D&D 5E Why is animate dead considered inherently evil?

[Tolerable Tyrant]

I'm having a troublesome time understanding why the animate dead spell is considered evil. When I read the manual it states that the spall imbues the targeted corpse with a foul mimicry of life, implying that the soul is not a sentient being who is trapped in a decaying corpse. Rather, the spell does exactly what its title suggests, it only animates the corps. Now of course one could use the spell to create zombies that would hunt and kill humans, but by that same coin, they could create a labor force that needs no form of sustenance (other than for the spell to be recast of course). There have also been those who have said "the spell is associated with the negative realm which is evil", however when you ask someone why the negative realm is bad that will say "because it is used for necromancy", I'm sure you can see the fallacy in this argument.

However, I must take into account that I have only looked into the DnD magic system since yesterday so there are likely large gaps in my knowledge. PS(Apon further reflection I've decided that the animate dead spell doesn't fall into the school of necromancy, as life is not truly given to the corps, instead I believe this would most likely fall into the school of transmutation.) PPS(I apologize for my sloppy writing, I've decided I'm feeling too lazy to correct it.)

 

[see]

since to me it is a self correcting problem as well people will get bored of dungeon diving if they just use undead endlessly so either they leave or the rest of the table nags at them to stop running the fun.

There are many forms of "self-correction". Some look like "someone ceasing to play D&D forever", "arguments that break up D&D groups", or "tables switching to other systems than D&D", all bad for D&D-the-business. And while game design can't remotely prevent those results, it's useful to reduce the problems at the margin.

To that end, it makes sense, as a game-design matter, to label some approaches to play as "for evil characters". It doesn't stop people from playing that way, but it gives a nice big "You can do this, but it's not how D&D is intended to play, so it's not D&D's fault if you run into trouble playing it this way" warning. And it lets DMs preemptively ban those play modes with a simple "No evil characters" declaration.

 

[payn]

There are many forms of "self-correction". Some look like "someone ceasing to play D&D forever", "arguments that break up D&D groups", or "tables switching to other systems than D&D", all bad for D&D-the-business. And while game design can't remotely prevent those results, it's useful to reduce the problems at the margin.

To that end, it makes sense, as a game-design matter, to label some approaches to play as "for evil characters". It doesn't stop people from playing that way, but it gives a nice big "You can do this, but it's not how D&D is intended to play, so it's not D&D's fault if you run into trouble playing it this way" warning. And it lets DMs preemptively ban those play modes with a simple "No evil characters" declaration.

No no no, I really hope they don’t start indicating how D&D is supposed to be played. This will cause so many problems with perception of goodrightfun…

 

[MGibster]

No no no, I really hope they don’t start indicating how D&D is supposed to be played. This will cause so many problems with perception of goodrightfun…

I don't believe D&D or any game can be all things to all people. If we're going to have a cohesive set of rules, there's going to be some default assumptions for how the game is played. It doesn't make it wrong if you or anyone else plays the game differently though.

 

[MarkB]

It does occur to me that a warlord making use of an undead army with the justification that this keeps his subjects safe might make for an interesting villain. His people might support the war with great enthusiasm knowing their lives and the lives of their loved ones are never going to be at risk.

That's pretty much Karrnath in the Eberron campaign setting.

 

[payn]

I don't believe D&D or any game can be all things to all people. If we're going to have a cohesive set of rules, there's going to be some default assumptions for how the game is played. It doesn't make it wrong if you or anyone else plays the game differently though.

No no no, please don’t advocate for this it will not work out like that.

 

[see]

No no no, I really hope they don’t start indicating how D&D is supposed to be played. This will cause so many problems with perception of goodrightfun…

You don't need to worry about them starting; the publishers of D&D, whomever they are at any given time, have been doing it since at least Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-Gods, & Heroes, in the "Introduction" dated July 4, 1976.

Nowadays, they generally do it rather more subtly than they did then. For example, it was not by accident that the Oathbreaker paladin and the Death cleric were in the 5e DMG, not the 5e PHB.

Whether or not I point out what they've been doing all along isn't going to change whether they've been doing it all along. And I don't think you should worry about them getting particularly more blatant going forward than they were in 5th edition simply because I point out what they've been doing.

 

[Lanefan]

You can keep your creepy, evil undead. Me? I'm putting skeletons to work in the fields to provide food for the living.

Yeah, like that'll make the living serfs working the fields feel any better - "Even death doesn't end our toil!"

 

[Lanefan]

Nah. I don’t use alignments and I’ve never even seen players consider this strategy, probably because it’s a terrible strategy given how slow and tedious animating dead is, and because it’s boring and lame and nobody wants to play a boring and lame game.

I've seen it tried on numerous occasions...and most of the time the undead created by the not-so-good PC tend to last exactly as long as it takes for a good PC to get to them and destroy them.

Also, plenty of campaigns that do use alignment and have evil characters exist, and they don’t use it either. Probably for the reasons above. And also because it would be terrible strategy anyway, given that the BBEG necromancer can probably raise undead faster than you can.

Long story writ short, but one of my own main characters is from a version of the setting (like I said, long story!) where about 90% of the population had been turned into mostly low-grade undead. So, as a Cleric, he's spent most of his adult life either avoiding or destroying undead...which means if he sees an undead, even if created by someone else in the party, it's going down as soon as he gets to it...and that's assuming he wins the race; he's not the only undead-hunter in our company.

 

[Lanefan]

Does that make fireball not evil then? How many people it's likely to kill?

More to the point, who says the fireball's being cast at people?

 

[Mind of tempest]

It does occur to me that a warlord making use of an undead army with the justification that this keeps his subjects safe might make for an interesting villain. His people might support the war with great enthusiasm knowing their lives and the lives of their loved ones are never going to be at risk.

they also march forever so not Alex can keep going till he runs out of planet