yes, people in war do terrible things. Killing a lot tends to desensitise you, and you're afraid and angry. People do evil things in war. Good people. In my view that makes them evil.

I've seen it happen.

Its why we dont lock up petty criminals in prisons unless its a last resort. We know all too well that they'll tend to come out worse people than they were when they went in.

And just because a good man becomes evil (say a good man, who does terrible things in war) it doesnt mean he cant show remorse, seek redemption and become a good man again.

The door swings both ways.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

When you watched LoTR, did Gandalf, Aragorn, Gimli or Legolas strike you as adhering to a different morality?

This is an interesting point generally - Tolkien is regarded as a good two-shoes but does allow for some reasonable moral nuance between different groups in the Hobbit and LotR, but overall yeah, they're clearly following basically modern morality (rather than say, an early medieval or Roman morality where stuff like blood debts and ultra-violence-as-justice were more typical). One point of nuance that strikes me is that hobbits really don't seem to think theft is as immoral we typically do. Hobbits are written as being kinda berserk for mushrooms, and when they steal them, they don't seem to feel at all bad, and even though they end up apologising to the dude and so on, you get the impression they'd do it again and Tolkien isn't really judging them for it. This sort of links with the idea of hobbit-as-thief from The Hobbit.

(Also man re-reading LotR recently, the hobbits being nuts for mushrooms, smoking pipe-weed all the time, and Tom Bombadil in general suddenly made it clear to me hippies might have loved these books so much!)

And yes, people in war do terrible things. Killing a lot tends to desensitise you, and you're afraid and angry. People do evil things in war. Good people. In my view that makes them evil.

I definitely agree. I'm merely making the point that kinda-shocking number of people don't necessarily seem to share the viewpoint.

 

[lewpuls]

I am surprised that the following has not come up in the discussion:

In RPGs (well, certainly D&D) the gods are diverse, real, and manifest in the world (unlike the real world, where gods are, um, ideas, and not manifest in the world). I think a great deal of characterization about foes, and species, and evil, depends on what gods they worship. E.g., if a species universally worships gods who are clearly evil (the orc gods?), the species is regarded as evil. This is a reason why real-world ideas don't wholly translate into fantasy games. Even though we can say that disagreement and wars about religion have caused enormous untold misery in the real world.

 

[Flamestrike]

This is an interesting point generally - Tolkien is regarded as a good two-shoes but does allow for some reasonable moral nuance between different groups in the Hobbit and LotR, but overall yeah, they're clearly following basically modern morality (rather than say, an early medieval or Roman morality where stuff like blood debts and ultra-violence-as-justice were more typical).

Has it ever occurred to you that early medieval or Roman morality was evil?

Its no different to if your PC was raised in the Kingdom of Thay, or Iuz or wherever the evil dudes live. Just because he's surrounded by Slavery, rape and murder, it doesnt make those things any less evil.

Otherwise; if you're using the justification that 'medieval society was brutal and thus PCs who use the same brutality are not evil because of the standards of the society they were raised in' where does that leave Orcs?

They're in the same boat!

Things are either evil, or they're not. And killing, harming or oppressing others (rape, murder, slavery, assault) have nearly universally been in the 'evil' camp in most legal and religious codes through human history. Mercy, altruism, self sacrifice and so forth have been seen as moraly good since we first started using tools.

This was the case in the medieval ages. It was the case in the industrial ages. It remains the case today.

Just because things were more brutal in Roman times doesnt mean those things were less evil. It just means that evil was more accepted.

 

[Flamestrike]

E.g., if a species universally worships gods who are clearly evil (the orc gods?), the species is regarded as evil. This is a reason why real-world ideas don't wholly translate into fantasy games.

Firtly, you dont know they're evil Gods (you can assume, you cant know). Secondly it is not a requirement of worship of an evil god to be evil yourself (plenty of Neutral and even Good followers of such deities, and there are plenty of Evil worshippers of good gods).

Presume I told you right now I worship some kind of Devil. Am I evil?

Contrast to: You see me murdering a helpless baby. Am I evil?

In a game like 5E where I can be a LG Warlock of Asmodeus, or a CE Cleric of Torm, judging a person by the God they worship is fraught with danger.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Has it ever occurred to you that early medieval or Roman morality was evil?

Yes. I definitely think it is. You're preaching to the choir here, if it's unclear