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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5480514" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>The main thing is that everyone agrees to agree with the DM. And hopefully the DM has some idea what he's talking about or at least has an internally consistant definition.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>A terrible evil book, IMO. Not only is it mechanically unsound, it's often philosophically unsound as well.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I very much agree. Murder is not justice. And I have been a big defender of the poor troll who as far as we can tell isn't even a murderer. And anything that is merely "usually" evil to me is both possibly redeemed and maybe even redeemable and so deserving of every reasonable chance. </p><p></p><p>(I'd apply the label "usually evil" to humanity to be quite frank, and so to me the great irony is some generally evil species ruthlessly slaying some other generally evil species in the name of self-righteous good. Most adventurers strike me as little more than bandits.)</p><p></p><p>However, I do disagree on one count:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I believe in what I call 'full palette fantasy worlds'. That is to say that in a fantasy world there ought to be black, and white, and every shade of gray in the middle. In order to really have a full palette there must be the shades of gray occupied by trolls and humanity, but there must also be things that occupy white and black and which are truly those things and not merely particularly pale or dark shades of grey. To me philosophical outsiders represent something categorically different from mortals with their moral ambiguities and free will. Philosophical outsiders aren't merely humans with bumps on their head and wings on their back, but actual embodiments of certain ethical postions. A devil or demon isn't merely evil; it is Evil. In the full palette world, there are some things which are unredeemably evil and which it is never wrong to oppose and there are some things which are not unredeemably evil and so generally wrong to prejudge. </p><p></p><p>To me the world gets remarkably simplier (and less interesting) when one class of being or the other drops out. A world where everything evil, feral, and montrous of form was in fact merely a variant demon, and so Evil and always good to slay and oppose is too simple for my taste. A world were everything is merely a human in other form, and so possessing human free will, human emotions, human desires, and deserving of whatever benefit of the doubt a human should give to other humans is likewise too simple for my taste. </p><p></p><p>If you are going to pull out a word like 'demon', it should me incarnated evil as the word implies. It shouldn't merely mean, 'a usually vile being but still possessing basically human traits'. Demons don't experience the full range of human emotions, failings, and potential nobility. They are simply Evil. It's not nuanced or interesting to say that demons are nuanced, because we've got Trolls and Goblins and what not to occupy all those grey areas. If we move demons into the grey area, we've left black completely off the pallette.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 5480514, member: 4937"] The main thing is that everyone agrees to agree with the DM. And hopefully the DM has some idea what he's talking about or at least has an internally consistant definition. A terrible evil book, IMO. Not only is it mechanically unsound, it's often philosophically unsound as well. I very much agree. Murder is not justice. And I have been a big defender of the poor troll who as far as we can tell isn't even a murderer. And anything that is merely "usually" evil to me is both possibly redeemed and maybe even redeemable and so deserving of every reasonable chance. (I'd apply the label "usually evil" to humanity to be quite frank, and so to me the great irony is some generally evil species ruthlessly slaying some other generally evil species in the name of self-righteous good. Most adventurers strike me as little more than bandits.) However, I do disagree on one count: I believe in what I call 'full palette fantasy worlds'. That is to say that in a fantasy world there ought to be black, and white, and every shade of gray in the middle. In order to really have a full palette there must be the shades of gray occupied by trolls and humanity, but there must also be things that occupy white and black and which are truly those things and not merely particularly pale or dark shades of grey. To me philosophical outsiders represent something categorically different from mortals with their moral ambiguities and free will. Philosophical outsiders aren't merely humans with bumps on their head and wings on their back, but actual embodiments of certain ethical postions. A devil or demon isn't merely evil; it is Evil. In the full palette world, there are some things which are unredeemably evil and which it is never wrong to oppose and there are some things which are not unredeemably evil and so generally wrong to prejudge. To me the world gets remarkably simplier (and less interesting) when one class of being or the other drops out. A world where everything evil, feral, and montrous of form was in fact merely a variant demon, and so Evil and always good to slay and oppose is too simple for my taste. A world were everything is merely a human in other form, and so possessing human free will, human emotions, human desires, and deserving of whatever benefit of the doubt a human should give to other humans is likewise too simple for my taste. If you are going to pull out a word like 'demon', it should me incarnated evil as the word implies. It shouldn't merely mean, 'a usually vile being but still possessing basically human traits'. Demons don't experience the full range of human emotions, failings, and potential nobility. They are simply Evil. It's not nuanced or interesting to say that demons are nuanced, because we've got Trolls and Goblins and what not to occupy all those grey areas. If we move demons into the grey area, we've left black completely off the pallette. [/QUOTE]
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