D&D 5E The alignments defined

[dave2008]

By today's standard you are absolutely right. By medieval standard you are a fool.

Don't resort to name calling, it makes you look small. Not to mention that D&D is not a medieval earth society. If your basing these alignments on that, you wrong from the get go.

We live, I hope, in an enlightened society where all these horrible thing are reprehensible. But in medieval times, it was not so. How many innocent women were killed for witch craft? How many people were enslaved because of the color of their skin or simply could not pay a debt? How many were tortured for their seditious ideas? How many atrocities were committed in various wars? And yet, many of these acts were done in the name of good.

Just because something was done "in the name of good," doesn't make the act or person "good."

Again, do not apply our modern vision of morality. It is simply too advanced and enlightened.

Don't apply a false European medieval vision of morality either.

 

[Flamestrike]

Then your character loses his command, branded a traitor and stripped of everything as a person who prefer to let evil thing live on to perpetrate rape, murder and pillaging. He is not a good person for his fellow citizens.

Then I quit your game for trying to force my LG Paladin character into a dichotomy where my choice seems to be either:

a) Genocide and baby murder,
or
b) Outlawry, and being branded 'not good' for refusing to engage in baby murder and genocide.

You're character is a fool.

Your. Your character is a fool.

You know that this is exactly what would happened from the start. Why taking time to negociate with your liege while people are getting killed from your inaction? This is pretty much heartless for me.

What? If the Orcs are already attacking, then of course I would take up arms immediately to defend the people they're attacking.

Probably will not work. Banish them away is a better option. The half-orc you put into power will get killed very fast for being a weakling working for weaklings. Gruumsh will demand as much.

You keep applying modern mentality when I tell you not to. I told you that from a modern POV in the real world you are absolutely right. So trying to convince me that, from a fantastical medieval pov your position is sustainable, is not working and will never get through.

How do you think the Vikings were stopped?

Derp.

Now if in your world orcs can be any alignment (such as in Wildemount) then diplomacy would stand a lot of chance to work and your propositions would take precedence. That much is obvious. But in a world where orcs are evil (and so are the "evil" races) and have no choice on the matter because the gods made it so then diplomacy is not a solution

.

Sorry, I presumed we were talking about DnD where not all Orcs are evil, and the primary reason Orcs are evil is because they are lead by leaders who order them into battles of genocide...

Oh wait.

 

[Helldritch]

Torture is highly ineffective, immoral, inhumane and downright evil. No good person contemplates it. Only evil people, and the occasional desperate neutral person (on the darker side of neutral) even consider it, and even then, very few actually engage in it.

No one here contest that in the real world. And I do hope that none here will try to say otherwise.

On a medieval world, the belief that torture was a "good" tool to get information was taken as a fact. It was distasteful, but it was a mean to an end. Again you apply modernity to medieval. Put yourself in their shoes and all of a sudden, your beliefs will not be that certain.

Good people would not do it. Especially Lawful and Neutral ones. But the Chaotic Good, even though would not like it. Might be tempted to use a tool that is working.

 

[Helldritch]

Don't resort to name calling, it makes you look small. Not to mention that D&D is not a medieval earth society. If your basing these alignments on that, you wrong from the get go.


Just because something was done "in the name of good," doesn't make the act or person "good."

Don't apply a false European medieval vision of morality either.

I was talking about the paladin character. If it was not clear I am sorry and offer my appologies. I do not take Flamestrike for a fool. Quite the contrary and I have the utmost respect for him.

 

[Flamestrike]

On a medieval world, the belief that torture was a "good" tool to get information was taken as a fact.

By evil people. Of which there were a lot more of back then.

Do you get it yet? We're (as in all of society) is more enlightened today (as you keep pointing out).

That means there are more good people today.

 

[Flamestrike]

I was talking about the paladin character. If it was not clear I am sorry and offer my appologies. I do not take Flamestrike for a fool. Quite the contrary and I have the utmost respect for him.

