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

[Mort]

And what I’m saying is that he did say it doesn’t matter if we use the word evil or not, even if he didn’t use those words.

EDIT: To put it less glibly, the fact that I didn’t need to use the word evil to communicate why the character was evil by @Lanefan ’s definition illustrates the point being made in the OP, which can be summed up as “show, don’t tell.”

But before you can show you have to know what to show!

Let's say I want an actor to act in a certain way and I know the actor is very familiar with D&D.

I give the actor a 3 page list of suggested behaviors. He can show those behaviors, sure.

But if I put just 2 more words at the top of those pages - say Chaotic Evil - I bet he can weave those behaviors together and show them even better. Or if I want it a bit different (again actor is familiar with D&D) and I instead put lawful evil or chaotic neutral. I bet the actor will weave those behaviors together differently. Labels can be useful.

 

[Baba]

One of the things I like about the Illiad, is that it is a story with superheroes in lethal conflict WITHOUT a good-guy-side and a bad-guy-side. Sure, there are some big jerks there - but no side in the war represents Evil.

I’m very wary about ascribing real world problems to fiction - to much possibility for censorship comes from that, and I believe that art (insert some other term if you think «art» is too pretentious) should be free to tackle just about any subject, including badguys vs. goodguys.

Still, I can’t help thinking that there’s some connection between the sum of all those masses of goodguy/badguy stories I love, and the prevalence of dividing people in real world conflicts into good-guy-sides and bad-guy-sides. And that is often problematic, in my mind.

Anyway, capital E Evil has seldom played any important part in the games I have run for the last couple of decades. But there has been plenty of mean people and angry people and idealistic people and selfish people amongst both pc’s and npc’s and most importantly, people in conflict. I don’t miss Evil. (How could I, we meet again in every popcorn flick I see.)

 

[Oofta]

Ok, now we’re getting somewhere!

So, yes, evil is an abstract term, just like loud, and blue, and any number of other adjectives. But crucially. evil is different from these other adjectives in that it not only abstractly represents a broad range of behaviors, but also places a concrete value judgment on those behaviors. In other words, it abstractly describes a broad range of behaviors, which are not universally agreed upon, but concretely judges those behaviors as bad. We all agree that evil is bad, but we don’t all agree what constitutes evil, which makes the use of the term inevitably contentious. This is why I think it would be better to focus on the actual concrete behaviors and let the players form their own value judgments, rather than to abstractly label characters (let alone entire races!) as evil.

And I believe it should be up to the players to decide that for themselves. Maybe they think something ought to be done about this tyrannical vampire, maybe they don’t,

Right, but as I demonstrated above, use of the term is inevitably contentious because by definition it means that the things it describes are so severely wrong that they must be opposed, yet in 2500 years we have not been able to agree upon what acts should or shouldn’t be described this way. The solution, in my view, is to not use the imprecise and contentious label. Instead, focus on the actions themselves and let the players judge them as they will.

Funny. You tell me we aren't discussing philosophy 501, but then repeat that we've never come up with a definition of evil in 2500 years.

In scope of a game, evil is simple and easy. It doesn't need a lot of nuance, nor does there need to be anything more complicated than generalities for it to be useful for a lot of people.

It's a game that vastly oversimplifies just about everything. I'm okay with good and evil being another oversimplification.

 

[Umbran]

Brevity has a purpose. If it takes 2 paragraphs to convey the same concept as 2 letters, sometimes the 2 letters is better. Certainly it's useful.

The brief version is useful... if it has a use.

If the long version is needed anyway (for example, because the game should be presented to the players in an evocative and flavorful manner) then the brief version is redundant - the GM has to develop the long form to establish what the NPC or creature is doing in the world as the players interact with it. Having done that, how often will the GM need the short form that is, in the lingo, "lossy".

 

[Mort]

The brief version is useful... if it has a use.

If the long version is needed anyway (for example, because the game should be presented to the players in an evocative and flavorful manner) then the brief version is redundant - the GM has to develop the long form to establish what the NPC or creature is doing in the world as the players interact with it. Having done that, how often will the GM need the short form that is, in the lingo, "lossy".

But sometimes the longer version is not needed.

And as I mentioned in a later post - sometimes the "longer version" is tied together by the shorter label - thereby making a stronger whole.

 

[Lanefan]

So, what you’re saying is, no, it doesn’t matter if we call him evil or not.

Which means, go ahead and call him evil. That way, any relevant game mechanics* around his being evil are automatically invoked and can't later be questioned. If you don't tag him as evil you're leaving yourself open to potential rules-lawyering, if you have that sort of player (which some people do).

* - you may or may not have any such in your game but I sure as hell do in mine.

 

[Lanefan]

To the question of whether the game overall needs capital-E Evil, the personal likes of any individual are not terribly relevant. We are instead talking about what works mechanically, and in the broader market.

Except the personal likes of any individual, when added to the personal likes of lots of other individuals and then somehow averaged out, are what the broader market is comprised of.

In that context, the personal likes of any one individual are quite relevant; and every voice counts no matter what it might be saying.

 

[Lanefan]

And I believe it should be up to the players to decide that for themselves. Maybe they think something ought to be done about this tyrannical vampire, maybe they don’t,

And those decisions, made in character, will go toward determining whether the PCs themselves are evil or not...

 

[Malmuria]

But before you can show you have to know what to show!

Let's say I want an actor to act in a certain way and I know the actor is very familiar with D&D.

I give the actor a 3 page list of suggested behaviors. He can show those behaviors, sure.

