Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 1133736" data-attributes="member: 3146">The problem is most likely caused by differing views of what it means to have an evil alignment/to radiate evil.The player's argument assumes that to have an evil alignment requires being guilty of at least one capital crime and being likely to continue to be guilty of more in the future.The DM's argument assumes but doesn't explicitly state that it's much easier to be evil than that. A lawful evil character could be a baker who uses zoning regulations to keep soup kitchens far away form his business (if the hungry are given bread, they won't buy it) or who conspires with other bakers to fix the price of bread at an artificially high level. A lawful evil guard could simply be willing to take bribes to look the other way and/or extort money from powerless citizens. A schoolyard bully could be chaotic evil even though the worst things he does is disrespect his parents and teachers and beat up nerds for fun and normal kids for lunch money. (Bad things to be sure and definitely deserving of a sound beating at the hands of an underestimated nerd but not deserving of death).This needs to be spelled out or misunderstandings like the players' will be commonplace. After all, if Detect Evil only detects EEEVEEEIL (as it did in 2e and continues to do in the house rules of many DMs if comments on this board are any indicator), the player is right. One can't begin to radiate EEEVEEEIL without doing and continuing to do some very very bad things (which generally either are or ought to be capital crimes).I suppose there is another possible interpretation of the player's argument: that by killing every evil individual, he can reduce the amount of evil in the world and that it's therefore justified. I can't claim to have much sympathy for this idea myself and I think it falls down in several places. First, it assumes far too high a view of humanity's (and demihumanity's) natural moral state. It seems to bear at least the seeds of the idea that evil can be wholly eliminated from the constitution of sentient, civilized beings (and this can be done by the sword, no less). While anthropology will naturally vary from game to game, this seems like an incredibly naieve and optimistic view of human nature. On the other hand, if evil is deeply rooted in human nature, and is widespread in the population, such a programme is infeasible. It requires that too much power be placed in the hands of the alignment sensing and death dealing individual who is himself tempted to evil and may well give into that temptation. And no one less than a god or an archangel could be trusted with such power. It also assumes that a society violently deprived of all its evil members would continue to function. If the cost of eliminating the evil members of a society is higher than the damage they do, there's a good utilitarian argument for leaving them there. For these reasons and others, most societies--and most good people--IRL are satisfied to allow evil people to survive in their communities as long as they keep their evil banal and low-level. Lying can be tolerated to a certain point. The twisting of laws and contracts can be tolerated to a certain point. Murder? That's generally too much. To defend a weaker version of Kant's famous claim, a decent society could contain a fair number of devils as long as the societies laws and customs were constructed so as to keep their evil tendencies in check and to channel their energies into productive pursuits.Second, the latter interpretation of the player's view leaves no room for the possibility of repentance, forgiveness, and reformation. While, these are arguably primarily Christian concepts and it's probably not wise to tie the D&D idea of good too closely to the Christian one, my impression is that a completely inflexible and unforgiving version of "good" (Javert's values in Les Miserables would be an example of such a code) is supposed to be Lawful Neutral rather than Good.Finally, it assumes a particular kind of consequentialism--that the action which results in the least amount of evil being in the world is always the right action. (And therefore, the murder of an evil person who did nothing worthy of death is justified since said evil person would have been responsible for a greater amount of evil than one murder). There are a lot of problems with this view (although not so many that no respected RL philosophers espouse it). It seems to depend upon a kind of quantification of evil that is difficult to make plausible (If the person commits x evil acts per year, then, it's acceptable to contribute Y  to the world's total evil by murdering him as long as Y < X (average life expectancy-person's age). (The player would also have to assume that Y is the dividing line between a person who has an evil alignment and a person who doesn't if this were to justify killing everyone who radiated evil)). It requires an unrealistic knowledge of the future results of current events. (If a man in 1943 saw Stalin, is Stalin's death more likely to lead to the liberation of the Russian people from his tyrannical grip and prevent the creation of the Eastern block/Iron curtain which imprisoned millions more or would that  inaction be more likely to lead to Hitler defeating the leaderless Russian forces and the Nazi party remaining in control of all of Europe until the mid 21st century (the communist bloc falling before the end of the 20th century)? It's hard to say what's more likely and that's the point: such calculations are too tenative to function as guides for action).Bottom line: Unless the DM changes the rules so that only those guilty of capital crimes have evil alignments, PCs shouldn't kill people just because they detect as evil.</blockquote>

Verification