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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 3526040" data-attributes="member: 2067">This was based on me saying that it's not inherently good to slay evil, or evil to slay good, and Arkhandus saying that paladins should not be killing good people.You do realize that these are not incompatible positions to hold? Anyone who "respects life" should probably not be killing good people. That certainly doesn't mean it won't happen, and it certainly doesn't mean that when it does, these people stop having a Good alignment. It just means that they'll avoid it when possible.Arguing that Good people cannot kill Good people is like arguing that a Lawful person will never break a law. Good people recognize the value of life, just as Lawful people recognize the value of social order, but neither rules out conflict: lawful people can have problems with social order, and Good people can have problems with other Good people who both value each other's lives. The example that leaps to my mind is General Leo. A noble soldier of his Emperor, he goes out and wages war to gain power for his nation and his ruler, to secure the Empire's place, and to serve as a continual bastion for learning, security, and hope in a dismal world far fallen from grace. He comes into opposition with a Prince, a defender of his people and a warrior of his home nation, who values his little dessert kingdom and who won't give it up to anyone without a fight.Both are Good characters, D&D-wise. Both generally avoid killing others. But when the Empire's troops march down on the Prince's kingdom, the Prince goes to war. And when the Prince goes to war, General Leo's troops meet him there. Both kill in the name of Good, and neither's Good is diminished by their acts. They wish things could be different -- General Leo wishes the Prince would just surrender and do what is best for his people. The Prince wishes General Leo would just go away and let him govern in peace. But the reality of the situation demands that both shed each other's blood for the other's interpretation of what the ultimate Good is: Imperial expansionistic Good, or local feudal Good. In response to me arguing that alignment isn't any more absolute than a Meyers-Briggs test:The game doesn't need any greater framework to describe your character's morality than the real world uses to describe your pop psychology, though. Look at alignment as descriptive: it doesn't tell you what you are absolutely any more than your horoscope does. It describes tendencies and generalities, not specifics: Scorpios are secretive; Lawfuls honor order. That doesn't mean that Scorpios won't reveal certain things about themselves, and that doesn't mean that Lawfuls cannot break the law (nor does it state what, exactly, each individual may regard as secretive or ordered). The astrologers don't need more than 12 symbols loosely interpreted to describe the entirety of all of humanity, personality-wise. Why should D&D need more than 9 to describe every D&D character, personality-wise? Much like astrology, it's a vague methodology at best. Maybe you're an elaborately honest Scorpio. Maybe you're a Lawful with a problem with authority (perhaps because you don't have it). Honesty doesn't make you not a Scorpio, and simply resenting the captain of the town guard doesn't make you not Lawful. It's much, much more general than that. I'm not sure it would. Presumably, intelligent commoner raise hundreds of beasts penned in and held captive in an elaborate world of domestication, weaning them only for their meat, without becoming somehow Lawful Evil. And even the commoner who beats up goblins who enter his pumpkin patch isn't Good just because he whacks a few greenskins. Good and Evil are more than what you kill. It's how you approach the entire world.</blockquote>

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