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.

 

[jgsugden]

Geez, you guys need to buy new dictionaries because I can't find any of those definitions, anywhere.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

Amen to that! I utterly despise this current post-modern trend of recasting Orcs and the like as just being disadvantaged minority outsiders that are driven to Evil by their poverty and disadvantaged culture. Orcs aren't human beings; they are born Evil. Their default attitude is to cruelty and domination (I hate them being recast as Chaotic Evil, too; they were Lawful Evil.) They are Evil spirits clothed in flesh (along with Goblins, Hobgoblins, Kobolds, etc.) just like Elves are Good spirits clothed in flesh. Which is why Raise Dead didn't work on any of them in 1st and 2nd Editions; they didn't have souls. They were spirits.

You could always make them just another humanoid though, with their own culture and stuff (I always like making them some flavor of norse personally), though you do lose out on the "advantage" I guess of having the always chaotic evil race that the players can face.

 

[Morrus]

Wow. I feel like we just had this whole thread very recently. And it was exactly the same. Maybe the armchair moral reletavism will be more interesting the second time around. I love it when people descend down off their soapbox and take the time tell us plebs what to think. That's a whole semester of PHIL 101 I don't have to take. Plus all the time it take to translate that over to my gaming stuff. I learned my lesson though, you don't have to individually change every instance of CE in the MM to "irrelevant", you can just use find and replace.

If you’re not interested in the thread, go find one you are interested in.

 

[Lanefan]

For what its worth, I've played in evil campaigns a lot, where PvP was the norm.

PvP does not always equate to Evil.

It almost does, however, almost always equate to Chaotic.

The only thing that kept people in check was the allegiances that would form in the group. If you were going to throw down on a fellow PC, you'd better be all in, and be sure your allies in the party were on your side.

We'd have 'party charters' that stipulated the punishments for betraying or stealing from the party. Usually death.

Again, this isn't something restricted only to Evil characters or parties.

I had a group not so long ago who decided to come up with a party charter - hammering this out was good for a couple of nights in the pub, plust further discussion during sessions and sometimes even in-character during combats!

Some of the clauses were about what you'd expect. Some of them were most certainly not, and a few were outright hilarious.

New characters would be forced to pitch camp for the rest of the party and do menial tasks and generally treat them like naughty word (a further disincentive to calling out another character).

You know, in all my years of anything-goes gaming this is (somewhat to my surprise, now I think about it) something I've never seen: rookie hazing.

 

[Lanefan]

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

No.

It means that what we see as evil today was more accepted.

Was it seen as evil at the time? Generally, no; it was just the way of life.

Therefore, if our games are to be set in those milieu it only makes sense to adopt the societal stances of the time - even if we don't agree with them today - and thus if playing Romans we would, for example, see slavery as a ho-hum part of life; with differences in its good-evil-ness being almost entirely based on whether you were a slave, a slave owner/trader, or neither.

 

[Fenris-77]

A lot of games do a pretty good job bringing in some modern ethics without making sweeping changes. I find newer games are especially good at balancing gender roles, and including female options for all characters than older games tended to. There are going to be issues if a well researched game is set in the Medieval or Roman period, for example, for sure. You can sand off some of the rough edges, and the players can be progressive thinkers, but that doesn't take all the sting out of serfdom, popular blood sports, or casual violence.

People can only immerse themselves up to certain depth though. Their personal ethical heuristic is going to come along for the ride no matter what, so the key is to find a happy medium. One with enough verisimilitude to bring the setting to life, but with enough of the edges sanded down that it's not uncomfortable. The whole good versus evil thing definitely fits into that.

 

[DammitVictor]

So, one thing I've noticed in is that people who think D&D's alignment system adds needed moral dimension to their game often claim that people who object to D&D's alignment only want their characters to be able to commit Evil actions without the mechanical consequences of being Evil, or even simply being identified as Evil out-of-character.

Another thing I've noticed is that the exact same people are the ones who most avidly defend the wanton slaughter of humanoid populations because they're "inherently evil" and morality doesn't apply to them. Conquest and genocide are thus morally justified and praiseworthy, in the name of Good.

Am I seriously the only person who notices the profound moral disconnect-- or, should I say, the profound similarity-- between one of these arguments and the other?

