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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 1550814" data-attributes="member: 3146">DMG 110: Random NPC alignment:d%01-20 Good (LG, NC, or CG)21-50 Neutral (LN, N, or CN)51-100 Evil (LE, NE, or CE)DMG 138: Power Center Alignmentd%01-35 Lawful Good36-39 Neutral Good40-41 Chaotic Good42-61 Lawful Neutral62-63 True Neutral64 Chaotic Neutral65-90 Lawful Evil91-98 Neutral Evil99-100 Chaotic EvilI'm actually quite surprised at how skewed towards law the power-center alginment chart is. Naturally, all of these charts are probably not intended to be directly indicative of the normal demographic spread of humanity and ought to be dramatically different in different areas (in Greyhawk, for instance, evil people are the vast majority in the Bandit Kingdoms, a large minority in Greyhawk, and a smaller minority in Nyrond or Furyondy) but I think they do serve to indicate that the designers view evil aligned people as common rather than rare.The final reaction of the paladin to the Shawshank Redemption warden seems appropriate to me too. However, I don't think it is a far cry from "you encounter an evil person in the wilderness." The warden and his guards live in a fairly rural area so, in an environment without cars, it's quite likely that a paladin would in fact encounter them in the wilderness if he was wandering through their homeland in the morning or evening. That's the problem. The paladin who encounters an evil stranger in the wilderness around Greyhawk city doesn't know if it's Tharg the Merciless, bloodthirsty ravager of Erythnul, Acolyte Jinan (LN) of the local temple of Hextor, or the Shawshank redemption warden returning to Greyhawk city after visiting his cousin's wedding (or collecting his money).You misunderstand me. My point was not that D&D morality is relative. It isn't. It wasn't that real morality is relative either. I don't believe that it is.My points were different than that:1. Just because morality is objective doesn't mean whe care about it. We can say, "it's objectively wrong but who cares? As long as I don't get caught, I won't suffer." That's the position of Thrassymachus in Plato's Republic. What is important is not virtue but rather the appearance of virtue (and, in D&D land, the money to buy a ring of mind shielding).The argument of the amoralist is actually stronger in D&D-land than IRL. In D&D-land, one can say, "Heironeous and Pelor value "the good," Hextor values "the law and calls their 'good' weakness." I will do what I wish, attempt to maintain the appearance of virtue. And, in the end, my soul will probably go to Hextor and he'll reward me. At least, IRL, if one accepts the immortality of the soul, it's generally thought that either God will send him to hell where he'll be punished or karma will ensure that he's reincarnated as a cockroach. Depending upon one's religious and metaphysical beliefs, it's possible to justify morality to someone who believes that might makes right. In D&D-land, that's not quite possible.2. Some people, in D&D, and IRL will take the position that they should do evil so that good will come of it. Torture the prisoner and get information that saves lives. Torture is evil but it's OK because we're the good guys. Now, a few prisoners are bound to be innocent. Well, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. All they need to do is convince themselves that it's justified, and they can go all the way down the path to evil even while thinking they're righteous. And, if the god they worship is LN, he (and his priests) might not even care. (For followers of good gods, their priests might detect evil during the weekly sacrifices and talk to them about the state of their soul but that doesn't necessarily mean the people would listen. Historically, now, and in D&D-land, there are a lot of people who don't listen to their priests. There are also a lot of people who don't often come to evening sacrifices and who leave as soon as they're over so that nobody has a chance to talk to them).IRL and in D&D-land, rationalization is the path to objective evil.3. Even in D&D-land, it's a mistake to assume that just because there is undisputably objective good and evil, everyone will view those as the most important facts of life. Faithfulness to tradition, adherence to the ways of the ancestors, and group identity can be every bit as powerful a motivation as "it's right." Robert E. Lee was no fan of slavery but he fought on the wrong side of the civil war because he identified himself with the people of Virginia and felt obligated to follow them in secession. Thomas Jefferson wrote that "I tremble for my country when I think that God is just" yet he kept slaves. His way of life was more important than what he himself thought to be right. I have no trouble imagining a man, woman, elf, dwarf, halfling, or orc who chooses to follow an evil path--knowing that it is evil--because that is his peoples' and his ancestors' way of life. In that case, his people probably don't ever use Detect Evil so he may have no reason to believe that the newcomer's, northerners', or abolitionists' Detect Evil spell is detecting something objective. And, even if he does, the fact of objective evil may not be sufficient reason for him to change.None of that entails moral relativism. There's no contradiction between objective, moral facts and people either not caring, deluding themselves, or choosing to adhere to an objectively wrong code. In fact, most people who, IRL, believe in objective morality see such behavior everywhere. It should come as no surprise that such occurs in D&D-land too.There's a further point too. Detect Evil detects evil in people not in actions. While I just used Thomas Jefferson and Robert E. Lee as people who did something that they knew to be wrong, I wouldn't categorize them as evil men. From what I've read, Robert E. Lee, might reasonably be called good and Thomas Jefferson was probably neutral on the worst interpretation of his actions. John Brown (the leader of the Harper's Ferry incident), OTOH, was, from what I've read, quite possibly evil. Even if he wasn't, it's certain that there were evil abolitionists. (Evil men attach themselves to good causes all the time). There's no doubt that there were evil slave-owners. However, what would Detect Evil have told a young Abraham Lincoln about the morality of slavery? Not much. Let's consider what the young Abraham Lincoln could have learned. Here is a group of abolitionists. Most are upstanding members of the community but several of them radiate evil. There is a group of slave-owners. Some of them radiate evil but not all of them (some are neutral, a few are good, and quite a few can afford rings of mind shielding). Next to them is a group of overseers. More of them radiate evil. I don't think you could treat that as proof that Detect Evil reveals slavery to be evil.Empirical investigation with Detect Evil and Detect Good would probably reveal that good people tend to oppose slavery and evil people tend to support it. Empircal studies with detect evil over time would probably show a strong tendency for people involved in slavery to become evil. It might even show that, the closer one was to the actual treatment of the slaves, the more likely one was to become evil. (Slave traders were almost universally evil, slave overseers were very likely to be evil and even more likely to be evil after overseeing slaves for a year or two. Slave owners were significantly more likely to be evil than the general population). Case studies might show people like Isaac Watts who was evil when he was a slave trader but became good after he abandoned the slave trade. So that might demonstrate a statistical link between slavery and evil but it wouldn't necessarily demonstrate a causal link. (Slavery apologists would probably fund some studies in the North that would find a higher incidence of evil among sweatshop owners than among the general population and argue that it is actually being forced to manage poor laborers that is evil. They might find that more so-called wage-slaves were evil than slaves and argue that, while slavery may be worse for the masters' moral health than the factory system, it's better for the slaves' moral health). In short, empirical investigation with Detect Evil, probably wouldn't make much difference to the persuasiveness of the arguments the young Lincoln had to sort through to determine that slavery was an evil.When one considers that all of this talk of sociological studies and empirical investigation with Detect Evil is rather anachronistic, it doesn't seem at all clear that Detect Evil would give our fantasy counterparts a significantly more secure a sense of right and wrong acts than we have without it.That doesn't entail moral relativism either. It just points out that Detect Evil is no magic bullet against moral uncertainty. And it's certainly no magic bullet against rationalization for the normal man.</blockquote>

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