Detect Evil

[Inconsequenti-AL]

You know, that makes me think of an interesting question... if you have enough xp to level up, do you have to level up?

I'd hate to think the evil bakers of my world are metagaming like that though...

An interesting question:

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?p=1393873#post1393873

Hopefully, that might answer it?


Unfortunately, I think evil bakers have to metagame... what else are they meant to do when they aren't busy with baking evil wheat based products?

 

[der_kluge]

Ahh but you see, the "only [evil] creatures" interpretation gets rid of nearly all of the false positives that make the spell challenging and turns it into Detect bad guy. (Even if it doesn't detect all bad guys, you know anyone who pings on it IS a bad guy and, what's more, needs smiting). If it detects the evil baker eating his breakfast and thinking of nothing more interesting than a particularly challenging recipy for multi-grain sourdough cheese bread, you need to use a bit more thought with your detect evil.

Whatever. I changed my detect evil to work only on [evil] creatures to specifically avoid the absurdities that come with the alignment system. Others have pointed out the weirdness that comes into play if you allow it to detect people with evil alignments.

Players are going to smite anyone with an evil alignment regardless. So unlike, as you say, where they get into a heated moral debate "well, yea he's evil, but *how* evil", I've never seen that happen. It's usually "yep, he's evil, he needs to die." My version is a lot more subjective, because in terms of PCs, it only works on evil clerics.

Apply detect evil to real life. If I, Curtis Bennett, had the detect evil spell, and I could use it every day, don't you think I'd work for the FBI sitting on street corners somewhere, or in busy malls, or in subway stations, or airports, casting it randomly. "Ok, officers, that guy over there, in the white shirt. He's evil - arrest him." Clerics with any amount of free time at all would be able to round up every evil person in the world in a short amount of time.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Apply detect evil to real life. If I, Curtis Bennett, had the detect evil spell, and I could use it every day, don't you think I'd work for the FBI sitting on street corners somewhere, or in busy malls, or in subway stations, or airports, casting it randomly. "Ok, officers, that guy over there, in the white shirt. He's evil - arrest him."

Man, the lawyers would eat you alive.

-Hyp.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Man, the lawyers would eat you alive.

-Hyp.

They're evil too! Arrest the lawyers!

Even if Detect Evil worked on people with Evil alignments, you have to understand that most governments don't outlaw "evil." They outlaw specific actions. People can be evil and never actually break a law. They're called "Lawful Evil." They manipulate the laws to their own advantage, betray the trust of people who help them, and are generally coniving backstabbers. But it's all within the rules.

I've never had players who attack everything they find that's evil. If I did, they'd find themselves in the city prison for murder. If they made this a behavioral pattern, their alignments would switch to Chaotic.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Even if Detect Evil worked on people with Evil alignments, you have to understand that most governments don't outlaw "evil." They outlaw specific actions.

Yup.

"Arrest him! He's evil!"
"Okay. What's the charge?"
"Uh... Being of a... mindset... contrary to... goodness. Or something."

-Hyp.

 

[jgsugden]

Man, the lawyers would eat you alive.

-Hyp.

Actually, while in law school, I debated a very similar subject with a professor (in a discussion of using a device that read transmitted brain wave patterns to read minds).

I was going to summarize the arguments here, but that would take too long. To say the least, in the US, this is not as cut and dried as you think. Once those brainwaves/evil emanations leave your body, real questions arise as to what right to privacy remains inherent in them.

As to whether an 'evil aura' would be enough for the cops to go after you, that is an entirely different issue that would be far too dependent upon the actual meaning of an 'evil aura' for us to bother with any type of discussion.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Once those brainwaves/evil emanations leave your body, real questions arise as to what right to privacy remains inherent in them.

Yes, but they're not illegal.

"Emanating evil vibes" isn't against the law...

-Hyp.

 

[der_kluge]

All right then, Hypersmurf, I'll throw it back at you, then. What makes a person evil? Say I scan a crowd of folks at a sporting event, and I spot a guy watching the game along with everyone else, and I get a vibe that he's evil. What makes him evil? Why would I get a vibe from him and from no one else?

Can people truly be evil the way that a devil or demon is evil?

I define evil as "the unprovoked act of harming or causing pain on another sentient creature." You can kill someone in self-defense. That's not evil. But murdering someone for no reason is evil. Tying someone up and beating them for no reason is evil.

The only example of lawful evil that I can think of is a dictator. Saddam Hussein would be lawful evil. He created laws that allowed him to harm others for no apparent reason. That's Lawful evil in my book. I can't think of a lawful evil example other than that. There are people that use the laws for their own gains, but I can't think of any "law" that still allows you to harm people and get away with it.

Now, definitions of evil, including mine above, are really vague. There are levels of pain. If I download D&D books off bearshare, I've denied the publisher some financial profit from that act, which in turn causes that publisher some pain. Is it evil? Is it *as* evil as walking into a kindergarten classroom and gunning down all the students?

Bernie Ebbers was indicted for accounting scandals for his involvement in WorldCom. He caused thousands of people and families to lose their jobs, and countless people lost lots of money. He broke the law. He inflicted lots of suffering on a lot of people.
Stand him near a wall next to Jeffery Dahmer. Jeffery Dahmer ate people, mostly boys, and stored their body parts in a freezer in his garage. Are they both evil?

 

[der_kluge]

Yes, but they're not illegal.

"Emanating evil vibes" isn't against the law...

-Hyp.

We're not talking about the law. We're talking about evil.

 

[jgsugden]

Yes, but they're not illegal.

"Emanating evil vibes" isn't against the law...

-Hyp.

No, we have no laws in place to arrest you for doing something that can not be detected ...