Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Alignment Shifts: Players and Group
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="GreenTengu" data-source="post: 6890187" data-attributes="member: 6777454"><p>Wait, wait, wait.....</p><p></p><p>So storming into a sentient beings home because they are "evil" and you heard they have treasure which you are going to take after you finish slaughtering each and every one of them is "good" and perfectly normal and acceptable....</p><p></p><p>But doing anything to the body after the being is dead is evil?</p><p></p><p>So causing pain and harm to a still living being=good</p><p>Doing harm to a dead being= evil</p><p></p><p>You have one really screwed up moral system there. Once you have already crossed the line of "I don't care whether they are sentient, I am going to personally kill these beings without any sort of due process and I really don't give a damn what the rest of their people who might have any emotional attachments to this being think, I will kill them if they get in my way or try to attack me too" in what perverse way does it actually matter to any degree what exactly is done to the body once the actual spirit of the being has been snuffed out?</p><p></p><p>You have already decided it is entirely moral to kill a minotaur for being a minotaur, if someone decides to dissect the body out of curiosity... who cares? I mean, seriously-- are you a catholic living in the dark ages or something?</p><p></p><p>Yes, in our real life society dealing with humans, we tend not to desecrate bodies after death (granted, every culture has a different idea of what should be done with the body) but that is out of respect of the people connected to that person... In real life there are no peoples who every single individual of those people we see we can instantly determine upon first glance that they and every other one of their people is absolutely "evil" and needing of extermination unless they do something massively abnormal and demonstrate otherwise. D&D simply abhors the level of complex morality that would allow us to deal with things like this rationally... By intrinsically declaring there are universally "good" races and universally "evil" races with only ultra rare exceptions, suddenly issues like this don't make sense.</p><p></p><p>If you could say "well, this minotaur who was evil was one out of 10,000 who went on a murdering rampage and if we let someone decapitate him and dig through his brains, it might offend his wife, children, brothers and sisters, etc. who have never done ill towards others and even his evil acts could probably be explained as the results of rough experiences or indoctrination screwing him up." that would be one things-- but if you are playing in a game where "He was a minotaur and in our way and attacked us, so we can be certain he never did anything but evil deeds in his entire existence and us snuffing out his life was righteousness" and also note that we can determine simple from it being a minotaur that it was a "he" because practically always evil races are always depicted as exclusively male while any evil races that regularly feature females are redeemable. Because D&D is built out of that sort of mindset.</p><p></p><p>But, really-- even then that doesn't always hold up, in wars up to modern times soldiers macabre collected body parts of their slain foes. It can't even be really classified as particularly abnormal. So we can demonstrate that when a group is in a position to classify an entire other race as "evil" desecrating their bodies and taking trophies still falls under a moral umbrella that few would be daring enough to insist is absolutely "evil"-- rather, it seems like a totally neutral act.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="GreenTengu, post: 6890187, member: 6777454"] Wait, wait, wait..... So storming into a sentient beings home because they are "evil" and you heard they have treasure which you are going to take after you finish slaughtering each and every one of them is "good" and perfectly normal and acceptable.... But doing anything to the body after the being is dead is evil? So causing pain and harm to a still living being=good Doing harm to a dead being= evil You have one really screwed up moral system there. Once you have already crossed the line of "I don't care whether they are sentient, I am going to personally kill these beings without any sort of due process and I really don't give a damn what the rest of their people who might have any emotional attachments to this being think, I will kill them if they get in my way or try to attack me too" in what perverse way does it actually matter to any degree what exactly is done to the body once the actual spirit of the being has been snuffed out? You have already decided it is entirely moral to kill a minotaur for being a minotaur, if someone decides to dissect the body out of curiosity... who cares? I mean, seriously-- are you a catholic living in the dark ages or something? Yes, in our real life society dealing with humans, we tend not to desecrate bodies after death (granted, every culture has a different idea of what should be done with the body) but that is out of respect of the people connected to that person... In real life there are no peoples who every single individual of those people we see we can instantly determine upon first glance that they and every other one of their people is absolutely "evil" and needing of extermination unless they do something massively abnormal and demonstrate otherwise. D&D simply abhors the level of complex morality that would allow us to deal with things like this rationally... By intrinsically declaring there are universally "good" races and universally "evil" races with only ultra rare exceptions, suddenly issues like this don't make sense. If you could say "well, this minotaur who was evil was one out of 10,000 who went on a murdering rampage and if we let someone decapitate him and dig through his brains, it might offend his wife, children, brothers and sisters, etc. who have never done ill towards others and even his evil acts could probably be explained as the results of rough experiences or indoctrination screwing him up." that would be one things-- but if you are playing in a game where "He was a minotaur and in our way and attacked us, so we can be certain he never did anything but evil deeds in his entire existence and us snuffing out his life was righteousness" and also note that we can determine simple from it being a minotaur that it was a "he" because practically always evil races are always depicted as exclusively male while any evil races that regularly feature females are redeemable. Because D&D is built out of that sort of mindset. But, really-- even then that doesn't always hold up, in wars up to modern times soldiers macabre collected body parts of their slain foes. It can't even be really classified as particularly abnormal. So we can demonstrate that when a group is in a position to classify an entire other race as "evil" desecrating their bodies and taking trophies still falls under a moral umbrella that few would be daring enough to insist is absolutely "evil"-- rather, it seems like a totally neutral act. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Alignment Shifts: Players and Group
Top