D&D General A paladin just joined the group. I'm a necromancer.

[Flamestrike]

In a fantasy setting people can be almost anything, assuming some kind of sentience. My comment about elementals, modrons, myconids, and androids was both a joke AND serious.

If its sentient/ sapient and alive, then it counts as a person.

Undead and Constructs cant be killed. They're not alive to begin with.

Demons and Devils do fit in this description. Genocide against them is evil. Understandable, but evil. Canonically (and by RAW) even Demons and Devils can be redeemed and change alignment.

Treat them with extreme prejudice though!

 

[Greenfield]

So basically we are back to my initial argument although a lot more nuanced. That argument was that:

The rule about animating dead frequently being an evil act is an illegitimate rule

I'm still stumbling on the concept of an "illegitimate rule". I'm not sure there even is such a thing.

Kind of like asking, "Is this color too fast?", the adjective is inconsistent with the noun.

If you want to say "bad rule", okay, that's your opinion. But "Illegitimate" implies that the rule has no business existing at all, and as has been pointed out, in the vast majority of cultures and cases, it is broadly considered wrong.

Now, can we contrive a situation where it might be acceptable?. Sure. Laurel K Hamilton wrote a book series (which eventually degenerated into cheap porn) about a reanimator in a modern world. Her job was to reanimate the dead, usually at the request of the family or a court of law, so they could be asked to clarify things in wills or contract arrangements. Then she'd put them back in their grave. And even in that heavily contrived setting, churches maintained that it was Evil (with a capital E), and the legal penalty if an undead harmed anyone was death for the reanimator. No exceptions. (Okay, one exception: Reanimating murder victims was illegal, since the deceased would immediately set out to avenge their own death, beyond any control of the one who animated them. And, to reverse paraphrase Marvel's Stn Lee, "With no power comnes no responsibility". If it wasn't known that the deceased had been murdered, the reanimator wasn't considered responsible for the zombie's actions.)

But regardless of time period or culture, grave robbery has been a capital offense for several thousand years.

Regarding the Hispanic tradition of the Day of the Dead, it's a family event where the loved ones of the deceased gather to remember them. There isn't even a pretense that the one who passed ever leaves the grave site, or stays around after the gathering.

Even the contrived Lawful Neutral Necromancer I mentioned earlier understood that the Undead were treacherous tools, at best, and understood that any of his Undead who somehow became uncontrolled had to be put down, hard and fast.

So I'll agree with the rule book on this one, and I'll argue that calling the rules "illegitimate" is a bad call.

I'd say a few things about people who think they know the rules better than the rules themselves, but we have rules here on the forum against personal attacks. Legitimate rules.

 

[Maxperson]

But that remote tribe is evil right? Orcs are evil. So as soon as they see you, they will attack you to rape, enslave or kill you.

Says who? Evil does not equate to mindless. They might kill you, or they might not.

So, attacking them first doesn't matter, they will attack you, you will fight back, and either you are weaker and therefore lose, or you kill them all.

If that's how your DM plays evil, I feel really bad for you.

See, because here is the thing. RAW, all orcs are evil. All goblins are evil. Ect. Creatures that have a choice have "any alignment" listed.

By RAW, the DM is free to make exceptions. Altering the entire entry requires homebrew.

After all, evil is objective. If you see an orc, the DM will look at the statblock in the Monster Manual. That statblock will say Evil.

So what. You can't just murder something because it's evil.

Every Orc is a, what does the MM say, "savage raider and pillager" who "gather in tribes to exert their dominance and satisfy their bloodlust by plundering villages, devouring or driving off roaming herds, and slaying any humanoids that stand against them"

If they are remote, there aren't any villages to plunder. That's why I specified remote.

 

[Maxperson]

In a fantasy setting people can be almost anything, assuming some kind of sentience. My comment about elementals, modrons, myconids, and androids was both a joke AND serious.

Sure, but the only time I've seen an intelligent virus was in a Jack Chalker book.

 

[Greenfield]

... See, because here is the thing. RAW, all orcs are evil. All goblins are evil. Ect. Creatures that have a choice have "any alignment" listed.

