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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9369600" data-attributes="member: 42582">To me, it seems that, at least in Gygaxian alignment, good and evil are fairly well defined.Good is rights satisfaction, happiness, wellbeing, truth, beauty - all the things that are widely regarded as valuable, worth pursuing in their own right, and establishing moral boundaries that should not be crossed in action.And  there is no attempt to define wrongdoing. Rather, evil is defined as scorning or rejecting value and moral constraint. From the PHB (p 33) and DMG (pp 23-4):the tenets of good are human rights, or in the case of AD&D, creature rights. Each creature is entitled to life, relative freedom, and the prospect of happiness. Cruelty and suffering are undesirable. Evil, on the other hand, does not concern itself with rights or happiness; purpose is the determinant. Lawful Evil: Creatures of this alignment are great respecters of laws and strict order, but life, beauty, truth, freedom and the like are held as valueless, or at least scorned. By adhering to stringent discipline, those of lawful evil alignment hope to impose their yoke upon the world. Lawful evil creatures consider order as the means by which each group is properly placed in the cosmos, from lowest to highest, strongest first, weakest last. Good is seen as an excuse to promote the mediocrity of the whole and suppress the better and more capable, while lawful evilness allows each group to structure itself and fix its place as compared to others, serving the stronger but being served by the weaker. Chaotic Evil: The major precepts of this alignment are freedom, randomness, and woe. Laws and order, kindness, and good deeds are disdained. Life has no value. By promoting chaos and evil, those of this alignment hope to bring themselves to positions of power, glory, and prestige in a system ruled by individual caprice and their own whims. The chaotic evil creature holds that individual freedom and choice is important, and that other individuals and their freedoms are unimportant if they cannot be held by the individuals through their own strength and merit. Thus, law and order tends to promote not individuals but groups, and groups suppress individual volition and success. Neutral Evil: The neutral evil creature views law and chaos as unnecessary considerations, for pure evil is all-in-all. Either might be used, but both are disdained as foolish clutter useless in eventually bringing maximum evilness to the world. Similar to the neutral good alignment, that of neutral evil holds that neither groups nor individuals hove great meaning. This ethos holds that seeking to promote weal for all actually brings woe to the truly deserving. Natural forces which are meant to cull out the weak and stupid are artificially suppressed by so-called good, and the fittest are wrongfully held back, so whatever means are expedient can be used by the powerful to gain and maintain their dominance, without concern for anything.The key idea of evil is that purpose is the determinant - that is, evil creatures do whatever is necessary to achieve their desires without concern for the effect this has on others, and without concern for the value that they undermine or destroy in doing so. If LE, they are convinced that order and organisation is the best way to do this; if CE, they regard individual freedom as the best way. But what all the evil have in common is scorn for life, beauty, truth, etc; and a conviction that morality is really just a tool for suppressing the ability of the "deserving" to get what they want.I therefore don't think that there is much puzzle in identifying the difference between an evil and a good outlook.The bigger question is what counts as an evil act? This is not really defined - I believe the phrase appears only in the paladin class description - and is left as an exercise in interpretation. Given that the reference there is to "knowingly and willingly" performing such an act (PHB p 22), my suggestion would be that this means the paladin deliberately chooses to disregard value and moral constraints to pursue their own desire. The paladin choosing to trade off one value against another would not be evil; but the paladin making their own call about this, in defiance of a just instruction or authority or tradition would be chaotic, and hence require confession (to a cleric of at least 7th level) and penance.Based on what I have read, it seems very common for the "evil act" rule to be imposed by the GM on the player where the GM disagrees with a choice the paladin has made about the trade off between values: that is to say, "evil act" is equated with "wrongdoing" (as judged by the GM). For the reasons given in the previous paragraph, plus the more general principle that I think it is the absolute pits in RPGing for the GM to tell the player how to play their PC, I don't think this is a good way to approach the issue.</blockquote>

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