D&D General D&D doesn't need Evil

[Charlaquin]

"evil" in the descriptor is just that - it's a reminder that this is a bad guy. It's easy, it's unambiguous and it conveys quickly to the DM what he should be looking for in this particular NPC. also it's gotten to be bit of a term of art in D&D. When you see LG in the descriptor, you know (as the DM) where this NPC likely stands. When you see CE, same thing.

You’re the DM, shouldn’t you already know where your NPCs stand?

Could the concepts be conveyed in a different manner? Sure, but why change something that works?

Because it’s unnecessary and actually causing problems.

It conveys, in one word or less, what I can expect from the monster/npc. Again, it's a shortcut for when you don't need more. And even if it's an important NPC - it's a quick label on top of the actual actions.

Again, you’re the DM, you should know what you can expect from your own monsters and NPCs.

Labels mean something. It's nice to be able to cut through a 2 page description of various deeds down to 2 letters-CE. This is a game, the descriptor simplifies things for the game and distills concepts - for the game. Hence it's useful.

You haven’t clearly demonstrated it’s usefulness. So far I’ve got “it tells you something you as DM already know.”

Depends what you mean by "act like monsters" vs "act like people". Would a group of monstrously evil creatures be less evil because they were spotted cooking food and/or joking around a campfire? Or do 100% of their actions have to be recognizably evil to be guilt-free victims of righteous violence?
Even Strahd probably has events in his day that aren't recognizably evil and are the things normal people do - like sleeping or reading a good book. Should the fact that he does them give anyone pause in their resolution that he should be destroyed? Or are the monstrous things he does, when he does monstrous things, enough to qualify?

Shouldn’t that be up to the players to decide?

 

[Maxperson]

So, what you’re saying is, no, it doesn’t matter if we call him evil or not.

Nah. What he was saying was that you did call him evil, even though you didn't use the word.

 

[Umbran]

Forget that.

No. I do not forget when folks start reading weird stuff into what's being said. It is an indication that someone is responding to some strawman in their head rather than what's written, and that bears remembering.

you said interests and likes are not relevant.

To the question of whether the game overall needs capital-E Evil, the personal likes of any individual are not terribly relevant. We are instead talking about what works mechanically, and in the broader market.

For example, mechanically, the game does really require that players have an easy way to generate a mostly random number between 1 and 20, with a flat probability distribution. Anything else mucks with many game assumptions, and will do weird and unpredictable things to game balance.

Mechanically, 5e does not require Evil to exist, and the few places where it might still be mechanically relevant are rare, and easily reinterpreted without breaking anything major in the engine as a whole.

And, as for the broader market - the success of 5e, which has eliminated Evil from most of the text, again speaks to how it isn't necessary to ensconce Evil in the published game rules. Maybe, in the 1970s, when it was strongly wired into the rules, it was necessary to have it for the game to claw its way to popularity - that's a separate, speculative discussion. But if so, the world has changed, and it seems to no longer be required for the game to be successful.

 

[Mort]

You’re the DM, shouldn’t you already know where your NPCs stand?

Maybe? If I haven't run the adventure in a few months, a quick reminder doesn't hurt.

And what if it's not "my" NPC but a published module or a friend's adventure. Shorthand is there for a reason.

Because it’s unnecessary and actually causing problems.

I've already shown how it's useful (as have several others). As for causing problems? Only in the broad labeling of entire races, peoples etc. Which isn't even close to what we are talking about here.

Again, you’re the DM, you should know what you can expect from your own monsters and NPCs.

Not if I'm using someone else's stuff, or they're using mine. Or it's been a while and I need a quick reminder.

Or if I'm writing the adventure need a quick NPC and summation and want to spend seconds instead of minutes thinking up the NPCs shtick.

You haven’t clearly demonstrated it’s usefulness. So far I’ve got “it tells you something you as DM already know.”

You've decided up front the DM already knows it. That may not be the case. OR when the DM is writing up the adversary he wants a quick summation and this provides. Or even, since I've been doing this a while - I'll start with "hmm I need a CE baddie..." and THEN flesh out from there.

So it's useful to me - and judging by responses even in this thread, It's not just me.

