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.

 

[pemerton]

Also, if the GM doesn't adjudicate alignment, who does? Not the player, certainly

Why not?

There are answers to that question, but (1) you haven't really spelled them out, and (2) I don't think this thread is taking them as given.

My take on alignment in the early days of D&D is that it was another avenue for skilled play. By choosing to be Lawful, you placed constraints on your PC which were pretty easy to understand - given the pretty simple gameworld contexts of those early games - and in return you got access to certain benefits (eg heals, resurrection. perhaps better reaction rolls because you're more trustworthy, etc). By choosing to be Chaotic, you avoided the constraints but lost access to the benefits. Neutrals were something of a halfway-house.

In that context GM adjudication of alignment is warranted. But I don't believe that many games play like that today. I also don't think it's an approach that extends well to 9-point alignment. It has even broken down in Ggygax's AD&D - the access to spells and better reaction rolls is still there in the system, but there is an implication that evil characters can lose levels for being good just as much as vice-versa. So now what is the trade-off for being evil rather than good? It just seems to suck.

As soon as the gameworld becomes rich enough in its ficiton and scope of action for the sort of discussion happening in this thread to be salient, the idea of alignment as a strategic-level trade-off is dead, and at that point the rationale for GM adjudication dies with it. At that point, the GM deciding whether or not the gods think you're good or evil is no diffent than the GM deciding, without reference to reaction rolls, whether or not the shopkeeper likes your PC except (i) it is likely to invovle even more railroading, because of the typical role in a gameworld of gods compared to shopkeepers, and (ii) it is more likely to cause fights because no one really likes being told that they can't tell what's good or bad.

 

[pemerton]

No conflicts when the GM's word is law.

Also on this - the existence of actual laws and dictators in the real world has rarely stopped all conflict, so I'm not sure how it is meant to do that in the context of a voluntary association among friends for leisure purposes.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't think this coheres very well with standard D&D alignment. Eg it tends to suggest that being evil is in the eye of the beholder - which then causes confusion when we ask who detects as evil or who, when they die, will go to the lower planes?

Doesn't cause much confusion at all.

In reverse order: who on death goes to the lower planes? That's on the gods to sort out; and while the character's still alive they can punt on the decision, and after the character dies (permanently) who cares anyway.

Who detects as evil is certainly affected by the viewpoint of the caster, as one of several factors with past actions, absolute (i.e. universal) alignment, religion or deity followed, and so forth being some others. An Orc Shaman casting detect evil might pull some of the PCs but not all of the Orcs around her (as in her view they're not evil), while a PC Cleric in the adventuring party casting detect evil might pull all the Orcs but none of the adventurers.

Meanwhile a non-involved third party might find everyone present is evil; the Orcs for their past raiding and the PCs for their actions while adventuring.

 

[DammitVictor]

Now disputing a specific call is fine - simple fact of life that not everyone's going to agree with every call - but to blame the DM for making the call at all when the game insists she does is a bit much.

It is not blame. It is responsibility. All I'm saying here is that even if the game requires you to make a call, you're still making the call and telling a player who objects to that call to "take it up with the Force" or "the gods" or whatever is refusing to take ownership of your own authority as DM.

 

[Lanefan]

As soon as the gameworld becomes rich enough in its ficiton and scope of action for the sort of discussion happening in this thread to be salient, the idea of alignment as a strategic-level trade-off is dead, and at that point the rationale for GM adjudication dies with it.

Not at all.

There can still be consequences for alignment deviation particularly for alignment-based classes such as Cleric and Paladin; and (more important for me) I-as-DM need to know who that Good-aligned mace is going to accept when they pick it up and who it (painfully!) isn't.

And if you've written CG on your character sheet but your actions in play have been more like CE then forget the sheet, you're CE and that mace is gonna bite you if you touch it.

It'll also factor in if-when an NPC (or another PC, for that matter) casts Detect-xxxx or Know Alignment on you for whatever reason.

 

[Lanefan]

Also on this - the existence of actual laws and dictators in the real world has rarely stopped all conflict, so I'm not sure how it is meant to do that in the context of a voluntary association among friends for leisure purposes.

Part of that "voluntary association among friends..." in this context is an acceptance that within the game, when it comes to rulings (of which determination of alignment is one) the GM's word is law.

Same as stepping onto the ice to play hockey: you-as-player are accepting that the referee's word is law.

 

[Lanefan]

It is not blame. It is responsibility. All I'm saying here is that even if the game requires you to make a call, you're still making the call and telling a player who objects to that call to "take it up with the Force" or "the gods" or whatever is refusing to take ownership of your own authority as DM.

Maybe. The DM could instead just say "That's the way it is, that's my call." and stop there, I suppose.

Or...maybe the DM is hinting at an in-game way of possibly overturning or reversing that call; that the Force or the deities might be able to change the fiction if approached and reasoned with?

 

[MGibster]

i would say a "just" act is not necessarily attached to good or evil. Rather, it is a "correct" or "right" act in accordance to something. Typically a law or custom.

In this particular case, a justifiable homicide, it most certainly is attached to ideas of good and evil. Or what is morally right and morally wrong if you prefer. I do not believe most people view a justifiable homicide as an evil. At least not in the sense of a moral wrong. Killing someone in self-defense might suck and it might be a bummer but it isn't evil.

 

[MGibster]

I don't think definitions are very helpful. We're in the territory of encyclopedias, not dictionaries.

No, definitions are absolutely helpful. Have you ever taken an undergraduate course in philosophy? Philosophers go out of their way to define the terms they're using in order for everyone to be on the same page during the discussion.

The idea that something might be justfied yet be an evil is not particularly odd. Killing in self-defence is widely (not universally - eg by pacifists) seen as justifiable. But I think that few people would say that killing in self-defence is a good and I think many would say that it is regrettable and I think that some would say it is a necessary evil.

This is why it's important to define your terms. When you say it's evil what does that mean? It's a bummer? It's morally wrong?

There are lots of discussions in both philsophy and literature of more tricky and controversial cases, but I don't think they are going to help most D&D games.

It appears as though the conversation has already gone in that direction.

Upon further reflection, you're probably right. This isn't a philosophy board and this line of discussion veers into political territory. Best for me to just drop it now.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

In the most classic account, which I think is the one that best fits D&D, to do justice is to give others their due. Everything else being equal, people are entitled not to be killed and hence killing them willy-nilly is unjust.

Mercy and charity are acts of generosity that go beyond what is due. In that sense, they are gratuitous. In most approaches to D&D morality that I've encountered over the years, these are treated as superogatory for good characters, just as in the classic account of justice they are superogatory.

That said, a character who professed to be good but never demonstrated mercy or charity might be considered a little suspect, or at best a borderline case.

In 5e D&D, I would expect the typical vengeance paladin to show little mercy or charity, and perhaps also to sometimes act unjustly (eg attacking those who are themselves innocent, and hence have done nothing to merit the attack, but who are in the way of the exacting of vengeance). This is why the typical vengeance paladin is probably not good. (But not necessarily evil. Some might be LN. Or even CN, if they are idiosyncratic or mercurial in respect of those upon whom they wreak vengeance.)

See...the thing is...according earlier logic professed by yourself you're not right.

Its highly dependant on you making a lot of presupositions.

What you just said COULD be right. But according to your earlier logic it would be incorrect to say "this will just always be correct".