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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8406599" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Aesthetic judgments are also value judgments. They entail different responses, but both often involve praise or condemnation--otherwise we wouldn't have phrases like "don't judge a book by its cover" or "all that glitters is not gold"(/Tolkien's version, "all that is gold does not glitter.") Heck, we've literally just seen another thread directly linking ugliness and evil. The two are much more strongly linked than you give them credit for, even when one is actively avoiding bias and unfairness.Further, sometimes concrete actions are too numerous or distant to quantify. Using my devil-backstory (trying for brevity): it is claimed that the One made reality and tasked "Servants" to help guide, but never, ever control, mortals. Some broke that rule; there was War in Heaven, infinitely long to them, instantaneous to mortals. (Outsiders can do things like that.) Notably, priests of the One (celestials are unknown to mortals) and devils agree on the overall story, but disagree on the result. The "rebels"--devils--think they won, getting to show their way is best. The priesthood thinks devils lost, and were cursed to follow their own rules. Every devil fought an infinite war for the right to be what they are. If they were open to changing their minds, it seems they should already have done so, and joined the celestials.Thus, it is generally pretty accurate to say that all devils are evil--but often incredibly hard to pin down a specific set of evils they've committed. They encourage mortals to do wicked things, like murdering children or driving people to suicide via blackmail. They actively promote and support a heretical assassin-cult, but tying that to specific devils is difficult, the assassin-cult isn't exactly public with its actions. Etc. It is entirely possible to have "evil" beings whose "evil" is very diffuse--and who would, if you spoke to them about it, provide all sorts of rational, understandable justifications for their actions.But there's another side to this that I'll cover below.That's how it's always been, though, even with the existence of the "evil" label. That's why we have the idea of moral neutrality: someone who rejects the notion that all actions labelled "evil" necessitate that anyone with the power to do so must oppose them. And it's not like "evil" people actually embrace that label all that often. Most either scoff and ignore it, or see it as a warped perspective on what they're doing--almost all folks who do "evil" things have (what they consider) a well-constructed argument for why their actions were the only acceptable choice in a field of bad options. "We had to burn the village in order to save it" vs., say, "we had to put the plague victims in quarantine to spare the rest of us, even though that meant some of them died."Value-judgments will always be contentious, and you are still making value-judgments by saying the things you said about Stroud. "He's a tyrant" = "he uses his autocratic power in blame-worthy ways" (vs. "he's an absolute monarch"). "Oppressing [the] people" = "he performs the blame-worthy action of taking away rights and privileges without dire need and justification" (not sure if there's a non-judgmental way to say this one, "oppression" is about equally as loaded a term as "evil"). "Menacing one woman in particular - Aileen - who he wants to force to become his bride" = "he performs the blame-worthy action of threatening a person's safety and well-being, and the blame-worthy action of coercing someone into forming and maintaining a legal relationship against their will." Etc.Again, the common thread throughout all of this is that you've already decided he's blame-worthy. You aren't inviting the players to consider whether he is or is not. You're just telling them he is, and they're permitted to either care about that, as implied by the use of such judgmental terms, or to not care about it, and thus implicitly condone the actions so judgmentally-described. There is still the fundamental, and controversial, is-ought distinction present, and you're still falling firmly on the "ought" side.You're not actually removing any of the controversial elements. You're just avoiding the common label that describes them all. I don't see the benefit. You claim to be removing the controversial label and doing away with the pre-judgment so that players can choose for themselves, but....you're very clearly passing judgment and anticipating moral outrage. You still are expecting people to see these things as so severely wrong that they must be opposed. Why conceal the clear aim--that this person is a "villain" (itself a judgmental label for common folk, the morally-inferior underclasses!)--behind a smokescreen? You're still talking "ought," just with a pretense of talking about "is."</blockquote>

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