D&D General Deleted

[Kaiyanwang]

That's the point of discussing and critiquing these things

But the premise of the thread goes beyond a neutral analysis. Here the mere aesthetic of the Paladin was considered problematic.

 

[Umbran]

Actual, true evil should be fought without mercy indeed.

This is a controversial claim both in real life, and in the context of the fiction and tropes that underpin FRPGing.

Indeed. If you fight without mercy, how are you different from the Evil you are supposedly fighting?

 

[Kaiyanwang]

Indeed. If you fight without mercy, how are you different from the Evil you are supposedly fighting?

I maintain is due to the cosmology.
Against orcs? I agree. Those are people, regardless of the horrible circumstances they got there.
Against demons? No reason to give quarter to literally evil incarnate.

 

[Umbran]

I maintain is due to the cosmology.

There is no one "the cosmology" for D&D. Cosmology is a setting element, and can vary from one person's campaign world to another.

 

[James Gasik]

There is no one "the cosmology" for D&D. Cosmology is a setting element, and can vary from one person's campaign world to another.

If you go from the Planescape/3e viewpoint, where Good, Evil,. Chaos, and Law are cosmic forces, and there are planes devoted entirely to these concepts, then yes, creatures who are wholly an alignment might exist- but canonically D&D also has fallen angels and redeemed fiends as well.

Even a being made from a corrupted soul whos physical form is a manifestation of pure evil still has free will and can choose their path, no matter how difficult that path may be to take.

 

[Umbran]

All literary things are chains. They are all influenced by what came before and they in turn influence what comes after. Nothing in literature exists in a vacuum. That's the point of discussing and critiquing these things - to illuminate where the ideas come from and how they are changing over time.

The question, though, is through how many generations in the chain do we hold a work responsible for the problems of the predecessors? For how long do the sins of the fathers fall upon the children?

Because someone adapting, say, The Merchant of Venice, may not know all the things that Elizabethan English writers might know about Venice and the treatment of Jews of the time, but, if they make an adaptation that plays into Shylock being the villain and 100% deserving of his fate, they're very, very likely to slam into some pretty serious criticism of their work.

But, the case in question is rather the opposite. Some of the original referent is, by modern standards, highly problematic, but the modern thing inspired by that referent has rejected much of the problem. Do we critique it for even having indirect reference to an issue that has largely been removed?

 

[Kaiyanwang]

There is no one "the cosmology" for D&D. Cosmology is a setting element, and can vary from one person's campaign world to another.

Fair enough, but in most cosmologies, outsiders are made of the material of the plane of origin, literally made of evil. I can agree that using non-official or official (see what James Gasik posted, that's a big one) material in which they work differently, a nuance closer to what is done with humanoids (say) is required.
I would not frankly do that though - personal taste of course - because to me an outsider is closer to an idea than to a person. Is more of an incarnation of a concept - this is why it belongs to an outer plane where these concepts belong in physical form. But in no way think this should be what all do.

 

[Umbran]

Even a being made from a corrupted soul whos physical form is a manifestation of pure evil still has free will and can choose their path, no matter how difficult that path may be to take.

Well, maybe they can, and maybe they can't. That's kind of the point - different GMs run things differently.

Indeed, it raises the question whether the characters likely aren't so well educated on metaphysics as to know, with sufficient certainty, that they can act against some creatures without mercy and not have that be unrighteous.

One step further, we have not established that a character can ever act without mercy and still be righteous. Even if the target is Evil, that lack of mercy still increases the overall suffering in the multiverse, right? That suffering must be justified - if the character could have reached the same end without the extra pain, is the pain not the character's moral responsibility, regardless of the target?

 

[Clint_L]

Fair enough, but in most cosmologies, outsiders are made of the material of the plane of origin, literally made of evil.

What does that even mean? Evil is not a substance. Evil is a subjective concept; it's a term that only has meaning when given context. You can't be made of evil. That's like being made of red, or made of comfort, etc..

You can say the words "a plane of pure evil," for example, but those words will mean something different to every single person. Some might picture something like their interpretation of a stereotypical Christian conception of Hell. Others might imagine a void. According to Sartre, Hell is other people.

That's why Gary Gygax can describe Lawful Good by using examples that sound plenty evil from my perspective.

 

[Cadence]

What does that even mean? Evil is not a substance. Evil is a subjective concept; it's a term that only has meaning when given context. You can't be made of evil. That's like being made of red, or made of comfort, etc..

You can say the words "a plane of pure evil," for example, but those words will mean something different to every single person. Some might picture something like their interpretation of a stereotypical Christian conception of Hell. Others might imagine a void. According to Sartre, Hell is other people.

That's why Gary Gygax can describe Lawful Good by using examples that sound plenty evil from my perspective.

And hence, different editions of the books tried to give alignment specific meaning with examples and defined outsiders that went with them. Kind of like how the bad guys in Elric, for example, were metaphysically chaos or some such.. It feels like incarnations of good and evil or law and chaos come up in a variety of fiction, and so apparently a lot of people don't have trouble imagining them in a particular fictional context -- even if they might differ from one movie or book cosmology to another or with the viewer/readers particular beliefs. There are even chapters in the philosophy of D&D books by professional thinkers musing on such things.

Did 1e suck at it compared to 5e? Probably. It sucked at a lot of things. But I'm not sure what any argument focusing on the flaws in the 1e implementation of alignment necessarily have to do with how it is portrayed in later versions any more than an argument about the 1e implementation would matter for discussing whether anything else in different edition of the game (species, classes, AC, healing) were any good. And similarly, I'm again not sure what Gygax's words on alignment nineteen years after he had anything to do with the games, and nine years before the current edition, have anything to do with the way it is currently implemented.

(None of which means I would put alignment in a heartbreaker I was making - but there are lots ofnD&D things that probably wouldn't make the cut).