If your point of view is as Nietzsche about the master-slave moralty, the mercy or kindness as signs of weakness, then you aren't a Übermensch or "super-man", but a f***ing psycopath, like Joffrey Baratheon with a crossbow.

I just want to stop here to point out that as much as I agree with you here-- so did Nietzsche. The Master's morality was not an ideal moral mindset, or even a necessary step on the path to the Übermensch; the Master's morality was almost as much of a failstate as the Slave's morality. The Übermensch is someone for whom the rightness of the world is more important than one's ability to live in it.

On point, look at games like Star Wars which hinge on the DM awarding 'Dark side points' (DSP) for acts of evil.

Well... in a game where most PCs have a small handful of Dark Side Points, as they should if the game is at all concerned with the threat of the Dark Side, the difference between 3 DSP and 4 DSP isn't a meaningful shift in the player's image of the character the way that, say, "you're Evil now" or "you are no longer a Paladin" is.

I've seen players dispute receiving a Dark Side Point, but I've never seen them kick up a fuss over it. They shrugged and they got on with the game, because a single Dark Side Point here or there was a normal part of their character's expected struggle with the Dark Side.

If a player whines after getting a DSP, 'I'll shrug and say 'Dont blame me, blame the Force. We can talk about it during the week if you would like, lets not slow down the game for the other players, the decision stands for now."

As much as I've been generally enjoying and agreeing with your contributions to this thread, this quote-- this right here-- is why the alignment system in D&D and morality mechanics in RPGs in general need to go away and never come back.

The Force did not issue the character a Dark Side Point. You did. You interpreted the rules of what is Good and Evil in the campaign setting-- rules that are deliberately and necessarily vague-- and you made a decision and you imposed consequences. You did. And whether that decision was right or wrong, because I've never really seen an egregiously bad call in a Star Wars game, it was your decision and you were 100% responsible for it.

Not the player, not the rulebooks, not the in-game NPCs and metaphysical characters that you control-- you.

I will note here... not to you, personally... that the people who talk the biggest about Lawful being the alignment of moral responsibility are also the people who don't hold "lawful authorities" morally responsible for the decisions they make in the course of upholding the law-- even when those decisions are wholly within their prerogatives.

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.

Okay, you lost me. If D&D morality isn't supposed to be based on the players' morality, or any recognizable morality, why is it so vitally important that D&D have objective, tangible spiritual forces that govern morality in the first place?

If D&D morality isn't supposed to mean anything, why aren't we better off dropping it?

 

[Hoffmand]

I’ve seen more table discussions over law versus chaos than good versus evil. But I do find these topics interesting.

 

[Oofta]

So, one thing I've noticed in is that people who think D&D's alignment system adds needed moral dimension to their game often claim that people who object to D&D's alignment only want their characters to be able to commit Evil actions without the mechanical consequences of being Evil, or even simply being identified as Evil out-of-character.

Another thing I've noticed is that the exact same people are the ones who most avidly defend the wanton slaughter of humanoid populations because they're "inherently evil" and morality doesn't apply to them. Conquest and genocide are thus morally justified and praiseworthy, in the name of Good.

Am I seriously the only person who notices the profound moral disconnect-- or, should I say, the profound similarity-- between one of these arguments and the other?
...

I have no idea where you come to your conclusions. I for one have gone out of my way to say that killing a sentient creature is not inherently a good act. Then again I don't believe it's an inherently evil act either. Risking life and limb to save innocents for no reward would be a good act that may include killing monsters.

As far as wiping out every last orc ... well that's a trolley car problem. There is no good answer and it's not something I want to deal with so I don't. It's a game, not advanced philosophy.

Monsters serve a purpose in stories, fiction and mythology. They're things that prowl in the dark and eat naughty children. Whether they're the troll under the bridge, the (were)wolf that eat's granny and takes her place or Micheal Myers.

 

[Krachek]

I don’t see a problem with fighting evil in DnD.
it is currently still up to date.
killing some evil monster, knowing they are past any kind of redemption can be very satisfying in a fantasy game.
even in games of throne the white walker were evil ones with whom you cannot discuss any agreement. so fighting evil is not completely out of date in a show where grey zone are numerous.
A dm may also propose that any intelligent being is totally freewill and can choose from evil,good,law or chaos, but I don’t think it is core assumption.
and some table may have fun discussing about high philosophical subject about evil or goodness, but again it is not core assumption.