In editions I'm most familiar with, some creatures had "always evil" listed in their alignment, such as Imps. Others simply said "evil"

So it isn't as if every Dark Elf you ever meet is 100% guaranteed to be Evil. It's simply the default case. You might meet an Orc with a sense of pride, and a relatively honorable approach when dealing with outsiders. But he/she would be the anomaly. Is that Orcish village full of Evil people? Yes. Maybe not 100% evil, but enough to consider them hostile and dangerous as a group.

Enough to justify being wiped out? Not unless they've done something to provoke. Otherwise you're becoming as Evil as they are.

 

[Iry]

Sure, but the only time I've seen an intelligent virus was in a Jack Chalker book.

Viruses are absolutely sentient, but not sapient. So it depends on where you draw the line. Some definitions of sapience include only humans, so elves wouldn't be people. Other people define sapience as the ability to make moral judgments. In a realm is varied as fantasy there are a few races who are intelligent but unable to make moral judgments. If you draw the line at sentience (which I do) then you can genocide grass.

 

[Todd Roybark]

Genocide has a definition:

Right, and the destruction of a species falls under ecocide.

The language of Western Philosophy is very humanocentric. Would an Intelligent virus be worthy of the same rights as humans?

If so, why are only intelligent creatures worthy of rights?

Ahimsa is the principle of non-violence. Multitudes of people on Earth, feel that all violence is wrong, be it directed to plants, animals, or people.

Minerals don’t get such consideration, but in a D&D context we have Elementals. Some traditions on Earth, consider plants to actually be minerals, indeed to circumvent the prohibition of violence against living things.

Groups that practice rigorous non- violence, often use animal products from animals that died from natural causes. I have a hand drum from India, made from the skin of a camel that was found dead in the deserts of Rajasthan.

A creature from the ‘Higher Planes’ where the ideal is actual, would likely consider ‘Just Murder’ as abhorrent as ‘unjust murder’.

Thusly, I can imagine, a culture that views bondage of animals, plants, and minerals to be abhorrent to the Cosmic ideal of Good. If Undeath is by essence evil, and Cosmic Evil, at that, and thus opposed to Cosmic Good; how is it Evil to channel the Inherently Evil force of Undeath into labor that protects the Ideals of the Higher Planes....which ahmisa, Non-Violence clearly can be synonymous with?

The Fluff Text as RAW crowd, is expressing a very narrow scope of moral philosophy.

I’m not saying that is inherently wrong, but I personally find it unimaginative. Unimaginative, in that by design, it precludes other,( valid), narrative options.

This is not an ad hominem attack. Lanefan, for example, openly states that they run a very controlled setting, that is very successful. I don’t doubt it.

I have ran and played in those type of games. Any type of D&D game can be, and be fun.

The text and subtext of the “This is RAW” argument being promoted by Flamestrike and others,
is clearly, that a narrowly defined view is ‘normal’, and all other styles,( while fine at their respective tables), are ‘abnormal’.

 

[Flamestrike]

Would an Intelligent virus be worthy of the same rights as humans?

Yes, it would. And if we knew it was alive and sapient/ sentient, it would classify as genocide (for the purposes of this discussion) to systematically kill it.

 

[Maxperson]

Viruses are absolutely sentient, but not sapient. So it depends on where you draw the line. Some definitions of sapience include only humans, so elves wouldn't be people. Other people define sapience as the ability to make moral judgments. In a realm is varied as fantasy there are a few races who are intelligent but unable to make moral judgments. If you draw the line at sentience (which I do) then you can genocide grass.

That defies the definition of Genocide, though, which limits it to people. You would need sapience for that. A personal definition that would include grass is unhelpful.

 

[Todd Roybark]

it would classify as genocide (for the purposes of this discussion) to systematically kill it.

So by your own definitions, ‘Destroy all Undead’ as a standard treatment in ‘ RAW’ campaigns is acceptable. This would then, be a morally justified genocide, by those terms.

Skeletons at 6 Int, ( which I find is too high, personally ), are equal to apes.
Chimpanzees and Orangs meet the definition of sentient and sapient, and also have a 6 Int.

Thus we arrive at: in a D&D context, mass killing of anything with a 6 or greater Int is genocide.