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<blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8406340" data-attributes="member: 6779196">I’m not sure how the label helps you here. As DM, you created the scenario, you know the villain or monster is bad, with or without the label. So unless you’re just outright telling the players it’s evil when they see it, what’s the label actually doing?Nobody said you should be running philosophy 501?What I’m not understanding is what those other margins are? Where is it useful to have a label for evilRight, sure, I get that people enjoy games with clearly defined sides. These are the good guys, these are the bad guys. But the point is, if your bad guys are actually bad, the evil label isn’t doing anything. The only time I can imagine the label not being superfluous is if the “evil” creatures or characters don’t actually behave in a way that’s recognizably evil. If your monsters act like people, then labeling them as evil gives you permission to kill them without guilt anyway, and personally, I find that pretty uncomfortable. But if your monsters act like monsters, you don’t need the evil label to excuse killing them. The fact that they act like monsters should already be doing that job.That’s literally the point of the OP though. If you “show don’t tell” why your enemies should be killed, it doesn’t matter if you call them evil or not. It’s semantics. The only time it matters is if your ostensibly evil characters aren’t actually coming across as evil.I’ll ask you what I asked Oofta then. Unless you’re showing the stat block to the players, what does having “evil” written in it actually accomplish?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Charlaquin, post: 8406340, member: 6779196"] I’m not sure how the label helps you here. As DM, you created the scenario, you know the villain or monster is bad, with or without the label. So unless you’re just outright telling the players it’s evil when they see it, what’s the label actually [I]doing[/I]? Nobody said you should be running philosophy 501? What I’m not understanding is what those other margins are? Where is it useful to have a label for evil Right, sure, I get that people enjoy games with clearly defined sides. These are the good guys, these are the bad guys. But the point is, if your bad guys are actually bad, the evil label isn’t doing anything. The only time I can imagine the label not being superfluous is if the “evil” creatures or characters don’t actually behave in a way that’s recognizably evil. If your monsters act like people, then labeling them as evil gives you permission to kill them without guilt anyway, and personally, I find that pretty uncomfortable. But if your monsters act like monsters, you don’t need the evil label to excuse killing them. The fact that they act like monsters should already be doing that job. That’s literally the point of the OP though. If you “show don’t tell” why your enemies should be killed, it doesn’t matter if you call them evil or not. It’s semantics. The only time it matters is if your ostensibly evil characters aren’t actually coming across as evil. I’ll ask you what I asked Oofta then. Unless you’re showing the stat block to the players, what does having “evil” written in it actually accomplish? [/QUOTE]

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