D&D 5E Charm, the evil spells

[Jfdlsjfd]

I believe at least some of the Jedi were generals in the army. Leading a slave army into battle vs owning that slave army strikes me as a morally suspect distinction.

Master Windu: "I am not a slave owner, that's a diffamatory and insulting claim. I am, in fact, renting them out!"
Master Yoda: "Ruleslawyering powerful is in you".

 

[Fanaelialae]

We are the ones telling the stories, in D&D.

If you want to criticize Lucas for ignoring the moral implications of a slave army, go ahead.

Sure, but we can tell any kind of story we want.

I could make healing spells function by sapping the Lifestream, and thereby killing the planet and all life on it. Now healing spells are evil.

By default, D&D (and a lot of the early fantasy fiction it was inspired by) ignores the morality of violence and mind control, except for the bad guys (who you know are evil because they tend to be excessive and cruel, while the good guys often aren't). Some stories, like Dying Earth, pretty much ignore the morality entirely (Cudgel is a pretty bad guy, but nonetheless obviously a protagonist). I would say that D&D implicitly assumes that the moral implications are ignored.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Sure, but we can tell any kind of story we want.

That is literally my point. We are responsible for the stories we tell.

edit: I’ve told you that I’m done engaging with you. Are you going to continue to try to interject into my interactions with others to try and make me engage with you?

 

[Maxperson]

Necromancy, including magic that animates the dead is obvious.

Cure spells have no business being evocation. They should be necromancy like they used to be and deal with the body.

So is magic that summons monsters to fight for you (conjuration) and controls them (enchantment).

Depends on where they come from. The game doesn't spell it out, so it's up to the DM whether they're just pulled from their dinner somewhere and enslaved, or if some god(s) of magic make deals with monsters to be on call and get paid for it. One way is evil and the other is not.

You can by extension argue magic that is meant to deceive others (illusion)

This is no different than evocation. If you're using phantasmal killer to harm someone, it depends on the justifications. If you're hiding the opening of where the party is resting so you that you can be safer, it's not at all evil.

or pry secrets against their will (divination) is equally harmful.

And again, are you trying to steal thoughts from an innocent, or locate a kidnapped kid?

Magic, with the exception of some necromancy spells and perhaps conjuration(depending on how the DM runs it), is not inherently good or evil. It's a tool to be used for good, evil or neither.

 

[Maxperson]

Again, the Jedi don’t “use” them, they serve in the same army. Besides which, the fact the movies fail to deal with the morality of cloned servants, doesn’t mean the Jedi are evil. It just means the story fails to address a moral issue.

They were commissioned by a Jedi master and brought to the Republic by the Jedi. They could just as easily have been freed by the Jedi, but weren't.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

They were commissioned by a Jedi master and brought to the Republic by the Jedi. They could just as easily have been freed by the Jedi, but weren't.

Dooku was, IIRC, already corrupt when he commissioned the army, without the knowledge of the council.

None of which changes the fact that the movies just don’t ever deal with the slavery aspect of clones, or droids for that matter. They just don’t even acknowledge that there is anything to deal with. That is weird on the part of the storytellers. Trying to take that and act like the Jedi are evil within the context of the franchise is just silly.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

None of which changes the fact that the movies just don’t ever deal with the slavery aspect of clones, or droids for that matter. They just don’t even acknowledge that there is anything to deal with. That is weird on the part of the storytellers.

While you're right about the trilogies being slavery-blind, there was a droid militant for droid rights in Solo. It was played for laugh. Not to say that they encouraged slavery or that Jedi are evil, just to be clear, but that they did address the problem in a very peculiar way.

 

[Lanefan]

Cure spells have no business being evocation. They should be necromancy like they used to be and deal with the body.

Depends on where they come from. The game doesn't spell it out, so it's up to the DM whether they're just pulled from their dinner somewhere and enslaved, or if some god(s) of magic make deals with monsters to be on call and get paid for it. One way is evil and the other is not.

We've always had it that summoned people (e.g. via Warrior Summoning or a Horn of Valhalla) come from a land of the dead appropriate to the summoner and go back there when the spell ends*; while summoned monsters come from the surrounding neighbourhood and go back whence they came when the spell ends*.

* - assuming they live so long; most don't.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

While you're right about the trilogies being slavery-blind, there was a droid militant for droid rights in Solo. It was played for laugh. Not to say that they encouraged slavery or that Jedi are evil, just to be clear, but that they did address the problem in a very peculiar way.

Didn’t see Solo. What an odd way to finally acknowledge the weirdness of the droid situation.

 

[Lanefan]

Didn’t see Solo.

Give it a look sometime. It's not bad at all.