Dont stress.

Look man, I personally wouldnt play in a game where the DM tried to pigeonhole torture and genocide as 'morally good' because 'its the middle ages and those things were morally good back then' and if you didnt engage in those practices 'you were a fool'.

Id certainly quit such a game if placed in some kind of binary dichotomy where my LG Paladin was made to either A) engage in genocide or B) be stripped of command, oulawed and reviled [unless such orders and outlawry came from an Evil Lord, in which case that could be kind of fun, if worked into the story with my character overthrowing said evil lord, and bringing peace and redemption arc].

We're just talking different languages here.

My view is genocide, rape, murder, slavery and torture are evil. They were just as evil 1000 years ago, as they will be in another 1000 years from now, and they are just as evil when I see or read about them in fiction, or see a depiction of a protagonist doing them. That protagonist (in my eyes) is now, evil.

You have a different view. We aint gonna see eye to eye here.

 

[Helldritch]

Just because something was done "in the name of good," doesn't make the act or person "good."

By our modern POV you are right.

Don't apply a false European medieval vision of morality either.

Mmm. I am not only applying European morality. Middle east, Far east, Eurasian, African, just about any medieval society can use these. Restricting ourselve only to European society would be too restrictive. We must try to be broader. After all, in the game world we do have different societies and not all of them are inspired by medieval Europe.

 

[dave2008]

So trying to convince me that, from a fantastical medieval pov your position is sustainable, is not working and will never get through.

Just want to point out that you don't get to decided what the fantastical medieval point of view is. This concept of morality, good, & evil may be your idea of FMPOV, but it doesn't need to be anyone else's. In reality, you don't get to determine what RL medieval morality was either - you weren't there. You are just guessing.

Finally, it is perfectly legit to say evil is evil and always evil. Just because our morality has changed, doesn't mean "evil" has changed. So, though murder, theft, rape, slavery or whatever may have been (or is) morally acceptable in some cultures or times, that doesn't make them good. It just mean people thought they were. Those acts were always evil, people just didn't understand that. I mean in a fantasy setting in which evil is a real thing, this is even more true.

 

[Flamestrike]

Mmm. I am not only applying European morality. Middle east, Far east, Eurasian, African, just about any medieval society can use these. Restricting ourselve only to European society would be too restrictive. We must try to be broader. After all, in the game world we do have different societies and not all of them are inspired by medieval Europe.

Are you saying that those vast swathes of historical earth, with disparate cultures and religions, all had the same concepts of morality?

For what its worth, I dont really see DnD realms (outside of Birthright/ Cerillia) inspired by Medieval Earth. Most of them display highly advanced and modern Nation-States, advanced medicine, political and social structures, and magic replicating modern technology (flying cities, etc).

The closest approximation would be late renaissance (usually with a lot less gunpowder and no steam engines, because 'magic').

Faerun and Greyhawk are not medieval (some parts of them may have strong medieval or feudal vestiges). Krynn neither. Eberron sure as hell isnt; they have trains and robots and airships. Mystara maybe a little more so than Greyhawk. Darksun isnt even Medieval yet at all (or was, but blasted itself back to the Late Stone/ early Bronze age).

 

[dave2008]

By our modern POV you are right.

POV doesn't matter. In a game were evil is a living breathing thing. People don't wonder if there is a devil, they can go visit it it in the nine hells.

Mmm. I am not only applying European morality. Middle east, Far east, Eurasian, African, just about any medieval society can use these. Restricting ourselve only to European society would be too restrictive. We must try to be broader. After all, in the game world we do have different societies and not all of them are inspired by medieval Europe.

Don't get hung up on the European part, the important part was the "false" part. You are advocating a false perspective of medieval morality.

Finally, why would I restrict my players to a bizarre understanding of a false historical morality? D&D is not historical earth. There are so many important differences that it just doesn't make sense.