 

[Charlaquin]

Two responses.
The first is that you have, by the very construction of the example, moved out of the primary domain of usefulness of "evil." The term is, to some extent, inherently an abstraction; by demanding that we never speak in anything but singular, discrete, concrete realities, of course one can argue that "evil" must be useless, because we're not allowed to speak about the places where it is most useful. "Evil," as a label, bundles together a lot of things, in much the same way that "good" does; e.g. if someone says "I'm trying to be a good person," though they are speaking abstractly, that abstraction is still useful, because it signals that this person has realized that some of their past actions are blame-worthy and that they are putting in the work to stop their blame-worthy actions and commit to virtuous ones instead. Likewise, someone saying, "What I did was evil," is not just admitting that they committed some past action, but rather that they have come to understand and accept that they deserve blame and feel guilt and remorse about that action. It is, most certainly, the case that "X person is evil" can only be determined after observing something like "X person coerces others into abusive romantic relationships," "X person tortures prisoners," or "X person kills innocent people for their personal enjoyment." But by that same token, things like "X object has a color resembling the ocean and the sky" or "X object emits a sound like an avalanche or a bomb" must be observed before we can call objects "blue" or "loud," yet these abstractions linked to physically-observable states of behaviors are perfectly acceptable. (And certainly colors are abstractions, otherwise languages wouldn't have so much disagreement about how many of them there are. Categorizing sounds by loudness is more concrete, but still abstracted across many distinct instances with little in common: 100 dB is abstract unless it is represented as some specific pressure wave, and could be a roaring furnace, a concert, or a trumpet right in your ear.)

Ok, now we’re getting somewhere!

So, yes, evil is an abstract term, just like loud, and blue, and any number of other adjectives. But crucially. evil is different from these other adjectives in that it not only abstractly represents a broad range of behaviors, but also places a concrete value judgment on those behaviors. In other words, it abstractly describes a broad range of behaviors, which are not universally agreed upon, but concretely judges those behaviors as bad. We all agree that evil is bad, but we don’t all agree what constitutes evil, which makes the use of the term inevitably contentious. This is why I think it would be better to focus on the actual concrete behaviors and let the players form their own value judgments, rather than to abstractly label characters (let alone entire races!) as evil.

The second is a bit different, and perhaps overly technical. You mention all these things: feeding on the life-force of others, coercion of weaker people into relationships, relationships that are built on a dramatic power differential. And I mentioned other things, like deriving joy from killing individuals that are unrelated to oneself or one's situation, or intentionally inflicting pain on individuals over whom you have power. But you may notice a common thread in the descriptions I just gave: none of them imply any need for action on anyone else's part. Why should I care that these facts are true? What factor turns these "is" statement into any kind of "ought" statements for me, or indeed for anyone? Obviously if I wish to avoid being coerced etc. then I should avoid this Stroud fellow, but apart from that, the brute fact "is" statements compel nothing from me. Unless, that is, we are including an implicit evaluative judgment. Unless we are saying, "Stroud has done X and Y and Z, and those things are blame-worthy." Sweeping the evaluative judgment under the rug by simply assuming that we all agree that it is wrong(!) to coerce or to torture or to enjoy the killing of innocents does not in any way mean the evaluative judgment did not happen. And the common thread through all these evaluative judgments is not merely that they are wrong, but that they are of sufficient wrongness that anyone who has the power to prevent these actions from continuing to occur should--even must--do so.

And I believe it should be up to the players to decide that for themselves. Maybe they think something ought to be done about this tyrannical vampire, maybe they don’t,

English has a word very specifically for this kind of thing, for actions that are so severely wrong, they must be opposed by any who have the means to do so. That word is "evil."

Right, but as I demonstrated above, use of the term is inevitably contentious because by definition it means that the things it describes are so severely wrong that they must be opposed, yet in 2500 years we have not been able to agree upon what acts should or shouldn’t be described this way. The solution, in my view, is to not use the imprecise and contentious label. Instead, focus on the actions themselves and let the players judge them as they will.

 

[Charlaquin]

Nah. What he was saying was that you did call him evil, even though you didn't use the word.

And what I’m saying is that he did say it doesn’t matter if we use the word evil or not, even if he didn’t use those words.

EDIT: To put it less glibly, the fact that I didn’t need to use the word evil to communicate why the character was evil by @Lanefan ’s definition illustrates the point being made in the OP, which can be summed up as “show, don’t tell.”

 

[Maxperson]

And what I’m saying is that he did say it doesn’t matter if we use the word evil or not, even if he didn’t use those words.

EDIT: To put it less glibly, the fact that I didn’t need to use the word evil to communicate why the character was evil by @Lanefan ’s definition illustrates the point being made in the OP, which can be summed up as “show, don’t tell.”

