D&D General D&D doesn't need Evil

[Maxperson]

This is getting too philosophical, but it's interesting.

Again, it's easy to quantify evil, and it's the amount of damage or pain you've caused. If bread was precious in Rome, of course stealing it is 3 evil while if in America bread is a simple thing it's stealing it is 1 evil.

We're going to have to agree to disagree on how easy it is to quantify evil in any sort of objective sense.

To be honest, I don't bother much with alignment for my NPCs. It just comes naturally through their actions once I've decided their past, motivation, morals and personality.

Hah! I'm pretty much the opposite. I don't much bother with alignment for the PCs in my game. I don't really care what letters they put down, trusting the players to pick and roleplay a personality for their characters. I do use it very often for my NPCs, because the vast majority of them just aren't important enough to come up with a past, motivations, morals, etc.

If the PCs are passing through a town and decide they want to buy a bunch of steaks for the tavern to serve, in order to foster good will with the locals, I'm not going to have a past, motivations, morals and such written down for the butcher. He's just going to be Joe the CG Butcher and I'll use alignment as a tool to roleplay Joe with. For important NPCs, I'll come up with a more detailed background and personality.

 

[Scribe]

This is getting too philosophical, but it's interesting.

Again, it's easy to quantify evil, and it's the amount of damage or pain you've caused. If bread was precious in Rome, of course stealing it is 3 evil while if in America bread is a simple thing it's stealing it is 1 evil.

Of course, we're just human so we can't be always correct in our judgement. But we know enough to decide the alignment of a fictional character.

To be honest, I don't bother much with alignment for my NPCs. It just comes naturally through their actions once I've decided their past, motivation, morals and personality.

This is really not working for me at all LOL.

If my family is starving, is it good to let them suffer and continue to starve?

Is that a good act?

Is it actual Evil, to take a loaf of Bread, or is the society Evil for letting my family starve to death?

 

[BookTenTiger]

This is really not working for me at all LOL.

If my family is starving, is it good to let them suffer and continue to starve?

Is that a good act?

Is it actual Evil, to take a loaf of Bread, or is the society Evil for letting my family starve to death?

In Agrabah, if you get caught stealing bread you get punished by being sent to a dungeon, finding a genie, and marrying a princess.

 

[Umbran]

Is it actual Evil, to take a loaf of Bread, or is the society Evil for letting my family starve to death?

The ability of the evil of another to mitigate your own has not been objectively established yet.

 

[MGibster]

As an American living in Austria who has traveled with Austrians to America, I can confirm that they are not the same.

My grandfather was a WWII veteran and I remember having a conversation with him a few years before he died.

Me: What was your favorite country in Europe?
Grandpa: Austria.
Me: Why do you like Austria more than Germany? I've been to both and I honestly wouldn't have known I ever left Germany if it weren't for the signs.
Grandpa: Nobody shot at me in Austria.

I couldn't fault his logic.

 

[MGibster]

As much as I like my D&D to have Good and Evil, I sure as heck would never apply it to real life situations. People aren't Lawful Good or Chaotic Neutral in real life.

 

[maggan19]

I recently started a campaign with some complete newbies and a single veteran. When I then introduced some orcs, the veteran proceeded to
explain to the group:

”Orcs are evil beings who like to murder and pillage.”

I found this interesting, because this was sormwhat different from how I was about to describe them. In my Forgotten Realms, I imagine the orcs as a marginalized species, but equally violent as, say, a dwarf kingdom or human empire in terms of classically ”evil” things, like murder, torture, slavery etc.

But because he already described it so, I thought, hey, why not let them find out themselves? If they fight the orcs, for all intents and purposes, they will be seen as evil, at least to the players. But if they stop and try talking to them, hey, maybe they’re not so different after all…

Of course, they just slaughtered half of them, and then the party’s half-orc mauled the captives.

The individual’s needs are suppressed in favor of the collective in order to avoid constant war: all against all. This is the state according to Hobbes.

 

[Maxperson]

The ability of the evil of another to mitigate your own has not been objectively established yet.

When was it objectively established that the theft of bread to keep from starving is evil?

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I realize this is not popular opinion, and don’t care. It works for me.

I like alignment as a palpable force that may even be tied to the planes.

I like items to that respond to that force. What was that item? Something of ineffable damnation?

I like holy avengers aligning with LG characters.

most of the objections to alignment that I see are semantics and thrust upon “real life” where it does not map.

we always agreed creature rights were good. Generosity, forgiveness, etc were good. I play with individuals who have similar language and archetypes.

there are few pure examples in game so we play a preponderance of attitude and acts is good enough barring something jarringly outside the general category.

I fully realize that a lot of folks like the murky gray of the real world. When we play with evil dragons, sorcerers and so forth my group has been pretty ok with good and evil.

do we need it? Do we need to say give different weapons names? We could just say d6 piercing weapon I guess.

 

[Umbran]

When was it objectively established that the theft of bread to keep from starving is evil?

The possibility of it being objective, but multi-factor, tells us that one instance does not speak to all instances.