Alignment Contriversy

[Klaus]

As to Maldor's first point, I'll grant that it may not work. But then, it might. If you had a choice between a chance and no chance at all, I personally think you'd have to be crazy yourself not to take the chance.

As for the rest, I agree, torture is evil. But then again, so is killing things and taking their stuff. If killing doesn't violate a character's alignment, why would torture? Particularly if your motivations are pure? Does the ends justify the means? No. But why seek justification? Yes, placed in that position, a good person would regret the necessity for the torture but sometimes you face situations where you have no choice and being squeamish will doom others.

When good men do nothing, it is evil enough. Sometimes, that means you have to do things you don't like.




Thank you.

Killing, bu itself, is a neutral act, and is coloured by the reasoning behind it. To simply kill things to take their stuff (like a thief or brigand) would make you Evil. A Paladin that hunts down evil undead, fiends and raiding goblinoids to rid the world of evil AND take their stuff is on the Good side of the fence.

But torture is purposefully inflicting pain upon a creature, and that is Evil.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I am somewhat confused on what align. my elf ranger should be. I put NG for now but I'm not sure if thats appropriate. I've taken all the test I could find and gotten LG, NG, and CG.
So if anyone has some good links, advice, or questions of your own, please assist.
Thanks,
Raw

Funny, as I wrote an article for Dragon Roots #0 that should be out fairly soon. If you are interested, here is the web site: http://www.dragonroots.net/index.htm

RC

 

[Will]

I think part of being a good person is having FAITH in goodness.

That is, you avoid torture, not merely because you're squeamish, but because you honestly, truly believe that BEING GOOD IS WORTHWHILE.

So while the situation may look dire... some folks will falter (and maybe knock toward neutral), while some will go 'nothing is worth succumbing to evil. I have faith that doing good will lead to good.'

This may be stupid in your eyes, but maybe you aren't a Good character.

I personally like the idea of shifting from Good to Neutral, and then possibly back to Good once you atone (personally or externally).

 

[Ipissimus]

Killing, bu itself, is a neutral act, and is coloured by the reasoning behind it. To simply kill things to take their stuff (like a thief or brigand) would make you Evil. A Paladin that hunts down evil undead, fiends and raiding goblinoids to rid the world of evil AND take their stuff is on the Good side of the fence.

But torture is purposefully inflicting pain upon a creature, and that is Evil.

In return, I posit that torture is a neutral act in the same way, being coloured by the motivations behind it. In actuality, it is my belief that killing and torture is evil but occasionally necessary in certain extreme circumstances.

Whether you consider yourself or your society good or not, it must be accepted that torture is part of it. When police grill a suspect, they're using torture to gain information. When society locks someone in prison, we're using torture as punishment. Now, while this torture may not be extreme, it is still necessary to save lives.

Perhaps I see alignment as a little more fluid than most people, a guiding philosophy rather than a set of rules that dictate how a character should act. Good people can have perfectly good reasons for killing, torture, theft... I see the big difference between Good and Evil as being that a Good person will only ever indulge in evil acts when absolutely necessary where as an Evil person will indulge in such acts for fun.

Will, I don't think having faith in goodness is stupid, but the world presents us with many situations that force us to be practical in order to uphold what we believe in. There's an old saying 'too heavenly minded to be of any Earthly use' that certainly applies.

 

[rawgt3]

Well, Hero he does'nt really break his own rules, but his idea of chivalry is a little more practical
than the stereotypical. note that he has nothing against ambushes. He belives a fair fight is one in which the two opponents are in a direct contest. The rightful winner is the one who is stronger, faster, smarter, and more skilled. lucky cheap shots are dishonorable. So how are sneak attacks not dishonorable? simple: it is a test of alertness. If the opponent is caught of guard it's his fault for not paying attention. likewise, if the opponent greatly outnumbers the PCs then a frontal assult may be suicidal so once again back to gurilla warfare. However,if the
opponent has an unavoidable disability (broken leg, diseased, severely outclassed and outnumbered) then a frontal and direct fight would be in order. And I WANT to worry about my align. Orius!

 

[Aus_Snow]

I think part of being a good person is having FAITH in goodness.

I might only question 'part of'.

But yes, I agree. Otherwise, reasons to do good can be all too shakeable. So there must be that fundamental belief at the core.

 

[haakon1]

Sure thing, torture away. Just change that "G" in the alignment section to a "N" and be done with it. Later on, as you repent, atone and angst, you can go back to being a "G".

Precisely my answer to the "24" question on "would you torture if there's a nuke about to go off in NYC" in real life. Legalizing (or in D&D context claiming it's not evil) torture is never necessary. If it's truly somehow necessary to torture to save the world, the FBI guy (or paladin, or whoever) should presumably be willing to risk jail time (or atonement) to do it, declaring "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country" (and thereby possibly being forgiven by the jury/god in question). If he's not willing to risk that, it wasn't that Earth /Faerun shakingly important after all, now was it?

 

[haakon1]

Killing, bu itself, is a neutral act, and is coloured by the reasoning behind it. To simply kill things to take their stuff (like a thief or brigand) would make you Evil. A Paladin that hunts down evil undead, fiends and raiding goblinoids to rid the world of evil AND take their stuff is on the Good side of the fence.

But torture is purposefully inflicting pain upon a creature, and that is Evil.

Yup. Plus torture doesn't actually work in real life (it gets you an answer, but the truth is no more or less likely than from a normal interrogation), so it's essentially just an excuse for sadism, not an actual tactic.

If you want to read what actually works in interrogation, read "Slow Burn" by a CIA province chief in the Vietnam War. And no, "Slow Burn" is not a form of torture . . .

 

[haakon1]

'nothing is worth succumbing to evil. I have faith that doing good will lead to good.'

And in supernatural world, like D&D, that actually makes sense. The best defense against the world-eating evil creature is probably not a party of 4 X-level adventurers, but the other gods . . .

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Strangely enough this is one place I agree with Haakon. Torture doesn't work, no ifs ands or buts, it just doesn't. You're talking to a person with personal experience and a family that has been military since nation-states first raised professional armies. IT DOESN"T WORK. The information you get is so unreliable it isn't worth bothering. They say whatever they think you want to hear, whatever they can say to make it stop for just a few breaths. You'll get the same result from a random pick up off the street as a captured enemy combatant. Because what they say is coming from their read of you, not themselves. Your own questioning provides the material they'll chop up and spit back out even if they're completely ignorant of what you're talking about. Beyond that use of torture is just ethically not right. Either dump them in a POW camp until things are done or kill them straight off, both are more ethical than torture.

But on the overall alignment issue, I think the biggest problem is the wording. It doesn't really say anything about what the alignments are, leaving everyone to just kind of go off half-cocked about it. It would be far better to have some rough guidelines and maybe examples of what alignments some well known philosophical schools would be. That sort of thing.