Either way works out just as well as the other, though. It's only a matter of preference. Telling is just as good or even better to a lot of people.

 

[Mort]

Ok, now we’re getting somewhere!

So, yes, evil is an abstract term, just like loud, and blue, and any number of other adjectives. But crucially. evil is different from these other adjectives in that it not only abstractly represents a broad range of behaviors, but also places a concrete value judgment on those behaviors. In other words, it abstractly describes a broad range of behaviors, which are not universally agreed upon, but concretely judges those behaviors as bad. We all agree that evil is bad, but we don’t all agree what constitutes evil, which makes the use of the term inevitably contentious. This is why I think it would be better to focus on the actual concrete behaviors and let the players form their own value judgments, rather than to abstractly label characters (let alone entire races!) as evil.

But the DM exists and he actively decides if something is evil or not (even IF he doesn't put the evil label on it). Or the game designer (even before the DM) decides what constitutes evil in his game. Not everyone WANTS some morally ambiguous relativistic quagmire where they have to get into arguments as to what's evil and not.

And I believe it should be up to the players to decide that for themselves. Maybe they think something ought to be done about this tyrannical vampire, maybe they don’t,

But, in D&D, the players don't set this objective reality. They can let the tyrannical vampire go or not - but they don't get to decide if the vampire is evil.

Right, but as I demonstrated above, use of the term is inevitably contentious because by definition it means that the things it describes are so severely wrong that they must be opposed, yet in 2500 years we have not been able to agree upon what acts should or shouldn’t be described this way. The solution, in my view, is to not use the imprecise and contentious label. Instead, focus on the actions themselves and let the players judge them as they will.

The term is only contentious if it is made to be so. And I disagree that the term is imprecise - it's just not all encompassing.

And what I’m saying is that he did say it doesn’t matter if we use the word evil or not, even if he didn’t use those words.

That would be an incorrect interpretation of my post. I was saying that you were calling something evil without actually calling it evil - but it's evil none the less.

 

[Mort]

And what I’m saying is that he did say it doesn’t matter if we use the word evil or not, even if he didn’t use those words.

EDIT: To put it less glibly, the fact that I didn’t need to use the word evil to communicate why the character was evil by @Lanefan ’s definition illustrates the point being made in the OP, which can be summed up as “show, don’t tell.”

Brevity has a purpose. If it takes 2 paragraphs to convey the same concept as 2 letters, sometimes the 2 letters is better. Certainly it's useful.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

No. I do not forget when folks start reading weird stuff into what's being said. It is an indication that someone is responding to some strawman in their head rather than what's written, and that bears remembering.



To the question of whether the game overall needs capital-E Evil, the personal likes of any individual are not terribly relevant. We are instead talking about what works mechanically, and in the broader market.

For example, mechanically, the game does really require that players have an easy way to generate a mostly random number between 1 and 20, with a flat probability distribution. Anything else mucks with many game assumptions, and will do weird and unpredictable things to game balance.

Mechanically, 5e does not require Evil to exist, and the few places where it might still be mechanically relevant are rare, and easily reinterpreted without breaking anything major in the engine as a whole.

And, as for the broader market - the success of 5e, which has eliminated Evil from most of the text, again speaks to how it isn't necessary to ensconce Evil in the published game rules. Maybe, in the 1970s, when it was strongly wired into the rules, it was necessary to have it for the game to claw its way to popularity - that's a separate, speculative discussion. But if so, the world has changed, and it seems to no longer be required for the game to be successful.

Remember it as you wish, sir. I am only here to chat on breaks from work for entertainment. You don’t really ever win arguments on the internet I have found so strawmen and such are incidental or accidental

my point is it depends on what sort of game you are playing. It is essential for some games.

do you need it for checkers? Nope. 5e? It’s so watered down I would have to say no.

do you need it to play 1e? Yeah, unless you jettison parts of the game. At which point is it not the same game?

you don’t need dice or random numbers in D&D. Gygax let that be known early on. The dm can just make a call each and every time. Is that D&D? Heck you can have no death in the rules. You could take it right out. Some people do.

preferences matter and opinion matters if we are arguing one element is critical and another is not.
We could take combat out.

any single element can be taken out, one at a time and we can argue about where it’s no longer D&D.

that said I don’t like when certain elements get taken out. Such as evil. It’s playable just like a dice less game is playable. Not my preference but guess it’s doable.

just a Guess here: you don’t care for evil in the game. But you can disabuse me of that idea if you care too.