D&D 5E Animate Dead and Alignment Restrictions

[EnglishLanguage]

I still have a lot of trouble with the idea that when the party paladin hacks off some guy's head, and then the party rogue goes through his clothes and takes the loose change, and then the party wizard animates the corpse, what the paladin and the rogue did was A-okay but the wizard is doing something unforgivable. It's a morality that seems thoroughly alien to me. In my book, making a corpse is a lot more serious than moving it around. If the guy deserved to get his head hacked off, why doesn't he deserve to have his remains hung on magic puppet strings too?

Heck, a long time ago, cutting open a body was something considered illegal and completely horrific. And it's something that happens a lot in our society for autopsies.

 

[Scorpio616]

Again, it's disrespectful to the dead from the viewpoint of our modern society and in our world, which wouldn't always be true in game settings.

Modern Society? More the viewpoint of the vast majority of human societies.

 

[SkidAce]

In the early editions I believe negative energy stuff was viewed as evil. No doubt in more modern editions they've gotten away from this but a lot of people who play today played then so they have carried on their preferences in their campaign worlds even if the rules have abandoned them.

True.

 

[Scorpio616]

Heck, a long time ago, cutting open a body was something considered illegal and completely horrific. And it's something that happens a lot in our society for autopsies.

And we'll still fire and jail a coroner who uses the corpse for his own whims!

 

[EnglishLanguage]

Modern Society? More the viewpoint of the vast majority of human societies.

And it's not necessarily true in some in-game D&D societies.

I'm not sure why this is difficult.

 

[EnglishLanguage]

And we'll still fire and jail a coroner who uses the corpse for his own whims!

Last I checked, cutting open a body to use for autopsy was a coroner's job.

And my point is that what the "limit" is for a body varies.

 

[Dausuul]

And we'll still fire and jail a coroner who uses the corpse for his own whims!

And this is worse than a police officer shooting people for his own amusement? Look, I'll concede that there might be justification for regarding animating the dead as a bad thing. What I don't see anyone saying is why this particular act gets called out as OMG TEH EVIL, when player characters regularly go around committing breaking and entering, murder, robbery, vandalism, and arson with no complaints.

For that matter, most PCs disrespect corpses like nobody's business! They loot them. They plunder their tombs. They dismember and eat them--animal corpses, sure, but animate dead works on animals. And Pelor help the corpse that's lying around when a desperate group of PCs starts coming up with creative solutions.

 

[Cadence]

And it's not necessarily true in some in-game D&D societies.

I'm not sure why this is difficult.

A lot of rules, let alone descriptions, backgrounds, and tropes, are untrue in "some" D&D games.

If you don't like some long standing D&Disms, then there are several obvious solutions that don't involve changing the defaults.

I'm not sure why this is difficult.

 

[EnglishLanguage]

A lot of rules, let alone descriptions, backgrounds, and tropes, are untrue in "some" D&D games.

...which is exactly the point I've been making all along.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

They've done a good thing by answering the will of the vast majority of players and getting rid of alignment restrictions in classes.

*Citation Needed.*