But if I put just 2 more words at the top of those pages - say Chaotic Evil - I bet he can weave those behaviors together and show them even better. Or if I want it a bit different (again actor is familiar with D&D) and I instead put lawful evil or chaotic neutral. I bet the actor will weave those behaviors together differently. Labels can be useful.

Perhaps for random encounters, but for me this doesn't really work for scenario design. For example, I am currently running the essentials kit for my nephew. The background of the scenario is that there is a white dragon (CE) who has been pushed out of its territory in North by other dragons, and has taken the fortress of some Orcs. If the dragon shows up, it's mostly to pick off a horse or mule for food. The Orcs (CE) have been forced to "flee into the foothills and forests," and have been raiding local villages. They have allied with some half-orc priests of talos (NE) because reasons, and the priests want to cause destruction because that's what their religion is I guess. The dragon also displaced a Manticore (LE) that's also attacking people randomly for food. In the dragon's new lair there is also a rival adventure party (NE) that wants to steal treasure from the fortress (unlike our heroes....??).

What's interesting about this setup is that you have multiple factions all of which have different interests within an inter-related scenario. What's not so great (again, to emphasize, FOR ME), is that the "Evil" tag doesn't do a lot of work in summing up these interests. The dragon's villainy seems to be that it...needs to eat? It also displaced the orcs, but if that's an evil act than the town and perhaps PCs are also potentially evil. Meanwhile the displaced orcs are just trying to survive. The priests of talos (who are all half-orcs for some reason) are probably the most cosmologically Evil group, in the classic one-dimensional way of evil religions in dnd. The manticore is also hungry (how are Manticore's lawful again? I looked up the entry in the MM and it doesn't read to me as particularly lawful). The veterans are evil I guess because they are bandits?

As this review puts it, there is potential for all these factions, with their different situations and motives, to create a lot of interactivity for the PCs, who can form alliances and decide for themselves who is "evil." Instead, the scenario would seem to lead to a series of combat challenges with "Evil" enemies of increasing CR.

Again, if a series of combat challenges against Evil enemies of increasing CR is your idea of fun, then go for it. What's more interesting for me are scenarios where there are a lot of factions with competing interests where the PCs can choose who's good, neutral, or evil, and who to side with.

The linked review says this better than I can:

“Dragon of Icespire Peak” uses its orcs badly. Beyond any larger consideration of barbaric, dark skinned, bestial humanoids in fantasy fiction and game design Icespire Peak’s orcs are simply not used well from the perspective of a regional point crawl. They’re included multiple times, and always as foes without any possibility of negotiation or understanding, and yet the orcs are Cyrovain’s first victims. Leader slain and defeated by the dragon the orcs of Icespire Peak retreat to the lowlands where they fall in with an evil storm god cult. This seems like a compelling narrative, a meaningful part of the regional situation, and there’s nothing wrong with the set-up. The set-up of a dispossessed faction that makes trouble is a decent one as it has multiple solutions - the status of foe, refugee or ally entirely depends on the players and this scenario offers fertile ground for moral play and long term effect on the region. All squandered by “Dragon of Icespire Peak”

Personally I’d make the orcs the men-at-arms of some wretched robber knight, human mostly, maybe dwarven if I kept the rest of the region the same, but this is a personal choice. Orcs, like brigands, represent a distinctly comprehensible evil - they’re people (or monster-people) who despite the fundamental ability to reason and a shared set of needs don’t have the same values as more friendly factions. Unlike a dragon however, they aren’t a singular reptilian intelligence pathologically dirven to accumulate wealth. Still players can negotiate with dragons, and so should be able to negotiate with the far more understandable orcs, especially when there’s a shared goal of driving off a murderous flying magic lizard. From a design perspective the orcs are simply wasted a faction that could provide a counterbalance to the dragon, but whose goals (their own comfort and power, summoning a terrible deity) are generally opposed to Phandalin’s, except where Cyrovain is concerned.

 

[Redwizard007]

Let's take an extremely simple adventure:

A necromancer has occupied a local dungeon, and their skeletons and zombies are raiding a nearby village for resources. The characters are hired to stop the necromancer.

Does the necromancer have to be evil? Let's say the necromancer has hired some Tough Guys as guards. Do they need to be evil?

In my opinion, no. They only need to oppose the characters, and try to prevent the characters from achieving their goal. This is all the justification needed for characters to use their tools and abilities against them.

In this sample adventure, all the "enemies" just need motivation- what they want. The necromancer wants to raise an army of undead in order to attack a nearby kingdom. The Toughs want to protect the necromancer because they're getting paid. The villagers want to be left alone in peace. Whether the necromancer or the toughs or even the villagers are good, neutral, or evil are pretty irrelevant.

Taking things back to the basic example OP gave, there are some major differences in how I would play this necromancer if they had different alignment tags, so alignment does/can/might have an impact in how the adventure played out. Even if I focused more on ideals, bonds and flaws alignment would still color my decisions. Is it absolutely necessary? Of course not. Does it provide helpful information in an incredibly condensed form? Of course it does.

I'm sure many of us remember the early days of published modules and Dungeon magazine. Long rambling backstories and motivations were not uncommon, and sometimes added depth to villans, but I can't remember many that were really necessary. It doesn't matter if this necromancer had a grudge against the village because they over charged him for a barrel of apples, or if he was purely a magical wannabe despot. He is animating the dead to use as tools and is harming the village. Now, if he is instead collecting on some pact made with the villagers that they are trying to back out of, or sending skellies out for supplies with vague orders because he is focused on fighting a demonic invasion might need some background. Most of the time, using evil or good tags is sufficient for me to drop said necromancer into an existing campaign with minimal work. That makes "evil" very useful, but not essential to my games.